The Secret Negotiations of N.S. Khrushchev and Mao Zedong, July-August 1958

Part of the CWIHP Working Paper Series

Publication

The Secret Negotiations of N.S. Khrushchev and Mao Zedong, July-August 1958

Mao Zedong faces Nikita Khrushchev in 1958.

Cold War International History Project

History and Public Policy Program

By Alexander V. Pantsov & Nikita Yurievich Pivovarov

Cold War

Download the publication

CWIHP Working Paper 98
The Secret Negotiations of N.S. Khrushchev and Mao Zedong, July-August 1958

Alexander Pantsov and Nikita Pivovarov
Translated by Steven I. Levine and Gary Goldberg
February 2024

The year 1958 began auspiciously for the leaders of the USSR and the PRC, Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev and Mao Zedong. On March 16, elections for the fifth session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR took place in which the “indissoluble” bloc of the communists and non-party persons received 99.6-percent of the vote. On March 27, at the first session of the Supreme Soviet, Khrushchev received the post of Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, conjointly with the office of First Secretary of the CPSU CC.[1] Under the leadership of the communist party, the Soviet people, it seemed, were enthusiastically building communism, striving to fulfill the task assigned them by Khrushchev in early November 1957: in the next 15 years not only to catch up with, but to overtake the United States in production of the most important kinds of products.[2] In May, Soviet scientists launched into orbit the third artificial earth satellite.

In China, Mao Zedong also strengthened his position. In January-March 1958, he presided over three important conferences of the top party cadres at which he overcame the resistance of those who had opposed “the blind rush forward” in economic construction (Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping, and others). The result was affirmation of the “Great Leap” in production: “three years of persistent labor, ten thousand years of happiness.”[3] The whole country must “firmly follow the policy of ‘more, faster, better, more economically,’” put forward by Mao Zedong on December 12, 1957.[4] On February 18, at an enlarged meeting of the Politburo in the presence of 119 top-level cadres, Mao Zedong announced the party’s new policy for economic construction.[5] And in May, at the Second Session of the Eighth Congress of the CCP, the official formula for the general line was adopted: “Make every effort, striving forward to build socialism more, faster, better, more economically.” The Chinese people were presented the task of “catching up with England in 15 years or less in the production of the most important kinds of industrial products.”[6]

Soviet-Chinese friendship grew stronger by the day. In China, 2,419 Soviet specialists were working, and several thousand Chinese students were studying in the USSR.[7] On January 18, 1958, an agreement was concluded in Moscow between the governments of the USSR and China to jointly carry out the most important kinds of research in the fields of science and technology.[8] As before, the Soviet Union was actively engaged in building Chinese industrial enterprises. On May 2, 1958, the premier of the State Council of the PRC Zhou Enlai sent N.S. Khrushchev a message asking the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR to provide technical assistance in 1959 for the construction of 48 projects in the sum of almost 400 million rubles. Four of the 48 projects would be entirely planned and constructed by Soviet design organizations. The members of the Presidium of the CPSU CC all approved Zhou’s request and tasked Presidium member Anastas I. Mikoyan and chairman of the State Planning Commission of the USSR Iosif I. Kuz’min with drafting an appropriate response.[9] On May 7, they approved Khrushchev’s response in which the Soviet leader invited Chinese friends to Moscow for negotiations.[10]

On May 26, 1958, Khrushchev met with a Chinese delegation in the context of a conference of representatives of communist and workers parties from member countries in the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON). The Chinese delegation comprised Deputy Chairman of the CCP CC Chen Yun, Politburo and CC member Li Fuchun, and minister of foreign trade Ye Jizhuang. The conversation lasted an hour-and-a-half and focused largely on political questions: normalization of relations with Yugoslavia, negotiations with Great Britain and the United States on nonproliferation of nuclear weapons, and economic aid to the GDR.[11] Only at the end of the conversation did Chen Yun make a request that equipment for an electric power station be increased from 350,000 kilowatts to 950,000 kilowatts. Khrushchev made no concrete promise, but merely noted that the question would be examined “at a meeting [of the Presidium] of the CPSU CC.”[12]

Whether this question was decided is unknown (in any case, it was not discussed at Presidium sessions), but in April-June 1958, with aid from the USSR to the PRC, factories for producing antibiotics, radio components, and complex wireless radio receivers were set up in China. And on July 15, 1958, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR ratified a Treaty on Trade and Navigation with the PRC.[13]

Cooperation developed in various fields, including the military. On June 30, 1958, members of the Presidium of the CPSU CC confirmed a directive of the Ministry of Defense of the USSR concerning negotiations with a Chinese military delegation on questions of cooperation right up to 1967. The Soviet military engaged in discussion of a rather broad range of issues – from the production of artillery weapons, armored vehicle technology, and engineering fortifications to means of defense against weapons of mass destruction. Moreover, the Chinese comrades were given access to view several secret innovations, including encryption machines and medicaments to treat radiation sickness. However, the representatives from the Soviet Ministry of Defense had to avoid exchanging views on innovations in the field of bacteriological weapons and the organization of work in decryption. Most important, the Ministry of Defense was forbidden to discuss with the Chinese questions relating to the military utilization of radioactive substances or to demonstrate working models of atomic weapons and missile technology for naval vessels.[14]

The formal reason for refusing a dialogue on questions regarding the actual creation of an atomic-powered PRC navy was that the USSR had already provided assistance to the Chinese in making an atomic bomb. In the spring of 1957, Khrushchev had decided to provide China the requisite technology, to assist the Chinese in establishing a nuclear center in the vicinity of Beijing, and to task Soviet scientists with teaching Chinese specialists how to make a nuclear weapon.[15] In May 1957, Soviet atomic scientists arrived in China, and that same October a formal Soviet-Chinese protocol was signed regarding Soviet assistance to the PRC in building its own atomic bomb.[16] During the very next month, the Chinese requested assistance in building atomic submarines, and received agreement to do this in the future.[17] And in January 1958, the Soviet side transferred two operational R-2 tactical ballistic missiles (the American code name was SS-2 Sibling) to the Chinese, capable of delivering ten kiloton nuclear weapons.[18] “We looked upon this as a no-brainer,” Khrushchev recalled, “in our common interests it was necessary to create defensive means and accomplish this through our common efforts.”[19]

Overall, it seemed that everything was going well. Indeed, on May 20, the Chinese embassy in Moscow expressed its firm confidence that in 1958, Sino-Soviet relations would develop swiftly.[20]

In this optimistic environment, on April 18, 1958, the minister of defense of the USSR Rodion Ya. Malinovsky, after consulting with the CPSU CC, sent a telegram to his counterpart, the minister of defense of the PRC Peng Dehuai, in which he expressed his “great hope that in the period 1958-1962 China and the USSR could jointly construct a powerful long-wave radio station that would provide long-distance connections.”[21] Both the USSR and China needed it to maintain contact with submarines operating in the Pacific Ocean. The USSR was ready to support 70-percent of the cost of the station, figuring that China would cover 30-percent.[22] The overall cost of the project was estimated at 110 million rubles.[23] “Why did we want to build the radio station ourselves?” Khrushchev explained. “At that time, it would have been difficult for the Chinese to build a complex facility in the requisite time. The military were pressing us to begin the construction as soon as possible.”[24]

Unexpectedly, the Chinese side refused. Neither Mao nor Peng Dehuai were opposed to the station as such. The Chinese military themselves, in negotiations with Soviet generals back in November 1957, had raised the question of constructing such a station.[25] On January 6, 1958, Admiral Vasilii I. Platonov, senior military adviser to the commander of Chinese naval forces, even proposed, in preliminary form, to Admiral Xiao Jingguang, Chinese naval commander, a draft agreement to jointly build such a station in China.[26] But the Chinese did not want the station to be a joint Soviet-Chinese undertaking, moreover one basically constructed with Soviet funds; they only wanted technical assistance from the USSR in its construction, and to invest their own resources so as to remain independent. On April 24, Mao Zedong informed all relevant Chinese departments of this, after which, on May 10, the question of the radio station was discussed at the Military Commission of the CCP CC. On June 4, 1958, Peng Dehuai discussed this question with the chief military advisor Lt. General Nikolai I. Trufanov. On June 5, Peng sent a report to Mao Zedong and the CCP CC, saying that “the Soviet side insists on the original idea that the construction should be jointly invested by the two sides.” “The Soviet side will not quickly accept the opinion of our side,” he noted, suggesting that “[we] may permit the Soviet experts to come to China to conduct some technical work.” He advised that the question of investments and utilization of the station be deferred to the future.[27] Mao agreed, but he emphasized that “the money must be paid by China, not by the Soviet side. For joint use.” He added, “This is not my personal opinion, but the opinion of China.”[28]

On June 12 and July 21, Peng Dehuai wrote twice to Malinovsky that China did not agree to construction of the station if it was not built using Chinese investments and would not be the sole property of the PRC. The Chinese agreed only to a financial loan and technical assistance from the USSR.[29] The upshot was that the Soviet side had to accept the Chinese conditions.[30]

At the time, Khrushchev did not understand why Mao did not want direct Soviet investments and joint ownership of the station. It was not until many years later that he understood the problem:

We were all worked up then, having exaggerated the international interests of the communist parties and socialist countries. We all thought that our navy, the Chinese, and generally all the military assets of the socialist countries served a single purpose: to be prepared to repulse an attack if imperialism unleashed a war against us…We underestimated the nationalist feelings of the Chinese leadership. Mao was offended by our proposal, his national feelings were wounded, China’s sovereignty was wounded. Evidently, he felt that we were somehow worming our way into China this way.[31]

And so, it was. And the bitter aftertaste remained in Mao’s mouth.

Meanwhile, on June 28, 1958, Moscow received a secret telegram from Zhou Enlai, premier of the State Council of the PRC, with a new request: to provide China assistance in constructing many ships for the navy including both submarines and surface ships, including high-speed vessels.[32] Here Khrushchev made another mistake.

It so happened that the request came at the time when he and other Soviet leaders of the country, the army, and the navy, having decided that in contemporary war the main weapon would be missiles, came to the mistaken conclusion that surface navy ships had less of a role in military strategy. “The main thing,” he explained to Mao Zedong two weeks later, “is that we subjected the doctrine of the navy to criticism in light of changing military technology…We have stopped building cruisers…Who needs cruisers now with their limited firepower given the existence of missiles. I told Eden[33] in London that their cruisers [–] are floating steel coffins.”[34] On March 25, 1958, the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted a resolution reducing the naval fleet, by which 250 vessels were to be scrapped, including heavy and light cruisers and destroyers. Three-hundred-seventy-five ships were kept in service and many officers were put into the reserves.[35] Therefore, Khrushchev reacted skeptically toward Zhou’s request. Nevertheless, on July 15, he brought it up for consideration by the Presidium of the CPSU CC. It is not clear how the discussion went. In Khrushchev’s words, when the Soviet leaders received the letter, they “began to think about it” but they found it difficult “to give an answer.”[36] “We want,” he said to Mao:

to discuss with you the direction we should take in building our naval fleet…We wanted to discuss this with comrades Zhou Enlai and Peng Dehuai…It would be good to redeploy our fleet, located in the Black and Baltic seas. It is not needed there, and if we build anything in that region, it would only be small submarines…I said that China has an extensive seacoast, open seas from which it would be easy to wage submarine warfare against America, therefore, it would be good to discuss with China the question of making use of these opportunities.”[37]

Later, he recalled how Soviet leaders had in mind the possibility of “a base for our submarines on the shore of the Pacific Ocean, on Chinese territory,” and in exchange providing the Chinese “a base on our territory” if they wanted to “have their submarine fleet in the Northern Arctic Ocean.”[38]

The view was expressed “to write a confid[entail] letter to Mao Zedong.”[39] Mikoyan was tasked with drafting it, and two days later, on July 17, he sent it to the members of the Presidium.[40] The draft was streamlined. Its main idea was the imperative of conducting “a meeting of the two countries at the highest level on the question of building up the Chinese naval fleet.”[41]

However, for some reason the letter was not confirmed by the Presidium. Khrushchev entrusted the ambassador of the USSR to China Pavel F. Yudin to “play the role of a letter.” Yudin was on leave in Moscow at the time.[42] Judging from documents in RGANI, Nikita Sergeevich discussed this with Yudin on the eve of the Presidium meeting of July 15, and then at the Presidium meeting on July 18, instructing him, upon his return to China, to explain to Mao at once the position of the Soviet leadership “on a number of issues of foreign affairs and questions of interest to both sides.”[43]

Yudin’s forthcoming conversation with Mao Zedong would not be easy, and the leaders of the USSR understood this. That is why, when the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR suggested that Yudin, in addition to speaking with Mao, also meet with the minister of foreign affairs of the PRC Chen Yi and, through him, warn the Chinese leadership against undertaking a military campaign against Taiwan on July 23-24 (information about the planning for such an action came through channels from the American news agency UPI on July 17), Khrushchev and Mikoyan requested that Yudin not be burdened with additional information or requests.

Returning to China on July 21, that same evening Yudin requested an audience with Mao Zedong. Mao received him right away in the CCP CC residence in Zhongnanhai (“Central and Southern Seas”), in the “Swimming Pool Pavilion,” with his retinue of deputies, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, and Chen Yun as well as the general secretary of the CCP CC Deng Xiaoping, Peng Dehuai, and Chen Yi.

Initially all went well. Mao listened to Yudin with a smile, and judging from the ambassador’s subsequent reports to Moscow, Mao expressed the thought that a military conflict with the West was inevitable, but he recognized the “wisdom” of the CPSU CC in trying to deescalate international tensions. Then he declared that a new world war would break out in seven years and announced his plan to mobilize the entire population of China in a militia and supply them with rifles. Then, in a jocular tone, he complained that the PRC did not have its own atomic bomb. Yudin and Mao also devoted a lot of attention to the USSR’s and the PRC’s relations with President of Yugoslavia Josip Broz Tito. Mao jokingly called Tito “a hooligan.”

The joking stopped, however, as soon as Yudin began talking about Moscow’s position on constructing the fleet. He said the following: instead of helping with the construction of the Chinese naval fleet, the USSR proposes to construct a joint Soviet-Chinese fleet through united efforts (50-50) that would be based in ports along China’s coast and act in the interests of both states.[44] When the interpreter Yan Mingfu[45] pronounced the words “build a joint fleet,” the look on Mao’s face changed sharply. “A-a-a!” burst from him. “Does that mean you again intend to build a cooperative?” Subsequently, Khrushchev would assert that Yudin had mixed everything up. “When I was speaking with him, I was afraid that he might not be understanding me correctly. I ask him, ‘Is this issue clear to you?’ He says, “It’s clear.’”[46]

It’s hard to say if Khrushchev’s defense was accurate. On one hand, both at the Presidium of the CPSU CC and in Mikoyan’s draft letter, there really was reference to the need “generally to exchange views [with the Chinese at the highest level] on con[structing] the army [and] the fleet.”[47] On the other hand, it is not known what Khrushchev actually said to Yudin on July 15 and 18. Whatever it may have been, Mao was evidently displeased with the ambassador’s words. He asked Yudin what fleet he was talking about (large, medium, or small) and who would be in charge of it, but the ambassador did not know how to reply. Then Mao asked his comrades-in-arms what exactly was there in Zhou Enlai’s telegram to Khrushchev of June 28, 1958. Zhou replied that “the letter contained a request for assistance in building a nuclear-powered submarine fleet as well as defensive shore fortifications.” However, Yudin continued to talk about building a joint fleet and even added that the relevant bases of the joint naval fleet could be built not only in the USSR and China, but also in Vietnam.

Overall, Mao responded favorably toward joint bases in Vietnam, but when Yudin again touched upon the question of a Soviet-Chinese fleet, he exploded. “You are no different than Stalin. You think that Chinese are savages covered with hair who are unable to accomplish modernization themselves and can only listen to you. What is it that you are talking about after all? Of building a cooperative or something else?” He added even more: “First we must resolve the principal question: are we in charge and you are helping us or perhaps it is only a joint venture and if we do not agree to joint management then you will not help us, that is, you will shamelessly force us to accept it?”

Yudin was so frightened that, to all questions, he only responded, “Khrushchev proposed receiving Zhou Enlai and Peng Dehuai in Moscow.”[48] He was sweating heavily. He tried to calm down an infuriated Mao, but all his efforts were entirely in vain. It seemed Mao Zedong was out of control. He began to recall humiliations that he and China in general had endured from Stalin and the USSR in the past, referring to the Soviet military base in Lüshun (Port Arthur) and saying that Stalin had not trusted him (Mao) as the leader of the Chinese people. He even spoke critically of the work of Soviet citizens and military specialists in the PRC. He recalled Mikoyan’s visit to the CCP’s military base in the village of Xibaipo during the civil war in China in 1949, saying that Mikoyan had behaved like “an inspector,” who tried to instruct the Chinese leaders. Returning to the theme of cooperatives, he recalled that of all the joint enterprises in the past, the only successful one was a factory in Guangzhou that produced canned pineapples.

At the end of the conversation, Mao requested that Yudin inform the CPSU CC of everything that he had just said in detail, but not to depict things as if tension had arisen in the relations between the two fraternal parties. Moreover, he added that it would be good for him to meet Khrushchev and discuss many questions, including a treaty in case of war, but that it would be difficult for him to leave China right now. Therefore, he would like the Soviet leader himself to come to Beijing for three days.

Yudin later informed Moscow that Mao spoke verbosely and nervously and that he (Yudin) got the impression that the Chinese friends were making special preparations for talks and gathering facts that would underline the incorrect attitude of individual Soviet leaders toward China. Sergei F. Antonov, the minister counselor of the Soviet embassy in Beijing, who participated in the discussion, noted that Mao’s indignation was based on some sort of misunderstanding that had no basis in reality.

After his meeting with Yudin, which lasted from 10:00 p.m. on July 21 until 1:10 a.m. on July 22, Mao was unable to calm down. He felt so wounded that, in his own words, he lost sleep and his appetite.[49] Even if the ambassador had relayed Khrushchev’s proposals in the manner that Nikita Sergeevich depicts in his own reminiscences, even then Mao would have a basis for taking umbrage. Khrushchev understood this, as usual, only many years later: “Again, we touched upon sensitive chords of a state upon whose territory alien conquerors had long exercised dominance…Yes, and generally we evidently presented these proposals to China in vain…But what’s done cannot be undone. I understand that in such matters great punctiliousness is necessary. Now I understand this circumstance very well indeed.”[50]

When Yudin and those accompanying him departed (in addition to Sergei F. Antonov, the counselor of the USSR embassy Boris N. Vereshchagin was also present at the meeting), Mao Zedong continued to discuss the situation for an entire hour with the number two man in the state, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC) Liu Shaoqi.[51] He was not wholly satisfied with what he had said to the ambassador and decided to meet him again to express his indignation at the Soviet Union’s great power policy toward China. “Their real purpose,” Mao explained his indignation to his personal physician, “is to control us. They’re trying to tie our hands and feet. But they’re full of wishful thinking, like idiots talking about their dreams.”[52] He ordered his interpreter to tell his (Mao’s) secretary Ye Zilong to bring a small tape recorder to tomorrow’s meeting. He wanted to record the conversation just in case Khrushchev tried to wriggle out of it. (Skipping forward, nothing came of this because of problems with the tape recorder. The inexperienced person responsible for recording failed to capture the meeting.)[53]

Yudin also did not rush to bed. Returning to the embassy, he met with several embassy officials and drafted a message to the CPSU CC. But, according to a witness, “the hour was late, so the message was not sent until the morning.”[54] That was appropriate since in the morning an invitation for another meeting arrived.

That day, Mao rose unusually early, altering his traditional daily regimen of going to bed around 5:00 a.m. and sleeping until 2:00 or 3:00 p.m.[55] (Perhaps he hadn’t slept at all?) Then at 11:00 a.m. in the presence of the areopagus of Chinese leaders he met with Yudin again. This time, over five hours, the Chairman of the CCP CC taught the Soviet ambassador good manners. In reality, of course, everything he said was intended for Khrushchev, and he again requested that Yudin convey all the details and nuances of the conversation to the leader of the CPSU. “Don’t whitewash my words,” he warned him.[56]

Mao recounted all the offenses the Chinese communists had suffered at the hands of the leaders of the CPSU. “You don’t trust the Chinese, only the Russians,” he asserted. “Speaking of that, how about putting everything under joint operation: the army, navy and air force, industry, agriculture, culture and education?” Then he spoke at length about Stalin, how he had insisted upon establishing four joint enterprises on the territory of the PRC, established control over Manchuria and Xinjiang, and did not trust Chinese right up until the beginning of the Korean War in 1950. Mao explained that earlier Stalin had supported the mistaken “Wang Ming lines”[57] and “didn’t allow us to make revolution” (Mao compared Stalin’s “very serious” mistake with that of Grigorii E. Zinoviev who had opposed the October Revolution in 1917), while demanding that he (Mao) reconcile with Chiang Kai-shek. Stalin had also slighted Mao during his visit to Moscow in December 1949-February 1950. Citing Khrushchev, he even asserted that Stalin planned to break off relations with the Chinese Communist Party. And then he again criticized Mikoyan, saying that he, coming to China, always (not only in 1949, also in 1956 when he attended the Eighth Congress of the CCP), treated the Chinese leaders like a father treated his sons. Then he expressed his displeasure with a number of Soviet specialists and advisors who also displayed contempt toward Chinese.

He made it perfectly clear that he viewed the Soviet proposal for a “joint fleet” as no accident but rooted in the same Russian great power attitude toward China. “Comrade Khrushchev abolished the ‘cooperatives’ and restored trust,” he asserted. “Raising the question of ownership this time suggests to me the return of Stalin’s practice.” For “cooperative,” he noted, “involves a question of ownership, and it will be 50 percent by each side according to your proposal. You made me so angry yesterday!” Mao even threw the following retort in the ambassador’s face: “You may call me a nationalist, the emergence of a second Tito. Should you say so, I can well answer that you have extended Russian nationalism to the Chinese coast.”

In conclusion, Mao requested that Yudin tell Khrushchev that “he may come if he agrees with me, and not come if not, as we shall have nothing to talk about. No, not even half a finger of condition will be allowed.”[58] But he added that the visit could take place in three months or half a year.

That same day Yudin informed Khrushchev via the High Frequency line of his conversations with Mao. An eyewitness recalls, “In his conversation with the ambassador on the High Frequency line, he [Khrushchev], rather agitated, expressed bewilderment and asked what was going on with Mao Zedong.” (The Chinese were listening in on the High Frequency line, and Khrushchev probably wanted Mao to know of his reaction.) The next day Yudin sent an encrypted, eight-page telegram. He cited verbatim almost everything Mao had said. Fearing a “clash between Khrushchev and Mao, he only deleted the sentence that if Khrushchev did not agree with him (Mao Zedong), he need not come.[59]

On July 24, Yudin’s encrypted telegram was examined by the Presidium of the CPSU CC. Judging from the working notes of the session, everyone was surprised: “During Stalin’s time we ourselves objected to concessions. Astounded regarding Com. Mikoyan.” The question of advisers and specialists even caused offence that was understandable: we help the Chinese, and they are dissatisfied. A letter to the Chinese side was drafted proposing either “to get rid of” the advisors or reduce their numbers, and Presidium member Mikhail A. Suslov, along with director of the International Department of the CC Boris N. Ponomarev and first deputy minister of foreign affairs of the USSR Vasilii V. Kuznetsov were tasked with “drafting an aide-memoire to the ambassador of the USSR in the PRC Com. Yudin for discussion with Chinese friends.”[60]

Khrushchev did not want to get involved with relations with Mao Zedong then and didn’t have the time. In mid-July, tensions in the Near East increased. On July 14, an antimonarchical revolution occurred in Iraq and King Faisal II, an ally of the United States, was killed, a republic was established in the country, and proponents of collaboration with the USSR came to power. The anti-Soviet military bloc known as CENTO (the Baghdad Pact) created by the Americans and the English in 1955 began to disintegrate. This worried the president of Lebanon, the Maronite Christian and US ally Camille Chamoun who was embroiled in a civil war against Sunni Muslims dissatisfying with his authoritarian rule and receiving support from the Lebanese communist party and the USSR. He urgently requested help from the president of the United States Dwight Eisenhower, who sent a landing force to Beirut on July 15.[61] Two days later, the British, responding to a request from King Hussein of Jordan, the cousin of King Faisal II, whose fate he did not wish to share, carried out a landing in Amman. All of this terribly upset Khrushchev who feared American aggression in Iraq. Needless to say, he did not want to get drawn into a war in Iraq, but he also did not want to yield to the Americans. On July 19, he sent urgent messages to Eisenhower, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, chairman of the French Council of Ministers Charles de Gaulle, and Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru proposing they meet in Geneva (or wherever convenient) on July 22 to take measures “to stop a developing military conflict.” He also wanted UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld to take part in the conference.[62] On July 22, Eisenhower wrote him that it would be better not to have a summit meeting, but to turn the question over to the UN Security Council.[63] The next day, Khrushchev proposed that the heads of the USSR, USA., Great Britain, France, and India take part in the session of the Security Council. He was not concerned that India was not a member of the Security Council. He proposed a new meeting date of July 28.[64]

Therefore, Nikita Sergeevich decided not to go to China, and informed Mao Zedong via Yudin that “if you are dissatisfied with the proposal, we want to listen to you. If it remains in force, the request for the fleet. Then you [can] send competent prop[osals] [sic; this is how the message appears in the original text. –A.P. & N.P.��.”[65]

After receiving this news from Moscow, at 9:00 p.m. that evening Yudin met with Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, and Deng Xiaoping since Mao did not want to see him anymore. Judging from Yudin’s message to Moscow, the Chinese leaders alleged that Mao was sick (“he has a high fever”).[66] Yudin in turn informed the Chinese comrades of Khrushchev’s “bewilderment” regarding the Soviet side’s supposed political conditions regarding the question of helping build the Chinese navy and said that Khrushchev could not come in the near future because he had a forthcoming trip to New York for a meeting of heads of government in connection with the Near East situation. Zhou and Deng made no reply, but Liu Shaoqi reminded him that the PRC opposed the creation of a joint fleet because it presented a political problem. Yudin continued to assure them that the question of building the Chinese fleet was a practical matter. The results of the meeting made it clear that the Soviet diplomat had failed to convince the Chinese leaders.[67]

The Chinese not only managed to make a stenographic record, but also succeeded in tape-recording this conversation, which lasted just forty minutes. And just 15 minutes later, Liu, Zhou, and Deng met with Mao. The discussion of the results took two-and-a-half times as long as the conversation with the ambassador itself. As for Yudin, he sent Khrushchev 65 pages of detailed records of all his conversations – with Mao on July 21 and 22, and with Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, and Deng Xiaoping on July 24 – four days later, on July 28.

Meanwhile, on July 26, the chairman of the State Commission of the USSR on Foreign Economic Relations Semen A. Skachkov sent extensive information to the CPSU CC on the economic ties of the USSR and PRC on the period up to 1965. From the document it followed that back on June 12, the State Planning Commission of the PRC had sent a list of 159 new industrial projects to Moscow for approval, intended to be built through efforts by the Soviet Union. It included 27 metallurgical factories, 19 chemical factories, 15 coal pits and mines, five oil refineries, and 18 defense plants. The overall volume of the supply of complete Soviet equipment in 1959-1965 would amount to about 11.2 billion rubles (including 900 million rubles that were allotted to atomic industry). The overall scale of exports of products from the USSR to the PRC in this period was fixed at 27-30 billion rubles. At Mikoyan’s instruction, Skachkov’s information was sent personally to Khrushchev.

That same day, Suslov, Ponomarev, and Kuznetsov presented to the members and candidate members of the Presidium for their consideration a draft oral message from Khrushchev for Yudin to deliver to Mao in a new conversation. The Soviet ambassador was requested, in part, to say that Khrushchev “was extremely surprised and, to be frank, even insulted” by the interpretation of the issues relating to “construction of the PRC’s naval fleet.” The document emphasized that the Soviet leadership invited a delegation headed by Zhou Enlai to discuss questions relating to rational utilization of capital investments in military naval construction. “There is no basis for talking about either ‘joint ownership’ of the fleet or of some sort of ‘concessions,’” asserted the authors of the draft. “We have helped and are ready to help you [Chinese comrades] in the future in building a military naval fleet for the PRC. There should be no doubt about this on your part.” The draft also touched upon the question of building a radio transmission station, and Mikoyan’s “incorrect” speech at the Eighth Congress of the CCP as well as of Soviet advisers and specialists. At the same time, agreement was expressed about a Khrushchev-Mao meeting, but only after tension in the Near East subsided and resolution of “urgent matters in the country.” The draft was examined by the members of the Presidium, but not approved. Khrushchev probably understood that it would be better for him to come to see Mao himself than once more to send a “living” letter in the person of Yudin.

Resolution of the situation in the Near East influenced Khrushchev’s decision. On July 25, Eisenhower replied to him again, saying that July 28 was too soon to convene a meeting of the UN Security Council.[68] Instead of a meeting of the Security Council, on July 28, a meeting of the members of CENTO took place in London, at which the question of aggression against Iraq was not on the agenda. That is precisely why Khrushchev decided to visit Beijing after all and talk things over with Mao. On July 28, he sent Eisenhower a third letter saying he considered his response an attempt to delay a summit meeting.[69] On the same day, the Presidium of the CPSU CC adopted a resolution “considering expedient a trip by Com. Khrushchev to the PRC to meet with leaders of the CCP CC on issues of interest to both sides.”[70] Khrushchev immediately informed Yudin of this using the High Frequency line, and Yudin hastened to ask Zhou Enlai “at which time it would be convenient [for Mao] that he [Khrushchev] arrive.”[71] Considering that sessions of the Presidium usually began around 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. and that Khrushchev could contact Yudin no earlier than in an hour, Yudin’s meeting with Zhou Enlai was arranged with incredible speed: Zhou Enlai received Yudin at 6:00 p.m. Moscow time (11:00 p.m. in Beijing). Peng Zhen, mayor of Beijing and deputy general secretary of the CCP CC, took part in the meeting.

Learning of Khrushchev’s desire to come, Zhou replied that Mao was resting not far from Beijing in the Yellow Sea resort town of Beidaihe (Mao was “overstrained,” Zhou explained) and asked the ambassador to wait for an answer until he (Zhou) had gone to see the Chairman. On the night of July 29, Mao, via Zhou Enlai, gave his consent. It was decided that Khrushchev would fly to China on July 31. The Chinese expressed their desire that “the visit remain secret from world public opinion until after Khrushchev left Beijing.”[72]

After receiving the ambassador’s message, on that same day, July 29, the Presidium of the CPSU CC reaffirmed that Khrushchev’s visit to the PRC was “expedient,” and approved a 12 person list of those who would accompany him. It included Malinovsky, Kuznetsov[73], Ponomarev, first deputy chief of the General Staff of the armed forces Aleksei I. Antonov, chief of the General Staff of the Navy Fedor V. Zazulia, deputy chairman of the State Commission on Foreign Economic Relations Ivan V. Arkhipov, director of the Far Eastern Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR Mikhail V. Zimyanin, his deputy Viktor I. Likhachev, interpreter Nikolai T. Fedorenko, Khrushchev’s senior aide Grigorii T. Shuisky, Khrushchev’s aide Oleg A. Troianovsky, and an official in the CPSU CC Ilia S. Shcherbakov.[74] Several persons in Khrushchev’s personal bodyguard headed by Nikifor T. Litovchenko traveled with the delegation. It is remarkable that at the same session, another important decision was made: Khrushchev was supposed to take with him to Beijing a proposal on providing technical assistance in the construction and expansion of 47 industrial enterprises in the PRC.[75]

The TU-104 with the Soviet delegation on board touched down at Beijing’s Nanwan airport at 4:00 p.m. on July 31. To greet Khrushchev, Mao came specially from Beidaihe.[76] Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, and Deng Xiaoping accompanied him to the airport. Yudin was not among them. On the morning of July 31, obviously feeling extremely anxious, he took to his bed with a severe spasm of his cerebral blood vessels and temporary paralysis of his right side. There was also no enthusiastic crowd; the ceremony was modest without an honor guard, red carpet, hugs, and kisses. Mao and Deng escorted Khrushchev and Ponomarev to an airport building, a room for honored guests, where at a long table the first, very brief, conversation took place. (See .)

The protocol record does not convey the atmosphere of the conversation. Judging by the reminiscences of eyewitnesses, Mao began to humiliate Khrushchev right away, although cautiously at first. Knowing that grain was in short supply in the USSR, he turned the conversation to the Great Leap in the PRC, boasting of unprecedented grain harvests (the harvest had not yet been gathered, but Mao was certain of success). This is what an eyewitness, Vereshchagin, the counselor of the USSR embassy, recalled. “He said that, evidently, there will be very large reserves of grain in China, and that the Chinese government will even have some difficulty in how to deal with these reserves.” Then he did not refrain from “taunting” Khrushchev, asking, among other things, “Won’t you suggest what we might do?” “We have never had a surplus of grain,” Khrushchev snapped back and suddenly blurted out, “The Chinese are not idiots. They will figure out what to do.” Mao was tongue-tied, for a moment, then, getting hold of himself, he laughed. Then the others laughed, too.[77] In his reminiscences, Fedorenko softens Khrushchev’s reply: “Frankly speaking, we have never had a grain surplus. On the contrary, we have always had a shortage. Therefore, I find it difficult to suggest anything useful to you.”[78] This is what Yan Mingfu, another eyewitness, writes, “It would be good if you gave it [the grain] to us.”[79] (It is doubtful that Nikita Sergeevich wholly believed Mao. Moscow was closely following implementation of the Great Leap and making far from optimistic deductions. In a political note of July 17, 1958, the minister counselor of the Soviet embassy in Beijing Sergei F. Antonov reported, for example, “a certain degree of tension” in the Chinese economy, beginning to feel an acute shortage of raw materials, of materials and production capacity.)

After the initial conversation, a cortege of automobiles headed for Zhongnanhai, the residence of the CCP CC that was the former imperial palace complex in the center of Beijing. Here, in Huairentang, the Hall of Cherished Compassion, the pavilion where ceremonial sessions of the CC and the government were held, on that same day of July 31 from 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., a “small group” conversation between Khrushchev and Mao took place: only Ponomarev and Deng Xiaoping were included (the latter at the time played the role of the chief Chinese expert on Sino-Soviet relations.)[80]

The conversation turned out to be stressful. Mao was chain-smoking and blowing smoke in Khrushchev’s face. He continually lost his self-control, jabbing his finger in front of his interlocutor’s nose and shouting. He had no intention of forgiving Khrushchev, although he listened to his explanation. (“I apologized as much as I could,” Nikita Sergeevich would say later.)[81] Mao was furious, and as he had done with Yudin, he poured out all his accumulated resentment and anger from the time of the Stalinist humiliations onto the Soviet leader. And he did this even though Khrushchev responded to each of Mao’s claims that Yudin had reported to Moscow. Khrushchev asserted that with regard to the question of the navy, the ambassador had confused everything and that the CPSU CC “had never had and does not have in mind creating a joint fleet,” lied that he had not seen Malinovsky’s letter to Peng Dehuai concerning the radio transmission station (“it had not been discussed in the CC”), sharply condemned Stalin, expressed surprise at Mikoyan’s arrogant behavior, noting that “if several unnecessary moments had occurred, then not only he is guilty, but we all slip up, and he offered to recall all of the specialists, saying “this is a pimple on a healthy body.” Evidently, he was offended about the question of the specialists: “We were very troubled by your remarks about our workers.” However, it seems the conversation ended on a positive note. Noting that China was “encircled” by many “nails” (he had US military bases in mind), Mao praised the Soviet Union: “We are all alive thanks to your rockets.” Immodestly, Khrushchev agreed.[82]

At the same time, when at the conclusion of the conversation Ye Zilong told Mao that tables in an adjacent room had been prepared for a banquet, the Chairman interrupted him, waving his hand, “We’re not going to eat!”[83] After Khrushchev’s departure, he invited Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, Peng Dehuai, Lin Biao, Deng Xiaoping, Chen Yun, Peng Zhen, Chen Yi, director of the International Liaison Department of the CCP CC Wang Jiaxiang, deputy minister of defense Huang Kecheng and candidate member of the Secretariat of the CC Hu Qiaomu to a meeting. The topic, of course, was the discussion with the Soviet leader, but what specifically was said is unknown.[84]

Meanwhile, Khrushchev and his entourage were taken to a resort village located in a northwestern district of the Chinese capital, in an exquisite park in the foothills of Yuquanshan (Jade Spring Mountain). But Nikita Sergeevich was unable to have a good sleep. It was terribly hot in Beijing, even at night, and the dacha had no air conditioning. Moreover, he was plagued by mosquitoes. The next day, August 1, he had to rise early even though they had agreed with Mao at the conclusion of the first discussion to meet after 4:00 p.m. At the last moment, the Chairman had switched the time to 10:45 a.m. (in Moscow that was 5:45 a.m., and Khrushchev was undoubtedly suffering from jet lag.) Obviously, he had infuriated Mao – so much so that Mao changed his daily regimen again. Moreover, wishing to humiliate his Soviet guest, the Chairman decided to conduct the negotiations in a swimming pool, around which, half an hour before his second conversation with Khrushchev, he met with his Chinese interpreters in order to admonish one of them, Li Yueran, who from Mao’s perspective had not conveyed the full range of the passions that were gripping him.[85]

Mao greeted Khrushchev in a white dressing gown and slippers on his bare feet. Next to him stood Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, Peng Dehuai, Chen Yi, Lin Biao, Peng Zhen, Deng Xiaoping, Chen Yun, Wang Jiaxiang, director of the General Affairs Department of the CC Yang Shangkun, and Hu Qiaomu, all dressed to the nines. Khrushchev and the other Soviet guests (Malinovsky, Kuznetsov, Ponomarev, and the minister counselor Sergei F. Antonov, acting for Yudin) were also dressed officially. So were the interpreters, stenographers, and bodyguards.

Khrushchev, exhausted from lack of sleep and tormented by mosquitoes, shook Mao’s hand and asked, “Did you sleep at all?” “Something is weighing on my heart,” Mao replied, “I was unable to sleep.” Seated by his host in a wicker chair, Khrushchev complained, “Comrade Mao Zedong, I quarreled with you, but even your mosquitoes are on your side.”[86] Mao observed that it was a hot day and invited his guest to swim in the pool after the negotiations. Khrushchev agreed.

On this second day of the talks, international affairs were the main topic of conversation. (See .) From the Soviet record, which like those of the first and the next discussion, was made by Fedorenko and the third secretary of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs Anatolii I. Filyov, it is evident that the atmosphere was fully relaxed, anti-imperialism brought the communist leaders together. Both hated America, Great Britain, France, West Germany, Japan, and their leaders. They discussed the situation in the Near East in detail and were heartened by the victory of leftist forces in Iraq. They joked a lot. And only at the end did Mao lightly touch upon his claims to Khrushchev, who at once reminded the Chinese leader of the Soviet advisors. It was obvious that this question continued to bother him, and Khrushchev exacerbated his grievance.

After this Mao said, “We’ve had our talk for the day,” and again proposed that Khrushchev relax in the pool.[87]

Mao had been in his swimming trunks all morning. Taking off his robe and slippers, he dived into the pool. Khrushchev, of course, had not brought swimming trunks with him, therefore, he undressed, handed his suit to his bodyguard, and flopped into the water in his satin undershorts. As is well-known, Mao was an excellent swimmer. Khrushchev swam rather poorly, floundering in the water; one could hardly call him a swimmer. He felt humiliated in the water. (“I am a miner, just between us, not much of a swimmer, and I got tired,” he said subsequently.) One of his bodyguards threw him an inner tube, and he climbed into it. Meanwhile, Mao continued talking as he swam. One of the interpreters also dived in and began swimming between them. The other interpreters and stenographers began running around the pool from one leader to the next. It was an amusing picture. Khrushchev recalled,

I swam and swam, and was thinking, to hell with you, I am getting out. I climbed onto the ledge and dangled my legs. Now I was above and he was swimming below. The interpreter did not know whether to swim with him or sit next to me. He was swimming, and I was above, looking down at him. He was looking up at me and saying something about communes, about their communes. I had already caught my breath and answered him about the communes. “Well, we shall see what comes out of your communes.” I felt much better once I had sat down.[88]

Of all the Chinese leadership only Marshal Zhu De swam with Mao and Khrushchev; none of the Soviet guests did. The bizarre swimming pool talks concluded at 4:30 p.m.[89]

Mao’s insults continued the next day, August 2. At 3:00 p.m. when Khrushchev and his entourage were sleeping after lunch, Zhu Ruishan, the official from the translators’ group in the General Affairs Department of the CCP CC who was on duty in the resort village of Yuquanshan, received instructions by phone from Ye Zilong, secretary to the Chairman of the CCP CC, that in 30 minutes he should bring the Soviet guests to Mao Zedong, who wanted to speak with Khrushchev again. Zhu Ruishan panicked: even if he quickly woke Khrushchev and the others up, waited until they were dressed and the cars were at the gate, that would take no less than ten minutes, and the trip from Yuquanshan to Zhongnanhai would take at least thirty-five minutes. Nevertheless, he informed Litovchenko that Mao was again ready to receive Khrushchev. Khrushchev was not happy, but courteously agreed to go.[90]

The Soviet delegation arrived at Zhongnanhai at 5:00 p.m. This time Mao awaited them in the Yiniantang Hall (Pavilion of Health and Longevity), in the Fengzeyuan (Garden of Abundant Reservoirs), not far from his own home – Mao lived in the Quxiang shuwu Pavilion (Pavilion of Chrysanthemum Fragrance). In addition to the Chairman himself, the same 12 leaders of the party were present. The discussion continued until midnight.[91] Again, the talk was about international affairs, NATO, CENTO, and SEATO (founded in 1954, a military-political bloc known as the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization), relations with the USA and Japan, and the situation in the Near East. They also expressed their views on the situation in Latin America, and preparations for a third world war. According to the Soviet record of the conversation, they also discussed domestic problems in the two countries. Specifically, Mao spoke at length to Khrushchev about the successes of the Great Leap. This time the Soviet guest did not wish to dispute his host and even praised him, calling the Great Leap Marxist, a creative development of theory. (See .) Again, they joked a lot. As Yan Mingfu recalled, “Overall the conversation occurred in a friendly atmosphere, each side sought points of congruity while maintaining differing opinions, and openly expressing their own views.”[92] At the conclusion of the discussion it was decided to make an announcement of the talks to the whole world, to sign and publish a communiqué, so that, as Khrushchev said, the imperialists would have a headache.

The final meeting, on August 3, took the same form as the two preceding ones, also in Zhongnanhai, but this time in the hall Qinzhengdian (Hall of Diligent Government). It was the briefest – from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m.[93] They spoke again about the international situation, touched in passing on the political situation in the United States where there would be a presidential election in the next year, and again took Stalin to task: Khrushchev, in particular, asserted that the dead dictator had “suffered from senility.” At the conclusion of the meeting a communiqué was signed.[94] That same day, Malinovsky and Peng Dehuai signed an agreement on constructing a radio transmission station on Chinese terms.[95]

Naturally, the communiqué said that

in an atmosphere of exceptional cordiality and warmth, the sides thoroughly discussed and established complete unity of views on current and important problems of the present international situation, questions of further strengthening friendship, alliance, and mutual assistance between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the People’s Republic of China, as well as on joint struggle for the peaceful resolution of international problems and the defense of peace in the whole world.[96]

The communiqué had been coordinated beforehand on August 2 and sent by High Frequency lineto Moscow for approval by the CPSU CC. That same day the members of the Presidium were polled and approved the text of the document without a single comment.[97] The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the PRC praised the communiqué in the highest terms, emphasizing in a memorandum sent to all Chinese missions abroad on August 8 “the comradely and sincere exchange of views” that had taken place during the recent talks.[98]

In reality, far from everything had gone smoothly. A characteristic detail. Mao and Khrushchev, heading for Nanwan airport, where the plane was waiting for the Soviet guests, sat in separate automobiles.[99] It was not “cordiality” and “warmth” that satisfied Mao Zedong, but the fact that he was able to demonstrate to the Soviet leader all his displeasure and contempt. On the way back to Beidaihe, Mao told one of the members of his entourage of “sticking a needle up to his [Khrushchev’s] ass.”[100]

As for Nikita Sergeevich, on board his TU-104, he diplomatically telegraphed his gratitude to Mao Zedong for the “cordial, friendly reception,” expressing his “complete satisfaction with our joint effort and the results of our meeting.”[101] In Moscow on August 4, he assured the members of the Presidium of the CPSU CC that “the trip was useful . . . it was fruitful, good” and “the talks were sincere.”[102] But needless to say, he could not but realize that Mao did not respect him. The swimming pool talks, manifestly “politically incorrect,” were especially humiliating. In the plane on the way home, he was constantly irritated, and venting his displeasure on Malinovsky, told him that “the political organs of the military were too enthusiastic about ‘studying’ the military works of Mao Zedong, had published his book in a massive print, and required officers to make abstracts from it as if Mao had won the Second World War, and not us.”[103] Staff members of the Soviet embassy in the PRC immediately sensed the leader’s mood and after the departure of the Soviet delegation told the Soviet employees working on nuclear weapons in China, “Khrushchev has left and you can start packing your travel bags.”[104]

Khrushchev obviously nursed his grievance, but before undertaking unfriendly steps, he tried to demonstrate that he was paying heed to Mao’s views. On September 5, the Presidium approved a draft letter of the Soviet leader to Zhou Enlai regarding the Chinese navy. The text was entirely friendly. It said that the Soviet government considered it “our duty to provide extensive assistance” to the PRC in “building and strengthening” its naval fleet. In this connection, to be sure, Khrushchev insisted upon negotiations regarding this question, offering to hold them in October-December, 1958 in Moscow.[105]

At the same time, he tried again to convey to the Chinese side the essence of the Soviet proposals on joint utilization of military objectives. At a meeting with the Chinese ambassador Liu Xiao in Crimea at state dacha No. 1 in Nizhny Oreanda not far from Yalta on September 16, 1958,[106] during the height of the Taiwan crisis[107] Khrushchev asked Liu to convey to Mao that he should intensify bombardment of the offshore islands of Jinmen and Mazu that were under Guomindang control, “giving them hell with the artillery.” Moreover, he promised help with aviation, sending the requisite number of TU-16 bombers armed with rockets. The planes, however, would remain the property of the USSR and even the crews would consist of Soviet officers, although they would operate wholly under Chinese command. In other words, Khrushchev was proposing an old formula: Soviet technology that the Chinese would only utilize. This, naturally, could not but evoke another burst of indignation in Beijing.

Nevertheless, on October 7, Zhou Enlai replied to Khrushchev’s letter of September 5, informing him that a delegation headed by the political commissar of the Chinese navy Su Zhenhua would be prepared to arrive in Moscow in a week, on October 15.[108] The delegation spent more than three months in the USSR, and on February 4, 1959, Su Zhenhua signed an agreement with the Soviet side on the provision by the Soviet Union of technical assistance to the PRC in building ships for the naval fleet. But the Soviet government only agreed to help in building conventional missile submarines and torpedo cutters. It refused to help in building atomic-powered submarines. Again, Mao was exasperated.[109]

But Khrushchev was no longer bothered by Mao’s mood. On October 30, 1958, he had already insisted that trade with the PRC “be curtailed somewhat, not sharply.”[110] Moreover, in 1958, the number of Soviet specialists in China was cut almost in half to 1,285.[111] On December 1, during an emotional eight-hour-long conversation in the Kremlin with the American senator Hubert Humphrey, Khrushchev informed him that he condemned the domestic policy of the Chinese leadership which, at that time had failed miserably.[112] There was no Great Leap for Mao Zedong, a catastrophe was brewing in the PRC. Serious imbalances were occurring in development of the national economy and soon interruptions in production began to be felt everywhere.[113]

In other words, the year 1958 that had started out so well, ended badly both for Mao and for Soviet-Chinese relations. And in the following year, on June 20, 1959, Khrushchev dealt Mao Zedong a new blow: he announced that he was annulling the agreement to provide China technology for producing nuclear weapons.[114] “They were denouncing us so hard . . . how could we at the same time like obedient slaves supply then with an atomic bomb?” he said subsequently.[115]

Overall, the tangible result of the secret talks between N.S. Khrushchev and Mao Zedong in July-August 1958 was the consistent and rather rapid deterioration of Soviet-Chinese relations. It would not be long before public, mutual polemics in the press and a rupture of inter-party relations occurred.

***

After Khrushchev’s return to Moscow all the records of his talks with Mao Zedong were efficiently edited on August 11, 1958, and the next day, on instructions from the director of the General Affairs Department of the CPSU CC Vladimir N. Malin, were distributed to members and candidate members of the Presidium of the CPSU CC for their information.

Apart from the communiqué that was published on August 4, 1958, the day after the talks, all other Russian-language documents on Khrushchev’s talks with Mao in July-August 1958 – the record of the conversation at the airport and four talks at Zhongnanhai – were maintained in secret for a long time, initially in the archive of the Politburo of the CPSU CC (the so-called Section VI of the General Affairs Department), and after the change of government in 1991 in the Archive of the President of the Russian Federation.

In the early 1990s, Dmitrii A. Volkogonov, a member of the commission on organizing the documents in the Archive of the President, was given access to these documents and for some reason copied only two of them: the Soviet record of the first (July 31) and the fourth (August 3) in Zhongnanhai, and cited them in 1995, in his book Seven Leaders.[116] After his death on December 6, 1995, in accordance with his will, these copies, along with other documents from his personal archive, were donated to the Library of Congress of the United States (there they were housed in the manuscript division in a collection titled “Papers of D. A. Volkogonov, 1887-1995,” on microfilm No. 17).

These copies became accessible to readers in January 2000 and were first published in part by the historian David Wolff in August of that year.[117] The following year another historian, Vladislav M. Zubok, first published the Soviet records of these two talks in full: in Russian in the journal Novaia i noveishaia istoriia (Modern and contemporary history) (in the beginning of the year), and in English translation in the Cold War International History Project Bulletin at the end of the year.[118] On July 6, 2023, the historian Olga A. Chagadaeva published several excerpts from the second conversation of Khrushchev and Mao Zedong in Zhongnanhai (from August 1) in the journal Rodina (Motherland).[119]

As for the Chinese records of Khrushchev’s conversations with Mao, made by staff members of the translators’ group in the General Affairs Department of the CCP CC Zhao Zhongyuan and Yan Mingfu, as well as by the staff member of the chancellery of international affairs of the State Council of the PRC Li Yueran, and housed in one of the Chinese archives (obviously in the Central Archive), from them, too, only two have been published – the first conversation from July 31 and the fourth from August 3. They were reproduced in 2015 in the reminiscences of Yan Mingfu.[120] That same year, however, the Soviet records of all four conversations in Zhongnanhai were published in the PRC in Chinese translation. The publication was arranged by the historian Shen Zhihua, using documents from the Archive of the President of the Russian Federation. For some reasons, Shen did not translate and did not include in the publication the Soviet record of the conversation at the airport.[121]

Thus, the Soviet records of Khrushchev’s conversations at the airport (July 31, 1958) as well as the second and third conversations at Zhongnanhai (August 1 and 2) have not been published in English translation. At present they are housed in the Russian State Archive of Contemporary History (RGANI) to which they were transferred in 2009 from the Archive of the President of the Russian Federation in the personal archive of N.S. Khrushchev. There is no doubt, however, that all three documents are of enormous interest to scholars of the history of Soviet-Chinese relations as well as of international relations in general. They will also be of interest to general readers.

The published documents are printed from the typed originals. All the errors in punctuation have been corrected.

Associated Documents

RGANI, f. 52, op. 1, d. 498, l. 43. Contributed by Alexander V. Pantsov and Nikita Yu. Pivovarov and translated by Steven I. Levine.

RGANI, f. 52, op. 1, d. 498, ll. 78-107. Translated by Gary Goldberg.

RGANI, f. 52, op. 1, d. 498, ll. 108-150. Contributed by Alexander V. Pantsov and Nikita Yu. Pivovarov and translated by Steven I. Levine.

[1] See Zasedaniia Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR piatova sozyva (pervaia sessiia): 27-31 marta 1958 goda: Stenograficheskii otchet (Meetings of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Fifth Term [First Session]: March 27-31, l958: Stenographic Report) (Moscow: USSR Supreme Soviet Press, 1958), 7.

[2] See Pravda (Truth), November 7, 1957.

[3]Zhonghua renmin gongheguo di er jie quanguo renmin daibiao dahui di yi ci huiyi huikan (Second Session of the Second National People’s Congress of the PRC) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1959), 260.

[4]Renmin ribao (People’s Daily), December 12, 1957. For evidence that Mao was the author of this slogan, see Pang Xianzhi and Feng Hui, eds., Mao Zedong nianpu (1949-1976) (Chronological Biography of Mao Zedong [1949-1976]), vol. 3 (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 2001), 262; Pang Xianzhi and Jin Chongji, eds., Mao Zedong zhuan (1949-1976) (Biography of Mao Zedong [1949-1976]), vol. 1 (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 2003), 766.

[5] See Pang and Jin, Mao Zedong zhuan (1949-1976) (Biography of Mao Zedong [1949-1976]), vol. 1, 766; Pang and Feng, Mao Zedong nianpu (1949-1976) (Chronological Biography of Mao Zedong [1949-1976]), vol. 3, 299.

[6]Vtoraia sessiia VIII Vsekitaiskogo s”ezda Kommunisticheskoi partii Kitaia (Second Session of the Eighth National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party) (Beijing: Izdatel’stvo literatury na inostrannykh yazykakh, 1958), 68.

[7] See Shen Zhihua, “A Historical Examination of the Issue of Soviet Experts in China: Basic Situation and Policy Changes,” Russian History/Histoire Russe, vol. 29, no. 2-4 (2002): 379, 398.

[8] See I. F. Kurdiukov et al., eds., Sovetsko-kitaiskie otnosheniia 1917-1957. Sbornik dokumentov (Soviet-Chinese Relations, 1917-1957. Collection of Documents) (Moscow: Izdatelstvo vostochnoi literatury, 1959), 390-391.

[9] “Postanovlenie Prezidiuma TsK KPSS ‘Pis’mo Chzhou En’laia po voprosu ob okazanii pomoshchi KNR v stroitel’stve promyshlennykh predpriiatii po vtoromy piatiletnemu planu’” (Resolution of the Presidium of the CC CPSU “Zhou Enlai’s Letter on the Question of Providing Assistance to the PRC in Constructing Industrial Enterprises in the Second Five-year Plan”), Russian State Archive of Contemporary History (here and hereafter RGANI), collection 3, inventory 14, file 207, sheets 82-83.

[10] “Postanovlenie Prezidiuma TsK KPSS ‘O provedenii peregovorov ob okazanii tekhnicheskoi pomoshchi KNR v stroitel’stve 48 promyshlennykh predpriiatii’” (Resolution of the Presidium of the CC CPSU “On Conducting Negotiations on Providing Technical Assistance to the PRC in Constructing 48 Industrial Enterprises”), RGANI, collection 3, inventory 14, file 207, sheet 89. During the negotiations, the final number of projects was reduced from 48 to 47. The Chinese themselves eliminated from the list of enterprises five projects, and then designated construction of two shops as independent projects and added two new ones. See “Postanovlenie Prezidiuma TsK KPSS ‘Ob okazanii Sovetskim Soiuzom tekhnicheskoi pomoshchi Kitaiskoi Narodnoi Respublike v stroitel’stve i rasshirenii 47 promyshlennykh predpriiatii’” (Resolution of the Presidium of the CC CPSU “On Providing by the Soviet Union Technical Assistance to the People’s Republic of China in the Construction and Expansion of 47 Industrial Enterprises”), RGANI, collection 3, inventory 14, file 231, sheet 1.

[11] The question of economic aid to the GDR was examined two days later at a session of the Presidium of the CC CPSU. See A. A. Fursenko, ed., Prezidium TsK KPSS. 1954-1964 (Presidium of the CC CPSU, 1954-1964), vol. 1: Chernovye protokol’nye zapisi zasedanii. Stenogrammy (Draft Official Notes of the Meetings. Stenograms) (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2003), 310-11.

[12] “Zapis’ besedy N. S. Khrushcheva s chlenami delegatsii kompartii Kitaia na Soveshchanii predstavitelei kommunisticheskikh i rabochikh partii stran-uchastnits SEV” (Notes on N. S. Khrushchev’s Conversation with Members of a Delegation from the Communist Party of China at a Conference of Representatives of Communist and Workers Parties from Member Countries of COMECON), RGANI, collection 52, inventory 1, file 571, sheets 119-23.

[13]Pravda (Truth), July 16, 1958.

[14] “Postanovlenie Prezidiuma TsK KPSS ‘Ob obmene mneniiami s kitaiskoi voennoi delegatsiei uchenykh i spetsialistov po nekotorym voprosam proekta osnovnykh polozhenii perspektivnogo plana razvitiia nauki i tekhniki KNR na 1956-1967gg.’” (Resolution of the Presidium of the CC CPSU “On Exchange of Views with a Chinese Military Delegation of Scientists and Technicians on Several Issues in a Draft of Basic Positions of the Projected Plan for Development of Science and Technology in the PRC in 1956-1967”), RGANI, collection. 3, inventory 14, file 22, sheet 8.

[15] See E. A. Negin and Yu. N. Smirnov, “Delilsia li SSSR s Kitaem svoimi atomnymi sekretami” (Did the USSR Share Its Nuclear Secrets with China?), in Nauka i obshchestvo: istoriia sovetskogo atomnogo proekta (40-50 gody): Trudy mezhdunarodnogo simpoziuma ISAP-96 (Science and Society: The History of the Soviet Atomic Project [40s-50s]. Proceedings of an International Symposium, ISAP-96), vol. 1 (Moscow: IzdAT, 1997), 306.

[16] See Nie Rongzhen, Inside the Red Star: The Reminiscences of Marshal Nie Rongzhen (Beijing: New World Press, 1988), 696; Sergei Goncharenko, “Sino-Soviet Military Cooperation,” in Odd Arne Westad, ed., Brothers in Arms: The Rise and Fall ofthe Sino-Soviet Alliance 1945-1963 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998), 157-58.

[17] See Li Mingjiang, Mao’s China and the Sino-Soviet Split: Ideological Dilemma (London: Routledge, 2012), 41-43.

[18] See John Wilson Lewis and Xue Litai, China Builds the Bomb (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988), 212.

[19] N. S. Khrushchev, Vremia. Liudi. Vlast’. (Vospominaniia v 4-kn.) (Time. People. Power. [Reminiscences in 4 vols.]), vol. 3 (Moscow: Moskovskie novosti, 1999), 74.

[20] See Li, Mao’s China and the Sino-Soviet Split, 39-40.

[21] Khrushchev, Vremia. Liudi. Vlast’ (Time, People, Power), vol. 3, 73.

[22] See “Report, Peng Dehuai to Mao Zedong and the CCP Central Committee (Excerpt),”

https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/report-peng-dehuai-mao-zedong-and-ccp-central-committee-excerpt.

[23] See Yan Mingfu, Yan Mingfu huiyilu (Reminiscences of Yan Mingfu), vol. 1 (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 2015), 457; Mao Zedong, Mao Zedong on Diplomacy (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1998), 255.

[24] Khrushchev, Vremia. Liudi. Vlast’ (Time. People. Power), vol. 3, 74.

[25] See Li, Mao’s China and the Sino-Soviet Split, 45.

[26] See Yan Mingfu, Qinli Zhong Su guanxi: Zhongyang bangongting fanyizu de shinian: 1957-1966 (Personal Experience of Soviet-Chinese Relations: Ten Years of the Translators’ Group in the CC General Affairs Department: 1957-1966) (Beijing: Zhongguo renmin daxue chubanshe, 2015), 132.

[27] “Report, Peng Dehuai to Mao Zedong and the CCP Central Committee (Excerpt).” See also: Wang Yan, ed., Peng Dehuai nianpu (Chronological Biography of Peng Dehuai) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1998), 680; Xiao Jingguang, Xiao Jingguang huiyilu (Reminiscences of Xiao Jingguang) (Beijing: Dangdai Zhongguo chubanshe, 2013), 303.

[28] Mao, Mao Zedong on Diplomacy, 245-46; See also Yan, Qinli Zhong Su guanxi (Personal Experience of Soviet-Chinese Relations), 132.

[29] See Li, Mao’s China and the Sino-Soviet Split, 43. By this time, Malinovsky had already suggested splitting the expenses for construction of the station in half. See Yan, Yan Mingfu huiyilu (Reminiscences of Yan Mingfu), 303.

[30] See Mao, Mao Zedong on Diplomacy, 480; Xiao, Xiao Jingguang huiyilu (Reminiscences of Xiao Jingguang), 303.

[31] Khrushchev, Vremia. Liudi. Vlast’ (Time. People. Power), vol. 3, 73-74.

[32] See Fursenko, Prezidium TsK KPSS. 1955-1964 (Presidium of the CC CPSU. 1955-1964), vol. 1, 1038; Li Ping and Ma Zhisun, eds., Zhou Enlai nianpu (Chronological Biography of Zhou Enlai [1949-1976]), vol. 2 (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1997), 149; Yan, Yan Mingfu huiyilu (Reminiscences of Yan Mingfu), 457-458; Li, Mao’s China and the Sino-Soviet Split, 43.

[33] Anthony Eden (1897-1977) was prime minister of Great Britain in 1955-1957.

[34] V. M. Zubok, “Peregovory N. S. Khrushcheva s Mao Tszedunom 31 iiulia – 3 avgusta 1958 i 2 octiabria 1959 g. (Conversations of N. S. Khrushchev with Mao Zedong, July 31 – August 3, 1958 and October 2, 1959), Novaia i noveishaia istoriia (Modern and Contemporary history), no. 1 (2001): 113-14.

[35] See A. N. Bolosov, “Postanovlenie SM SSSR o sokrashchenii flota” (Resolution of the Council of Ministers USSR on Reduction of the Navy), https://flot.com/news/dayinhistory/?ELEMENT_ID=5685&print=Y.

[36] Zubok, “Peregovory N. S. Khrushcheva s Mao Tszedunom 31 iiulia – 3 avgusta 1958 i 2 oktiabria 1959 g.” (Conversations of N. S. Khrushchev with Mao Zedong, July 31 – August 3, 1958, and October 2 1959), 112-13.

[37] Ibid., 112-14.

[38] Khrushchev, Vremia. Liudi. Vlast’ (Time. People. Power), vol. 3, 75.

[39] Fursenko, Prezidium TsK KPSS. 1954-1964 (Presidium of the CC CPSU. 1954-1964), vol. 1, 316.

[40] Ibid., 316; A. A. Fursenko, ed., Prezidium TsK KPSS. 1954-1964 (Presidium CC CPSU. 1954-1964), vol. 2: Postanovleniia 1954-1958 (Resolutions 1954-1958) (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2003), 862.

[41] “Postanovlenie Prezidiuma TsK KPSS, ‘Ob ukazaniiakh sovposlu v Pekine dlia peredachi kKitaiskim druz’iam’” (Resolution of the Presidium CC CPSU “On Instructions to the Soviet Ambassador in Beijing for Transmission to Chinese Friends”), RGANI, collection 3, inventory 14, file 225, sheet 14.

[42] See Zubok, “Peregovory N. S. Khrushcheva s Mao Tszedunom 31 iiuliia – 3 avgusta 1958 i 2 oktiabria 1959 g.” (Conversations of N. S. Khrushchev with Mao Zedong July 31 – August 3, 1958, and October 2, 1959), 112, 114; Yan, Yan Mingfu huiyilu (Reminiscences of Yan Mingfu), 458; Pang and Feng, Mao Zedong nianpu (1949-1976) (Chronological Biography of Mao Zedong [1949-1976]), 389.

[43] “Postanovlenie Prezidiuma TsK KPSS ‘Ob ukazanniiakh sovposlu v Pekine dlia peredachi kitaiskim druz’iam’” (Resolution of the Presidium of the CC CPSU “On Instructions to the Soviet Ambassador in Beijing for Transmission to Chinese Friends”), sheet 14.

[44] See Mao, Mao Zedong on Diplomacy, 255; Yan, Yan Mingfu huiyilu (Reminiscences of Yan Mingfu), 458-59; B. N. Vereshchagin, V starom i novom Kitae. Iz vospominanii diplomata (In Old and New China: Reminiscences of a Diplomat) (Moscow: IDV RAN, 1999), 119-121; Shu Guang Zhang, “Sino-Soviet Economic Cooperation,” in Westad, Brothers in Arms, 207.

[45] Yan Mingfu (1931-2023) – director of the translators’ group in the General Affairs Department of the CC CCP.

[46] Zubok, “Peregovory N. S. Khrushcheva s Mao Tszedunom 31 iiulia – 3 avgusta 1958 yu 2 oktiabria 1959 g.” (Conversations of N. S. Khrushchev with Mao Zedong July 31 – August 3, 1958, and October 2, 1959), 114.

[47] Fursenko, Prezidium TsK KPSS. 1954-1964 (Presidium of the CC CPSU. 1954-1964), vol 1, 316.

[48] Quoted from Yan, Yan Mingfu huiyilu (Reminiscences of Yan Mingfu), 459-60; Vereshchagin, V starom i novom kitae (In Old and New China), 120-21; Pang and Feng, Mao Zedong nianpu (1949-1976) (Chronological Biography of Mao Zedong [1949-1976]), 390-91; Mao, Mao Zedong on Diplomacy, 250.

[49] See Mao, Mao Zedong on Diplomacy, 250; Zubok, “Peregovory N. S. Khrushcheva s Mao Tszedunom 31 iiulia – 3 avgusta 1958 i 2 oktiabria 1959 g.” (Conversations of N. S. Khrushchev with Mao Zedong, July 31 – August 3, 1958 and October 2, 1959), 111-16.

[50] See Khrushchev, Vremia. Liudi. Vlast’ (Time. People. Power.), vol. 3, 76.

[51] See Pang and Feng, Mao Zedong nianpu (1949-1976) (Chronological Biography of Mao Zedong [1949-1976]), 391.

[52] Quoted from Li Zhisui, The Private Life of Chairman Mao. The Reminiscences of Mao’s Personal Physician Dr. Li Zhisui. Tr. Tai Hung-chao (New York: Random House, 1994), 261.

[53] See Yan, Yan Mingfu huiyilu (Reminiscences of Yan Mingfu), 460-61.

[54] Vereshchagin, V starom i novom Kitae (In Old and New China), 121.

[55] On Mao’s daily regimen, see Alexander V. Pantsov with Steven I. Levine, Mao: The Real Story (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012), 364, 541.

[56] Mao, Mao Zedong on Diplomacy, 256.

[57] Reference is to the political lines of Wang Ming (1904-1974), one of Mao’s main intraparty opponents, whom Mao labeled as a “left opportunist” (for his policy in the early 1930s) and a “right opportunist” (for his policy in 1937-1938).

[58] Mao, Mao Zedong on Diplomacy, 250-58.

[59] Vereshchagin, V starom i novom Kitae (In Old and New China), 127-28.

[60] Fursenko, Prezidium TsK KPSS. 1954-1964 (Presidium of the CC CPSU. 1954-1964), vol. 1, 326, 1042; vol. 2, 889.

[61]Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower: Containing the Public Messages, Speeches, and Statements of the President. 1958 (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Federal Register, 1959), 553-57.

[62] Fursenko, Prezidium TsK KPSS. 1954-1964 (Presidium of the CC CPSU. 1954-1964), vol. 1, 1039; Background of Heads of Government Conference: 1960: Principal Documents, 1955-1959. With Narrative Summary (Washington, D.C.: Department of State, 1960), 263-66.

[63] See Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower: 1958, 560-64; Background of Heads of Government Conference: 1960, 267-70.

[64] See American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, vol. 3: 1958 (New York: Arno Press, 1971), 999-1000; Background of Heads of Government Conference: 1960, 267-70.

[65] Fursenko, Prezidium TsK KPSS. 1954-1964 (Presidium of the CC CPSU. 1954-1964), vol. 1, 326.

[66] If this was true, evidently, the emotional conversations with Yudin negatively impacted the health of the Chairman of the CC CCP. Although, more likely, the Chinese were twisting the truth. “A high fever” did not stop Mao from speaking with Liu, Zhou, and Deng for forty minutes before their meeting with Yudin, and an hour later spending forty-five minutes with them discussing the results of the meeting. The next day, July 25, Mao first spoke with a candidate member of the Secretariat of the CC CCP and one of his personal secretaries Hu Qiaomu, and later even conducted an enlarged session of the Politburo. See Pang and Feng, Mao Zedong nianpu (1949-1976) (Chronological Biography of Mao Zedong [1949-1976]), 393.

[67] See, for instance, Vereshchagin, V starom i novom Kitae (In Old and New China), 128-129; Yan, Yan Mingfu huiyilu (Reminiscences of Yan Mingfu), 469; Pang and Feng, Mao Zedong nianpu (1949-1976) (Chronological Biography of Mao Zedong [1949-1976]), 393; Li and Ma, Zhou Enlai nianpu (1949-1976) (Chronological Biography of Zhou Enlai [1949-1976]), vol. 2, 154; Liu Chongwen and Chen Shaochou, eds., Liu Shaoqi nianpu 1898-1967 (Chronological Biography of Liu Shaoqi 1898-1967), vol. 2 (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1996), 435; Yang Shengqun and Yan Jianqi, eds., Deng Xiaoping nianpu 1904-1974 (Chronological Biography of Deng Xiaoping 1904-1974), vol. 3 (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 2009), 1444.

[68] See Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower: 1958, 565-66; Background of Heads of Government Conference: 1960, 273-74.

[69] See American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, vol. 3: 1958, 1003-5; Background of Heads of Government Conference: 1960, 275-20.

[70] “Postanovlenie Prezidiuma TsK KPSS ‘O poezdke t. Khrushcheva v KNR’” (Resolution of the Presidium of the CC CPSU “On Com. Khrushchev’s Visit to the PRC”), RGANI, collection. 3, inventory 14, file 230, sheet 3.

[71] Quoted from Lorenz M. Luthi, The Sino-Soviet Split: Cold War in the Communist World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, NJ, 2008), 93.

[72] D. A. Volkogonov just writes that the Chinese expressed the desire that the visit be secret. See D. A. Volkogonov, Sem’ vozhdei: galereia liderov SSSR (Seven Leaders: A Gallery of Leaders of the USSR), vol. 1 (Moscow: Novosti, 1995), 412. Judging by the documents in RGANI, this is not wholly accurate.

[73] In the resolution of the Presidium, first deputy minister of foreign affairs of the USSR Kuznetsov was named as acting minister: probably to give additional weight to the Soviet delegation. But a formal decision to appoint Kuznetsov to this position was not taken. Gromyko remained as minister in Moscow in the event of unexpected negotiations with Western leaders.

[74] See “Postanovlenie Prezidiuma TsK KPSS ‘O poezdke t. Khrushcheva v KNR’” (Resolution of the Presidium of the CC CPSU “On Com. Khrushchev’s Visit to the PRC”), RGANI, collection. 3, inventory 14, file 231, sheet 5.

[75] “Postanovlenie Prezidiuma TsK KPSS: ‘Ob okazanii Sovetskim Soiuzom tekhnicheskoi pomoshchi Kitaiskoi Narodnoi Respubliki v stroitel’stve i rasshirenii 47 promyshlennykh predpriyatii’”(Resolution of the Presidium of the CC CPSU “On Providing by the Soviet Union Technical Assistance to the People’s Republic of China in the Construction and Expansion of 47 Industrial Enterprises), sheet 1.

[76] See Pang and Feng, Mao Zedong nianpu (1949-1976) (Chronological Biography of Mao Zedong [1949-1976]), 395; Li, The Private Life of Chairman Mao, 258, 261.

[77] Quoted from Vereshchagin, V starom i novom Kitae (In Old and New China), 129-30.

[78] Quoted from N. Fedorenko, “Vizit N. Khrushcheva v Pekin” (N. Khrushchev’s Visit to Beijing), Problemy Dal’nego Vostoka (Far Eastern Affairs), no. 1 (1990): 123.

[79] Quoted from Yan, Yan Mingfu huiyilu (Reminiscences of Yan Mingfu), 471. This response is confirmed by another Chinese interpreter, an employee of the chancellery of foreign affairs of the State Council of the PRC, Li Yueran. See Li Yueran, Waijiao wutai shang de Zhongguo lingxiu (Leaders of New China in the Diplomatic Arena) (Beijing: Waiyu jiaoxue yu yanjiu chubanshe, 1989), 150. It is true that he mistakenly attributes this sharp question to Liu Shaoqi who, judging from the record of the conversation at the airport we publish here, did not take part in this conversation.

[80] See Alexander V. Pantsov with Steven I. Levine, Deng Xiaoping: A Revolutionary Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 193.

[81] Khrushchev, Vremia. Liudi. Vlast’ (Time. People. Power). vol. 3, 75.

[82] Zubok, “Peregovory N. S. Khrushcheva s Mao Tsedunom 31 iiulia – 3 avgusta 1958 i 2 oktiabria 1959” (Conversations of N. S. Khrushchev with Mao Zedong, July 31 – August 2, 1958 and October 2, 1959), 111-26.

[83] Quoted from Yan, Yan Mingfu huiyilu (Reminiscences of Yan Mingfu), 498.

[84] See Pang and Feng, Mao Zedong nianpu (1949-1976) (Chronological Biography of Mao Zedong, 1949-1976]), 397.

[85] See Li, Waijiao wutai shang de Zhongguo lingxiu (Leaders of New China in the Diplomatic Arena), 154; Li Yueran, Zhong Su waijiao qin liji: Li Yueran huiyilu (Personal Historical Notes on Chinese-Soviet Relations: Reminiscences of Li Yueran) (Beijing: Shijie zhishi chubanshe, 2002), 185; Yan, Yan Mingfu huiyilu (Reminiscences of Yan Mingfu), 501.

[86] Quoted from Yan, Yan Mingfu huiyilu (Reminiscences of Yan Mingfu), 499.

[87] See ibid., 505; Li, Waijiao wutai shang de Zhongguo lingxiu (Leaders of New China in the Diplomatic Arena), 156; Li, Zhong Su waijiao qin liji (Personal Historical Notes on Chinese-Soviet Relations), 187.

[88] Quoted from E. Safonova, “Davaite, tovarishchi, zaletim v Pekin” (“Comrades, Let’s Fly to Beijing!”), Ogonek (Small Light), no. 14 (1999): 27. See also M. Romm, Ustnye rasskazy (Oral Tales) (Moscow: “Kinokontsern”, 1991, 154; Yan, Yan Mingfu huiyilu (Reminiscences of Yan Mingfu), 505-8; Li, Waijiao wutai shang de Zhongguo lingxiu (Leaders of New China in the Diplomatic Arena), 156-58; Li, Zhong Su waijiao qin liji (Personal Historical Notes on Chinese-Soviet Relations), 87-88; F. M. Burlatsky, Nikita Khrushchev (Moscow: RIPOL CLASSIC, 2003), 185-86.

[89] See Pang and Feng, Mao Zedong nianpu (1949-1976) (Chronological Biography of Mao Zedong [1949-1976]), 399.

[90] See Yan, Yan Mingfu huiyilu (Reminiscences of Yan Mingfu), 508-9.

[91] See Pang and Feng, Mao Zedong nianpu (1949-1976) (Chronological Biography of Mao Zedong [1949-1976]), 399.

[92] Yan, Yan Minfu huiyilu (Reminiscences of Yan Mingfu), 511.

[93] See Pang and Feng, Mao Zedong nianpu (1949-1976) (Chronological Biography of Mao Zedong, 1949-1976]), 401.

[94] Zubok, “Peregovory N. S. Khrushcheva s Mao Tszedunom 31 iiulia – 3 avgusta 1958 i 2 oktiabria 1959 g.” (Conversations of N. S. Khrushchev with Mao Zedong July 31 – August 2, 1958, and October 2, 1959), 126-28.

[95] See Li, Mao’s China and the Sino-Soviet Split, 46. This agreement, however, was not implemented because two years later Khrushchev recalled all the Soviet specialists from China and the Chinese had to build the station on their own.

[96]Pravda (Truth), August 4, 1958.

[97] See “Postanovlenie Prezidiuma TsK KPSS ‘Proekt Kommunike o vstreche N. S. Khrushcheva s t. Mao Tszedunom’” (Resolution of the Presidium of the CC CPSU “Draft Communiqué on the Meeting of N. S. Khrushchev with Com. Mao Zedong”), RGANI, collection. 3, inventory 14, file 232, sheet 18.

[98] Quoted from Li, Mao’s China and the Sino-Soviet Split, 48.

[99] See Li, Waijiao wutai shang de Zhongguo Lingxiu (Leaders of New China in the Diplomatic Arena), 158.

[100] Quoted from Li, The Private Life of Chairman Mao, 261.

[101]Pravda (Truth), August 4, 1958.

[102] Fursenko, Prezidium TsK KPSS. 1954-1964 (Presidium of the CC CPSU, 1954-1964), vol. 1, 327. In the official resolution of the Presidium on the results of the Khrushchev trip, it was also noted that it was “fruitful and useful.” Fursenko, Prezidium TsK KPSS. 1954-1964 (Presidium of the CC CPSU. 1954-1964), vol. 2, 889.

[103] S. N. Khrushchev, Nikita Khrushchev: Reformator (Nikita Khrushchev: The Reformer) (Moscow: “Vremia”, 2010), 602.

[104] Quoted from E. A. Negin and Yu. N. Smirnov, Delil’sia li SSSR s Kitaem svoimi atomnye sekrety (Did the USSR Share Its Atomic Secrets with China?), 312. However, we may suppose that the departure of the Soviet atomic specialists was linked to the completion of work on starting up the first atomic reactor and cyclotron in the PRC, the official ceremony of opening these took place on September 27, 1958.

[105] “Postanovlenie Prezidiuma TsK KPSS “Proekt otvetnogo pis’ma t. Chzhou En’-laiu po voprosu voenno-morskogo flota’” (Resolution of the CC CPSU “Draft of Letter of Reply to Com. Zhou Enlai on the Question of the Navy”), RGANI, collection 3, inventory 14, file 240, sheet 27.

[106] For Liu Xiao’s recollections of this meeting see Liu Xiao, Chushi Sulian banian (Eight Years as Ambassador to the USSR) (Beijing: Zhonggong dangshi chubanshe, 1998), 74-76. Liu Xiao, however, does not provide details about this meeting.

[107] The Taiwan crisis was provoked by Mao Zedong to distract Chinese society from the failures of the Great Leap. At the end of August 1958, he issued an order to begin the artillery bombardment of the offshore islands of Jinmen (Quemoy) and Mazu (Matsu) in the Taiwan Strait that were in the hands of the Guomindang.

[108] “Postanovlenie Prezidiuma TsK KPSS ‘Pis’mo t. Chzhou En’laia ot 7 oktiabria 1958 g.’” (Resolution of the Presidium of the CC CPSU “Letter of Zhou Enlai of October 7, 1958”), RGANI, collection 3, inventory 14, file 247, sheet 11.

[109] See “Sulian yu Zhongguo he wuji: 1949 nian zhi 1960 nian yuanzhu yu zhi” (The USSR and the Chinese Nuclear Weapons: Assistance and Limits), https://news.cctv.com/military/20090310/106782_1.shtm14; “Mao Zedong yu Su Zhenhua shangjiang” (Mao Zedong and Admiral Su Zhenhua), https://blog.wenxuecity.com/myblog/45870/200911/38105/html.

[110] See Fursenko, Prezidium TsK KPSS. 1954-1964. (Presidium of the CC CPSU. 1954-1974), vol. 1, 337. The Soviet side, to be sure, was in no hurry to adopt official resolutions cutting back on trade until corresponding steps on the part of Chinese leaders. Only after a delegation from the PRC headed by deputy minister of foreign trade Li Zheren arrived in Moscow in early January 1959, informing the Soviets of plans to reduce PRC exports to the USSR from 5.6 to 4.2 billion rubles did the Ministry of Foreign Trade of the USSR revise the plans. A decision was made to curtail the export of rolled iron ferrous metals (from 506,000 to 350,000 tons) and petroleum products (from 932,000 to 751,000 tons.) See

“Postanovlenie Prezidiuma TsK KPSS ‘O vzaimnykh postavkakh tovarov SSSR i Kitaiskoi Narodnoi Respubliki v 1959 g.’” (Resolution of the Presidium of the CC CPSU “On Mutual Supply of Products of the USSR and the Chinese People’s Republic in 1959”), RGANI, collection 3, inventory 14, file 274, sheet 41.

[111] See Shen, A Historical Examination of the Issue of Soviet Experts in China, 397.

[112] See Wu Lengxi, Shinian lunzhan: Zhong Su guanxi huiyilu (1956-1966) (Ten-year Polemic: Reminiscences of Soviet-Chinese Relations [1956-1966]) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1999), 191.

[113] See Pantsov with Levine, Mao, 461.

[114] See “Records of Meeting of the CPSU and CCP Delegations, Moscow, July 5-20, 1963,” in Westad, Brothers in Arms, 379; Roderick MacFarquhar, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution, vol. 2: The Great Leap Forward 1958-1960 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983), 225-226; Shu Guang Zhang, “Between ‘Paper’ and ‘Real Tigers’: Mao’s View of Nuclear Weapons,” in John Lewis Gaddis, ed., Cold War Statesmen Confront the Bomb: Nuclear Diplomacy Since 1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 208.

[115] Khrushchev, Vremia. Liudi. Vlast’ (Time. People. Power), vol. 3, 97.

[116] Volkogonov, Sem’ vozhdei (Seven Leaders), 412-413.

[117] See David Wolff, “‘One Finger’s Worth of Historical Events’: New Russian and Chinese Evidence on the Sino-Soviet Alliance and Split,” CWIHP Working Paper, no. 30 (August 2000): 51-59.

[118] See Zubok, “Peregovory N. S. Khrushcheva s Mao Tszedunom 31 iiulia – 3 avgusta 1958 i 2 oktiabria 1959 g.” (Conversations of N. S. Khrushchev with Mao Zedong July 31 – August 3, 1958, and October 2, 1959, 111-28; Vladislav Zubok, “The Mao-Khrushchev Conversations, July 31 – August 3, 1958, and October 2, 1959,” Cold War International History Project Bulletin, no. 12/13 (Fall/Winter 2001): 244-72.

[119] O. Chagadaeva, “Mao Tsedun – Nikite Khrushchevu: Amerika staraetsia vygliadet’ sil’noi, no na dele ona idet uzhe k starosti” (Mao Zedong to Nikita Khrushchev: America is Trying to Look Strong, But It Is Actually Already Headed Toward Old Age), Rodina (Motherland), no. 7 (2023): 52-57.

[120] See Yan, Yan Mingfu huiyilu (Reminiscences of Yan Mingfu), 471-98, 511-15; Yan, Qinli Zhong Su guanxi (Personal Experience of Chinese-Soviet Relations), 139-57, 166-69.

[121] See Shen Zhihua, ed., Eluosi jiemi dang’an xuanbian: Zhong Su guanxi: 1945-1991 (Selected Documents from the Declassified Russian Archives: Chinese-Soviet Relations: 1945-1991), vol. 8 (Shanghai: Dongfang chuban zhongxin, 2014), 127-77, 181-84.

About the Authors

Alexander V. Pantsov

Former Short-Term Grant;
Edward and Mary Catherine Gerhold Chair in the Humanities, Capital University

Nikita Yurievich Pivovarov

Cold War International History Project

The Cold War International History Project supports the full and prompt release of historical materials by governments on all sides of the Cold War. Through an award winning Digital Archive, the Project allows scholars, journalists, students, and the interested public to reassess the Cold War and its many contemporary legacies. It is part of ��ϲ�'s History and Public Policy Program. Read more

History and Public Policy Program

The History and Public Policy Program makes public the primary source record of 20th and 21st century international history from repositories around the world, facilitates scholarship based on those records, and uses these materials to provide context for classroom, public, and policy debates on global affairs. Read more