The Crisis Deepens } 517
work or be reformed in China? There was the danger of contagion by exam-
ple; if anticommunist forces could succeed even in the USSR, could not
similar forces in China be inspired? Internationally, the demise of commu-
nist rule in the USSR would leave China the sole remaining major commu-
nist party state in the world. Communist-ruled socialist China would now
be alone to face the entire capitalist world. Those hostile capitalist forces
would be inspired by their recent victories in Eastern Europe and the Soviet
Union to direct their spears against socialist China with greater vigor. And
if Russia became a liberal, democratic, capitalist state, as its noncommunist
reformers sought, Russia might join the West, leaving China entirely sur-
rounded by hostile countries. On the other hand, as with Eastern Europe in
1989, open intervention in the struggle underway in the Soviet Union would
be extremely dangerous.
Support for the CPSU’s Marxist-Leninist Forces
Out of these contradictory interests, the CCP fell back on its dual-track ap-
proach. In terms of state-to-state relations, China continued the policy of
noninterference in other countries’ internal affairs that it had used during
the East European revolutions of 1989. Thus, at critical junctures Beijing for-
mally declared its noninterference and its respect for the decisions of the
Russian people. In terms of party-to-party relations between the CCP and the
CPSU, however, Beijing did what it could to bolster the resolve of the genuine
Marxist-Leninists in the CPSU who were defending the “gains of socialism”
against the forces of counterrevolution.
In April 1990, just prior to a visit to Moscow by Premier Li Peng, the
CCP circulated internal documents to unify thinking on the Soviet struggle
and Peng’s upcoming visit. Gorbachev was a revisionist who had “com-
pletely betrayed the basic principles of Marxism-Leninism,” the document
said. Gorbachev “denied class struggle in the international sphere,” had
“changed the character of the Communist Party,” and had implemented
Western-style parliamentary democracy. Speaking of Gorbachev’s “action
program” adopted two months earlier by the CPSU, the CCP’s internal
guidance said:
Facts demonstrate that Gorbachev’s reforms are not some sort of per-
fection of the socialist system, but a basic move towards capitalism.
The action program ... can only accelerate the Soviet Union’s betrayal
of socialism. Not only will this not allow the Soviet Union to escape its
current political, economic, and nationalities crisis, but on the contrary,
will intensify all sorts of contradictions, and cause the Soviet Union and
Eastern Europe to slide into a long period of instability and disorder.^28