Sergey Radchenko

The Sino-Soviet Split

By 1962, the once robust Sino-Soviet alliance had cracked up, revealing serious conflicts beneath the facade of Communist solidarity. This split was a remarkable development in a Cold War context. It was not the first time that the Soviets had fallen out with their allies: the Yugoslavs were thrown out of the “camp” in 1948; Hungary had tried but failed to leave in 1956; Albania quarreled with Moscow in 1961. But, in spite of their intrinsic importance, these issues were small compared to the red banner of Sino-Soviet unity, the symbol of the power and appeal of socialism worldwide. The demise of the alliance represented the broken promise of Marxism. Ideological unity and conformity were so essential to the Soviet-led socialist world that a quarrel between its two principal protagonists – the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China – undermined the legitimacy of the socialist camp as a whole, and of the intellectual notions that underpinned its existence. So inexplicable did the split appear from a Marxist perspective that both Chinese and Soviet historians in retrospect would blame the debacle on the other side’s betrayal of Marxism. But from a realist perspective, Marxism had nothing to do with the rift: the Soviet Union and China were great powers with divergent national interests. No amount of Communist propaganda could have reconciled these competing interests, so it was not surprising, indeed it had been predictable, that the Soviets and the Chinese would fall out and the alliance would crumble.

MAD, not Marx: Khrushchev and the nuclear revolution

ABSTRACT The revival of nuclear strategy in US policy and scholarship has been strengthened by arguments that the ‘nuclear revolution’ – the assumption that thermonuclear bombs and missiles had made major war too dangerous to wage – does not affect international behaviour as much as nuclear revolution advocates claim. This article shows that the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev indeed regarded nuclear war as too dangerous to wage, a decision which manifested itself not so much in foreign policy or military doctrine but in his determination to avoid war when the possibility arose. We argue that Khrushchev’s experience provides us with a more useful way to characterise the nuclear revolution and suggest some implications of this argument for contemporary debates about nuclear weaponry.

Introduction: Asia’s Northern Tier

The four countries on the northern fringe of Asia went their separate ways after the end of the Cold War, but strengthening Sino-Russian relations and what may be the looming endgame in North Korea’s strategy of threats and isolation are signs that we now need to think about this area also through its connections. Mongolia still is rather aloof in its foreign policy, but geography leaves it no escape from dynamics particular to the Northern Tier. South Korea (outside of our conception of the tier) has struggled to prevent a revival of the Northern Tier, but its leverage is proving limited.

Sino-Russian Competition in Mongolia

Russia and China have been at pains to stress that their aims in Mongolia are not in conflict. To the extent that they can be said to compete, theirs is an indirect, and primarily commercial, competition. Moscow has relied on the leverage afforded by the historical legacies of its ties to Mongolia, including joint ownership of the trans-Mongolian railroad and a copper-processing plant, to shore up its declining influence. It has sought but failed to secure stakes in the strategic copper- and coal-mining projects. Beijing—confident that the logic of trade flows will continue to pull Mongolia into China’s orbit—has not been as proactive in asserting its influence. Yet both countries tend to overestimate their leverage in Mongolia, a country that is an important player in its own right. Meanwhile, Ulaanbaatar’s motivations are hard to discern. They are a product of a domestic political environment which allows Mongolia neither permanent friends nor permanent enemies but supports unstable coalitions with unstable policies.

Mongolia Hangs in the Balance: Political Choices and Economic Realities in a State Bounded by China and Russia

During Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj’s second term as president, Mongolia has made an effort to improve its relations with China and Russia at the expense, some observers note, of its long-standing third-neighbor policy. Elbegdorj has hoped to reap the unexpected benefits of Russia’s post-Crimea international isolation and of China’s One Belt One Road initiative in order to raise Mongolia’s profile as a regional player and a transit corridor between its two powerful neighbors. The policy could backfire, with Mongolia finding itself under increasing pressure from Beijing and Moscow. Ulaanbaatar has pinned unrealistic hopes on a still largely imaginary economic bonanza. Meanwhile, Mongolia’s deepening economic crisis and the rising tide of nationalism continue to exert a destabilizing influence on the country’s foreign policy.

Untrusting and Untrusted: Mao’s China at the Crossroads, 1969

This chapter explores the role of the Soviet Union in affecting Chinese policies, domestic and external, from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. Arguably, the Sino-Soviet split was among the most significant factors driving Chinese decisions to break with the Cold War pattern of international relations and move closer to the Western world, initially in strategic terms, and subsequently on the economic front. The 1969 Sino-Soviet border clashes and the forceful Soviet response, in both military and diplomatic spheres, seem to have been a major factor in impelling Chinese leaders from Mao Zedong downward to seek to improve relations with the United States and other Western states. Mao was apparently incapable of recognizing just how aggressive, irrational, and frightening the policies he followed seemed to Soviet leaders, causing them, in turn, to take an increasingly hard line toward China, which greatly alarmed Mao himself.

Power Struggle in Socialist Mongolia: Review of Two Political Memoirs

B. Nyambuu. Eh Ornoo l Gesen Irgen Bi (‘A citizen of the motherland I am’). Ulaanbaatar: Mongolyn Uls Toriin Helmegdegsediin Holboo. 2004, 260 pages. S. Jalan-Aajav, Tuulsan Zamd Torson Bodol (‘Thoughts born on the passed road’) 2004. Ulaanbaatar: Sodpress, 144 pages.