The Sino-Soviet Schism } 137
exchange beside Mao’s swimming pool in Zhongnanhai. It is worth quoting
at some length, because it exemplifies well the apprehensions that were to lead
Moscow to draw back from alliance with the PRC:
From what he’d said in Moscow a year earlier [at the November 1957 con-
ference], I was already familiar with some of this ideas; but during our
talks around the swimming pool ... he went further than I’d ever heard
him go before. “Let’s try to imagine a future war,” he began. He sounded
just like Stalin, who also loved to raise hypothetical questions of that
sort. ‘How many divisions does the United States have? We know the
population of the United States, so we can figure out how many divisions
the Americans could raise if they conscripted their able-bodied men.’
Then he went down the list of the other capitalist countries: England,
France, and so on. ‘Now,’ he continued, ‘how many divisions can we
raise? Consider the population of China, of the Soviet Union, and the
other socialist countries, and you’ll see what I mean.’ He smiled at me as
though to say, ‘See how the balance of power is in our favor?’
I was too appalled and embarrassed by his line of thinking even to
argue with him. To me, his words sounded like baby talk. How was it
possible for a man like this to think such things? For that matter, how
was it possible for him to have risen to such an important post? ‘Comrade
Mao,’ I said, ‘you’re making a fundamental error in your calculations. ...
Battles are no longer won with bayonets, or bullets.... In the age of mis-
siles and nuclear bombs, the number of divisions on one side or the other
has practically no effect on the outcome of a battle. A hydrogen bomb
can turn whole divisions into so much cooked meat. One bomb has an
enormous radius of destruction.’ ... Mao’s only reply was that he’d grown
up as a guerrilla warrior; he was used to battles in which rifles and bayo-
nets ... played the key role. Later, when I informed our leadership about
my conversation with Mao, everyone was perplexed; no one supported
Mao’s point of view. We couldn’t understand how our ally, a man who we
already sensed had aspirations to be the leader of the world Communist
movement, could have such a childish outlook on the problem of war.
Mao had given us a lot of food for thought.^52
One crucial matter that Mao did not raise with Khrushchev during the July
31–August 3, 1958, discussions was China’s plans to initiate an artillery bom-
bardment of the Nationalist-held islands of Jinmen and Mazu (then known
as Quemoy and Matsu).^53 Figure 5-2 shows the location of these two islands.
While failing to inform Khrushchev about this significant point, however,
Mao made clear to the Soviet leader his expectation that in the event of war
with the United States, China expected to cooperate closely with the Soviet
Union. Early in the discussion of the “joint fleet” during Khrushchev’s visit,
Ambassador Yudin, seconded by Khrushchev, said that Moscow might invite