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Abstract
This article provides an interpretation of Mao Zedong's political strategy during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The connection between the internal and external struggle towards revisionism – launched by Mao in the first half of 1962 to eradicate the critics of the Great Leap Forward from the CCP – was energised by Mao's ability to exploit the opportunities offered by the Cuban crisis. Mao managed to capitalise on Moscow's strained relations in the Caribbean: the propaganda campaign launched within the country to support the Cuban revolution and criticise Soviet revisionism helped Mao to consolidate his political struggle and win over his opponents.
Notes
1 Xia Mingxing, Shu Zhanlan, ‘Maozedong yu 1962 nian guba daodan weiji’ [Mao Zedong and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962], Weiren Chunqiu [Spring and Autumn of Great Men], no. 2, (2008): 4–9.
2 ‘The way China handled the Cuban missile crisis was not very diplomatic and did not fully understand the world's fear of nuclear war. The Chinese were too optimistic in the analysis of the international context and not impartial enough in their accusations against the CPSU and the ICP. Perhaps this is the reason why today the government wishes to avoid dealing with this issue.’ In this regard, the author goes on to cite an important exchange between Deng Xiaoping and Enrico Berlinguer during the visit of the Secretary of the Italian Communist Party to China in April 1980 (the first visit since Togliatti broke relations with China after the Cuban crisis): ‘Not everything we said in the past was correct [..] all of us used so many empty words during the Cuban crisis.’ Ibid., 6.
3 Cf. Feng Yunfei, ‘Guba daodan weiji yu sulian dui zhongyin bianjie wenti lichang de zhuanbian’ [The Cuban Missile Crisis and the Change of the Soviet Position towards the Sino-Indian Border Issue], Dangshi yanjiu yu jiaoxue [Research and Teaching of Party History], no. 2, (2009): 20–27; Xia Mingxing & Xue Zhenlin, ‘Zhongsu zai guba daodan weijizhong de fenqi’[The Sino-Soviet Split in the Cuban Missile Crisis], Guofangshibao, [Defence Times] 2 (2009): 22; Yu Jiangxin, ‘guba daodan weiji jiqi yingxiang’ [The Cuban Missile Crisis and its Impact], Zhanzhengshi yanjiu [War History Studies], no. 4, (2004): 36–40. A few weeks after the research conducted for this article, the Archive of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs restricted the number of documents available to the public and consequently affected the possibility to expand this and many other ongoing research.
4 Y. Cheng ‘Sino-Cuban Relations during the Early Years of the Castro Regime, 1959–1966’, Journal ofCold War Studies 9, no. 3, (Summer 2007): 78–114.
5 J. Niu, 1962: The Eve of the Left Turn in China's Foreign Policy, Working Paper 48, Cold War International History Project Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC., October 2005, 1–36. Available at: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/NiuJunWP481.pdf (30 January 2013).
6 L. Luthi, The Sino-Soviet Split. Cold War in the Communist World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008).
7 S. Radchenko, Two Suns in the Heavens. The Sino-Soviet Struggle for Supremacy (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009).
8 J.G. Hershberg and S. Radchenko, ‘Sino-Cuban relations and the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1960–1962: New Chinese Evidence’, in The Global Cuban Missile Crisis at 50: New Evidence from behind the Iron, Bamboo and Sugarcane Curtains and Beyond, ed. J.G. Hershberg and S. Radchenko, Bulletin, Issue 17/18, Cold War International History Project, Washington DC, Fall 2012, 21–117. Available at: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/CWIHP_Cuban_Missile_Crisis_Bulletin_17-18.pdf (30 January 2013).
9 The sources of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China used in this study will be cited in English providing the references and official index entries used by the archives. The documents were translated by the author.
10 J. Niu, ‘1962: The Eve of the Left Turn in China's Foreign Policy’, 1–36.
11 T. Zhang, ‘1962 nian zhaokai de qiqianren dahui’ [The Seven Thousand People Meeting in 1962] in Zhonggong dangshi jiaoxue cankao ziliao, Zhongguo Jiefangjun Guofang Daxue, 1986, vol. 24, 20–21; Zhou Enlai zhuan, 1949–1976 [Biography of Zhou Enlai], Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1998, vol. 2, 683; C. Xie, Dayuejin kuangchao [The Tide of the Great Leap Forward] (Zhenzhou, Henan: Henan renmin chubanshe, 1990), 236–37.
12 Z. Mao, ‘zai kuoda de zhongyang gongzuo huiyi shang de jianghua’ [Mao Zedong speech at the enlarged working meeting of the Central committee], in Zhonggong dangshi jiaoxue cankao ziliao, 1986, vol. 5, 9–10.
13Mao Zedong Daguan [Mao Zedong Grand View], (Beijing: Renmin daxue, 1993), 642, cited in Lorenz Luthi, The Sino-Soviet Split, 221. Author's translation.
14Maozedong zhuan, [Mao Zedong Biography], 1235, cited in Ibid., 220. Author's translation.
15 J. Niu, ‘1962: The Eve of the Left Turn in China's Foreign Policy’, p. 33. On this crucial aspect, Niu Jun refers to a passage of Mao's manuscripts collected by the Department for Documentary Research of the Central Committee of the Party in Jianguo yilai Mao Zedong wengao [Mao Zedong's Manuscripts Since the Founding of the PRC], vol. 10, Zhongyang Wenxian chubanshe (Beijing: Central Party Literature Publishing H, 1987–98), 199.
16 The slogan, ‘Fight and prevent revisionism’, suggested ‘to combat revisionism’ outside the country and to ‘prevent revisionism’ at home. The concept of ‘revisionism’ appeared for the first time in an essay on the differences between the leaders of China and the Soviet Union published in the Renmin Ribao on 6 September 1963. The slogan later appeared in a letter from Mao published in the same newspaper on 14 July 1964. On both occasions, however, and even later on, there never was a clear definition of the concept, making it become a mere instrument of political struggle to identify and wipe out opponents within the party.
17 For a more accurate description of the theory of intermediate zones see J. Chen, China's Road to the Korean War, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 18–21, for the connections between anti-imperialist movements and the international proletarian movement see Mao Zedong xuanji [The Selected works of Mao Zedong], vol. 4 (Beijing: Renmin, 1992), 1191–1192.
18 L. Luthi, The Sino-Soviet Split, 221.
19 Ibid. 221–222.
20 Ibid., 222.
21 Memorandum of the Conversation between Premier Zhou Enlai and Cuban Revolutionary Government Economic Delegation, 18 November 1960; Memorandum of Conversation between Mao Zedong and Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, 19 November 1960, in Hershberg and Radchenko, The Global Cuban Missile Crisis at 50, 41–55.
22 Information Sheet of the USSR Embassy in the PRC on the Relations of the PRC with Cuba, Centre for the Preservation of Contemporary Documentation, Moscow (TsKhSD), f. 5, op. 49, d. 530, l. 464, cited in M.Y. Prozumenschikov ‘The Sino-Indian Conflict, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Sino-Soviet Split, October 1962: New Evidence from the Russian Archives’, in New East-Bloc Evidence on the Cold War in the Third World, Cold War International History Project, Bulletin 9–9, Winter 1996/1997, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C., 252.
23 Ibid.
24 The Yugoslav ambassador to Cuba, citing a reliable source, revealed that Castro was leaning towards the Chinese revolutionary model at the time. Hungarian embassy in Havana (Beck), Report on meeting with Yugoslav ambassador Boško Vidaković 19 March 1962, in ‘Hungary and the Cuban Missile Crisis: Selected Documents, 1961–63’, introduction by Csaba Békés and Melinda Kalmár, Ibid., 422;
25 A. Fursenko and T. Naftali, Kruschev's Cold War: the Inside Story of an American Adversary (New York: Norton and Co., 2006), 427–429. On the purge in the Popular Socialist Party, see A. Fursenko and T. Naftali, ‘One Hell of a Gamble’ - Khrushchev, Castro and Kennedy, 1958–1964 (New York: Norton, 1997), 160–165.
26 At the meeting on 1 December 1962, Che Guevara expressed his complaints to the ambassador of the PRC to Cuba, Shen, about the promises made by the Soviets before the crisis broke out: ‘They even babbled about the intention to send the Baltic Fleet […]; they said that [..] the mighty Soviet Union would have dealt a lethal blow to anyone who dared invade Cuba, etc. At the time we thought that they were sincere.’ In ‘Conversation Between Ernesto Che Guevara and ambassador Shen Jian’, 1 December 1962, PRC embassy in Havana to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the PRC [AMFAPRC], No. 111-00353-06; for an English version, see Hershberg and S. Radchenko, The Global Cuban Missile Crisis at 50, 103–107. (The number of the document quoted here does not match the one analysed by the author at the Central Archives of the Ministry).
27 R. MacFarquahar, Origins of the Cultural Revolution, vol. 3, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 317.
28 ‘From the beginning of the Revolution, the Soviets tried to control Cuba politically and militarily,’ in ‘The situation in Cuba: new developments,’ 31 October 1962, Embassy of Cuba to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, AMFAPRC, No. 111-000342-04.
29 ‘Analysis of the current situation in Cuba,’ 25 October 1962 Embassy of Cuba to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, AMFAPRC, No. 111-000342-04.
30 In the document written by the Chinese embassy, mention is even made of rumours of a conspiracy orchestrated by the Soviets to overthrow (搞掉, gaodiao) Fidel and replace him with President Roa. ‘Opinions on the current situation in Cuba,’ 24 November 1962, Embassy of Cuba to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, AMFAPRC, No. 111-000342-04. See also the analysis written by the Chinese Embassy in Moscow: ‘Opinion towards the Khrushchev negotiations on the Cuban issue’, 31 October 1962, PRC Embassy in Moscow to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, AMFAPRC, No. 111-00342-12.
31 ‘The Cuban leaders, and especially Che Guevara, are trusting us Chinese more and more’ Ibid. In the days following the meeting between Che Guevara and Shen Jian, this analysis was confirmed. Che shared his disappointment at the Soviet betrayal with Shen and apologised for having been too naive in the past and having believed the promises made by Moscow. It is interesting to note that someone at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had paid particular attention, underlining it several times, to a moment in the conversation in which Che referred to the meeting he had recently had with Mikoyan: ‘I told him […] that a defeat is a defeat and calling it a victory is simply wrong. He said that the United States does not have the courage to inspect Soviet ships because they are afraid. I started to laugh and he became furious.’ In ‘Conversation Between Ernesto Che Guevara and Ambassador Shen Jian’, 1 December 1962, PRC Embassy in Havana to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, AMFAPRC, No. 111-00353-06.
32 Report on the coordination of the external political activities and on the exchange of information on international questions in 1960–1963, Soviet Foreign Ministry, Far Eastern Department (17 April 1963), list 50. Cited in Radchenko, Two Suns in the Heavens, 32. Ambassador Wu Lengxi later declared in his memoirs that ‘of course, we did not support Khrushchev's policy on the deployment of the missiles to Cuba, but at the same time we did not oppose it.’ L. Wu, Shinian Lunzhan, 1956–1966: Zhong Su Guanxi Huiyilu [A Ten-Year Dispute, 1956–1966: Memoirs on Sino-Soviet Relations] 2 vols. Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe (Beijing: Central Party Literature Publishing House, 1999), 504.
33 ‘V interesakh narodov vo imia vseobshchhego mira’, Pravda, 25 1962, Cited in Radchenko, Two Suns in the Heavens, 30.
34 In those days, for instance, the Chinese deputy foreign minister Zhang Hanfu, in referring to the change in the Soviet position, explained it by linking it to the fact that on 25 October - when Pravda had expressed support for the Chinese comrades against India - the Cuban crisis had reached its climax and Khrushchev seemed to be in desperate need of China's support. According to Zhang, once the tension in the Caribbean subsided, Khrushchev turned his back on the Chinese and betrayed them. In D. Wang, The Quarrelling Brothers: New Chinese Archives and Reappraisal of the Sino–Soviet Split, Cold War International History Project, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC, 2005, Working Paper 49, 63–64. The same opinion seems to be supported also by M.Y. Prozumenschikov: after Kennedy's speech on 22 October – when the American president forced Khrushchev to choose between a likely nuclear conflict or retreat – the Soviet leader thought that China would momentarily suspend its criticism towards Moscow and unite with the Soviet Union against imperialism as it had previously done in 1956 during the Polish and Hungarian crises and in 1961 during the Berlin crisis. Prozumenschikov ‘The Sino-Indian Conflict’, 253. For the Pravda editorial: ‘Vopreki Veleniiu Vremeni,’ Pravda, 31 October 1962, cited in Radchenko, Two Suns in the Heavens, 33.
35 ‘The assistant foreign minister Qiao Guanhua asked opinion of Zhou Enlai and Foreign Minister Chenyi about supporting Cuba to do three kind of things, and Zhou and Chen reply’, 1 November 1962, AMFAPRC, No. 111-00595-03.
36 “Cuba-USSR relations,” November 2nd 1962 in “The situation of the relations between Cuba and the Soviet Union after the withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba. Our approach” (it contains Chen Yi and Zhou Enlai's opinions). AMFAPRC, No. 111-00601-05.
37 “Reply to the last telegram on the relations between USSR and Cuba and our foreign statement,” November 4th, 1962, in Ibid.
38 Report of the USSR Embassy in the PRC about the Position of the Leadership of the CPC in Regard to the Cuban Crisis', quoted in Prozumenschikov ‘The Sino-Indian Conflict’, 255.
39 Memorandum of the Conversation between China's Ambassador to Cuba Shen Jian and Cuban Finanwith enemies re frienly mies and comprades, hhe giorno dopo, il 15 zionil ritiro dei missili YI. “er dooni diplomatiche cinesi nce Minister Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, Havana, 13 October 1962, doc. No. 9, in Hershberg and Radchenko, The Global Cuban Missile Crisis at 50, 78–82.
40 ‘Conversation between Ernesto Che Guevara and Ambassador Shen Jian’, 1 December 1962, cited, No. 111-00353-06. Shen's position was taken up in an editorial published in the Renmin Ribao, which was personally reviewed by Mao Zedong himself a few days later: ‘Some people are friendly with enemies and tough with brother parties. That is the opposite of what a Marxist-Leninist should do’, in ‘Proletarians of the world should unite in opposition to our common enemy’ in Renmin Ribao, 15 December 1962, quoted in Mingxing, Shu Zhanlan, ‘Maozedong yu 1962 nian guba daodan weiji’, [Mao Zedong and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962], 5.
41 Summary Record of the 33d Meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Security Council, Washington, 6 December 1962, 11 a.m, Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Meetings and Memoranda Series, Executive Committee, Vol. III, Meetings 33–37, 12/5/62-12/17/62. Top Secret; Sensitive. Summary Record of the 3rd Meeting of the Standing Group of the National Security Council, Washington, 30 April 1963, 10:30 a.m. Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Meetings and Memoranda Series, Standing Group Meeting, 4/30/63. Top Secret; Summary Record of 7th Meeting of the Standing Group of the National Security Council, Washington, 28 May 1963, 5 p.m.; Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Meetings and Memoranda Series, Standing Group Meeting, 5/28/63. Top Secret; Sensitive.
42 Telegram From the Mission to the United Nations to the Department of State, New York, 19 November 1962, 1 a.m. Department of State, Central Files, 737.56361/11-1962. Top Secret; Priority. Received at 2:32 a.m. Passed to the White House at 2:44 a.m. 1856. Department pass White House. Eyes only for the Secretary. Cuba – meeting between McCloy and Kuznetsov, Sunday, 18 November 1962. Kuznetsov specifies that he is speaking for himself and not on behalf of his government.
43 Chinese Embassy in Havana, Memorandum of Conversation between Shen Jian, China's Ambassador to Cuba, and Raúl Roa Garcia, Cuba's Foreign Minister, 30 November 1962, doc. 43. in Hershberg and Radchenko The Global Cuban Missile Crisis at 50, 100–103.
44 ‘Notes on the problem of the Sino-Indian border’ 15 November 1962, Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the envoy Huang Wenyou at the PRC embassy in Havana, AMFAPRC, No. 111-00596-01. In the document approved by Zhou Enlai, the ministry suggested not to ask for clarification on the Cuban position on this issue. Probably the instructions received later by ambassador Shen Jian – who was visiting Beijing in November – would have been different. It should be noted that on 18 November, the Chinese would launch the final offensive against the Indians and the next day they declared a unilateral ceasefire. As demonstrated by Shen's words in his meeting with Roa on 30 November, this manoeuvre could be used in diplomatic relations with Cuba.
45 Telegram from Brazilian Ambassador in Belgrade, Bux Ribeiro Courto, 19 November 1962, in ‘Brazil and the Cuban Missile Crisis: Documents from the Foreign Ministry Archive in Brasilia’, doc. n. 62 in Hershberg and Radchenko, The Global Cuban Missile Crisis at 50, 278; Report from Hungarian Embassy, Prague, on Czechoslovak-Cuban relations, 25 June 1963, in ‘Hungary and the Cuban Missile Crisis: Selected Documents, 1961–63,’ introduction by Csaba Békés and Melinda Kalmár, Ibid. 404–406.
46 ‘Report on news obtained on the occasion of the national holiday of the Soviet Union’, 8 November 1962, the PRC Embassy in Havana to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, AMFAPRC, no. 111-00601-05.
47 Telegram from Soviet Ambassador to Cuba Alekseev, 23 October 1962, No. 1643–1644, in Hershberg and Radchenko, The Global Cuban Missile Crisis at 50, 326–7; Telegram from Polish Embassy in Havana, 12 November 1962, in Hershberg and Radchenko, The Global Cuban Missile Crisis at 50, 493–494. The idea of an attack on Quemoy and Matsu was not entirely groundless. In August 1958, Mao had justified his decision to bomb the islands as an attempt to indirectly help the anti-imperialist forces who had just risen to power in Baghdad – pushing the Americans to concentrate their forces elsewhere.
48 Y. Cheng, ‘Sino-Cuban Relations during the Early Years of the Castro Regime, 1959–1966’, 102.
49 Y. Feng, ‘Guba daodan weiji yu sulian dui zhongyin bianjie wenti lichang de zhuanbian’ [The Cuban missile crisis and the change of the soviet position towards the Sino-Indian border issue], 5 and notes 41 and 42.
50 In 1961, the Indian Army started sending patrols into disputed areas with China with the intention of creating garrisons behind Chinese lines to cut off their supplies and push them north of the disputed line. For background on the Indian ‘forward policy’ and the Sino-Indian clashes in 1962, see Neville Maxwell, India's China War (New York: Pantheon Books, 1970).
51 In February 1963, at a meeting of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, Deng Xiaoping seemed to notice a favourable trend for the party and emphasised how the Soviets were to make commitments in order to recover sympathisers among brother parties. In T.J. Christensen, Worse than a Monolith, Alliance Politics and Problems of Coercive Diplomacy in Asia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011), 175.
52 As reported by the Soviet ambassador to Cuba, Castro strongly criticised Mao's decision to attack India along the disputed border because he believed that it would have a negative impact on the Cuban cause. Telegram from Soviet Ambassador to Cuba Alekseev, 23 October 1962, no. 1643–1644, in Hershberg and Radchenko, The Global Cuban Missile Crisis at 50, 326–7. The Polish ambassador to Cuba, Boleslaw Jelen, in reporting a conversation with Raul Valdes Vivo, editor of Hoy, revealed that Castro was deeply upset by the late and uncertain reaction of the Chinese to the break-out of the crisis. Telegram from Polish Embassy in Havana (Jelen) 12 November 1962, in Ibid., 493–494.
53 Ciphered Telegram from Alekseev to CC CPSU, 2 November 1962, in Hershberg and Radchenko, The Global Cuban Missile Crisis at 50, 327–330.
54 Nikita Khrushchev's speech at the November 1962 Party Plenum, 23 November 1962, cited in Ibid., 25. [Author's translation]
55 ‘According to military experts, it would take 7 battalions, from 3 to 6 months, and 50,000 US casualties to invade Cuba. If the United States remains involved in Cuba, the situation around the world will become more tense especially in Vietnam, Taiwan, South Korea, Laos, and West Germany. However, since their war strategy is based on naval landings, if it were to engage in Cuba, it would end up being exposed elsewhere,’ in Telegram of PRC Embassy in DDR to the 2nd Office of the General Staff, 10 November 1960, AMFAPRC, No. 109-03157-01.
56 Luthi, The Sino-Soviet Split, 227.
57 Hungarian Legation in Washington (Radványi), Report on Mikoyan's visit to Washington, 5 December 1962, doc. 15, in Hershberg and Radchenko, The Global Cuban Missile Crisis at 50, 445–448; Telegram from Polish Embassy in Havana (Jelen) 12 November 1962, in Ibid., 493–494.
58 Wang Bingnan, Zhong Mei huitan jiunian huigu [Recolletions of Nine Years of Sino-American Talks] Shijie Zhishi Chubanshe (Beijing: World Affairs Publishing House, 1985), 85–90.
59 Prozumenschikov ‘The Sino-Indian Conflict’, 256.
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Enrico Maria Fardella
Enrico Fardella is currently Bairen Jihua Associate Professor in the History Department of Peking University and Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.