122 { China’s Quest
camp since the war of aggression they carried out in Korea.... Among
the causes [of the Hungarian affair] international imperialism ‘played
the main and decisive part.’
The December manifesto went much further than the April document in
affirming the positive, “correct” nature of Stalin’s repression. By defending
Lenin’s line on industrialization and the collectivization of agriculture, Stalin
forged socialism and “created the conditions for the victory of the Soviet Union
in the war against Hitler ... the socialist Soviet Union made tremendous progress
during the period of Stalin’s leadership.”^18 For tactical reasons, Mao’s challenge
to Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization as the line of the international communist
movement was cast as an internal CCP affair. But “While nominally directed
internally [i.e., within the CCP],” Mao told his Politburo comrades in late 1956,
the CCP statements on the Stalin question were “in fact directed internation-
ally, even though we cannot say we want to influence the international [situa-
tion]. One must understand that the Soviet Union has set up its own sausage
stand and doesn’t want to see China sell sausage,” Mao said.^19Doubts of Soviet Irresolution in the Middle EastSoviet policy during the Suez crisis of 1956 was taken by Mao as further
demonstration of Khrushchev’s weak and irresolute response to imperi-
alism. Simultaneously, it was a demonstration of the need for China to be-
come a great socialist power in its own right.^20 With the Soviet Union under
Khrushchev backing away from its “proletarian internationalist duty” to sup-
port the world’s anti-imperialist forces, it became imperative for the PRC, still
guided by genuine Marxist-Leninist principles, to step into the vacuum being
created by Khrushchev’s ideological apostasy. To do that, China needed to get
strong quickly.
Egypt under the leadership of Gamal Abdel Nasser in the 1950s emerged as
a leader of Arab nationalism and, as such, was courted by both Washington
and Moscow. Nasser strongly supported Algeria’s struggle for independence
from France and opposed Iraq’s 1955 accession to the Anglo-American backed
anticommunist Baghdad Pact. Nasser was also a key figure in the emerging
non-aligned movement, which, as described earlier, diluted US efforts to con-
tain Soviet and Chinese communist influence. Several Egyptian moves in
1955–1956 tilted Egypt toward the Soviet Union: rejection of US terms for mil-
itary assistance, and purchase in 1955 of Soviet-bloc arms instead; recognition
of the PRC in May 1956; and nationalization of the Suez canal in July 1956.
Beijing cheered all of these moves, but felt that Moscow did not go far enough
in efforts to draw Egypt deeper into the world’s anti-imperialist struggle.
Nasser quickly became adept at playing Beijing against Moscow. During
the Bandung Conference in April 1955, Nasser had approached Zhou Enlai