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Joining the Socialist Camp
The Decision to Join the Soviet Camp
One of the most important early foreign policy decisions of the PRC was the
decision to ally with the USSR against the United States. When this decision
was made in 1948–1949, the Cold War was well underway in Europe and the
Middle East. The CCP decision to align with the Soviet camp placed the new-
born PRC square in the middle of the intense Soviet-US conflict. In fact, the
CCP decision to ally with the Soviet Union was a major factor spreading Cold
War conflict to East Asia. The PRC’s decision to ally with the Soviet Union
had a profound impact on China’s foreign relations and on the entire world
situation.
According to Beijing University historian Niu Jun, the CCP decision to ally
with the USSR, the socialist camp, and the world revolutionary movement
against “US imperialism” arose out of the entire history of the Chinese revolu-
tionary movement led by the CCP.^1 The Marxist-Leninist philosophy embraced
by CCP leaders indicated that the Soviet model of political-economic organ-
ization was superior to the “bourgeois democratic” forms of the West. The
basic question in dispute between the CCP and the KMT, according to Niu
Jun, was over the type of state to be built, a western-style liberal democracy
led by the KMT or a socialist people’s dictatorship led by the CCP. From the
CCP perspective, “bourgeois democratic” forms had been tried in China after
1911 and had failed. They were tried and failed again in the post-1945 period in
China. Only “the Russian model” could pull China together and lead it for-
ward quickly. Only the Russian-model socialist economy could quickly make
China a great power. Soviet advice and assistance would be necessary in this
effort.
The CCP’s Marxist-Leninist ideology also indicated that capitalism led to
imperialism, that the United States was now the world leader of imperialism
and was oppressing virtually every country in the world, including China.
Throughout the period following Japan’s surrender, the United States had