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Khrushchev's Attack on Albania and Sino-Soviet Relations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Extract

Albania's defiance of the Kremlin, which goes back to 1956, but became “especially distinct” in the middle of 1960 according to Khrushchev himself, could scarcely have endured so long if China had not given the Balkan country considerable political and economic support. Khrushchev's open attack on the Albanian Party leadership at the 22nd Party Congress in October 1961 was, of course, an attack on the Chinese Communist leadership as well. Khrushchev made his principal target plain enough when he said in his opening speech that the course laid down by the Russians at the 20th Congress in 1956 would not be changed because they could not yield on a question of principle “either to the Albanian leaders or to anyone else.” No one in the Communist world could have any doubts about who the “anyone else” was after Chinese Premier Chou En-lai had failed to applaud Khrushchev's attack on the Albanians, implicitly condemned it two days later, and abruptly returned home before the Congress had concluded. Moreover, less than twenty-four hours after the Soviet leader's attack on Albania, the Chinese Communists made public a speech delivered several days earlier by a Chinese delegate to the fifth congress of the Women's Union of Albania in Tirana; she pointedly noted that “the friendship between the Chinese and Albanian peoples, based on the principles of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism, is unbreakable and no force can destroy it.”

Type
Recent Developments
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1961

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References

1 The text of Khrushchev's Central Committee report was broadcast by the Moscow Radio Home Service on 10 18, 1961.Google Scholar

2 The text of Chou En-lai's speech was released by NCNA on 10 19, 1961Google Scholar. He said: “We hold that if a dispute or difference unfortunately arises between fraternal parties or fraternal countries, it should be resolved patiently in the spirit of proletarian internationalism and on the principles of equality and unanimity through consultation. Any public, one-sided censure of any fraternal party does not help unity and is not helpful in resolving problems.”

3 New York Times, 10 19, 1961.Google Scholar

4 Moscow Radio Home Service, 10 24, 1961.Google Scholar

5 NCNA, 10 24, 1961.Google Scholar

6 Speech of T'ao Chu at the political economy class of the Kwangtung CCP Provincial Committee on March 30, 1960, as published in the Canton Nan-fang Jih-pao on 05 13, 1960Google Scholar, Survey of the China Mainland Press (SCMP) (Hong Kong: U.S. Consulate-General), No. 2287, 06 29, 1960, p. 16.Google Scholar

7 Crankshaw, Edward, “The Moscow-Peking Clash Exposed,” Observer, London, 02 12, 1961.Google Scholar

8 When Khrushchev and Malenkov flew to Warsaw in the hectic days after Gomulka came to power in 1956, for example, they took with them Molotov and Kaganovich, who represented a hard line on intra-bloc relations.

9 In the early stages of the Laotian crisis, there were indications of differences over the relative priorities to be assigned to negotiations and a cease-fire. The Russians did, but the Chinese did not seem willing to accede to the Western demand that a cease-fire precede negotiations. More recently, there have been indications of a Chinese reluctance to agree to an integration of Pathet Lao with Laotian Government troops.

10 For Chinese attacks on Yugoslavia which were quite inconsonant with the relatively softer Soviet line, see “Yugoslav Agriculture on the Capitalist Road,” Peking Review, No. 23, 06 9, 1961, pp. 1013Google Scholar, and “The Tito Clique's ‘Self-Management of Enterprises’,” Peking Review, No. 29, 07 21, 1961, pp. 1114.Google Scholar

11 Almost immediately after the 1960 Moscow Conference, at which there was a violent argument between Albanian Party leader Hoxha and Khrushchev, the Chinese moved to strengthen political, economic, and cultural ties with the Albanians. For an excellent account of the Peking-Tirana-Moscow tug-of-war, see Griffith, William E., “An International Communism?” East Europe, 07 1961.Google Scholar

12 Even Khrushchev's militant speech on the twentieth anniversary of the German invasion of the USSR, widely broadcast by Moscow Radio on June 21, was not enough for Peking. A People's Daily editorial on June 28 praised that speech and then went on to add criticism of the U.S. administration that went far beyond Khrushchev. At the Twenty-second Congress itself, Khrushchev and other Soviet speakers suggested that the West was now coming to its senses on Berlin while Chou warned against the “deceptive” Kennedy administration which was “decorating itself with olive branches.” NCNA, 10 19, 1961.Google Scholar

13 It is true that the Russians began to stiffen their une toward the national bourgeoisie immediately following the Moscow conference. There were direct attacks in Soviet journals on the governments of India, Burma, Indonesia, Pakistan, the UAR, the Sudan, and other countries for pursuing domestic policies that retarded social progress. The accusation was made that the national bourgeoise in some countries had saved the landowning class from liquidation from below, that it sought to isolate the workers from the peasant movement, and that its attitude towards foreign capital was inconsistent. For a good round-up of this material, see “Renewed Attacks on the National Bourgeoisie,” Bulletin of the Institute for the Study of the USSR, VIII (08 1961). pp. 39Google Scholar. Nevertheless, throughout 1961 Peking published long theoretical articles on the “democratic” revolution in China whose purpose was manifestly to suggest (1) that the Chinese revolutionary model, and not Khrushchev's imaginary one, was valid for revolution in the underdeveloped areas, (2) that the Communist Party and the proletariat must engage in armed struggle as a means of forcing the national bourgeoisie into a “patriotic” front, (3) that prolonged cooperation with the weak and vacillating national bourgeoisie would prove to be disastrous, and (4) that only the Communist Party could lead the “democratic” revolution, i.e., the stage before the socialist revolution, to a successful conclusion. See, for example, “The Distinction and Link-up Between the Two Stages of the Chinese Revolution,” Red Flag, 01 1Google Scholar, in Peking Review, 01 20, 1961, pp. 918Google Scholar; “The Peasant Question in the Democratic Revolution,” Red Flag, 03 1Google Scholar, in Peking Review, 03 31, 1961, pp. 513Google Scholar; “The Role of the United Front in the Chinese Revolution,” Red Flag, 06 1, 1961Google Scholar, published serially in Peking Review, 06 9, 1961, pp. 1316 and June 16, 1961, pp. 17–21Google Scholar; “The Chinese People's Democratic United Front,” Red Flag, published serially in Peking Review, 08 18, 1961, pp. 1115, August 25, 1961, pp. 12–18, and September 1, 1961, pp. 10–14Google Scholar. The Russians, for all the toughening of their line, continued to take the view, expressed in the Party programme, that the national bourgeoisie could make further progress.

14 See particularly “The Thought of Mao Tse-tung Opens the Way for the Development of China's Science of History,” by T'o, Teng, Selections from China Mainland Magazines (Hong Kong: U.S. Consulate-General), No. 264, 06 5, 1961, pp. 114Google Scholar, in which Chinese historians are urged to abolish European-centred historiography and put more emphasis on the “several thousand year old” history of China. Historians were also told in this article that blind observance of foreign rules must be abolished, that Marxism-Leninism must be made to assume Chinese features, and that the thought of Mao represents “the key to the gate of the science of history.”

15 “Preface to ‘Stories About not being Afraid of Ghosts’,” Peking Review, 03 10, 1961, p. 7.Google Scholar

16 Vice-Chairman Tung Pi-wu, speaking at a meeting held to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the 1911 revolution, suggested that this revolution failed because it was led by the Chinese national bourgeoisie and went on to say: “As everyone knows, in the epoch of imperialism, there is no country in which the national and democratic revolution can achieve complete victory under the leadership of the bourgeoisie; neither the plan for a bourgeois republic nor that for any other form of bourgeois-state can enable these countries to embark on the road of completely independent development. In the present epoch, only under the leadership of the proletariat, and by obtaining the help of the socialist countries, will it be possible for any country to win complete victory in its national and democratic revolution.…” (Emphasis supplied.)

17 Red Flag, 07 1, 1961.Google Scholar

18 NCNA, 09 12, 1961, emphasis added.Google Scholar

19 For text of the Draft Programme, see New York Times, 08 1, 1961.Google Scholar

20 Tass 10 27, 1961.Google Scholar

21 According to NCNA of November 17, an Albanian economic and trade delegation arrived in Peking on that date to hold talks on economic co-operation for 1962.

22 People's Daily of 11 16Google Scholar carried on three and a half pages the full text of Hoxha's speech of November 7. The delay suggests some deliberation within the Chinese party prior to publication. The fact that the speech, unpublished elsewhere in the Communist bloc, was published in Peking represents a significant step and is about the most provocative action Peking could take short of openly attacking Moscow itself.

23 The Russians and the other East European bloc countries apparently pulled out their technicians from Albania in 1961. An AP correspondent who made a three-week tour of Albania reported that the deported bloc experts were being replaced by Chinese. The East Germans were reported to have received an order to leave by August 31 even if it meant breaking contracts. The same report said that not one tourist from any Soviet-bloc nation had come to spend a vacation on the Adriatic coast since mid–June. Security restrictions were at a maximum and the Albanians apparently fearful of a Soviet attack or a Soviet staged uprising. See New York Times, 10 22, 1961.Google Scholar

24 See Griffith, op. cit.

25 See East Europe, 04 1961, p. 3.Google Scholar

26 At the Twenty-second Congress, Ulbricht suggested that Albania had taken unspecified actions not in keeping with its Warsaw Pact obligations.

27 Moscow Radio Home Service, 11 1, 1961.Google Scholar

28 The Albanian issue was not mentioned in the Congress speeches of Furtseva, Podgorny, Shvernik and Voronov. Moreover, some of the speakers' criticisms of the Albanians were weaker in tone than those of others.

29 Moscow Radio Home Service, 10 27, 1961.Google Scholar

30 Moscow Radio Home Service, 10 21, 1961.Google Scholar

31 Tass, 10 26, 1961.Google Scholar

32 Tass, 10 27, 1961Google Scholar. In the same context, Khrushchev referred to “some people” who accuse us of contradicting Lenin's appraisal of imperialism.

33 “A Timely Warning to War Plotters,” Peking Review, 09 8, 1961Google Scholar

34 “China Fully Supports the Warsaw Treaty Countries' Stand on the German Question,” Peking Review, 08 18, 1961.Google Scholar

35 Moscow Radio Home Service, 07 4, 1961.Google Scholar

36 Tass, 07 10, 1961.Google Scholar

37 Peking Review, 07 21, 1961, p. 7.Google Scholar

38 A spot check of the foreign delegates' speeches in Pravda as of October 28 shows that all the European parties attacked Albania; of the representatives from the Middle East and North Africa, the Algerian delegate was the only one noted who did not mention Albania, but even he declared “our full and unconditional agreement” with the policy of the CPSU; in Asia, all the Party spokesmen whose speeches were available, with the exception of the Ceylonese, refrained from mentioning Albania; in Latin America, all nine parties whose speeches were available, including Cuba, condemned the Albanians. There were varying degrees of intensity in the attacks against Albania and some delegates tempered their remarks with strong pleas for unity.

39 In the autumn of 1960, shortly before the Moscow conference, Chinese Communist articles warned that efforts to isolate them would not prove successful. This seemed to indicate serious concern over Khrushchev's attempts to line up the Asian bloc parties on his side. Shortly before the conference, Khrushchev announced his intention to fly to North Korea but subsequently he abandoned the trip. One likely explanation is that it became clear to him that he had no chance of getting North Korean support for a final showdown with Peking.