Joining the Socialist Camp } 33
Negotiating the Alliance
On June 30, 1949, Mao declared that socialism and communism were now
the goals of the Chinese revolution, to be achieved by a “people’s democracy
under the leadership of the working class.” Externally, this required that new
China “ally ourselves with the Soviet Union, with the People’s Democracies
and with the proletariat and the broad masses ... in all other countries, and
form an international united front” against imperialism. This meant “leaning
to one side.” “We are firmly convinced that in order to win victory and con-
solidate it we must lean to one side,” Mao declared.^9 Immediately after Mao
declared the CCP’s determination to join the Soviet camp, Liu Shaoqi traveled
to Moscow to discuss the terms of that relationship.
While Stalin did not trust Mao and the CCP, he nevertheless viewed the
CCP victory in China as greatly shifting the global correlation of forces to
the advantage of socialism. The creation of a communist-led and eventually
socialist China would add immensely to the power of the socialist camp. As
Stalin told one of his top China hands in mid-1948, “Of course we will give
new China all possible help. If socialism also triumphs in China and our two
countries follow the same road, the victory of socialism in the world may
be considered a foregone conclusion.”^10 Europe was still the center of Stalin’s
security concerns, and the Soviet leader believed that a general East-West
war was imminent.^11 But Stalin also believed that the revolutionary upheavals
underway in Asia—in China, Indochina, Korea, Indonesia, Malaya, perhaps
in Japan—held the potential to divert US strength and attention away from
Europe. A revolutionary offensive in Asia led by China could sap US strength
in Europe. Stalin was thus willing to recognize the CCP’s preeminence in
Asia, even when Chinese policies occasionally clashed with Soviet interests.
Another advantage for Stalin of a CCP-led revolutionary offensive in Asia
was that it would drive a wedge between new China and the United States.
It would be difficult for Mao to reach an accommodation with Washington
while Beijing was fostering movements aimed at driving the United States
out of Asia. Thirty years later, it would be exactly this logic that led Deng
Xiaoping to disengage from Asian revolutionary movements.
But alliance with new China also carried dangers for Stalin. The weightiest
of these was that the Soviet Union might be drawn into a war with the United
States. Stalin was adamant that the East-West war he believed was inevi-
table would begin at a time and place of his choosing. The upheaval in China
amounted to overturning understandings regarding China reached between
Moscow and Washington at Yalta in 1945 (i.e. a non-communist-ruled China
combined with Soviet special rights in Manchuria).^12 But the same Yalta
agreement legitimized Moscow’s preeminence in Eastern Europe, and the
overturn of the Yalta agreement in the Far East might lead the United States
to challenge the Yalta arrangements in Eastern Europe in an effort to redress