Reviving Revolutionary Momentum } 175
to Brezhnev and several other top Soviet leaders. Brezhnev expressed sur-
prise and sent people to investigate. Brezhnev then reported to Zhou that
Malinovsky had expressed his own views, not those of the Soviet leadership,
and that he had been drunk. Brezhnev begged Zhou’s pardon. Zhou refused
to accept the apology, declaring that Malinovsky’s drunkenness had permit-
ted him to speak heartfelt words revealing the true Soviet view of China’s
leader, Chairman Mao. Zhou and the entire Chinese delegation then left the
banquet hall and reported the incident to Beijing.^24
In Beijing, the Politburo met immediately to discuss Malinovsky’s “grave
provocation.” For Mao this was an extremely serious matter. Zhou Enlai had
passed the test, but how might some other CCP leader, perhaps Liu Shaoqi or
Deng Xiaoping, have responded to Soviet probes? The “Malinovsky incident”
was, Mao declared, “brazen interference in China’s internal affairs.” Because
of this, the CCP would not discuss other matters with the CPSU, even if they
apologized for the “incident.” The incident demonstrated that Khrushchev’s
successors would continue his anti-China line, “Khrushchevism without
Khrushchev,” Mao declared. Zhou in Moscow was directed to deliver a full
criticism of Khrushchev’s revisionist line, and to ask directly whether the
CPSU was willing to abandon Khrushchev’s “anti-China line” and join China
in opposing US imperialism and “the reactionaries of every country.” The
latter formulation referred first and foremost to India’s Nehru. If Moscow’s
new leaders expressed agreement with this position, Mao instructed, Zhou
was to ask Soviet leaders to demonstrate their sincerity by actions. In reply to
Zhou’s diatribe, Soviet President Anastas Mikoyan said that on the question
of “our differences with China,” there was not the slightest difference between
the new Soviet leadership and Khrushchev. All the decisions of the CPSU
in this regard over the previous several years had been collective decisions.
In that case, Zhou said, since the CPSU still considered itself to be the “big
brother party,” the CCP’s polemical struggle would continue. Upon return
to Beijing, Zhou reported immediately to Mao. Khrushchev’s ouster had not
been based on differences of line, Zhou said, but on objections to Khrushchev’s
personal manner and style of work. Mao proposed “Khrushchevism without
Khrushchev” as a description of the new Soviet leaders, and Zhou immedi-
ately accepted.
Decision for War against the Indian Reactionaries
In 1962, Mao’s intensifying struggle against Soviet and hidden revisionists
within the CCP became entangled with confrontation and eventually war
with India. By fall 1962, Mao had launched a nationwide Socialist Education
Movement in the countryside intended to reverse the retreat from radical
rural policies over the previous several years. Although the direct evidence