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declarations by the Chinese Nationalists that their “Return to the Mainland”
was not far distant, CCP leaders concluded that an American attack on China
was not likely.^21 In this situation, an intensification of the polemical struggle
against the revisionist mistakes of Khrushchev and the CPSU was in order.
Khrushchev’s errors were many and serious, and it was necessary to intensify
the struggle against them. Under the guidance of Mao—who again dominated
the process—the Politburo decided on a formula of “unity, struggle, unity.” The
purpose of intensified polemical struggle against Khrushchev’s “errors” would
be unity with the CPSU, but unity on the basis of principle reached by struggle.
Khrushchev was not a “systematic opportunist,” Mao said, but was “eas-
ily changeable.” Mao cited a number of instances in which Khrushchev had
changed in response to pressure from the CCP: in 1956 over Poland and
Hungary, in 1957 over the contents of the November declaration, and in 1958
over the “joint fleet.” There were also a number of factors pushing Khrushchev
to uphold Marxist-Leninist principles. There were still many genuine
Marxist-Leninists within the CPSU. Many communist parties around the
world also embraced Marxist-Leninist principles. Wars of national liberation
would continue in spite of Khrushchev’s efforts to stop them. Moreover, the
United States would not do what Khrushchev wished. And China was a big
country that Khrushchev would be reluctant to alienate. For all these reasons,
Mao concluded, while there was a “relatively small” possibility that intensified
polemical struggle against Khrushchev would lead to “an open split in the
socialist camp.” “This possibility is not very great,” Mao said. This was a major
miscalculation. The intensified polemic that began in April was, in fact, the
straw that broke the camel’s back, and it pushed Khrushchev to recall Soviet
advisors from China, thereby escalating the dispute from the party-to-party
to the state-to-state level.
On April 16, 1960, Hong qi issued a forty-page article entitled “Long Live
Leninism” and commemorating the ninetieth anniversary of Lenin’s birth.
The article did not explicitly target the CPSU; Tito and Yugoslav “modern
revisionists” were the nominal target. This too had been stipulated by Mao at
the January Politburo discussion. Khrushchev understood clearly that he and
the CPSU were the real targets. The core message of “Long Live Leninism”
was the aggressive nature of US imperialism and how to deal with it. US
imperialism was conducting all sorts of “sabotage and subversion” against the
socialist countries. The way to deal with this imperialist aggression was not
to talk about peace and seek to reduce tension with imperialism, but to fan
revolutionary anti-imperialist wars across the intermediate zone. The “mod-
ern revisionists” aimed to “tamp down” these struggles to reduce tension
with imperialism. “Peace in the mouths of Modern Revisionism is intended
to whitewash the war preparations of imperialism ... designed to lower
the revolutionary standards of the people of various countries and destroy
their will.” This approach would only encourage and embolden imperialism.