Air University Review, January-February 1968

Myth of the Monolith

Major Nicholas P. Vaslef

The nearly 300-year-old history of Sino-Russian relations has seldom been marked by cordiality. At best, these relations were characterized by the desire of both countries to establish a modus vivendi with respect to numerous territorial questions; at worst, they were beset by problems of ideology and nationalism that threatened to disrupt the military and political status quo. With the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the Communist bloc, led by the Soviet Union, was successful in building up an image of the Communist World as an invincible monolith stretching from Eastern Europe across the vast expanse of Asia to the People's Republic of China.

The exposure of the Sino-Soviet rift to Western eyes has turned that monolithic image into a myth. It is this myth of the monolith that serves as the underlying theme for the scholarly and readable anthology, Sino-Soviet Military Relations,* edited by Raymond L. Garthoff. Dr. Garthoff is Special Assistant for Soviet Bloc Politico-Military Affairs in the U.S. Department of State. He also teaches at the School for Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University and is the author of several military studies, including Soviet Military Doctrine, Soviet Strategy in the Nuclear Age, and Soviet Military Policy.

* Raymond L. Garthoff ( ed.), Sino-Soviet Military Relations (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1966, $7.50), xii and 285 pp.

The volume consists of ten essays by eight authors. Dr. Garthoff contributes a concise Introduction and three articles: "The Soviet Intervention in Manchuria, 1945—46," "Sino-Soviet Military Relations, 1945-66," and "Politico-Military Issues in the Sino-Soviet Debate, 1963-65." The other essays consider such topics as "Armed Conflict in the Chinese Borderlands, 1917-50," by O. Edmund Clubb; "Soviet Military Aid to Nationalist China, 1923-41," by James C. Bowden, Jr.; "The Eruption of Sino-Soviet Politico-Military Problems, 1957-60," by Harold P. Ford; "The Limits of Alliance: The Quemoy Crisis of 1958," by John R. Thomas; "The Sino-Soviet Nuclear Dialogue: 1963," by Alice Langley Hsieh; "The Soviet Generals' View of China in the 1960's," by J. Malcolm Mackintosh; and "Sino-Soviet War in 19xx?" by O. Ferdinand Miksche.

Many of these articles overlap in subject matter, but they provide, in their totality, a chronological and detailed examination and analysis of their respective subjects. Although they emphasize military relations, they do not ignore the overriding political considerations and decisions leading to the military aspects of Sino-Soviet relations. A recurring theme is that Sino-Soviet military relations were never free of mutual mistrust, that the U.S.S.R. gave grudging aid to its huge but impotent Communist neighbor, and that China resented more and more its dependence on the aid being doled out by the U.S.S.R. The impression is that the Sino-Soviet treaties of friendship and alliance of 1945 and 1950 were military and political expedients not unlike those signed during World War II between various Western countries and the U.S.S.R., notwithstanding the possibility that at war's end the Soviet Union could well turn upon its erstwhile allies with impunity.

The Introduction of this volume briefly traces the high points of Sino-Soviet relations since the Treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689 and investigates the "decade of American misunderstanding of the nature of Russo-Chinese relations." (p. 5) Now that the Sino-Soviet rift is out in the open for all to see, the time has come when "it is both possible and necessary to recognize, to analyze, to understand, and to act on the basis of national distinctions and differences among the Communist states—above all, on the differences between the Soviet Union and Communist China." (p. 6) This, then, is the purpose of the studies in this anthology: an analysis of the role of military and politico-military considerations in Sino-Soviet relations.

O. Edmund Clubb, retired Foreign Service Officer, who was the Consul General in Peking when the Chinese Communists took the Forbidden City and is author of the well-known Twentieth Century China, analyzes conditions in northern China and Manchuria after the Russian Revolution, as well as the conflicting White Russian, Chinese, and Japanese interests in these areas, and discusses anti-Bolshevik factions in Siberia, the Allied intervention, and the creation of the Soviet Far Eastern Republic. He contends that the present status of Outer Mongolia as an independent country was due to China's weakness and failure to protect it, and he concludes that China lost it by default. (p. 16) Mao Tse-tung and others have, of course, stated on several occasions that Outer Mongolia would eventually become an integral part of China, and while the status quo has been preserved until now, there is no doubt that the Chinese consider Outer Mongolia to be territoria irredenta.

After the abortive efforts of the Soviet Union to establish footholds in China by signing treaties with various factions, relations deteriorated and by 1929 were at low ebb, with Soviet and Chinese nationalist armies facing each other on the Amur and Sungari rivers. The results were to affect the United States in the Far East more than a decade later, for the Japanese had witnessed the quick defeat of the Chinese troops and saw that the U.S.S.R., not China, was their prime adversary in the Far East.

In July 1937 the Sino-Japanese War began, opening the way for a new era of friendship and cooperation between the U.S.S.R. and the Chinese Nationalists. Combining his personal knowledge with information not easily accessible to the general reader, Mr. Clubb describes the confrontations of the three major powers in Asia, assesses the military strengths of the Chinese, Japanese, and Soviet forces, recounts the Japanese forays into Soviet territory, and analyzes the political implications affecting the major world powers. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the rapid turn of events leading to the start of World War II crushed Japanese designs on Soviet territory. The subsequent signing of the Soviet-Japanese nonaggression pact of April 1941 "permitted each to pursue its own national ends unhindered by the other." (p. 40)

In the first years after the war the Chinese Communists began to win control of mainland China, and Moscow was anxious to establish relations with the new Central People's Government. By 1950 the situation had stabilized, but only temporarily, for now it was the Chinese who looked "across their frontiers with the idea of reincorporating the Mongolian People's Republic into the Chinese empire, and of making good various claims on the Russian borderlands. . . . The Chinese borderlands have clearly taken on a new aspect, and will never be the same again." (p. 43)

Lieutenant Colonel James C. Bowden, Jr., U.S. Army, covers the crucial period between the wars. He has included numerous facts, some major and some relatively minor, but did not expand sufficiently on two points that are of great significance: the Borodin mission to China and the establishment of the Whampoa Military Academy under Chiang Kai-shek. These two events were very important for the Chinese Nationalists, since they heralded the real beginning of the unified and united Kuomintang Army and defined its relationship with the Soviet (Borodin) mission. Too, the disputes of the Soviet Union and the Comintern on matters of military aid to China should have received at least a cursory mention.

When in 1927 Chiang Kai-shek purged the Kuomintang of all Communists, Soviet advisers left China, all Soviet consulates were closed, and relations between the Soviet Union and the Kuomintang Nationalist government were severed. At this point, an interesting comment is made, which very possibly identifies the first seeds of dissension between the Russian and Chinese Communists:

By 1937 the situation had reversed itself, and a nonaggression pact and a barter agreement for weapons were signed. American efforts to aid the Chinese unofficially in their war against Japan with the famous Flying Tigers were indeed meager, if Soviet reports are to be believed. A Soviet military historian is quoted as stating that by 1940 "986 Japanese planes were destroyed. More than 100 Soviet hero-pilots. . . were killed in these battles." (pp. 54-55) The U.S.S.R. supplied over one thousand aircraft to China by 1940, and two thousand Soviet pilots had rotated through the air units.

The author believes that at the same time Soviet aid to the Chinese Communists was greatly limited, in keeping with the Russian policy of playing the two Chinese factions against one another in the hope of maintaining a weak and disunited China. In fact, however, the substantial aid to the Chinese Nationalists, with virtually none going to the Communists, makes it rather evident that the U.S.S.R. was favoring the Nationalists only because it had no hopes for the success of Mao Tse-tung's forces. It should also be noted that in 1940 the U.S.S.R. itself was not in a very strong military position, having undergone purges of its top military leadership and frantically sued for time on its western frontiers. Its immediate purpose, then, was to create a strong Nationalist China that could hold off Japan. Its long-range goal, in this case diametrically opposed to the immediate one, was to look after its traditional national interests and to promote Communist ideology insofar as the two did not contradict one another.

Dr. Garthoff's two chapters on the postwar years are excellent for authoritative information on the Soviet Far Eastern campaign and its aftermath, liberally footnoted from official U.S., Soviet, and Japanese sources.

The immediate postwar stage of the Soviet occupation of Manchuria involved the systematic looting and dismantling of Manchurian plants, factories, and other hardware left there by the Japanese. Coupled with this project was one that was not as clear-cut or as well understood, involving Soviet aid to both the Chinese Nationalist army and Mao Tse-tung's rapidly growing Communist forces. The author believes that the Russians "had initially overestimated the strength of the National Government, and underestimated that of the Communists." (p.77) If there was any initial vacillation on the part of the U.S.S.R. after World War II, by the middle of 1947 the Soviets clearly saw that the Nationalists were being defeated. Continuing their play of one faction against the other, the Soviets in January 1948 offered to act as mediators in the civil war. Dr. Garthoff questions the Soviet Union's intent in this offer, wondering if its real purpose was to have an impotent neighbor on its eastern frontier. This is, perhaps, wishful thinking on his part, as there is nothing to indicate that this was the Soviet rationale. Indeed, there was no reason for the U.S.S.R. not to act as mediator: the United States, which was seeking peace in China through a number of missions, would have been satisfied; the U.S.S.R. expected to obtain major concessions from the Nationalists for the Chinese Communists, including prime government and military positions; the Kremlin did not anticipate any difficulties with the Chinese Communists in obeying orders from Moscow; and Stalin counted on the Chinese Communists to carry out a coup d'état after a short period of coalition government with the Nationalists. In short, there was every reason to believe that China would become a satellite on the eastern frontier of the U.S.S.R. just as a number of countries had become Soviet puppets on its western borders.

On Valentine's Day, 1950, the U.S.S.R. and the People's Republic of China signed a Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance. The honeymoon of the two Communist giants did not last long, and initial vows of eternal friendship were soon replaced by mutual disillusion and mistrust. History has yet to give a final evaluation of the events in China from 1945 to the present, but without key Soviet and Chinese Communist documents, a complete analysis of Soviet intents and actions is obviously impossible. Reading through these chapters, however, one gains a clearer concept of the Sino-Soviet rift and detects Soviet duplicity in dealings with the two Chinas. For example, the case of the U.S.S.R. "handing over" Manchuria to Mao Tse-tung is countered by Dr. Garthoff, who points out that "if that were the case, why destroy the major part of the great Mukden arsenals which could have given the Chinese Communists the wherewithal to fight?" (p. 83 ) On the other hand, there is no denying that the Chinese Communists reaped the majority of the benefits derived from Soviet occupation, including not only captured Japanese arms and artillery but also the first tanks and aircraft to come into the possession of Mao's forces. Too, it has been generally assumed that both China and the Soviet Union fully supported North Korea during the Korean War without bickering over costs or policy. Dr. Garthoff, however, reveals that the Chinese Communists had to pay for all the Soviet aid, which amounted to some two billion dollars in the years between 1950 and 1957, and it was not until 1965 that the Chinese finally paid off the debt.

The Soviet looting of Manchuria, the Korean War, the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1956) at which Khrushchev denounced Stalin, and Russian refusal to cooperate in the development of a Chinese atom bomb-all apparently made the Chinese doubt the basic solidity of Sino-Soviet relations. Consequently, ties between the two countries began to dissolve slowly, for the most part unnoticed by Western eyes, while the presses of both Communist nations still paid lip service to the Communist monolith.

In April 1960, Sino-Soviet disagreements were finally brought out into the open by the Chinese. Thereafter the situation deteriorated rapidly with the withdrawal of virtually all 1300 Soviet economic and military advisers and technicians. Dr. Garthoff concludes his chapter with an analysis of Chinese-Soviet relations in 1965 and 1966, stating that since 1960 "there has been almost no Sino-Soviet military relationship." (p. 94) At the time the article was written (late 1966) this may have been true, but a new phase of Sino-Soviet cooperation relative to Vietnam apparently began in the spring of 1967.

A detailed account of the beginning of the open rift is given by Harold P. Ford. Quoted are numerous Chinese sources on the importance of modern military training, including the use of nuclear weapons, and on the proposed new training program that collapsed because of Soviet reluctance to cooperate. Increasingly vitriolic Chinese attacks on Soviet foreign policy, especially in regard to the U.S.S.R.'s halfhearted backing of Chinese claims to the offshore islands and Taiwan, show the new Chinese attitude toward the Soviet Union.

The rift is further examined by John R. Thomas in his chapter on Quemoy. The day-by-day summary of this crisis reveals the almost casual attitude of the U.S.S.R. toward a problem that the Chinese Communists considered most vital to their national interests. The now famous official Chinese Government Statement of 1 September 1963, in which the Chinese scorned Soviet claims of support during the Quemoy crisis, is quoted in full in the appendix.

Alice Langley Hsieh, Far Eastern expert with the Foreign Service and the RAND Corporation, provides a narration on the increasing hostility between the U.S.S.R. and China and an analysis of Mao Tse-tung's futile attempts to acquire the atom bomb from the U.S.S.R. She discusses Khrushchev's reminder to the Chinese in 1962 "that the United States was a paper tiger with atomic teeth" (p. 151) and the gradually worsening Sino-Soviet relations which grew even more frigid with the Chinese denunciation of the partial nuclear test ban agreement.

The author analyzes the problem of Chinese possession of nuclear weapons in three vital points: (1) the proliferation of nuclear weapons; (2) China's need to possess an independent defense potential; and (3) the alternative of reliance on the Soviet Union's nuclear deterrent. (p. 160)

The Russians had previously tried to assure the Chinese that, with Soviet help, China need not develop its own nuclear weapons but should instead concentrate on strengthening her domestic economy. Having experienced Soviet reluctance in other instances, Foreign Minister Chen Yi categorically stated that Soviet assurances were worthless (p. 163), and the Chinese went ahead with their nuclear program. Since this chapter was written (December 1963), the Chinese have produced both an A-bomb and an H-bomb (detonated in June 1967). Their next steps are to accumulate a stockpile and develop an effective delivery system. Meanwhile, the possibility of even a partial nuclear ban treaty with China seems remote.

Raymond Garthoff's next contribution is based on an October 1963 article in the Soviet journal Voennaya mysl’ (Military Thought) entitled, "The Peking Version of 'Total Strategy,'" by a Soviet politico-military affairs expert. This journal was marked "For Generals, Admirals, and Officers of the Soviet Army and Navy Only," and the articles published therein are allegedly much more frank than those found in open sources. Basically, the Soviet article is an attack against the Chinese claim that their military science is based on Marxist principles, and it introduces historical "evidence" to support its argument. Concerning that article, Garthoff writes:

Internal pressures and shortcomings are said to contribute to Chinese "petty bourgeois" and "anarchist" views on revolution everywhere. The Chinese callous indifference to what would be the enormous sacrifices of nuclear war is also said to contribute. . . . On the basis of this Chinese readiness for nuclear war which the Russians dialectically interpret as desire for nuclear war, the Military Thought article goes so far as specifically to accuse the Chinese Communist leaders of supporting genocide. (p. 175)

With respect to Chinese military science, the Soviet article concludes that

-the Chinese view on military science is "pure adventurism";

-the view of the West as a "paper tiger" is illogical and erroneous;

-the result of a protracted military conflict would be defeat, not victory;

-the adventurist "total" strategy of the Peking style is pregnant with indescribable calamities for all peoples, including the Chinese people. (p. 175)

The Soviet article further points out that the Chinese "consider that world thermonuclear war is inevitable and [are attempting) to hurry it along. . . they evidently suppose that the Chinese people will have the best chance since they are the most populous people on the earth." (p. 176) The Soviet position is, predictably, peaceful coexistence on all planes with the eventual collapse of the capitalist system of its own weight.

Now that the rift has pushed ideology aside and nationalism and Realpolitik are in the ascendancy, it may well be that this Soviet appraisal of Chinese politico-military policies is rather honest. At the same time, being cognizant of rapid Soviet policy shifts, we should accept it not as a new, definitive, and "permanent" Soviet line but rather as the present Soviet view which is meant, at least in part, to answer the numerous Chinese charges of collusion with the U.S., fear of the West, and revisionism of the basic concepts of Marxism. 

J. Malcolm Mackintosh, British expert on Soviet military affairs and author of many articles as well as the book Strategy and Tactics of Soviet Foreign Policy, discusses the Sino-Soviet frontier and the problems of defense faced by the Soviet Union. He makes some calculated guesses on what the Soviet General Staff is likely to recommend in terms of manpower and firepower, in the army, navy, and air forces, and considers the problems of logistical supply, in view of the great distances involved, and the limited capability of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Sinkiang Province and Mongolia are mentioned as potential trouble spots, as are numerous undemarcated areas stretching from the Soviet Maritime Province to Soviet Central Asia. His conclusion that the U.S.S.R. and the West may "find some unexpected common ground" based on mutual distrust of Red China (p. 192) is similar to a view which is currently being expounded by the Red Chinese and which is putatively finding sympathy among leaders in Western countries and in the Soviet Union.

The last contribution to this volume, "Sino-Soviet War in 19xx?" by Lieutenant Colonel O. Ferdinand Miksche (Retired), is a rather speculative piece of writing, even though it is based on "some of the fundamental underlying geopolitical and strategic factors" (p. 193) that would allegedly contribute to any such war between China and Russia. The argument for a possible Sino-Soviet war centers around the Chinese need for Lebensraum and the impossibility of feeding the rapidly increasing Chinese population. The author discusses the potential aggression of China in all directions, citing the advantages and disadvantages of each area as to natural and agricultural resources, and the expected opposition to such expansion by the U.S.S.R., U.S.A., and the countries directly involved. Aside from geopolitical and economic considerations, the entire chapter is too "iffy." It is a well-known weakness of Kremlinologists and China-watchers to engage in speculation, and certainly there is room for speculation in a field in which relatively little is known from open sources. Yet this chapter is misplaced in a work that is otherwise scholarly and well documented.

The Volume contains extensive notes, an index, and appendices giving the full texts of two Sino-Soviet treaties (1945 and 1950) and related documents, the complete Soviet article on "The Peking Version of 'Total Strategy,'" and the "Chinese Government Statement on Sino-Soviet Politico-Military Relations."

Since publication of Sino-Soviet Military Relations in December 1966, China's relations with the U.S.S.R. have further deteriorated, and the internal Chinese struggles—the outcomes of which will undoubtedly affect relations with the U.S.S.R.—are not yet resolved. The most recent events, however, do not outdate the book. One possibly new aspect involves Soviet aid to North Vietnam. The Peking Review of 10 March 1967 (p. 25) carries a violent attack against the U.S.S.R. in an article entitled "New Disciples of Goebbels" by "Renmin Ribao," commentator. References are made to a Soviet bulletin which allegedly disseminated

This same article (p. 33) defends the Chinese by stating that they have always transported all material through China and warns that "such rum ours and calumny will only make people see more clearly to what low depths this group of Soviet revisionist renegades have sunk. No good awaits them."

It is difficult to assess the degree of Chinese harassment, but there was apparently some truth in the Soviet charge. Last spring, though, according to several sources, including the U.S. News and World Report ("New Turn in Vietnam—A 'Deal' Between Russia and China," 24 April 1967, pp. 42-43), the Russians and the Chinese have concluded a "deal" whereby "free and complete passage of Soviet military equipment across China to North Vietnam" is assured. In the article one U.S. official was quoted as saying:

If this report is true, a new phase in Sino-Soviet military relations has begun, which has yet to be confirmed, defined, and evaluated. 

Whether or not the United States of America accords some degree of diplomatic recognition to Red China is in itself irrelevant. What must be recognized is the fact of China's existence as a potential major nuclear power in the next decade. Soviet relations with Red China will most certainly have a strong bearing on U.S. policies in the Far East and, of course, with the U.S.S.R. itself.

The Sino-Soviet rift has exposed the many fissures of the mythical monolith, and Dr. Garthoff has compiled an excellent anthology isolating the important military aspects of Sino-Soviet relations. It is a work that should not pass unnoticed by military observers interested in keeping current on the decisive events in that troubled part of the world.

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