DAVID WOLFF (Washington, DC, USA)

INTERKIT:
AND

THE

SOVIET

SINOLOGY

SINO-SOVIET

RIFT

Brezhnev: "We did not discuss the Chinese issue with the US. We didn't
ask a single question regarding Beijing's policy and he didn't ask us. We
didn't want to give him a reason to think we were concerned that they
went to China. We have our principled course and there's nothing for us
to learn from Nixon about what goes on in China. We in any case know
better than Nixon the situation in the PRC and the policy of the Chinese
leadership."
Stenogram of a friendly meeting with the leaders of the workers' parties
'
of the socialist countries (July 31, 1972, Crimea)'
In the final days of January 1969, high-ranking members of seven ruling
Communist parties gathered in East Berlin to discuss "The Situation in the
People's Republic of China and the Mao Zedong group's present stage." The
head of the East German International Department (ID) within the Central
Committee, Paul I\1arkovski, welcomed the heads of the guest delegations
punctually at 10 AM on January 28. Three of them held the same title as
Markovski.2 The remaining delegations contained Deputy Directors of the respective International Departments.3 Speaking in his native German, Markovski began with Bulgaria, continued with Mongolia, before moving on to
the lower rungs of the alphabet, where "Ungarn" came last.
-

i.
I. StiftungArkhivder Parteien-und Massenorganisationen
(Hereafter,SAPMO)DY 30 J IV
IntemationalerVerbindungen).File 924
2/201(Abtei lung
2. Paul Markovski(1929- )enteredthe Sectionin 1956and becameDirectorof the Section
startingin 1966.From 1964to 1966,on his wayup, he servedas DeputyDirector.Other Directors at the Berlinmeetingincluded: KonstantinTellalow(1925- ), who had servedon and off in
the BulgarianInternationalDepartmentfrom 1951,becomingDirectorin January 1967; Punzagin Schagdarsuren;and Andras Gyenes from Budapest(1927- ), who had servedas Deputy
_
Director until 1968,whenhe was promotedto Director.
,
. 3.
DeputyDirectors includedO. B. Rakhmanin,(1924- ), who had becomeFirst DeputyDirector of the USSR InternationalDepartmentin 1968; Bohdan Lewandowski(1926- ), who
servedin the InternationalDepartmentfrom 1967until 1971,beforeand after serviceat the UN;
and JosefSedivyfromCzechoslovakia.Biographicdata from Who'sIYho in the SocialistCountries (NewYork:K. G. Saur, 1978).Thesemen are strikinglyof a cohort.

434

Three days later, a protocol was adopted unanimously by all present. Interestingly, the list of signers, while still beginning with Bulgaria, continued
with Hungary and Germany, for in Russian "Vengerskaia narodnaia respublika" and "Germanskaia demokraticheskaia respublika" come before Mongolira. Clearly a translation from the Russian, the meeting's conclusions had
been drafted by the Russians for approval by their Warsaw pact allies. The
verbatim discussions, however, show considerably more give and take, for in
the face of an ever-broadening Sino-Soviet split, the Russians needed to mollify as well as pressure in order to prevent further rifts.4 The instructions to
the Soviet delegation, approved in Moscow on January 21, also make clear
the importance attached to the search for a common front against a Maoist
menace whose contours were still not interpreted as uniformly as the Russians might wish.5
In fact, I will argue that the shadowy organization that evolved out of the
meetings of ID leaders and China specialists would play a lead role in opening and developing a whole "second front" inside the Cold War.6 Of course,
Moscow set the general course, while allowing room for well-rewarded contributions from other' participants. In parallel, the Soviet Union single handedly undertook a massive military build-up in the Far East. In 1965, the SinoSoviet border areas, including the Mongolian People's Republic, hosted 20
'
combat divisions. This number grew to 45 by 1979. The number of fighter
aircraft increased six-fold to 1,200 in the Russian Far East, with smaller,
7
though dramatic improvements, in artillery, tank, missile, and nuclear forces.?
"Interkit" is but one element in the overall Sino-Soviet relationship, but
probably among the least studied.
After a retelling of the Sino-Soviet split making use of recently declassified documentary evidence, this article presents short introductions to the
work of the ID and Soviet sinology at the time. Faced with a steady deterioration in Sino-Soviet ties, a series of annual international conferences that came
to be known as "Interkit" occurred at the intersection between these two
communities. An outline of the new organization's functions and history will
lead to a more detailed examination of several aspects of the 1969 meeting,
4. The author would like to thank the ParallelHistoryProjectand JamesG. Hershbergfor
making the transcriptof the 1969 meetingavailableas found in SAPMOat J IV 2/201/800.
Henceforth,this stenogramwill be referredto as "SAPMO"alone,with othermaterialsfromthe
samearchivefollowedby additionaldescriptionof archivallocation.
5. Rossisskiigosudarstvennyiarkhiv noveisheiistorii (Hereafter,RGANI),f. 4, op. 19, d.
525, l. 29.
6. Althoughnever cited as such in documentation,oral informantsuniversallyrefer to this
organizationas "Interkit,"the (Anti-)ChinaInternational.
7. Formilitarybuild-up,see Paul Langer's"SovietMilitaryPowerin Asia,"in DonaldZagoria, ed., SovietPolicyin East Asia(NewHaven,CT: YaleUniv.Press 1982), 267-70.

435

occurring just a few weeks before Sino-Soviet tension erupted into open warfare on the Ussuri River border. Finally, implications for the Sino-Soviet
split, competition in the Third World, and our general periodization of the
Cold War will be considered. If, as the epigraph suggests, Brezhnev and other
top leaders felt that the analyses they were receiving from the Interkit collective gave them best knowledge of China, then that goes far towards explaining the Warsaw Pact's inability to move Sino-Soviet relations in a more constructive direction throughout the 1970s.
As the directives to the Soviet delegation to Interkit in 1971 stated: "...
joint analysis of the various sides of the Chinese problem is very useful for
the ideological and propagandistic activity of our parties as well as the development of a concrete political line towards the PRC. It plays an important
role in the deepening of the scientific research work" g Analysis by coordinated party specialists that then defmed policy possibilities and future research could eventually become a closed circle, offering the Politburo only
one logical choice and the people of the Warsaw Pact only one unified, selffulfilling negative image of China.
Sino-Soviet relations: 1959, 1969
The choice of 1959 is somewhat arbitrary as a turning point in relations
between Russia and China for significant communal memories remind the
Chinese, even today, of the wide lands taken from them by the tsar's minions
in 1860, as Beijing lay prostrate after the Second Opium War. The Russians,
in turn, responded with attacks on the "unequal treaty" of Nerchinsk (1689).
Negotiated "under duress" by superior Qing dynasty forces, the Russians had
signed away their patrimony in the Eastern reaches of the Amur. Even between the Communist hierarchies, there was already bad blood. For example,
Mao and all his surviving comrades from the Long March of 1934-35 remembered well the year 1927, when Stalin had counseled moderation and the
rising tide of Chinese revolution had been smashed by Guomindang (GMD)
leader Chiang Kai-shek's armored fist in a terrible bloodletting. The survivors had then wandered from mountain fastness to hidden valley, first westward and then northward, always only a few steps ahead of superior GMD
military forces intent on exterminating the last remnants of Communism in
China. Only 10-20 percent completed the Long March. From this dire scenario Mao had emerged as preeminent CCP leader, the Chairman (zhuxi).
Even a celebratory event such as a visit to Stalin's 70 birthday in December 1949 had a gray lining. Mao felt ignored and feigned illness. A
friendship treaty eventually eventuated, but by then chances for real friendship were already remote. With such an inauspicious beginning, it is no sur8. RGANI,f. 4, op. 19, d. 605,1. 40.

436

prise that the "ten thousand-year" alliance was essentially over in under a
9
decade.
The crucial period was between July 1958 and October 1959, the months
of N. S. Khrushchev's two visits to Beijing. Although the first was occasioned by deep disagreements over a Soviet proposal for a "joint fleet" and
shared radar installation, by the end of four Mao-Khrushchev conversations,
the relationship was, to all appearances, back on track. The first aid administered to the alliance by a well behaved, even apologetic, Khrushchev during
his 1958 visit to Beijing would no longer be effective a year later. During the
14-month interim, the Soviet leadership would become convinced that Mao's
recklessness could wreck Khrushchev's push. for peaceful coexistence, his
updating of Marxism-Leninism for a nuclear age. Border skirmishes in the
Himalayas were a reminder that China could easily manufacture quandaries
and embarrassments for USSR foreign policy. And the standoff in the Taiwan
straits suggested that an even higher price might have to be paid for insufficient coordination between Beijing and Moscow. 10
In October 1959, Khrushchev returned to Beijing for the tenth anniversary
celebration of the PRC's establishment. He arrived in the Chinese capital just
days after sharing the "spirit of Camp David" with Eisenhower, and the October 2, 1959 summit transcript shows how far Sino-Soviet relations had de'
teriorated since the 1958 visit. The
collapse of the Great Leap and Mao's
other domestic challenges had left the Chinese tyrant more prickly and paranoid than ever. Despite Mao's later accusation that Khrushchev "doesn't research [China] and believes a whole bunch of incorrect information," the Soviets fully grasped the PRC's dire straits." Meanwhile, Khrushchev's big
head over Camp David and his fear that Chinese aggression, east and west,
could embroil the USSR in unnecessary conflict, further contributed to the

9. For a more detailed treatment of the period 1948-1959with translateddocuments,see

DavidWolff,"'One Finger's Worth of HistoricalEvents': New Russianand ChineseEvidence
on the Sino-SovietAlliance and Split, 1948-1959,"Cold War InternationalHistory Project
WorkingPaper, no. 30 (2000).
10. It is importantto keep in mind that Khrushchevonly extendedhis nuclearguaranteeto
China after Zhou Enlai called for renewedtalks with the Americans.As Suslov'sfirst draft,but
not his second,wouldstate a year later in affirmingsupportfor the Chineseposition:"But we are
unableto agreethat a worldwar [shouldbe] ignitedbecauseof Taiwan."So far, no documentation is availableon Gromyko'svisit to Beijingon September5, 1958,but if his memoirsare any
guide, transcriptswill be very revealingboth regardingPRC views on Taiwanand on nuclear
warfare.AndreiGromyko,Memoirs(NewYork:Doubleday1989),251-52.
11.On July 2, 1959,the StateCommitteeon EconomicCooperationwith SocialistCountries
reportedto the USSRCouncilof Ministersregardingrationingin China.RGANI,f. 5, op. 49, d.
243,11.1-8.

437

mutual intransigence. i2 Discussions of Taiwan, American' prisoners, and Tibet only reinforced disagreement. 13
For example, Khrushchev blamed the PRC for the Tibetan imbroglio,
wishing that the Dalai Lama were "in the grave" [v grobu]. Unimpressed by
their explanation of events, Khrushchev prodded the Chinese to shoulder responsibility for the border war with India, contrary to Beijing's official pronouncements. Angrily rejecting Khrushchev's charges, Mao and his foreign
minister, Chen Yi, in turn, accused Khrushchev. of "time-serving" [prisposoblenchestvoj, a charge he vehemently rejected. Chen Yi, the Soviet leader
retorted, was himself guilty of such extreme leftism that "if you go left [from
here], you may come out on the right. The oak is strong, but it too can break."
Khrushchev was reaching the limits of his tolerance.
Marshal Lin Biao then offered an analogy with the Soviet destruction of
the German army and Suslov rejected the suggestion that a "trivial incident
[pustiakovyi intsident]" could be compared with the "killings of tens of millions." Nor was Khrushchev ready to accept Mao's parallel between the escape of the Dalai Lama and the much earlier departures of Aleksandr Kerenskii and Leon Trotskii from the USSR.14 Although by the end of the meeting
a civil tone had been re-established, it was clear that neither common language nor common cause could be maintained much longer. This would be
the last meeting ever between the now firmly estranged Communist leaders.
Only in 1989, as the Cold War and the USSR drew to an end, would Mikhail .
Gorbachev arrive in Beijing to renew the party-to-party dialogue.
12. Eisenhower'sstrategyhad specificallyaimedat massagingKhrushchev'sego in order to
get a favorableoutcomeon the Berlin ultimatum.This inflated state of mind may have made
compromisein Beijingdifficult.For example,on September15, 1959in their first one-on-one,
Eisenhower"said he believedthat Mr. Khrushchevhad an opportunityto becomethe greatest
politicalfigure in historybecause he has tremendouspower in a complexof states with great
might.... Forthis reason,the Presidentsaid, he believedthat Mr. Khrushchevcouldbe the man
to do a greatdeal to securepeace in the world." U.S. Departmentof State,Foreign Relationsof
the UnitedStatf!.s(hereafterFR US),1958-1960,vol. 10, pt. 1, p. 409.
13.SergeiKhrushchev,Nikita's son, was 24 in 1959and accompaniedhis fatherto the US.
He has recentlywritten:"I allowmyselfto expressthe supposition -based on my personalimpressions -that the warmreceptiongivenFatherin the UnitedStates,his greatsuccessthere,and
the prospectfor improvedworldrelationshad inclinedFathertowardeuphoria. It seemedto Father that talks with Mao Zedongin Beijingwouldenablehim to resolveany disagreements.He
and the Creationof a Suwas bitterlydisappointed." (SergeiKhrushchev,Nikita A7:rM?c/!ey
perpower[UniversityPark, PA: PennsylvaniaStateUniv.Press,2000], 346.
14. Lessthan a week earlier,it was Khrushchevwho had suggestedto Eisenhowerthat US
,
supportof ChiangKai-shekwas comparableto supportinga come-backby the agingKerenskii.
FRUS,1958-1960,vol. 10,pt. 1, p. 480.
15. The October2 conversationwas consideredso damagingto Sino-Sovietrelationsthat it
has been rumoredthat both sides agreedto destroytheir copiesof the transcript.Now,thanksto
the lateGeneralVolkogonov'sbeliefin the principlesofglasnost', the Sovietcopyhas appeared.

438

A week after returning to Moscow, ideologist-in-chief, M. A. Suslov, who

along with foreign minister, A. A. Gromyko, had accompanied Khrushchev
to Beijing, began to compile a report on the trip to be presented at the December 22-26, 1959 CC CPSU Plenum.'6 After circulation to and minor editing by Presidium (Politburo before 1952 and after 1964) members and candidates, this analysis would become the most explicit statement yet to the top
managers of Soviet government and society that all was not well in SinoSoviet relations. It described the October 2 talks as "not completely pleasant
at times" and criticized Chinese policies along a broad spectrum, both ideological and geo-political. Although Suslov invoked Mao's "one finger" analogy from the 1958 summit to claim that the relationship could and would be
salvaged, despite "serious disagreements," his references to Mao's neoStalinist cult of personality must have left the audience wondering if repairs
were really possible under the PRC's current leadership. Certainly, this powerful personal critique of Mao could not have been distributed without Khrushchev's concurrence. 17 Whatever doubts the Soviet kingpin had previously
entertained regarding his Chinese counterpart, they now were fast hardening
'
into conviction. 18

Possibly,both Khrushchev'sand Gromyko'smemoirsare so thin, evenmisleading,on the 1959

meeting,becausetheywishedto maintainthe spiritof the agreementwiththe Chineseby not revealingtoo much. We can only hope that Beijingalso violatedits allegedcommitmentto shred
the memconand that the Chinese versionwill be availablesoon. Meanwhile,the Russianversion can be consultedin the VolkogonovCollection,Libraryof CongressManuscriptDivision,
Reel 17 or in translationby VladislavZubokin Cold WarInternationalHistoryProject Bulletin
(hereafterCWIHP),nous.12-13.
16.Fora discussionof the role of plenummaterialsin Sovietand ColdWar historyas wellas
a samplingof transcriptsin translation,see CWIHPBulletin,no. 10 (March1998),5-60. Foran
insightfulanalysisof Suslov's speech, see Mark Kramer,"DeclassifiedMaterialsfrom CPSU
CentralCommitteePlenums:Sources,Context,Highlights,"ibid., 13-16.For additionalquotationsfromthe report,see ibid., nos. 8-9 (Winter1996/1997),244, 248, 259-62.
17.On December10, 1959,the new Sovietambassadorto the PRC,StepanChervonenko,informedLiu Shaoqithat "attemptsto sabotageSovietforeignpolicywouldaffectall sides of the
bilateralrelationship."(OddArneWestad,Brothersin Arms[Stanford,CA:StanfordUnivPress,
1998], 177-78).Suslovalso had unfailingguidance,althoughin more crypticlanguage,from
Khrushchev'sspeecheson October31 and December1,publishedin Pravda on NovemberI and
December2, respectively.The fact that Suslovdeliveredthe plenumreport,togetherwith his
arrivalin Beijingin advanceof Khrushchev,may have been calculatedto disabusespeculation
that Suslovheadeda "China lobby" in the Kremlin.See DonaldZagoria,TheSino-SovietConflict, 1956-61(Princeton,NJ: PrincetonUniv.Press,1962), 278.
18. For a perceptivediscussionof the Mao-Khrushchevdynamic,see William'1'aubman,
"Khrushchevvs. Mao:A PreliminarySketchof the Roleof Personalityin the Sine-SovietSplit,"
CWIHPBulletin,nos. 8-9 (Winter1996/1997), 243-48.

439

Also in December 1959, Mao disseminated his conclusions from the October meeting in an internal CCP speech.19 The talk outline reveals that Mao
had now made up his mind about Khrushchev and was ready to spread the
word among his cadres. Something is "not good about the style of the [SoLenin died early and didn't have time to reform
viet] party and people....
it." Sino-Soviet relations since 1945 are viewed as a prologue to the split.
Almost every year contributes a landmark grudge against Stalin, Khrushchev
and the Soviet leadership. Mao repeats the finger analogy, claiming that
sources of disunity are but one in ten, just "one finger's worth of historical
events."
But similarly to Suslov's report, the prospects appear grim. "Khhruushchev
and his group are very naive. He does not understand Marxism-Leninism and
If he doesn't correct [his mistakes], in a
is easily fooled by imperialism....
few years he'll be completely bankrupt (after 8 years). He panics over China.
The panic has reached its extreme."
The early sixties have been viewed variously, with some emphasizing the
unwillingness of the Chinese to formalize the split for in the face of famine,
who besides the Soviets could provide aid? Others have focused on discrete
acts of Soviet enmity to pick turning points. The sudden withdrawal in 1960
of the Soviet advisors from hundreds of ongoing projects is often discussed.
Disagreements over Soviet handling of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis also
come to the fore. Recently released documents suggest that Khrushchev's
anti-Mao policies came to a head in 1963, when a high-level party delegation
headed by Deng Xiaoping was invited from China for long, pointless discussions. Simultaneously, an American delegation, headed by veteran Soviet
specialist and wartime ambassador Averell Harriman, was in town to negotiate the Limited Test-Ban Treaty, a first step, in Chinese eyes, toward SovietAmerican monopolization of atomic power and weapons.
It can hardly be coincidental that on July 10, Mao met with visitors from
the Japanese Socialist Party and announced: "About a hundred years ago, the
area to the east of Baikal became Russian territory, and since then Vladivostok, Khabarovsk, Kamchatka, and other areas have been Soviet territory.
We have not yet presented our account for this list." On July 19, Zhou Enlai
confirmed the accuracy of this statement in an interview with the Japanese
daily, Asahi Shimbun .20 Deng's violent polemics, clearly in parallel with Mao
19.Maospeechnotesin Jianguo yilai MaoZedongwengao[Mao'sManuscriptssincethe es_ tablishmentof the PRC](Beijing:Zhongyangwenxianchubanshe,1987),8: 599-602. Excerpts
translated in Wolff,"'One Finger'sWorth'," 72-74.
20. Mao and Zhoucited from ThomasRobinson,"The Sino-SovietBorderDispute,"American PoliticalScienceReview,66 (1972), 1178.EvenwiderclaimsincludingMongoliaand Xinjiang weremade in 1964.For these, see TsuyoshiHasegawa,TheNorthernTerritories Dispute
and Russo-JapaneseRelations(Berkeley:Universityof CaliforniaPress,199$), 1:212. The fact

440

and Zhou's irredentist threats, could only be exacerbated by the knowledge

that US-USSR collusion was proceeding simultaneously.21 The Chinese delegation in Moscow may also have added urgency to the US task of cultivating
detente with the USSR, but probably reminded Khrushchev as well of necessary limits on cooperation with capitalists and imperialists. When Harriman,
as instructed by JFK, floated the idea of joint preemptive action against the
PRC nuclear potential, Khrushchev refused even to discuss the idea.22 On the
other side of town, the Chinese were accusing him of entertaining sinister intentions of just this kind.
Mao, who, like DeGaulle, denounced the Treaty, would soon regale the
French press with forceful language.23
.
Mao then got back to the subject of the atom bomb: "I know that you are
ahead of us in that respect. But we too shall have our own bomb. It is a means
of power. That doesn't mean we're going to use it But there are two large
countries that intend to lead the world without consulting anyone else. Have
they consulted General de Gaulle? The Moscow [Test Ban] Treaty is a fraud.
Those two countries must not come and sh_ on our heads." The interpreter
was dumbfounded at this [use of slang], wondering at first if he indeed had to
translate literally, but Mao told him to go ahead, and added: "That may shock
you, but it's the truth."
In 1963, Khrushchev undertook another initiative that could only be seen
as inimical to China - he proposed the inclusion of Mongolia in the Warsaw
Pact. After all, against whom could Mongolia possibly invoke mutual defense, if not China? Poland's leader, Gomulka, led opposition to Mongolian
membership by labeling it "dubious and risky." Such a move would anger
China leading to counterproductive pressure on Mongolia. It would also dilute the Warsaw Pact's value as a counter to NATO and West Germany.
Khrushchev backed down, but reconfirmed his enmity towards China by tellthat these statementswere made to the Japanesewho had (and have) their own territorialdisagreementswith the Soviets/Russiansmayalso havebeen intended as the suggestionof possible
irredentistcooperationagainstthe USSR.
21. Highlightsof the Deng-Suslovdebatescan be foundin CWIHP Bulletin,no. 10 (March
1998), 175-82.
22. "Khrushchevdoes not seem to be receptiveto US probingin this sensitivearea, particularly on the questionof a Chinesethreat to the USSR,or joint US-SovietactionagainstChina,"
reportedHarriman.See Harrimantelegramto JFK,July 15, 1963,FRUS,1961-1963,vol. 7, p.
801; August 1, 1963memofor Harriman,box FCL 18, folder"USSRGeneral1963,"Harriman
Papers,Libraryof Congress.
23. Mao Zedong to French delegation on January 30, 1964 as printed in Paris-PresseIntransigeanton February21, 1964and reprintedin attachmentto July2, 1964StateDepartment
memoby SecretaryDean Rusk to variousembassiesas "Statusof Programto InfluenceWorld
Opinionwith Respect to a Chinese CommunistNuclear Detonation"(CentralForeignPolicy
.
Files,DoSFiles, 1964-66,RecordGroup59, US NationalArchives)

441

ing Gomulka in January 1964 that nuclear weapons were ready, should the
Chinese cross the border. The issue of Mongolian coordination in antiChinese campaigns would soon be re-addressed in the context of Interkit.
Other East European leaders also worked towards-Sino-Soviet detente after Khrushchev's forced retirement in October 1964, but a meeting between
the GDR's Walter Ulbricht and Zhou Enlai in the wings of the 47'h anniversary of the October Revolution failed to make progress. Zhou remained convinced that Rodion Malinovskii's drunken suggestion, "We got rid of Khrushchev and you should get rid of Mao, too!" reflected unchangingly hostile
attitudes at the USSR highest levels. He then analyzed inebriation under the
'
lens of dialectical materialism:
ZHOU: Brezhnev, Kosygin and Mikoian responded as follows: "they
said they didn't know anything about this until now, that they were furious about it. They do not agree at all with Malinovskii's words. Secondly, they said that they spoke to Malinovskii on the telephone. They
said Malinovskii responded that he had not made himself clear. He said
he'd had too much to drink and apologized. He, Malinovskii. We [the
Chinese] responded that we had noted their response and that we will examine their response and we reserve our right to give serious consideration to this issue. Because even then we had our doubts that this event
was merely coincidental. We indicated that a segment of the Soviet leadership wanted to continue Khrushchev's policies and they wanted to continue to develop Khrushchev's ideas. If we believe in dialectical materialism, that is, if we believe that ideology is determined by existence, then
it is immediately obvious that especially words spoken in drunkenness
reveal one's innermost thoughts. He cannot drink much because he is not
very healthy. That was not just one word or just one sentence from him,
it was criticism.
ULBRICHT: We are in a better position. We are always sober .... 24
And thus, we approach the Chinese Cultural Revolution not only with a
heritage of tension between the USSR and the PRC, but also with potential
friction between the USSR and its East European allies over the correct policy towards Beijing. Moscow's shock at the extremes of 1965-66, as Red
Guards deified Mao and harassed the Soviet embassy, would galvanize it to
coordinate its allies, both east and west.
. ant a Soviet-bloc summit held in Moscow on October 21, .1966, all the
General-Secretaries described the widening threat from Beijing and.the need
for a unified response. Ulbricht spoke of the Chinese "trying to transfer their
2
24. SAPMO,J IV 2/201/712

442

own quarrelsome politics" to Asia and Africa, concluding that "the time has
come that the communist and workers' parties meet both at the multilateral
and bilateral levels to come to an agreement on how to conduct the fight
against anti-communism." Mongolia's Tsedenbal told about Cultural Revolution propaganda and military espionage being conducted along his borders
"on a daily basis." He also called for "uniform opinion" leading to "uniform
and concrete steps toward strengthening the international communist movement." Brezhnev, representing the Eurasian link between clients East and
West, followed up on both lines of argument, confirming Ulbricht's concerns
about the breadth of Chinese aspirations by mentioning the newly formed
Red Guard "world headquarters" and Mao's claim to be "leader of the world
revolution." He also echoed Tsedenbal by describing border incidents involving Soviet fishermen being trapped in Chinese nets. He affirmed his solidarity with the Mongolian position by wondering rhetorically "how other parties
would react if they were treated in this way?" He concluded that "unity is
dear to communist parties."
Indignation went hand-ili-hand with fear for Brezhnev continued, still in a
rhetorical vein, that "given all this, I ask the comrades: does the danger of
war exist? Given the uncertain politics of China, nobody can give any
guarantee." The 1966 establishment of the Institute of the Far East already
represented a Soviet best effort to answer Brezhnev's question through expert
analysis of Chinese-generated inscrutabilities and uncertainties. A year later,
the founding of Interkit would be an answer to the call for the coordinated international containment of China. Mao could not mistake these intentions,
nor does it seem that any attempt was made to mask the new undertaking.
Then, the Chinese Chairman would also engage in all-fronts confrontation
with the USSR, a cold war within the Cold War, that would culminate in the
strategic turn towards the Americans and the bloody March 1969 clashes on
the Ussuri border.25 For the second half of the Cold War, Sino-Soviet enmity
would be an over-arching force field, snaring and distorting all relations
within the socialist camp.

25. The Robinsonarticlecited aboveprovidesan analysisprivilegingthe Russianversionof

events. The counterpartis Neville Maxwell,"The Chinese Accountof the 1969 Fighting at
Chenpao,"China Quarterly,56 (1973),730-39.Fornew evidenceon the eventsof 1968'?69,see
CWIHPBulletin,nos. 6-7 (Winter1995/1996),186-93,194-201,and 11(Winter 1998),155-75.

443

.
Department26
several
descendants
of
the
Comintem
dissolved in 1943,
Although among
the International Department, came into its own after Khrushchev began to
search for alternative foreign policy organs. Molotov's dominance in the Foreign Ministry had taught him a lesson. The "draft structure" and "plan" for
the ID went to Khrushchev for approval on March 26, 1953. It called for 95
employees, a third of whom would be translators. Almost half would attend
to European affairs, while the remainder divided, up the world. Six were assigned to cover China, Korea and Mongolia .27 Mikhail Suslov and Boris Ponomarev, party apparatchiki par excellence, supported the idea of a party foreign policy organ and the latter became the director of the International Department four,almost thirty years. The idea of the "fraternal department" resonated well with the romantic ideas about the socialist movement entertained
by Khrushchev in such questionable enterprises as shipping nuclear weapons
to Cuba.
The thorny relationship between Suslov and Ponomarev guaranteed the International Department long life in the strange system of checks and balance's
that led to comfortable stagnation. 28 On the other hand, it also produced
stalemates that often allowed Andrei Gromyko's Foreign Ministry the foremost role in foreign policy making.29 Mark Kramer has argued that the International Department "had some wider foreign policy responsibilities as well,
[but] its jurisdiction was confined primarily to the key tasks of administering
front organizations and maintaining liaisons with non-ruling Communists and
other revolutionary groups. ,30 This is a minimalist definition, probably true
for some periods, but Sergei Grigoriev, himself a former International Department affiliate, argues a broader interpretation:

The International

After the expansion of the ID at the end of the 1950s, its key functions
were viewed in the party apparatus as: coordinating all Soviet foreign
26. The ID's full name was the "Departmentfor Contactswith SocialistFraternalParties."
By the 1980s,'ithad grown to 347 peoplelisted in its 1985internalphonebook.Muchof what
followscomes either from RGANI,f. 5, op. 28, containingInternationalDepartmentmaterials
for the 1950s or from Sergei Grigoriev,The International Departmentof the CPSU Central
Committee(Cambridge,MA: KennedySchoolOccasionalPapers, 1995).Grigorievworkedin
the Americansectionof the ID from 1984until 1990.
27. RGANIf. 5, op. 28, d. 1,11.1,9.
28. Accordingto Grigoriev,the hatredbetweenSuslovand Ponomarevhad twopoles:Stalinism and anti-Semitism.
, 29. In additionto the ForeignMinistryand ID, the KGB and personalaides to top figures,
for Brezhnev,playedvaryingrolesin foreignpolicymaking.
e.g., Aleksandr-Agentov
30. Mark Kramer,"The CPSU InternationalDepartment,"E. P. Hoffmannand F. J. Fleron,
eds., SovietForeign'Policy: Classicand ContemporaryIssues (NewYork:Aldinede Gruyter,
1991 ).

444

policy-making; controlling decision-making and the implementation of

decisions in foreign policy both in general and with regard to various regions, groups of countries, and individual countries, elaborating new
policies and foreign policy initiatives in the international arena; organizing the regular flow of different kinds of foreign policy information to
most of the Politburo members; and actively participating in personnel
policy related to all the institutions that dealt with foreign policy and foreign economic relations.31
The analysis presented below of the International Department's coordination of Warsaw bloc policy and propaganda towards China seems to be closer
to the latter definition of International Department functions, although in
many ways it goes beyond Grigoriev's widest view. The International Department's central role in organizing Interkit goes beyond the circulation of
information to the actual promotion (and limitation) of knowledge creation
for policy elites and masses alike. Although the 1969 meeting speaks only of
propaganda and research tasks, later instructions to Interkit specifically speak
of its foreign policy tasks.
Even more important, the immense amount of energy expended by the International Department in its battle against Chinese influence both in the
Warsaw Pact and in the Third World, greatly influenced Ponomarev's approach to the socialist world. Once one accepts the fact that a country recognized as socialist could become the Soviet Union's worst enemy, caution towards the headlong support of so-called socialist causes followed. Grigoriev
reports an incident "at the end of the 1960s or at the beginning of the 1970s,"
when Ponomarev, summoned to the office during a late-night coup in the Sudan, remembered: "I was sitting in my office and thinking fearfully: what if
they really won? They have millions of people there, and we would have to
feed them all.... This was a real nightmare. Luckily for us, they lost." Similarly, Ponomarev and Suslov came to loggerheads over the 1980 election in
France, the latter supporting the Socialist candidate (and eventual winner)
Francois Mitterand. Ponomarev had seen socialist successes abroad turn into
Soviet liabilities and had learned his lessons.32
Soviet sinology
Soviet China-watching has followed a troubled course with apparent
trumps often reduced to deuces by the Chinese themselves. For example, in
1956, Beijing resisted Soviet efforts to establish a research institute dedicated
to the study of China alone, insisting that studies continue within units with
31. Grigoriev,TheInternationalDepartmentof theCPSUCentralCommittee,24.
32. Ibid.,26, probablyJuly 1971.

445

broader Asian competence. After Khrushchev's fierce polemics with Mao

during a visit to Beijing in October 1959, studies of China fell silent. After
all, attacks could only endanger the fleeting and wishful opportunities for in1proved ties, while sympathetic treatment would expose sinologists to accusa.
tions of sinophilia with potential dire consequences.
,
Gilbert Rozman, the closest student of Soviet sinology in the 1960s-1980s
has observed that: "Only after 1967 was a concerted effort made to explain
At the end of the
what had happened and was happening in the PRC....
1960s Soviet Chinese studies reached their maturity. From this time to 1982
they would be marked by voluminous output, stable organization, and a consistent prevailing outlook on Chinese society. This outlook was an amplification of emerging views from the mid 1960s; so there was no fundamental
change in thinking for about two decades under Brezhnev's and Suslov's
An analysis by Seweryn Bialer found only slightly more
leadership...."33
variation and concluded that "Soviet China experts in their writings and personal contacts with Western colleagues reflect the official position and, at the
same time, could serve as a guide to discern nuances and differences that may
exist in particular aspects of China policy among the political elite... These
'
differences are primarily differences of stress, not of substance. ,,34
In fact, it was the stunned apprehension of the Cultural Revolution, seen in
the USSR as primarily directed against Moscow, that had galvanized and
concentrated sinological energies. In 1966, a committee co-opting officials
from both the International Department and the Foreign Ministry mandated
the establishment of the Institute of the Far East (Institut Dal 'nego Vostoka)
to engage in studies of contemporary China for direct consumption by the
policy-making community. Nomenklatura-style perquisites and liberal resources drew the best and the brightest sinologists to the endeavor. The Chinese themselves contributed to the development of a secretive and authoritative Zhongnanhai-ology by discontinuing the publication of official statistics
in 1959.35 At the Berlin meeting, when the Director of the Institute of the Far
East wanted to present his numbers, he felt obliged to caution "that we are
;.
33. Gilbert Rozman, AMirror for Socialism:Soviet Criticismsof China (Princeton,NJ:
PrincetonUniv.Press, 1985), 42-43.Rozman'sanalysistracks Sovietviewsof variousChinese
classes/groupsto documentAesopiancommentaryregardingthe possibilityof reformwithinsocialist systems.His introductioncontainsthe best overviewof the SovietChina-watchersin the
1960s-1980s.This grouphas been surprisinglylong-lived,perpetuatingthe viewsto be presented
below.
, 34. SewerynBialer,"The Sino-SovietConflict:The SovietDimension,"in Zagoria,ed., The
Sino-SovietConft'ict,109.
35. Zhongnanhaiis the party leadershipcompoundadjacentto the formerImperialpalaceat
the heart of Beijing. For a map of the Chinese"Kremlin,"seeAndrewNathanand Perry Link,
eds., TheTiananmenPapers (NewYork:PublicAffairs,2001),xxx.

446

forced to conduct studies, researches and various calculations. All these

numbers come out of this [process]. I would like you to keep this in mind. ,36
Clearly, highly-trained, specialist cadres would be required to ferret out and
interpret the data no longer supplied by a paranoid China.
At the same time, new educational opportunities multiplied the sinological
cohort to over a thousand by the end of the 1970s. In a sense, this was the
heyday of Soviet sinology as 1966-68 saw a greatly expanded output of
China-related print materials. With hard currency resources, the Institute of
the Far East could purchase materials worldwide for inclusion in its 'closed'
library. It also monopolized sinological contact with other countries, maintaining, for example, a group membership in the European Association of Sinology until 1978, when individuals were nominated in order to place them
into the governing organs of that body
On the other hand, the enthronement of a budding orthodoxy regarding
China meant diminished opportunities for reform-minded scholars, who had
been closely associated with Khrushchev-era reforms. Nonetheless, Rozman
concludes that: "Indirectly and intermittently, the proponents of this viewpoint kept the de-Stalinization perspective alive until they could articulate it
more fully, if only in a Chinese context, in the post-Mao era. The field of
Chinese studies harbored reform forces, who, while on the defensive through
> the
1970s, preserved a forum fQr reflection and continued analysis of the
problems of socialism."38 Burlatskii's biography of Mao, for example, while
ostensibly uncovering the unhealthy tendencies to which the 1969 Berlin
meeting was devoted, could also be read as an indictment of Stalin or any
other Soviet leader aspiring to "Mao-like" pre-eminence.39
The consolidation of the 1970s left four influential individuals in charge of
and S.
the China field. M. S. Kapitsa,4 O. B. Rakhmanin, M. I. Sladkovskii'
L. Tikhvinskii maintained a firm hold on all studies of China, from the commanding heights of four interlocking institutions. By the early 1980s, Kapitsa
had become director of the Foreign Ministry's Far Eastern Department,
Rakhmanin worked as first deputy director of the International Department,
Sladkovskii oversaw several hundred specialists as director of the Institute of
the Far East, while Tikhvinskii trained diplomats as the president of the So36. SAPMO,356-57.
37. RGANI,f. 4, op. 24, d. 622.
38. Rozman, AMirror forSocialism,45.
39. FedorBurlatsky,The TrueFace of Maoism(Moscow:Novosti,1968).
40. M. S. Kapitsa( 1921- ) From 1970,head of the First Far EasternDepartment(Socialist
countries)of the SovietForeignMinistry.
41. M. I. Sladkovskii(1906- ).AftergraduationfromFar EasternState Universityin Vladivostok,he workedin the Ministryof ForeignTradefrom 1930until 1965. Directorof the Institute of the Far Eastfrom 1966.

447

viet Union's Diplomatic Academy. During the final six years of the Brezhnev
era, this quartet produced over 200 articles and books, providing unerring
semi-official guidance to Soviet sinologists regarding the party line.42 Two of
the sinological "gang of four," Rakhmanin and Sladkovskii, were present in
Berlin for the second meeting of Interkit. As the directors of. China-policy in
the International Department and of the Institute of the Far East, these two
individuals represented the two streams of policy-oriented China-watching
that would be merged into Interkit, shaping elite.and popular perceptions of
the Middle Kingdom throughout the Warsaw pact.43
,
Interkit : Early days
in
Alof
Interkit
took
December
1967
in
Moscow.
The first meeting
place
from
this
the
of
the
Soviet
head
meeting,
though I have no material directly
delegation at the 1969 Berlin gathering, A. M. Rumiantsev, the VicePresident of the USSR Academy of Sciences, reported on the distance covered since the previous meeting. First of all, the CC CPSU approved the
documents generated by the Moscow meeting for "practical work." The
documents were then circulated to the Central Committee, the members of
the Central Control Committee, Soviet diplomats, and the First Secretaries of
the union republics, regional and local party committees. A concrete propaganda plan was drawn up resulting in a series of articles in Kommunist,
printed in 200,000 copies. These, in turn, were consolidated into a brochure
and republished in English, French, German and Spanish by "Novosti" press.
Ten articles were also published in Pravda and Izvestiia.
Rumiantsev then lists the suggestions of various parties to the Moscow
meeting, later implemented by the Russians. The value of non-Russian input
suggests both the Russian delegation's desire to please, and possibly an understanding that Sinology in the Warsaw pact was often strongest beyond the
borders of the USSR. "We are of the opinion," stated Rumiantsev, "that the
publication of documents and articles provided by the fraternal parties about
the Chinese question was and is extremely significant. We consider this form
of coordination and mutual aid in our shared affairs to be most important and
promising." The Germans had suggested the creation of a special center for
the study of China, the Hungarians were credited with emphasis on propaganda radio broadcasts, the Czechs, it seems, had called for a conference of
press and radio representatives, the Bulgarians had called for more scientific
cooperation, the Poles wanted more publication coordination, and the Mon,
golians argued for more joint propaganda.

42. Rozman, AMirror forSocialism,44, 50-51.

43. Actually,the WarsawPact plus Mongolia,Cuba and Vietnam,but minusRomania.

448

Rumiantsev then went on to describe the special cooperative relationship

between the Mongolian comrades and the USSR "in somewhat greater detail,
since that country is a direct neighbor of China and is therefore under extremely strong propagandistic pressure from the Mao Zedong group." It
turned out that every month, the Soviets were providing the Mongolians with
approximately 400 press items for radio broadcasts in Chinese, Mongolian
and Kazakh to influence Chinese citizens and in English for broadcasts to
"Southeast Asia and the Far East." Rumiantsev invoked the special ties with
the Mongolians, since they were the only countries broadcasting propaganda
directly to China. The Soviets themselves were broadcasting 32 hours a day
(total) in a mixture of Mandarin, Cantonese, and Shanghai dialects as well as
Kazakh and Uigur. "We can say with certainty," concluded Rumiantsev, "that
we are driving the truth about Mao Zedong and his policies right through the
[Great] Wall of China. ,44
Rumiantsev then called on the participants to go beyond print and radio to
produce TV movies about China as well. As the Vice President of the Academy of Sciences, Rumiantsev also presented a list of further possibilities for
future shared research and training:
1) A symposium on the key social problems in contemporary China to be
held in the end of 1969, leading to the publication of an article collection;
2) Short-term exchanges of scholars to present papers about contemporary
China;
3) Exchange of young scholars within the socialist sinological community;
4) Provision of information on library collections regarding China and periodic exchange of materials;
5) Acceptance of students from the fraternal countries into sinological language, literature and history programs at Soviet universities.
He then called for a meeting of leaders from sinological institutes in the
summer of 1969 to look at these proposals and exchange information on such
questions as:
1) the possibility of organizing a meeting of Foreign Ministry representatives in 1969;
2) the efforts of the Mao group to promote splits in the Communist
movement;
3) study of the Mao group's efforts in Asia, Africa and Latin America;
4) Organization of a conference on non-capitalist development. 45
These suggestions match closely the "List (Perechen ')
of Measures regarding the Coordination of Propaganda and Research on the Chinese Question," that was attached to the CPSU Central Committee's January 21, 1969
44. SAPMO,296-304..
45. Ibid.,3 10-11.

449

approval of the delegation's trip to Berlin. In fact, the Perechen would be reproduced in a verbatim German translation as part of the final Protocol.46 On
January 31, Lev Deliusin who had served as the chairman of the editorial
committee for the joint statement announced that the whole text had been approved unanimously by the committee which then presented the document to
the full session. Markowski and Rumiantsev quickly stated their full agreement with the text and it was adopted in a burst of applause. Interestingly,
the only change that Rumiantsev suggested (and got) was the removal of the
word "Secret" (Vertraulich) from the first page. In a show of trust, he insisted
that each party should make its own decisions on the document's use, not
limited by the strict rules on the circulation of classified documents. 41
The Soviet document also had the delegation's "Instructions" (Ukazaniia)
attached. General guidance would be provided by the evaluation of the Chinese issue at the April and July 1968 plenums as well as a November 22 Politburo decision. Point Three ordered the Soviet delegation "if possible, to obtain agreement on a set a theses as at Moscow in December 1967, based on
the project worked out by the International Departments of the CC CPSU. if
the delegations from fraternal parties do not consider it possible to work out
joint materials, [the delegation should] not insist, but instead limit 'itself to
agreement on general ideas and evaluations on the key questions of the given
topic.""
Eager to avoid the tensions regarding the appropriate approach to China
that we have seen in discussions among the Warsaw Pact allies throughout
the early 1960s, the Russians listened attentively to reports from the other
countries' delegates, tolerating minor deviance.49 In fact, it was Rumiantsev
who introduced one important novelty by referring to China as "a third
force," admittedly in quotation marks. The call for the study of "noncapitalist development" also implies the existence of "a third way." He would
soon find himself contradicted by the Bulgarian representative, Tellalow,
who denied that China could be anything but an objective aid to imperialism
when it opposed the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, this is the shadow of the nascent Strategic Triangle appearing on the horizon.50
Among the most divergent (and interesting) presentations were those
made by the Polish delegates, Lewandowski and Rowinski. This was the
46. Ibid.,515-17.
47. Ibid.,323-26.Rumiantsevmay also have assumedthat Beijingwouldget the document
,. anyway,so whynot leak it directly?If indeed,Beijingwas awareof the criticismsand coordinations aimed at it during the Berlin meeting,then this conferencemay also have made its' small
contributionto the atmospherein whichthe decisionto fight on the Ussuriwas made.
48. RGANI,f. 4, op. 19,d. 525,11. 29, 107-10.
49. Thiswouldbe lessnecessaryafter the March 1969borderconflict.
50. SAPMO,283, 340.

450

smallest delegation, but clearly commanded great respect. Lewandowski

spoke of the vicious cycle (Teufelkreis) between nationalism and crises, as
the PRC used the latter to provoke the former, which in turn led to more crises. He also compared China to the US in its use of psychological warfare.
Finally, he warned, citing US State Department sources, that US-China relations were really improving, although still at the preparatory stage, and predicted that the Warsaw negotiations would soon be moved elsewhere to avoid
unnecessary visibility."
His colleague Jan Rowinski presented a detailed analysis of the Chinese
press, with emphasis on the internal journal cankao xiaoxi (Reference News),
which in its heyday would become the world's largest circulating daily. In
1969, two and a half million copies were printed every day, mainly for party
members. Rowinski also noted the "differentiated, nuanced" handling of
problems specific to individual socialist countries. Romania, West Germany,
and "the events in Czechoslovakia" are listed among the key objective differences in the socialist camp on which the Chinese try to play. Rumiantsev was
so interested in this report that he asked Rowinski to provide him with the
data on which it was based. 52
Appendices to the 1969 stenogram include lists of the delegates and their
institutional affiliations as well as a twenty-page report "On several matters
pertaining to the international activities of the Mao Zedong group," which
turns out to be a country-by-country analysis of Chinese positions and actions
in the countries of Asia and Africa. Zhou Enlai is cited as calling for a
"worldwide" battle with "modem revisionism," the Chinese ideological longhand for the Soviet bloc. Then, the author runs through a list of cases in Africa and Asia, exposing the dangerous influence of Chinese tactics, such as
forming Maoist grouplets within existing parties leading to schisms, e.g., India, or declaring People's War without consideration for the chances of victory. Indonesia is presented as an example of the latter.
The tragic events of 1965 in Indonesia are still fresh in the memories
of all Communists. The bloody destruction of the Indonesian Communist
Party and the death of hundreds of thousands of Communists are on the
conscience of the Mao Group. And nonetheless Mao and his accomplices
keep pushing the Indonesian communists to actions that not only prevent
their recovery, but instead [will] lead to the final elimination of the Party.
51. Ibid.,288, 292, 303.
52. Ibid., 386-89. Lewandowskiin the chair at the time of Rowinski'sreport spoke of his
pleasureat Rumiantsev'sindirectrecognitionof the strengthof Polishsinology. Rowinski'swas
the onlymentionof the WarsawPact's recentinvasionof Czechoslovakia,
attestingfurtherto the
independenceand statureof the Poles.

451

... Under pressure from Beijing, the survivors of the CC CP Indonesia

gathered several armed units and leading cadres in summer 1968 in eastAs a result, the military operations carried out by the Indoern Java....
nesian military authorities from June to August. resulted in 1500 Communists being arrested or murdered, including all members of the Politburo ... still at liberty.53
.. _
Particular concerns are voiced regarding the susceptibility of intellectuals
and students to the Maoist appeal, but these are domestic groups that the
KGB had already accumulated substantial experience in handling, as the most
likely domestic holders of anti-Soviet attitudes.54 The "comprehensive work"
(umfassende Arbeit) undertaken by the Communist parties "in recent years"
is regarded optimistically as "isolating the Maoists and uncovering their
pseudo-revolutionary demagoguery." Dwelling on the international pretensions of the Maoists, points the way to an all-out, many-faceted global conflict. This would become increasingly important in the 1970s as triangular
Cold War spread virulently throughout the Third World.55
Leonid Brezhnev almost certainly read the results of the 1969 Berlin meeting for his speech to the assembled General Secretaries of the Warsaw Pact in
1972 follows the line traced by Interkit. He condemned the Chinese urge to
split the socialist camp, while designating cooperative science as the appropriate countermeasure.
Now, a bit about Chinese tactics. They are sending telegrams in every
direction. They wish to visit and also receive visits from all over. We
shouldn't be so polite with the Chinese. We are polite and they answer us
with a dirt-throwing campaign. (eine Schmutzkampagne) Certainly, we
should not be silent any longer. Besides, the Chinese have real fear of
science. (grosse Angst vor der wissenschlafticher Arbeit) Every country
can make use of specific groups of ours who know how to make compositions on these issues in which there are no curses, rather the principled
.
illumination of the Chinese position. 56

53. Ibid.,524
54. This analysisalso distancesthe USSRfromthe worldwidedemonstrationsand protestsof
summer/fall1968,events that appear to be consideredas victoriesfor the Maoists,rather than
Moscow.
,
. 55. Ibid.,539. For moreon ColdWar in the Third Worldand its reflectionin Sovietscholarship, see CWIHPBulletin,nos. 8/9 and Jerry Hough,TheStruggle forthe Third World(Washington,DC: BrookingsInstitution,1986).
56. SAPMO,DY 30 J IV 2/201. File 1570August2, 1971 Crimeameetingof the General
Secretaries.

452

Interkit: Continuities and changes

My data on the annual meetings of Interkit are fragmentary, but the archives of Eastern Europe could certainly supplement it. Together with the
comments on China made at the annual Crimea meetings of the General Secretaries, we begin to see the ties between the makers of China's Soviet image
and the formulators of Soviet China policy. In 1970, the meeting moved to
Warsaw and in 1971, the Bulgarians hosted. The 1971 Soviet directives continued to emphasize the risk of the Chinese splitting the socialist camp, by
"giving itself a calm, attractive character ...
using the desire of the fraternal
countries to normalize relations with the PRC to worsen relations among the
fraternal parties." At the same time, the Soviet delegates were instructed to
report to their Interkit comrades that "the Chinese leaders are visibly alarmed
by the effectiveness of the political, economic and other cooperation of the
socialist countries."" In 1971, unlike 1969, foreign policy activities are specifically listed as part of Interkit's role.58
Since Rumiantsev did not attend any of the Interkit meetings in the 1970s,
Rakhmanin assumed leadership of the delegations. He also met with his
counterparts one-on-one during numerous intra-bloc visits. For example, on
February 28, 1973, he met with Hermann Axen in Moscow to discuss Asia
policy. After an interesting overview of Soviet-bloc affairs in Korea, Vietnam
and China, Rakhmanin thanked the Germans for their China research, noting
that the US was preparing hundreds of China specialists a year in over 50 institutions, while the USSR had an output of only fifty scholars annually from
its sole policy-oriented institute, the Institute of the Far East. The implication
is that the USSR would only be able to fight the sinological Cold War with
the aid of its allies.
By 1975, as preparations were being made for the next meeting in Ulaanbaatar, the Soviet position declared that "the battle with Maoism is tightly
tied to the battle against imperialism, since the Maoist leadership of China
has openly taken the position supporting the most reactionary imperialist
is the watershed between Marxist-Leninists and revisionpowers....This
Nonetheless, despite claims that socialism was being ever
ists/renegades."
more deeply undermined in China, the USSR never stated that the PRC was
not socialist. There has been much speculation about why this was so, but
since the International Department was mainly responsible for such key ideological formulations, it had no interest in defining the PRC as being outside
the Department's own coverage of socialist countries.
Shortly after the appearance of Interkit, the Soviets founded an organization to make bloc-wide policy on trade to China. A 1973 meeting in Moscow
57. RGANI,f. 4, op. 19, d. 605, I. 41.
58. Ibid.,f. 4, op. 19, d. 605,1.1. 40.

453

was followed by annual gatherings in Budapest and Berlin. Soviet instructions to the delegation heading to Berlin called both for limitations on military and dual-use technologies as well as for "additional measures to guarantee secrecy."'9
"
,
For the 1980 Interkit meeting, held in Warsaw, Soviet officials were dispatched in advance in order to prepare the conference materials. This suggests the immobility of the institution, still headed by O. B. Rakhmanin,
mandated to coordinate "foreign policy, trade/economic relations, and propaganda." The writing of a final joint report is already described as a "tradition." The only major change in the final years was the inclusion of Cuba and
Vietnam in the group and the clear sense that the Chinese had divided the
'socialist camp' into three sections: North Korea, Romania, and Yugoslavia
in which China tried to develop "nationalistic" efforts; Afghanistan, Cuba,
Kampuchea, Laos, Mongolia and Vietnam under direct propaganda attack by
Beijing; others subject to a combination of Chinese carrots and sticks designed to eventually wean them from the Soviet bottle.6 As the Soviet ID
noted in a 1979 Instruction sent directly to Soviet ambassadors in Berlin,
Warsaw, Budapest, Prague, Sofia, Ulaanbaatar, Havana, Hanoi and Vientiane : "There are cases in which the responsible representatives of fraternal
countries, despite the official position of their parties, try to exclude some
important areas of contact with China from multi-faceted coordination." The
dispatch concluded that "Work on these matters should not be considered as
episodic in nature. ,61
As late as 1982, even Foreign Ministry suggestions that an improvement
in Sino-Soviet relations might be in Moscow's interest were sidelined as
"crazy," with Rakhmanin's grip tightening further in 1984 during the brief
Chemenko interlude. Gorbachev's 1985 appointment of Vadim Medvedev to
head the ID was a turning point, producing tension in the China branch.
Competing visions began to trickle up to the Politburo and Rakhmanin was
finally retired in 1986. Thereafter, perestroika policy shifts towards Afghanistan, Mongolia and Vietnam opened Gorbachev's road to Tiananmen.62
i,
'
.
59. Ibid.,f. 4, op. 22, d. 1601,1.4.
60. Ibid.,f. 4, op. 24, d. 1268,1. 1.
61. Ibid.,f. 4, op. 24, d. 1200,l. 4. Copieswere sent to the Sovietembassiesin Beijing,Pyongyang,PhnomPenh,Bucharest,and Belgrade.
, , 62. An insider's view of perestroika China policy can be found in AlexanderLukin, The
Bear Watchesthe Dragon (Armonk,NY: M.E.Sharpe,2003),149-52.He notesthat: "In the first
half of the 1980s,strong independentviews and often personalcourage ... were requiredto
voice a positive assessmentof the reformsin China, for this clashed with the interestsof the
comdominantanti-Chinalobby."Theseinterestsare identifiedas ties to the "military-industrial
:..
:
plex." (144)

454

Conclusion
The long tenure of Interkit and the relative stability of its organization resulted in a new orthodoxy of anti-Chinese policy that through "multi-faceted
coordination" reversed the era of Sino-Soviet friendship in all fields.63 It is
hard to judge which effects were more deleterious - the limiting of foreign
policy options for leaders by presenting a monolithic image of China or the
poisoning of public opinion by radio, print and television propaganda aimed
at hundreds of millions throughout Eurasia. At the same time, the concentration of Interkit research in the Institute of the Far East took resources away
from interdisciplinary studies of China to focus energies on political and
tradition lost much
ideological tasks. The breadth of the Russian sinological
'
at the hands of Interkit.
As long as Rakhmanin, the sinological "Big Four" and parallel cohorts in
the other Soviet-bloc countries continued to run Interkit, history would remain a special and especially disputed category. Already in 1972, Rakhmanin
and his International Department sidekick B. T. Kulik published their orthodox take on the post-war era Soviet-Chinese Relations, 1945-70 under thinlydisguised pseudonyms.64 Not surprisingly, Interkit tasks often included the
reduction of Chinese history to politically useful results. When the Chinese
imitated the Interkit/Institute of the Far East model by making use of its
< Academy of Science institutes to advance historical claims to territories located inside the Soviet Union, all objectivity was lost. The Soviet scholars
considered the Chinese move natural, although they were disturbed in 1978,
when more qualified Chinese scholars, purged during the Cultural Revolution, returned to work. Rakhmanin's consternation in the face of the Chinese
versions can be sensed in the statement that "At the core, contemporary Chinese historiography ...
by educating the people in the spirit of great power
racism and chauvinism undertakes the psychological preparation of the Chinese population for military adventures .,,65 The appropriate countermeasures
took the form of joint historical research with the Mongolian Academy of

63. The stabilityof the Sovietforeignpolicyworldhas been widelyremarkedupon.Not only

did Ponomarevrun the InternationalDepartmentfromthe 1950suntil 1980s,after workingin the
Cominternsince 1935, but Gromykoheadedthe ForeignMinistryfrom 1957until 1985,while
Ustinovstayedin top militaryposts from 1941until his deathin 1984.NikolaiPatolichev,minisadvised
ter of foreigntrade, held that post from 1958 until 1985,while Aleksandrov-Agentov
Brezhnev,Chernenkoand Andropov.Incomparisonto these, the tenureof Rakhmaninand his
cohortdoesnot seemunusual.
64. O. B. Borisovand B. T. Koloskov,Sovetsko-kitaiskie
otnosheniia,1945-1970(Moscow:
Mysl', 1971 ).Note that the authors' pseudonymicinitialsmatch thoseof O. B. Rakhmaninand
B. T. Kulik.
65. On this, see "0 merakhpo razoblacheniiukitaiskikhfal'sifikatsiiistorii i otporuterritorial'nympritiazaniiamPekinak SSSR,"in RGANI,f. 4, op. 24, d. 694, Il. 2-3.

455

Sciences, reiterating the special role of Mongolia in the Soviet approach to

'
hostile China.
The periodization of the Sino-Soviet split, especially its final stages in the
1960s, also encourages us to rethink the general periodization of the Cold
War. Numerous authors have spoken of a great divide in the.Cold War. John
Lewis Gaddis, for example, treats 1962 as a turning point, for after that "its
outcome was largely determined." Vladislav Zubok and Constantine Pleshakov also focus on 1962 for resolving the Cuban missile crisis (Karibskii
krizis) ended "the most terrifying period in the Cold War," but continue their
analysis until Khrushchev's 1964 ouster to emphasize the importance of generational change implicit in their choice of leadership biographies as narrative
device. Marc Trachtenberg chose 1963 for the signing of the Limited TestBan Treaty in Moscow, not for its role as an arms control treaty, but as "a
whole web of understandings that lay just below the surface .,,66 Similar
claims have been made for the 1960s as a whole as turning point on account
of social turmoil, east and west, let loose by superpower detente.
But although the German issue is the object of Trachtenberg's special interest, he names both Germany and China as the countries to be dealt with by
the seminal treaty. 67 Clearly, a period that is largely described in terms of
"resolution" and "d6tente," when viewed from the US and its archives, is less
so once we factor in the Sino-Soviet rift. Precisely in the period when the
Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon administrations were signing the central documents for cooperation with the Soviets, a new Cold War between Moscow
and Beijing was taking shape. Those who conclude that the US had already
"won" might wish instead to celebrate the respite accorded the US as the
USSR turned its attention to the Eastern front. Just as the Western front in
World War II is considerably better studied than the Eastern one, the same
might be said for the Cold War.
Finally, the extensive appendix on Chinese policy in the Third World attached to the 1969 meeting prefigures the way in which two considerations
prepared the USSR to enter a new, multi-polar phase of the Cold War. First
of all, the idea that a socialist country was not necessarily an ally of the
USSR led to more cautious analyses of all lefhving forces in the Third World.
Secondly, China's increasingly global competition for influence suggested
the possibility of a "third force" in world politics. Jerry Hough has traced the
way in which discussion of the Third World fell silent in 1960-63, as Soviet
officials and academia began to digest the broader implications of "losing
66. John LewisGaddis, WeNowKnow(Oxford:OxfordUniv.Press, 1997),279-80;Zubok
and Pleshakov,Inside the Kremlin's Cold War(Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniv. Press, 1995),
274; MarcTrachtenberg,A ConstructedPeace (Princeton,NJ:PrincetonUniv.Press, 1999), 390.
67. Trachtenberg,A ConstructedPeace, 384.

456

This was followed by authoritative publications suggesting the

"presence of an uncontrolled element - the independent actions of medium
At the present time international political crises
and small powers....
quickly (almost instantly) acquire a universal character and directly or indiThis
rectly drag in all the most important states and military coalitions...."
statement came from a volume co-edited by Evgenii Primakov in 1972.68
From this point of view, his vision of geopolitics evolved towards the multipolarity he practiced as Russia's Foreign Minister and that is still preached by
his proteges on Smolensk square. Although Interkit was terminated in 1989,
close ties between official academics and scholarly officials continue to influence Russian policy in the post-Soviet period. But that is a topic that goes
beyond the scope of this article.

China."

Woodrow Wilson Center

68. Citedin Hough,TheStruggle for theThird World,235.