The great betrayal: Russian memories of the ‘great friendship’

Abstract

Former Soviet diplomats Iu.M. Galenovich and V.P. Fedotov remain oblivious to the significant tensions in Sino-Soviet relations during the 1950s that contributed to the Sino-Soviet split. Further, they remain unapologetic for a host of issues that plagued the relationship and continue to bother contemporary Chinese historians and commentators. Their memory of Soviet history, diplomacy, and the Sino-Soviet relationship is shaped by Russia's contemporary geopolitical consciousness about America, Russia's role in the world, and Russia's relationship to the bordering states of former imperial and Soviet space.

Notes

Austin Jersild is Associate Professor of History and an Affiliate of the Graduate Program in International Studies at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia.

 [1] For recent work on the political disputes at the centre of Sino-Soviet relations, see Lorenz Lüthi, The Sino-Soviet Split: Cold War in the Communist World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008); Sergey Radchenko, Two Suns in the Heavens: The Sino-Soviet Struggle for Supremacy, 1962–1967 (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2009); Boris Kulik, Sovetsko–kitaiskii raskol: prichiny i posledstviia (Moscow: Institut dal'nego vostoka RAN, 2000); N.P. Rabchenko, KNR–SSSR: Gody konfrontatsii (1969–1982) (Vladivostok: Dal'nauka, 2006); Li Danhui, ed., Beijing yu Mosike: Cong lianmeng zouxiang duikang (Guilin: Guangxi shifan daxue chubanshe, 2002); Pu Guoliang, Zouxiang bingdian: Zhongsu da lunzhan yu 1956–1965 nian de zhongsu guanxi (Beijing: Guoji wenhua chubanshesi, 1999); Dieter Heinzig, The Soviet Union and Communist China, 1945–1950: The Arduous Road to the Alliance (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2004); Odd Arne Westad, ed., Brothers in Arms: The Rise and Fall of the Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1945–1963 (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1998). For earlier work, see Donald S. Zagoria, The Sino-Soviet Conflict, 1956–1961 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1962); Chu-Yuan Cheng, Economic Relations Between Peking and Moscow: 1949–63 (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1964); John Gittings, Survey of the Sino-Soviet Dispute: A Commentary and Extracts from the Recent Polemics, 1963–1967 (London: Oxford University Press, 1968); and George Ginsburgs and Carl F. Pinkele, The Sino-Soviet Territorial Dispute, 1949–64 (New York: Praeger, 1978). For explorations of the practices and experiences of the exchange, see T.G. Zazerskaia, Sovetskie spetsialisty i formirovanie voenno-promyshlennogo kompleksa Kitaia (1949–1960 gody) (St. Petersburg: NIIKH, 2000); Douglas A. Stiffler, “Building Socialism at Chinese People's University: Chinese Cadres and Soviet Experts in the People's Republic of China, 1949–57” (PhD diss., University of California, San Diego, 2002); Shen Zhihua, Sulian zhuanjia zai zhongguo (1948–1960) (Beijing: Zhongguo guoji guangbo chubanshe, 2003).

 [2] “Iuriiu Mikhailovichu Galenovichu – 75 let,” Problemy dal'nego vostoka, no. 3 (2007): 188–9.

 [3] For recent frustration with NATO expansion and America's role in the 2008 war with Georgia, see E. Solov'ev, “Amerikanskii kompleks v rossiiskoi vneshnei politike,” Mirovaia ekonomika i mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, no. 5 (May 2009): 81–87.

 [4] V.P. Fedotov, Polveka vmeste s Kitaem: Vospominaniia, zapisi, razmyshleniia (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2005), 3.

 [5] R.Sh. Kudashev, Moia zhizn' v Kitae (Moscow: IV RAN – Kraft, 2008), 7–8.

 [6] O.B. Rakhmanin, “A.A. Gromyko i sovetsko–kitaiskie otnosheniia,” in ‘Luchshe desiat’ let peregovorov, chem odin den' voiny: Vospominaniia ob Andree Andreeviche Gromyko, ed. Al.A. Gromyko (Moscow: Ves' mir, 2009), 238. In the Soviet era Rakhmanin frequently published under the pseudonym of O. Borisov, and emphasised the importance of Soviet support for the success of the Chinese revolution. See O. Borisov, Sovetskii soiuz: Man'chzhurskaia revoliutsionnaia-baza (1945–1949) (Moscow: Mysl, 1985). He remained an important official involved in matters of bloc solidarity and a strong supporter of the “Brezhnev Doctrine” in Eastern Europe before his removal by Gorbachev in 1986. See Matthew J. Ouimet, The Rise and Fall of the Brezhnev Doctrine in Soviet Foreign Policy (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 137; Vladislav Zubok, “New Evidence on the ‘Soviet Factor’ in the Peaceful Revolutions of 1989,” CWIHPB, nos. 12/13 (Fall/Winter 2000): 8.

 [7] A.M. Aleksandrov-Agentov, Ot Kollontai do Gorbacheva: Vospominaniia diplomata (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 1994), 11.

 [8] A.M. Aleksandrov-Agentov, Ot Kollontai do Gorbacheva: Vospominaniia diplomata (Moscow: “Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia,” 1994), 61.

 [9] Oleg Troianovskii, Cherez gody i rasstoianiia (Moscow: Vagrius, 1997), 382.

[10] Iu.M. Galenovich, Rossiisko–kitaiskie otnosheniia (konets XIX–nachalo XXIv.) (Moscow: Institut dal'nego vostoka RAN, 2007), 85–93.

[11] Iu.M. Galenovich, Rossiia i Kitai v XX veke: Granitsa (Moscow: Izograf, 2001), 307.

[12] See William Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era (New York: W.W. Norton, 2003), 425.

[13] Iu.M. Galenovich, Rossiia–Kitai: Shest' dogovorov (Moscow: Muravei, 2003), 211–3; Galenovich, Rossiisko–kitaiskie otnosheniia, 24–34.

[14] Galenovich, Rossiia–Kitai, 338.

[15] Galenovich, Rossiia i Kitai v XX veke, 300. For other variations on this theme, see A.A. Brezhnev, Kitai: Ternistyi put' k dobrososedstvu: vospominaniia i razmyshleniia (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 1998); L.N. Kutakov, Ot pekina do n'iu-iuorka: zapiski sovetskogo uchenogo i diplomata (Moscow: Nauka, 1983); Irina Strazheva, Tam techet iantszy: vospominaniia, 2nd ed. (Moscow: Nauka, 1986); S.L. Tikhvinskii, Kitai v moei zhizhni (30–90-e gody) (Moscow: Nauka, 1992). On the diplomatic and scholarly work of Tikhvinskii, see V.V. Sokolov, “S.L. Tikhvinskii – zasluzhennyi rabotnik diplomaticheskoi sluzhby rossiiskoi federatsii,” Novaia i noveishaia istoriia, no. 4 (July–August 2008): 122–51.

[16] See Karel Sommer, “Sovětská válečná kořist a československo,” in O sovětské imperíalní politice v československu v letech 1945–1968: Sborník příspěvků, ed. Josef Krátoška et al. (Olomouc: Vydavatelství university palackého, 1995), 9–23; T.V. Volokitina et al., eds., Vostochnaia Evropa v dokumentakh rossiiskikh arkhivov, 1944–1953 gg., vol. 1 (Moscow: Sibirskii khronograf, 1997), 178, 408–18.

[17] Galenovich, Rossiia–Kitai, 137; Galenovich, Rossiisko–kitaiskie otnosheniia, 85.

[18] Iu.M. Galenovich, Dva generalissimusa: I.V. Stalin i Tszian Chzhunchzhen (Chang Kaishi) (Moscow: Institut dal'nego vostoka RAN, 2008), 298.

[19] Galenovich, Rossiia–Kitai, 138–59.

[20] Galenovich, Rossiia–Kitai, 160, 174. For the concerns of Chinese historians about the historically exploitive role of both imperial and Soviet Russia in the Chinese Northeast, see Li Jie, “Cong jiemeng dao polie: zhongsu lunzhan de qiyuan,” in Li Danhui, ed., Beijing yu Mosike, 439; Yang Yulin, “Lun sulian chubing dongbei de lishi houke,” in Zhanhou zhongsu guanxi zouxiang (1945–1960), ed. Xue Xiantian (Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 1997), 117–28. For the provocative comments of Molotov, mediated through a Russian journalist, see Molotov Remembers: Inside Kremlin Politics, conversations with Felix Chuev, ed. and introd. Albert Reis (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1993), 8. See also Heinzig, The Soviet Union and Communist China, 1945–1950, 70; Sergei N. Goncharov, John W. Lewis and Xue Litai, Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao, and the Korean War (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1993), 219; Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), 34–7, 128–9, 300.

[21] March 9, 1946, “Zapis' besedy,” A.A. Petrov and Fu Bingchang, in Arkhiv vneshnei politiki rossiiskoi federatsii (AVPRF), Collection(f) 0100, opis(op) 34, papka(p) 253, file(d) 20, folio(l) 88.

[22] Galenovich, Rossiia–Kitai, 90–93.

[23] Galenovich, Rossiia–Kitai, 100–3; Galenovich, Rossiisko–kitaiskie otnosheniia, 128. For a translation of the Treaty discussions with commentary, see Odd Arne Westad, “Fighting for Friendship: Mao, Stalin, and the Sino-Soviet Treaty of 1950,” CWIHPB, nos. 8–9 (Winter 1996/97), 224–36.

[24] A Soviet-era establishment version of the history of Soviet foreign policy emphasises the generosity of the Russians, the gratitude of the Chinese (at the time), and ignores the Sino-Soviet split altogether. See A.L. Adamishin et al., Istoriia vneshnei politiki SSSR, vol. 2: 1945–1980 gg. (Moscow: Nauka, 1981), 228–30.

[25] Galenovich, Dva generalissimusa, 192–3, 166.

[26] Galenovich, Rossiia i Kitai v XX veke, 161, 298.

[27] March 6, 1962, V. Feoktistov, and January 23, 1962, O. Rakhmanin and G. Grushetskii, in Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv rossiiskoi federatsii (GARF) f. 9576, op. 18, d. 143, l. 69.

[28] Galenovich, Rossiia–Kitai, 302.

[29] Fedotov, Polveka vmeste s Kitaem, 45.

[30] Fedotov, Polveka vmeste s Kitaem, 100–8. He worked in the Far Eastern Section of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing from 1953 to 1959.

[31] Fedotov, Polveka vmeste s Kitaem, 155. See also Kudashev, Moia zhizn' v Kitae, 93.

[32] The emerging American–Soviet discussions over further nuclear testing culminated in the 5 August 1963 signing of the “Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapons Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water.” See John Wilson Lewis and Xue Litai, China Builds the Bomb (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988); Glenn T. Seaborg, with the assistance of Benjamin S. Loeb, Kennedy, Khrushchev and the Test Ban (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), 181–2; Lüthi, The Sino-Soviet Split, 246–72. A recent expression of this Russian scepticism toward Chinese motives regarding nuclear and military technology between 1957 and 1959 is Viktor M. Gobarev, “Soviet Policy Toward China: Developing Nuclear Weapons 1949–1969,” Journal of Slavic Military Studies 12, no. 4 (December 1999): 21–31.

[33] Fedotov, Polveka vmeste s Kitaem, 170–3. A. Brezhnev agrees with Fedotov, and associates the mistaken geopolitical estimates with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. China affairs, by contrast, were largely handled by the International Department of the Central Committee. See Brezhnev, Kitai, 57–9.

[34] Fedotov, Polveka vmeste s Kitaem, 83.

[35] November 25, 1957, D. Godunov and Qian Junruo, in Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv noveishei istorii (RGANI) f. 5, op. 30, d. 228, l. 198. For Zhou Enlai's commentary, see Zhang Shu Guang and Chen Jian, “The Emerging Disputes between Beijing and Moscow: Ten Newly Available Chinese Documents, 1956–1958,” CWIHPB, nos. 6–7 (Winter 1995/96), 153–4. See also Chen Jian, Mao's China and the Cold War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 64–7; Chen Jian and Yang Kuisong, “Chinese Politics and the Collapse of the Sino-Soviet Alliance,” in Westad, ed., Brothers in Arms, 259–66. For Mao's 15 November 1956 reference to Lenin and Stalin as two “swords” for use in battle, see Li Danhui, “Mao Zedong dui su renshi yu zhongsu guanxi de yanbian,” in Li Danhui, ed., Beijing yu Mosike, 320–1; Pu Guoliang, Zouxiang bingdian, 26–8; Lüthi, The Sino-Soviet Split, 62. For various responses to the Secret Speech, see K. Aimermakher et al., Kul'tura i vlast': Doklad N.S. Khrushcheva o kul'te lichnosti stalina na XX s'ezde KPSS: Dokumenty (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2002).

[36] Fedotov, Polveka vmeste s Kitaem, 92.

[37] Fedotov, Polveka vmeste s Kitaem, 91.

[38] Fedotov, Polveka vmeste s Kitaem, 183.

[39] Iurii Aksiutin, Khrushchevskaia ‘ottepel’' i obshchestvennye nastroeniia v SSSR v 1953–1964 gg. (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2004), 257–72.

[40] Fedotov, Polveka vmeste s Kitaem, 14–5. A. Brezhnev is more sympathetic to the work of Yudin, but concedes that he was “a man of his time, the epoch of Stalin.” See Brezhnev, Kitai, 27–36.

[41] Fedotov, Polveka vmeste s Kitaem, 55–6.

[42] Fedotov, Polveka vmeste s Kitaem, 58–9.

[43] September 21, 1950, “Zapis' besedy,” N.V. Roshchin and Liu Shaoqi, in AVPRF f. 0100, op. 43, p. 302, d. 10, l. 164; July 27, 1951, “Zapis' besedy,” N.V. Roshchin and Zhou Dapeng, in AVPRF f. 0100, op. 44, p. 322, d. 13, l. 41.

[44] February 5, 1951, Colonel Shadrov to Sedliarevich, in RGANI f. 5, r. 5330, op. 14, d. 3, l. 34–5.

[45] December 15, 1963, S. Stepanenko, in Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv ekonomiki (RGAE) f. 9493, op. 5, d. 181, l. 73; July 1, 1955, P. Dem'ianenko to A.N. Lavrishchev, in RGAE f. 9493, op. 1, d. 210, l. 59.

[46] September 27, 1955, Iu.S. Muntian, in RGAE f. 8123, op. 3, d. 1198, l. 49.

[47] June 14, 1955, Udarov to P.I. Parshin, in RGAE f. 8123, op. 3, d. 1170, l. 100.

[48] September 14, 1949, “Obzor o politicheskoi obstanovke i deiatel'nosti inostrannykh diplomaticheskikh predstavitel'stv v Nankine,” P. Shibaev, in AVPRF f. 0100, op. 42, p. 285, d. 6, l. 185–6; Shen Zhihua, Sulian zhuanjia zai zhongguo (1948–1960), 88–91, 219–36.

[49] Wang Ji, Erzhanhou zhongsu (zhonge) guanxi de yanbian yu fazhan (Beijing: Qinghua daxue chubanshe, 2000), 90. Because of Chinese strategic metals and oil, joked Mao in March 1950, ‘comrade Vyshinskii can relax as the Five-Year Plan for Soviet industry will be successfully fulfilled’. See April 3, 1950, “Zapis' besedy,” P.A. Shibaev and Mao Zedong, in AVPRF f. 0100, op. 43, p. 302, d. 10, l. 84. For attempts to estimate the longer term impact of Soviet support, see Shen Zhihua, Sulian zhuanjia zai zhongguo (1948–1960), 118–30; and Riabchenko, KNR–SSSR, 21. For an early effort to identify comparative advantage in trade, see Feng-Hwa Mah, “The Terms of Sino-Soviet Trade,” The China Quarterly, no. 17 (January–March 1964), 174–91.

[50] Galenovich, Rossiia–Kitai, 127–30.

[51] Galenovich, Rossiia–Kitai, 164. For a similar memory of the railway as a ‘piece of Russia on Chinese land’, see P. Fialkovskii, “Russkie v kitae: v ego stenakh vse my byli molody: kharbinskomu politekhnicheskomu institutu 75 let,” Problemy dal'nego vostoka, no. 3 (1995): 115–8.

[52] For warnings about the aggressive nature of contemporary American foreign policy, see P.Iu. Rakhshmir, “Amerikanskie neokonservatory i imperskaia ideia,” Novaia i noveishaia istoriia, no. 4 (July–August 2008): 3–25.

[53] On tentative contemporary efforts at cooperation and exchange, see Chzhou Iundun (Zhou Yungdong), “Elementy disgarmonii v kitaisko-rossiiskikh otnosheniiakh na fone strategicheskogo partnerstva i pozitivnaia rol' kul'turnykh sviazei,” in Obraz kitaia v sovremennoi rossii: Nekotorye problemy kitaiskoi istorii i sovremennoi politiki KNR v issledovaniiakh rossiiskikh i zarubezhnykh uchenykh, ed. N.L. Mamaeva (Moscow: Russkaia panorama, 2007), 201–16; Jeanne L. Wilson, Strategic Partners: Russian–Chinese Relations in the Post-Soviet Era (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2004).