Can the Sino-Soviet Split be heeled?

[James G]

At any time following the breakdown of Chinese - Soviet ties, can the damage done be repaired?
What implications does this have for the Cold War world?

[lordroel]

Jun 20, 2019 23:29:31 GMT James G said:

At any time following the breakdown of Chinese - Soviet ties, can the damage done be repaired?
What implications does this have for the Cold War world?

Was the Sino-Soviet Split not something that worked out well for China as in the end it went a different route than the Soviet Union and was able to survive while the Soviet Union collapsed.

[stevep]

Jun 21, 2019 7:32:25 GMT lordroel said:

Jun 20, 2019 23:29:31 GMT James G said:

At any time following the breakdown of Chinese - Soviet ties, can the damage done be repaired?
What implications does this have for the Cold War world?

Was the Sino-Soviet Split not something that worked out well for China as in the end it went a different route than the Soviet Union and was able to survive while the Soviet Union collapsed.

  In one way it was bad for China in that it meant Mao continued in largely unrestricted power.  Hence the Great Leap Forward Backwards and the Cultural Revolution as the most well known disasters that resulted.  Also it caused a lot of economic disruption as Russia cut technical support removing the large number of advisors, engineers, etc. 

  Basically once Khrushchev denounced Stalin, triggering the split it lead to a different Soviet Union.  Still frequently brutal and inefficient but they never again had a leader like Lenin or Stalin with unlimited control.  One or more leaders might have more considerable power but they were never unchallenged.  I suspect this was the primary reason for the split as while Mao admired Stalin's actions the key point is that with it China would have seen pressure to follow the Soviet example and have a collective leadership and I can't see Mao accepting this.  Therefore to have a serious reconciliation you would either have to see Mao removed totally from power or the Soviet Union falling back into a fully totalitarian system.  I think the latter is unlikely as the leading communist figures didn't want another Stalin plus having made the break I can't see Mao accepting the leadership of a new 'Stalin' type figure in Moscow. 

  Sooner or later there would have been a split anyway as even without Mao I doubt China would be willing to forever take 2nd place to Moscow or the latter being willing to accept China as a full equal. 

[kyng]

I suspect it couldn't be. Marxism in its original form was intended for industrialised countries like those in western Europe - and wasn't really suited to agricultural societies like 1940s China. As a result, Mao had to apply his own version ("Socialism with Chinese characteristics"), that was more suited to the society that he was leading. This means that you were always going to have two large communist states with two different interpretations of communism - which was always going to be a recipe for conflict and rivalry.

Perhaps the split didn't have to happen at the specific time when it did, over the specific ideological differences that caused it; however, I reckon it was always going to happen eventually.

[James G]

So if we agree the split was inevitable and big personalities plus significant geo-political factors are at play, is there was way the rift an be papered over somehow if not the heeled?
What could bring Moscow and Beijing back together? An external threat to them both?
I was thinking that if the coup against Gorby was successful, which came some time after Tiananmen, would open Western hostility force the two regimes together?

[stevep]

Jun 30, 2019 19:09:49 GMT James G said:

So if we agree the split was inevitable and big personalities plus significant geo-political factors are at play, is there was way the rift an be papered over somehow if not the heeled?
What could bring Moscow and Beijing back together? An external threat to them both?
I was thinking that if the coup against Gorby was successful, which came some time after Tiananmen, would open Western hostility force the two regimes together?

  I suspect not more than OTL with Putin's ego meaning he's playing a disruptive role that assists China by distracting the western powers and reducing co-operation in Europe.  By that date the Chinese had already started along the sort of economic path that reformers wanted in Russia so while they might have common interests in resisting western pressure on human rights issues their on diverging paths.  At that point China wanted close economic co-operation with the west to assist and fund its own development even before it was seeing the west and the rest of the world as major marketplaces.  Therefore while there might be a brief alliance of convenience in opposing the west on a narrow range of issues I doubt if they would have that much in common.