158 { China’s Quest
Peaceful coexistence with imperialism—preventing imperialism from attack-
ing the socialist countries—could be achieved only by struggle.
Mao saw 1959 as a turning point for Soviet policy. Up to then, Soviet policy
toward China was relatively good. In 1959, however, Khrushchev adopted a
new policy, the essence of which was to stand with US imperialism against
revolutionary China. For his Politburo comrades, Mao traced Khrushchev’s
stance to his class character: “Khrushchev represents the boss class, repre-
sents the bourgeoisie, he doesn’t want revolution, does not want to continue
the revolution, doesn’t want communism.”^22
Khrushchev had had enough. He returned polemical fire at a Congress
of the Romanian Communist Party convened in Bucharest in June 1960.^23
In a meeting with the CCP delegation to the Congress, Khrushchev bitterly
attacked Mao and the CCP. If the East Wind prevailed over the West Wind,
did that mean that Genghis Khan would return? the Soviet leader sneered. If
the CCP esteemed Stalin so much, why didn’t they take Stalin’s corpse back
to China to display? In his public speech to the Congress, Khrushchev clearly
implied that the CCP was trying to assume leadership of the world commu-
nist movement. The head of the CCP delegation, Peng Zhen, was outraged
because the applause given to his speech was noticeably less than that given
for Khrushchev’s, and the fact that some of the people on the dais had not
paid attention while he was speaking. In Beijing, the Politburo met to con-
sider Peng’s report on the “surprise attack” underway in Bucharest. Peng was
instructed to directly battle against Khrushchev’s incorrect line. Peng was not
to fear, but also not to push for an open split.
On July 16, 1960, Moscow notified Beijing that all 1,299 Soviet economic
advisors and specialists then working in China, along with their dependents,
would be withdrawn by September 1. The CCP Politburo met immediately. It
decided to accelerate repayment of Soviet loans. A projected sixteen-year re-
payment period was to be reduced to five.^24 A “trade small group” was set up
to oversee collection of commodities to accomplish this purpose. Subordinate
special groups were set up in various localities. It was understood that some
“hardship” would result. But Mao declared:
The Yan’an period was hard too, but eating peppers didn’t kill anybody.
Our situation now is much better than then. We must tighten our belts
and struggle to pay off the debt within five years.^25
In vast areas of China, the possibility of eating peppers was then a desperate
dream. By mid-1960, famine produced by Great Leap policies was sweeping
China. Malnutrition, starvation, and even cannibalism were widespread. An
amazing characteristic of Wu Lengxi’s detailed account of CCP-CPSU rela-
tions circa 1960 is that China’s leaders gave no consideration to the poten-
tial economic consequences of a split with the Soviet Union. According to
Wu’s detailed and authoritative account, ideological and political factors were