Mao showed his respect for Stalin during the 16 December meeting. He made no demands and did not insist on anything, instead asking for advice and listening to it attentively. Stalin approved of this form of interaction. On hearing Mao’s unwelcome but not unexpected question about the fate of the 1945 Sino-Soviet agreement, he launched into a lengthy explanation. The Soviet side wanted to “formally” preserve the existing agreement, he stressed, but was prepared to make certain changes that would be advantageous to China. Spelling out the political drawbacks of scrapping the agreement altogether, Stalin explained that it had been part of the Yalta agreements with the United States and Great Britain. Annulling it would “give America and England the legal grounds to raise questions about modifying also the treaty’s provisions concerning the Kurile Islands and South Sakhalin.” It is unclear whether Mao immediately understood how spurious this argument was; he certainly grasped it later. In any event, he took an understanding tone, and the conversation moved on to pleasanter subjects. Stalin agreed to requests for aid. The talks ended on a high note. Stalin even paid Mao the compliment of proposing to collect and publish his works in Russian.
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Despite the atmosphere of goodwill and warmth, the meeting must have left Mao with mixed feelings. Of course the Chinese leader was given many promises and generous displays of respect. In the end, however, Stalin had refused to give him an item near the top of his wish list: an accord that would supersede the 1945 agreement. Politically, such an accord was a high priority for Mao. As subsequent events would show, he decided to bide his time.
The following days were a bustle of activity not conducive to the discussion of weighty matters. A number of foreign guests arrived for Stalin’s seventieth birthday. On 21 December a grand celebration was held at the Bolshoi Theater. Mao was seated in the first row of the presidium with Stalin and was the first foreign guest to give a speech. “When Mao Zedong stepped up to the podium,” the Hungarian Communist Party leader Matyas Rakosi later recalled, “an ovation erupted the likes of which the Bolshoi Theater had probably never seen. I could see that this exultation and such a reception had an effect on Mao Zedong.”
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Despite this show of respect, when the fanfare subsided Mao found himself in an unenviable position. Stalin’s refusal to sign a new treaty left a major purpose of his visit unfulfilled. Most historians view the events that unfolded over the rest of his stay in Moscow as a subtle war of nerves. Stalin was clearly showing Mao who was boss. Mao, in response, applied his own form of pressure. After Stalin’s death he claimed to have insisted on his demands, but he was probably exaggerating. In fact, claiming illness (he was indeed in a poor physical state), he demonstratively went into seclusion, refusing to take part in various events on his schedule and announcing that he had decided to return to China a month earlier than planned.
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This tactic was to bear fruit.
Scholars have offered a variety of explanations for Stalin’s change of position, but probably he had been prepared to strike a deal from the start. Skilled negotiator that he was, Stalin began the talks with a refusal because he was wary that China’s strongly nationalistic new leaders might make excessive demands. This was an effective ruse. Mao apparently sensed what Stalin was up to and proved himself a worthy sparring partner. After Stalin agreed to continue negotiations, Mao began to drag his feet. Negotiations were to begin after the arrival of a group of Chinese leaders, but Mao instructed them to take their time. At first they delayed their departure from China, and then they chose a slow means of transportation to the Soviet capital—train.
It was not until 22 January 1950 that talks resumed among Stalin, Mao, and Mao’s associates in Stalin’s office. Stalin and Mao both reaffirmed their intention of concluding new agreements and gave instructions on drafting them. After some tough negotiating, on 14 February the Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance was signed in the Kremlin by the USSR and the PRC, along with a number of ancillary treaties. The Soviet side lost almost all of the huge advantages it had gained through the Yalta compromises and the 1945 Sino-Soviet treaty. Under the 1945 agreement, the Chinese-Changchun Railway and Port Arthur were given to the Soviet Union for thirty years, but under the 1950 agreement they were to be returned to China by the end of 1952. China was to take back property leased by the USSR in the port of Dalny almost immediately. As a result, the Soviet Union lost its ice-free port on the Pacific and material resources of significant value. Some authors have described these agreements as “generosity unprecedented in international treaties.”
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The new Chinese leaders did, however, pay a price. They renounced all claims to Outer Mongolia and also signed a secret protocol banning citizens of third-party countries from being given concessions or conducting business in Manchuria and Xinjiang, thereby allowing the USSR to retain exclusive privileges in these border zones.
It seemed at the time that the USSR, while relinquishing many tactical advantages, was gaining a critical global edge. The country with the planet’s largest population now belonged to the Soviet bloc. China had become the gravitational center and a source of real assistance for the many movements throughout Asia opposing Western influence in the region. The idea that the USSR was surrounded by capitalist countries—an enduring theme of Soviet propaganda—had been turned on its head. One could now talk about socialist encirclement of the Western world.
Immediately after signing the treaties, Stalin again showed his respect for the new Chinese leaders by attending a reception held by the Chinese embassy at the Metropol Hotel that same day, 14 February. According to Stalin’s interpreter, Nikolai Fedorenko, the choice of where to hold the reception was a source of disagreement between Stalin and Mao. The Soviet leader proposed the Kremlin, but Mao preferred, as a matter of prestige, to hold it elsewhere. “The Kremlin,” he explained, “is a place for state receptions by the Soviet government. Our country, a sovereign state, finds this unsuitable.” Stalin responded that he could not attend such a reception: “I never attend receptions at restaurants or foreign embassies. Never.” Mao insisted. After a conspicuous pause, throughout which Mao kept his intent gaze on the Soviet leader, Stalin relented: “Fine, Comrade Mao Zedong, I’ll come if you want me to so much.”
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A standard invitation in the name of the Chinese ambassador to the USSR, handwritten, arrived requesting the presence of Generalissimo Stalin and his wife (the invitation of whom may have reflected diplomatic protocol but more likely showed that the Chinese knew nothing about Stalin’s personal life). The attire: dress uniforms with medals.
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Stalin’s appearance was the highlight of the reception. He was late, and as Fedorenko describes it, an aura of anticipation hung over the banquet hall as everyone whispered the same question: Would he show up? He was greeted, Fedorenko wrote, “with loud applause and noisy exclamations of delight.” Stalin stopped, paused, and then headed toward Mao. A round of toasts began. “Everyone who spoke, and not only they, kept their eyes on the two figures standing side by side and occasionally engaging one another in conversation.” After lengthy and tiresome toasts and ovations, Stalin made a gesture. Once the room settled into silence, he pronounced a toast to Mao and the success of the People’s Republic of China. All drained their glasses in synchrony. “There was another burst of applause, enthusiastic exclamations, and general rejoicing.”
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On 16 February Stalin hosted a farewell luncheon in honor of the Chinese. The following day the delegation set off for Beijing by train. The heyday of “Sino-Soviet friendship” had begun. With the support of the USSR, China repaired its economy and built hundreds of new factories in its most important sectors. The Korean War, which began shortly after Mao Zedong’s visit, strengthened the bond between the two regimes, especially its military component. Beneath the surface, however, was the tension that had already manifested itself during Mao’s visit. Proclamations of common ideological objectives and unity against a common enemy could not hide differences rooted in diverging national interests. The coming to power of the Chinese Communists was just the beginning of a complicated relationship in which both states pretended to the role of leadership of the international Communist movement. The principles Stalin established to guide his relationship with his vast neighbor to the east would work only so long as the Chinese leadership felt dependent on Soviet aid and support. Like much else that Stalin left to his heirs, these principles would not be viable for long.
THE THREAT OF WORLD WAR III
The Communist victory in China coincided with another important development. In late August 1949, having devoted tremendous resources to developing a nuclear capability, the Soviet Union conducted its first test of an atom bomb.
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With the success of this test, the Stalinist system showed that it was ready to do whatever it took to achieve high-priority military objectives. Lavrenty Beria was put in charge of the atom bomb project, a telling choice given his reputation for ruthlessness and decisiveness. He must have known that failure at this high-priority task could have brought his career—even his life—to a sudden end. Later, after Stalin’s death, he recalled that he left for the test site in Kazakhstan “in a dejected mood.”
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Soon, however, he was able to breathe a sigh of relief.
Possession of an atom bomb, despite its tremendous significance for the Soviet Union’s stature as a military power, is unlikely to have gone to Stalin’s head. He probably took sober account of both the relatively limited options for using such a weapon and the real balance of power in the world. The Western powers had shown decisiveness in opposing the Soviet bloc and building up their already impressive military potential. Stalin could not rely on force alone. In the realm of foreign policy (much more than domestic policy), he exercised caution and pragmatism. Over several years the situation in Korea, the site of the first “hot” war between the Western and Communist blocs, offered examples of Stalin’s approach.
After the defeat of Japan in 1945, Korea was partitioned along the 38th parallel. North of the parallel, the Japanese surrendered to Soviet troops, and in the south, to the United States. As in Europe, a pro-Soviet government was established in the Soviet-occupied zone and a pro-Western one in the U.S.-occupied zone. The starting point for this process was the installation of puppet regimes by each side. The Americans put in power a seventy-year-old professor named Syngman Rhee, who had spent thirty-three years in exile in the United States, where he received his education. In the North, Moscow installed a thirty-three-year-old Red Army officer, Kim Il Sung.
Several years after the capitulation of Japan, Korea was far from calm. Small military clashes and saber rattling were a part of everyday life. Both sides were coming to the conclusion that the only path to reuniting Korea was through war—a war kept at bay only by the presence of American and Soviet troops. Fearing a direct confrontation, Stalin and the American leaders preferred to tread with caution. Stalin’s approach was summed up in instructions he gave to Soviet representatives in North Korea in May 1947: “We should not meddle too deeply in Korean affairs.”
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In late 1948 Soviet troops left the country, and the United States began to withdraw its contingent the following summer.
The North Korean leaders saw the American departure as opening the door to military action, but in the fall of 1949 Stalin was still rejecting their insistent requests to sanction an armed offensive against the South. In early 1950, with the victory of Mao Zedong in China and the return home of North Korean units that had fought alongside the Chinese Communists, the situation began to change. Kim Il Sung hoped that the Chinese might offer the Korean Communists reciprocal assistance. He intensified pressure on Moscow, hinting at the possibility of a reorientation toward China.
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Stalin was confronted with a convoluted web of arguments for and against war that historians are still trying to sort out today.
The principles of realpolitik that often guided Stalin in the international arena called for caution. Continuing the policy of a divided Korea while strengthening the Communist North as a force to counteract the Americans seemed like the best option. Kim Il Sung’s demands, or rather insistent requests, to reunify the country by force were easy for him to continue to turn down. The China factor aside, the North Korean leaders were still Stalin’s puppets. Only the USSR could give the North Koreans arms and other vital resources needed for the government to survive. The Chinese themselves relied on Soviet assistance.
Tilting the scales in the other direction was the great-power urge for expansion, the natural tendency to fill a void and capture territory that was not clearly spoken for. Many scholars believe that Stalin may have been emboldened by a statement the Americans made in January 1950 about the sphere of the United States’ national interests that included no mention of Korea. It sounded like an admission of American weakness after defeat in China. Optimistic assurances by Kim Il Sung and a wager on a pro-Communist uprising in the South’s rear offered the prospect of a blitzkrieg that would confront the United States with a fait accompli and leave no time for effective intervention. Also heavily weighing the scales on this side were the pretentions of the USSR, and Stalin personally, to the role of leader of the revolutionary movement in the Third World. Finally, Stalin may have wanted to compensate for setbacks in Europe.
Whatever his thinking was, in early 1950 Stalin decided in favor of action and signaled Kim Il Sung that he could begin preparing an invasion. In April Kim came to Moscow to meet with Stalin and discuss the details.
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Together they outlined a plan and timeline for the war, and with the help of the USSR, the North Koreans began urgent preparations. By the time combat began, they had acquired a huge advantage over the South. On 25 June 1950, Kim Il Sung’s troops began their offensive. Like many other attempts at blitzkrieg, this one met with defeat. The rapid response by the United States, which Stalin had worried about but chosen to discount, dramatically changed the situation. The American leadership saw the aggression in Korea as the start of a broad Soviet offensive that would ultimately include Europe.
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Having decided to intervene, the Americans quickly outmaneuvered the Soviet bloc diplomatically. A session of the UN Security Council, convened the very day military operations began, condemned the North as the aggressor (Yugoslavia abstained and the Soviet ambassador was absent).
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Soon afterward, American troops landed in South Korea and were quickly joined by forces from fifteen other states, a fact that was of greater political than military significance.