Fateful Embrace of Communism } 3
provide a degree of conceptual coherence to a review of sixty-plus years of
PRC foreign relations.
A number of scholars have identified formation of a new state as the core
process of revolution.^6 Revolutions are made by coalitions of classes and
groups, and there inevitably emerge divergent points of view within this co-
alition over such matters as the political and social structure of the new rev-
olutionary state, the program of the state, and its ideological underpinnings.
To a significant degree, it is these divergences within the revolutionary camp
over direction of the revolution which drives the foreign relations of the rev-
olutionary state. Within the revolutionary leadership, radical and moderate
factions emerge and struggle with one another over the direction and struc-
ture of the revolution and the revolutionary state. Scholars Charles Tilly and
Theda Skocpol stress mobilization of popular forces as an asset of revolution-
aries in the struggle against both foreign and domestic enemies. According to
Skocpol, mobilization of newly empowered citizens to participate in state-run
activities is one of the key processes, and successes, of modern revolutions.
Skocpol suggests that the “best task” of modern revolution is mobilizing cit-
izen support across class lines for protracted and bloody wars against foreign
enemies.^7 The new revolutionary state can also use the mobilization of ma-
terial and human resources to defend the nation/revolution to consolidate
its control over those resources. Foreign wars permit the revolutionary elite
to build a strong state. Crises short of actual war might serve that purpose
as well.
Scholar Richard Snyder focuses on the use of foreign conflict as a tool
in struggles between rival radical and moderate groups within the revolu-
tionary elite.^8 Differences inevitably emerge following the seizure of power.
A key difference for modern revolutions, Snyder suggests, regards the role of
the “liberal bourgeoisie,” the educated middle class and capitalists who were
core elements of the revolutionary coalition in its quest to seize state power.
Moderates see a continuing “progressive” role for the “liberal bourgeoisie,”
while radicals seek to use the state to overthrow and repress it. Since the “lib-
eral bourgeoisie” has ties with Western countries, confrontation with those
Western countries, and especially with the United States, allows the radicals
to mobilize nationalist passions and direct them against moderate leaders in
the revolutionary camp.
These ideas about the potent mobilizing function of nationalist ideas and
the utility of that mobilization in factional struggles within the revolutionary
elite, and in consolidating control of the revolutionary state over society, work
pretty well for the initial anti-US period of Mao’s foreign policies. They serve
pretty well too for the anti-Soviet period of Mao’s foreign policy tutelage; the
conflict with Moscow manufactured by Mao mobilized nationalist passions
and social groups that facilitated the purge of moderate “revisionists” who