Sino-Indian Conflict and the Sino-Soviet Alliance } 159
debated at length, but the first discussion of economic costs of a split with the
CPSU occurs only after Moscow’s recall of Soviet economic advisors—this
while China’s economy was collapsing and famine sweeping the land. This
oversight must have been because of the ideological fantasy world of the CCP
elite. As scholar Donald Zagoria pointed out, it was extremely difficult to im-
agine circa 1960 that Chinese and Soviet communists, with their powerful
shared beliefs, could actually come to blows.^26 One manifestation of this was
the Mao-dictated CCP credo of “unity, struggle, unity.” The fact that by chal-
lenging Moscow’s traditional authority to define the line of the international
communist movement the CCP was challenging a key instrument of Soviet
global influence apparently never entered CCP minds, or if it did, it was dis-
missed as evidence of Khrushchev’s “great power chauvinism.”
China’s demands on Soviet industry were heavy for the still not very de-
veloped Soviet economy to bear. The Soviet Union after 1945 was compelled
to assist the development of allied socialist countries even though the Soviet
economy was itself devastated by war and not yet as highly industrialized
as its propaganda suggested. As Figure 6-2 indicates, China, although it was
Moscow’s most populous ally, received only $790 million, or about 13 percent
of all Soviet aid during the period ending in 1962. China’s share was con-
siderably less than East Germany’s $1,353 million or Poland’s $914 million.^27
Scholar Sidney Klein suggested that resentment at this distribution of Soviet
aid was one factor underlying Mao’s anger toward the Soviet Union.^28
Recipients 1945–1962 as %
(rounded)Non-Socialist 1954–1962Socialist
CountriesUS$ (millions) Developing
CountriesUS$ (millions)East Germany 1,353 22
Poland 914 15 India 811
PR China 790 13 Egypt 509
North Korea 690 11 Afghanistan 507
Outer Mongolia 658 11 Indonesia 369
Bulgaria 569 9 Cuba 300
Hungary 381 6 Iraq 183
North Vietnam 369 6 Syria 151
Albania 246 4 Ethopia 102
Rumania 189 3
Czechoslovakia 62 1 PR China 790
total 6,221FIGU R E 6-2 Distribution of Soviet Economic Assistance
Source: U.S. Department of State, “Soviet Aid to Less-Developed Countries Through Mid-1962,”
Research Memorandum RSB-173, November 14, 1962. In Sidney Klein, The Road Divides, Economic
Aspects of the Sino-Soviet Dispute, (International Studies Group: Hong Kong, 1966), p. 66, 68.