PART THREE THE DICTATOR
24 VISIT TO THE RED MECCA
After coming to Beijing, Mao initially lived in a country villa, Shuangqing, in the picturesque Fragrant Hills northwest of the city. This district had long served as a place of solitude for many Chinese rulers, who had adorned it with elegant pavilions and pagodas. In the eighteenth century the Manchu emperor Qianlong had transformed it into an astonishingly beautiful park complex. The pure mountain air redolent of pine needles, the light breezes, the swaying of the pine branches, the smooth surface of the blue lakes: all created a peaceful atmosphere.
Mao arrived there in late March 1949, when Beiping was in the grip of sandstorms. The scorching dust, driven by winds from the Mongolian plains, made breathing difficult. But in the Fragrant Hills one could sense the approach of spring. Flowers exuded their fragrance and birds sang. Shuangqing, a one-story villa that got its name (“Double pure springs”) from two mountain springs that flowed nearby, was particularly lovely. In communist circles, for security reasons, Mao's residence soon came to be called the Labor University (laodong daxue) or simply laoda. It is not known who thought up this name, but it was surprisingly suitable to the place. Simply by changing the tone of the word lao, the characters lao and da signify “respected” and “great.” No one deserved this epithet more than the Chairman! But war was still going on, and the location of the head of the CCP was a secret.
At fifty-six Mao was no longer the fit and trim young man with an iron constitution whom Edgar Snow had met in 1936. He had put on weight, become rather heavy, and slowed down. He began to cut his hair short. He suffered increasingly from insomnia and frequently caught colds. For many years he had had angioneurosis, a functional disorder of enervation of the blood vessels that often caused sweating and hot flashes as well as headaches and dizziness, lumbago, and neuropathy in his joints, fingers, and toes. He became irritable and lost self-control. When his illness flared up he complained to his relatives and doctors, “I have the feeling that I'm walking on cotton.”1 Sometimes while walking he would suddenly lose coordination. He would begin waving his arms about as if he were clutching at the air. At these times it seemed to him that he had “lost the earth,” as if the ground had gone out from under his legs.2
He continued to work hard—fifteen to sixteen hours a day—but he grew more and more tired. He never changed the daily regimen he had begun many years earlier. He slept till two or three in the afternoon, in the evenings he held meetings, and then he read and wrote till morning. He chain-smoked, about three packs a day, preferring American Chesterfields, British 555s, and Chinese Red Star.
Growing older, he became ever more attached to the young and energetic Jiang Qing, who was not only a passionate lover but also an exacting secretary and housekeeper. She looked after his health and daily regimen, his schedule of visitors, his clothes, diet, and walks. Even during the dances that he and she both adored, and which Mao continued to arrange on a regular basis, she steered young girls to him. Unlike Zizhen she was more savvy than jealous. “Sex is engaging in the first rounds, but what sustains interest in [a man] in the long run is power,” she said later to her biographer.3 During her absences, Mao simply could not manage on his own. Being separated from his wife was very distressing. Contact with his younger son, Anqing, and his eldest daughter, Jiaojiao, to whom, it will be recalled, he had given the new name of Li Min, did not help. These children came to live with him shortly after Jiang Qing and Li Na's departure. Ivan Kovalev brought them from Manchuria.n54
Mao's meeting with his children was quite warm.
“Comrade Mao Zedong, here are your beloved children,” Kovalev said to Mao, tugging at the timid Anqing and Jiaojiao.
“Come closer, children, this is your father, Chairman Mao,” said one of the attending officials.
“I raised my head and saw someone I didn't know at all,” recalled Li Min. “He was dressed in a loose-fitting gray tunic and simple black cloth slippers. He was so ordinary and simple, not at all like the Leader.” Li Min writes that the meeting was very affectionate. Mao put his face to hers and began to kiss her, but she laughed because she couldn't understand his Chinese, especially his Hunanese accent.
Soon, however, there was a certain cooling off between them. It started when Li Min, strolling through the park once with her father, asked, “Papa, won't Jiang Qing beat me?” Mao was dumbstruck; he looked at his daughter with a strange expression on his face and for a long time did not reply. “Stepmothers often beat their stepchildren,” Li Min continued.4
Jiang Qing did not beat her, but Jiang Qing never developed close, family relations with Mao's children from his previous marriages. They did not want to call her “Mama,” and Jiang Qing felt they were unfriendly toward her. She paid them back in kind. She was unable to conceal her feelings toward Li Min even from the young American Roxane Witke, who had come to Beijing to write Jiang Qing's biography. “Li Min,” Jiang Qing said to Witke, “did not grow up to be ‘quick in action' [i.e., ‘prompt to act'].” What she had in mind, however, remains unclear.5
Mao had no time to delve into the nuances of family relations. He simply took Jiang Qing's side. The result was that he spent most of his free time playing with his youngest daughter, Li Na. He treated the children of his previous two wives almost indifferently, although he kept them in his household.6
In September 1949, he finally moved downtown with them and members of the leadership into the old imperial palace complex Zhongnanhai (Central and southern seas), surrounded by a brick wall and adjoining the western side of the Forbidden City. He settled into the so-called Pavilion of Chrysanthemum Fragrance, in the Garden of Abundant Reservoirs. Li Min described it:
The Garden of Abundant Reservoirs was a traditional rectangular courtyard (siheyuan) with buildings around the perimeter and ancient cypresses in the center. From north to south and east to west the courtyard was bisected by two small paths, dividing the lawn into four equal quadrants. It was very quiet and peaceful in this beautiful courtyard. The plan of the courtyard had been precisely symmetrical. On the north side in the center was the drawing-room, and there were rooms to the left and right. Jiang Qing occupied one of them, and the other was for father. The rooms on the north side were high and spacious. In father's room were a large bed, a divan, easy chairs, bookcases, and a writing desk. There were also three rooms in the east wing. In the middle was a living room that also served as a dining room. In this room there was a coat rack for guests' and father's clothes. At one end of the structure was a study and at the other end a reception room. On the south side was a foyer in the middle and on either side Kolya's (Anqing's) room and my sister Li Na's room. On the west side of the pavilion, the central room had an entrance onto the street; one of the corner rooms first served as Jiang Qing's reception room, and then as our playroom where we spent our free time and played Ping-Pong. In the other corner room was father's library.7
Mao spent most of his time in his enormous bedroom. Lying on his spacious wooden bed, with books scattered about, he read a lot, worked on documents, and even received members of the Politburo, including his first deputy, Liu Shaoqi, and Zhou Enlai, who from the establishment of the PRC had served as the premier of the State Administrative Council, the highest organ of executive power. In that room Mao decided the fate of the country during the years of New Democracy and of socialist construction, during the Great Leap Forward with its dreadful consequences, and in the period of terrible crisis in the early 1960s, right up to the so-called Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Mao lived in the Pavilion of Chrysanthemum Fragrance until August 1966 when he moved to another building called the Swimming Pool Pavilion. (In the code words of the secret service, he, his family, and his closest associates were known as Group I.)8
It was there during the first months of the new government that he defined the main direction for the development of the PRC, a plan for creating a Stalinist state. Although during the first three years after the revolutionary victory the PRC formally remained a New Democratic republic and officially did not copy the Stalinist model of economic and political development, China maintained particularly close relations with the Soviet Union and its satellites, fiercely opposed imperialism, and took an active part in the armed conflict with United Nations forces in Korea during the war from 1950 to 1953. Behind the fa ade of New Democracy a very harsh communist order was being put into place modeled on the USSR. The only kind of socialism Mao knew was that laid out in The History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Short Course. He looked upon Stalin as his teacher and the Soviet Union, which inspired fear throughout the world, as a model to imitate. This is why he tried to implant Stalinism in his country, understanding full well that this sociopolitical system meant strictly centralized and hierarchical totalitarian control by the Communist Party, an unlimited, nationwide cult of the party leader, all-encompassing control of the political and intellectual life of the citizens by the security organs, nationalization of private property, strict centralized planning, priority development for heavy industry, and enormous expenditures on national defense.
The Stalinization of the PRC, however, was constrained by the Soviet Union's ambivalent policy toward China from 1949 to 1953. With the establishment of the PRC, Stalin became more fearful of the emergence of a powerful industrialized China that might threaten his hegemony, and his maniacal suspiciousness concerning Mao Zedong and, in general, all Chinese, grew. “Stalin was suspicious of us, he placed a question mark over us,” Mao Zedong recalled later.9 He clearly grasped that the Kremlin dictator did not want to allow the CCP to build socialism, at least not until the USSR itself had become so strong that it would have nothing to fear from socialist rivals.
From the outside it seemed that Stalin was scrupulously following the canons of Marxism, according to which how long it would take to reach socialism depended upon the level of socioeconomic development of any particular country that had a revolution. Thus states that were economically less developed than Russia would have to traverse a longer path to socialism than the Soviet Union. The transitional period in such countries would be like the Soviet New Economic Policy (NEP) of the 1920s, a transitional stage to full-fledged socialism.
Finally, Stalin invited Mao Zedong to Moscow, graciously allowing Mao to come and tender him congratulations on the seventieth anniversary of the birth of the “Father of Peoples.”10 Stalin, who personally controlled the USSR's China policy, treated the visit of the Chinese leader very seriously.11 On the eve of Mao's visit in December 1949, he again requested information about the “cave Marxist.” This time, by a happy coincidence, along with negative reports he received positive information from Andrei Orlov, Mao's physician. “His attitude toward the Soviet Union is very good,” Orlov reported on December 10. “This has an enormous influence on the entire communist party…… The role of the Soviet Union and of Comrade Stalin himself with regard to the victory of the Chinese revolution and the victory of the Chinese people are especially valued…… Now Mao Zedong places all his hopes upon the USSR, the CPSU, and, especially, on Comrade Stalin.”
Even these dispatches could not entirely quiet Stalin's fear, since it was not in Stalin's character to trust his informants. Orlov also noted that Mao was extremely cautious and quick to take offense, as well as a great actor. “He is able to conceal his feelings, and play the role that is his; he talks about this with intimates (sometimes with well-known persons) and laughingly asks whether he has pulled it off well.”12 Was “this actor” deceiving Comrade Stalin?
On December 1, the Soviet Politburo adopted “A Plan Concerning the Arrival, Sojourn, and Send-off of the Chinese Government Delegation.” Attention was paid to even the slightest details. A special train was arranged for the border station of Otpor consisting of a saloon car for Mao Zedong; one for the people accompanying him; one for the Soviet ambassador to China, Nikolai Roshchin; a car for Stalin's representative in China, Ivan Kovalev, and his retinue; two international cars; one soft sleeper; and one dining car. The Politburo assigned the Ministry of State Security (MGB) of the USSR and Minister Viktor Abakumov personally the responsibility for arrangements for feeding the arriving guests and their security personnel on the way from and to the border. The MGB was also given responsibility for housing Mao Zedong and his entourage in Moscow in a private house at No. 8 Ostrovskii Street. Moreover, the suburban dacha Zarech'e, where Jiang Qing had lived just recently, was also put at Mao's disposal.13
Anatolii Lavrent'ev, the deputy foreign minister of the USSR, and Fedor Matveev, chief of the Protocol Division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, were assigned to greet the delegation on the border at Otpor station. Initially it was decided that Mao Zedong would be met at the Yaroslav Station in Moscow by the deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, Nikolai Bulganin; Foreign Affairs Minister Andrei Vyshinsky; Armed Forces Minister Aleksandr Vasilevskii; as well as high-ranking officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of the Armed Forces.14 At the last minute, however, Stalin decided to upgrade the level of the reception. He also sent Vyacheslav Molotov, who was now first deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, to the station.
Mao Zedong likewise made preparations for meeting the Great Teacher. He was very nervous. Various thoughts, including the most far-fetched, bounced around in his head. Sometimes he thought an attempt would be made on his life in Moscow, and several times he asked Kovalev what measures were being taken to provide for his security. He wanted very much to see Stalin, congratulate him on his seventieth birthday, and present him with the many gifts that he had personally selected. He intended to spend a lot of time with him as well as to meet with Molotov and the Soviet Communist Party Secretary Andrei Zhdanov. He also wanted to rest and receive medical treatment. Above all, he counted on concluding a Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance between the PRC and the Soviet Union and receiving a loan of US $300 million. He brought with him a small working group of officials headed by Chen Boda and including one other secretary, Ye Zilong; his chief bodyguard, Wang Dongxing; bodyguard Li Jiaji; and interpreter Shi Zhe, who had lived for many years in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s and knew Russia well. Kovalev suggested including Anying, who knew Russian very well, in the group as an interpreter, but Mao refused.15 He was still unable to forgive his eldest son for his disrespectful behavior in Xibaipo despite the fact that he had formally forgiven the “mutineer” and even welcomed him and his young wife to Zhongnanhai every Saturday. (Anying had married in 1949; Liu Shaoqi had served as matchmaker.)16
Mao left Beijing in early December accompanied by Ambassadors Roshchin and Kovalev. The latter recalled: “The PLA provided a stepped-up guard along the entire rail route from Beijing to the Soviet border. On both sides of the railroad right-of-way, facing outwards at a distance of 50 meters from each other and from the right-of-way …… in a continuous chain from Beijing to Otpor Station were soldiers bearing automatic weapons.”17 Such a guard was not unwarranted. Notwithstanding the heightened security measures, a grenade, bombs, and other explosives were discovered at the Tianjin station.18
At noon on December 16, Mao Zedong's train, decorated with the flags of the USSR and the PRC, pulled in to Yaroslavl Station. It was cold, and the reception came off as excessively dry and formalistic. Those greeting him obviously did not know how to act. Should they embrace and kiss Mao or should they limit themselves to simple handshakes? Mao was confused and insulted. Appearing on the platform, he turned to Molotov and the other Soviet government officials and said, “Dear comrades and friends!”19 But he experienced no warmth in return. Everyone was constrained; the weather reflected the meeting: the hard frost stung at one's cheeks, and a sharp wind was blowing. The ceremony had to be curtailed because of the cold.20
That same evening he was received by Stalin in Moscow at 6 P.M. The reception was brief but remarkable. After initially speaking of the “prospects for peace” in the world, Stalin talked about what was troubling him most, namely, New Democracy and its relationship to socialism. He clearly emphasized that “the Chinese Communists must take the national bourgeoisie into consideration.” He also tried to soften Mao's harsh position toward the Western world, pointing out that “there is no need for you [the Chinese] to create conflicts with the British…… The main point is not to rush and to avoid conflicts.” Mao had to reassure Stalin that they would not touch the national bourgeoisie and foreign enterprises “so far.”21
Afterward, he languished for four and a half days at the suburban dacha. Stalin did not invite him anymore, and Mao did not know what to think. Molotov, Bulganin, Mikoyan, and Vyshinsky paid him courtesy calls, but these meetings did not satisfy him. They were brief and merely according to official protocol. The behavior of his Soviet hosts betrayed a certain mistrust, a strange caution. “They [Molotov and the others] came for a short time, and sat on the edge of their chairs,” Kovalev recalled later. “Moreover, whenever Mao suggested that they chifan [dine], they courteously refused and left. This also insulted and offended him.”22
On December 21, Stalin's birthday, when Mao had to go to the Bolshoi Theater for the celebration, he became terribly agitated. He even needed to down several doses of atropine to keep his head from spinning. He felt even worse just before he delivered a brief speech praising the “Great Leader and Teacher.” The only thing that calmed Mao and gave him at least some reassurance was that Stalin seated him on his immediate right. He took little pleasure from the reception and dinner, however. Unlike Stalin's entourage, Mao drank little and he found Russian food uninspiring.
What really devastated him was that after the banquet he was escorted back to his dacha and did not see Stalin for the next thirty days. During this time he visited the Moscow automobile factory and went to Leningrad, where he paid a visit to the cruiser Aurora and the Hermitage museum, and viewed a large number of Soviet films on historical themes. He also went to see Kremlin doctors. Three days before New Year's he developed a toothache. Mao never cleaned his teeth, considering it sufficient to rinse them with green tea, which is why even though his teeth were even they had an obvious greenish tint and almost all of them were riddled with cavities. He also went to a dermatologist. His wrists had itched for a long time, and in spots they were covered in rashes. But his main reason for seeking medical assistance was his angioneurosis, for which the doctors could do little. They advised him to stop smoking, get body massages, take pine-needle baths at night, take vitamin B1, take regular walks outdoors, periodically undergo a course of Pantokrin injections,n55 and eat regularly and often.23
The consultative committee that examined the patient on January 2, 1950, came to the following conclusion:
The patient displays moderately expressed generalized arteriosclerosis; predominantly affected are the blood vessels in the brain and the arteries supplying the heart. Because of this the patient periodically and suddenly experiences vascular interferences in the brain that are expressed in a sensation of general weakness and instability in the legs. The stated vascular interferences sometimes last for several hours.
The lungs have moderately manifested emphysema with residual evidence of the inflammation of the lungs and pleura experienced in 1948.24
Mao was furious about wasting so much time. Of course, what exasperated him most of all were not the physicians, but rather Stalin's ignoring him. “You invited me to Moscow and you do nothing. Why have I come?” he asked Kovalev angrily. “Why have I come here to spend whole days just eating, sleeping, and defecating?” He tried calling Stalin but was told that Stalin was not at home and that he should see Mikoyan. “I was insulted by all of this,” Mao recalled, “and I decided to do nothing else but just sit it out at the dacha.” He was offered excursions around the country, but he “sharply refused this suggestion,” replying that he would prefer to “catch up on his sleep at the dacha.”25 Taking for granted that there were listening devices in his residence,26 he blurted out anything that was on his mind.27
“Denied any meetings with Stalin, Mao was very nervous, and in a rage he uttered sharply critical statements about his sojourn in Moscow,” Kovalev recalled later.
More than once he emphasized that he had come not only as a head of state, but as the chairman of the CCP in order to strengthen the ties between two fraternal parties. But this was not what was happening. He was just sitting alone with nothing to do. Nobody phoned him, nobody came to visit or, if they did, they stayed only briefly on protocol calls. Once he asserted that he would give up his earlier plan for a three-month visit, and that he intended to return to China very soon, leaving to Zhou Enlai, whom he had already summoned to Moscow, the job of drawing up and signing the treaty and other Soviet-Chinese documents. It was my job to inform Stalin, sometimes in writing, about Mao's moods as expressed in these declarations of his.
Stalin did nothing to correct the situation. Finally, Mao said to Kovalev, “I simply can't stand it anymore; I'm in such a state that I can no longer control myself.” He locked himself in his bedroom and would let no one in. In Kovalev's words, he “was very afraid that his trip to Moscow would produce no results. This would confirm the truth of those who had opposed his making the trip, and would lower his authority in the eyes of the Chinese people.”28
Stalin was deliberately doing things his way. He wanted to humiliate Mao, teach him a lesson for the future, bring him down a notch. He was telling Mao in effect, I am everything here. I am the Great Leader of the world communist movement and you are nothing, you are my wretched pupil, and you will do what I tell you to do. Stalin behaved this way not only with Mao, but with all the other communist leaders, although he overdid it with respect to the Chairman. “Probably, we went too far,” he finally observed to Kovalev when the latter next reported to him on Mao's mood.
Only then did negotiations resume on the highest level. Stalin again invited Mao to the Kremlin, and then called him to his nearby dacha in Kuntsevo. But these meetings did not bring Mao peace of mind. Stalin remained reserved and on guard, and said little. “Occasionally he threw sideways glances at his guest from afar,” recalled Stalin's interpreter Nikolai Fedorenko. “The room where the conversations took place …… reminded one of a stage where a demonic play was being presented.”29 None of this escaped Mao's attention, but what oppressed him most was Stalin's openly imperialist policy toward China. In the words of Mao's personal interpreter Shi Zhe, he sensed Stalin's “pan-Russianism” very clearly, since Stalin expressed it “even more strongly than the Russian people in general.”30 Mao found particularly insulting Stalin's refusal to conclude an official intergovernmental treaty with him, because Stalin felt that his existing treaty with the Guomindang regime was adequate.31 This latter treaty, it will be recalled, was an unequal treaty that disfavored the Chinese side and was very advantageous for the USSR. Stalin changed his position and agreed to conclude a Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Aid only after he learned of Great Britain's decision to recognize the PRC at the beginning of January 1950. But this historic document was not signed until February 14. Mao was now satisfied, but still he could not restrain himself from registering his “surprise” at Stalin's decision. “But changing this agreement goes against the decisions of the Yalta Conference?!” he noted, not without malice, reminding Stalin of the very argument Stalin himself had used to object to signing a treaty with the PRC. “True, it does,” Stalin replied, “and to hell with it!”32
The joy of the Chinese communists at the signing of this treaty was clouded by Stalin's unmistakable desire to control not only Mao's political course of action, but also the economy of New China. Additional secret protocols were appended to the treaty that revealed Stalin's real intentions. The first of these afforded the USSR a number of privileges in Northeast China and Xinjiang. All non-Soviet foreigners were removed from these territories. Stalin even wanted to conclude separate commercial agreements with these border regions to strengthen Soviet control over them, but he encountered determined resistance from Mao and Zhou Enlai, who had come to Moscow at Mao's request on January 20.33 Two additional agreements aimed at creating four joint enterprises on Chinese territory to secure Soviet interests in exploiting Chinese economic resources. These were the so-called joint Soviet-Chinese stock companies, two of which were in Xinjiang for rare and nonferrous metals and for petroleum, and two others in Dalian for civil aviation and ship repair and construction. The Soviet side owned 50 percent of the capital investment, received 50 percent of profits, and exercised overall leadership.34
The Chinese communists were also dismayed by the new agreement that Stalin imposed upon them concerning the Chinese Changchun Railroad. Mao and Zhou had thought to establish a commission to run the railroad in which the posts of chairman and director would be filled by Chinese. They had also hoped to change the proportion of the shares of capital that each side invested, and increase the Chinese share to 51 percent. Stalin and Molotov rejected these proposals, insisting on parity, with both partners sharing equally both in investment and management.35 In connection with the new agreement on the Chinese Changchun Railroad,n56 Lüshun, and Dalian, Soviet control over the railroad and the naval base in Lüshun was preserved until the end of 1952.36 The status of Dalian was to be determined after the signing of a peace treaty with Japan.37
The more Stalin intervened in Chinese affairs, the greater his appetite grew, as did his mistrust of Mao. Stalin's successor Nikita Khrushchev said that after meetings with Mao, Stalin “was never ecstatic” and referred to Mao in a not very complimentary fashion. “You could feel a kind of haughty attitude on his part toward Mao,” Khrushchev noted.38 On one occasion, the Kremlin boss even tried to provoke Mao Zedong by saying, whether as a joke or seriously, that “in China communism is nationalistic, and that although Mao Zedong was a communist, he was inclined toward nationalism.” Stalin also said that there was a danger that a “Chinese Tito” might emerge. According to Mao, he replied to Stalin curtly, “Everything that was said just now does not conform to reality.”39 He obviously did not understand that Stalin possessed, in the words of the Soviet novelist Konstantin Simonov, a “semi-inscrutable sense of humor that could be dangerous for his interlocutor.”40 Trying to dispel Stalin's doubts, Mao asked Stalin to send a “Soviet comrade” to China to review and edit his works.41 Mao really wanted Stalin to send one of his trusted confidants to China to see with his own eyes just how scrupulously Marxist the Chinese communists were.42
After concluding the treaty and agreements, Mao and Zhou departed from Moscow on February 17. Once again the businesslike and focused Molotov escorted them to the station, but this time Mao was very formal, although he still insisted on calling his Soviet hosts “comrades and friends.” Prior to entering the railroad car, he declared, “On departing from the Great Socialist capital, we sincerely express our heartfelt gratitude to Generalissimo Stalin, to the Soviet government and the Soviet people. Long live the eternal friendship and eternal cooperation between China and the Soviet Union!”43 But Stalin's mistrust and greed weighed upon him. He could not sleep, felt terrible, and became very nervous and extremely irritable.44
Stalin actually did send a well-known Soviet expert in Marxist philosophy, academician Pavel Yudin, to China in the spring of 1950 to verify Mao's credentials. Yudin was charged with undertaking an “accurate and tactically correct” editing of a new edition of Mao's Selected Works that was supposed to come out shortly in Russian and Chinese. An earlier Chinese edition that had not been vetted by Soviet specialists had been published in Harbin in 1949 and then translated and published in Moscow.
Yudin sojourned in China for two years, and during this time made five hundred notes on Mao's works, but all of these were private in character. In his words, he “did not uncover …… any serious anti-Marxist or anti-Leninist propositions” in Mao Zedong's articles and books.45 Upon his return, Yudin was summoned to a meeting of the Politburo, at which Stalin questioned him closely: “Well, are they Marxists?” (Stalin put particular stress on the last word.) Yudin replied, “They are Marxists, Comrade Stalin!”46 After this, according to Yudin, “the Master-in-Chief” summed up, “This is good! We can relax. They grew up themselves without our help.”47 We do not know whether Stalin really set his mind at ease, but shortly thereafter Mao Zedong again demonstrated his loyalty to the Kremlin chief.
1 See “Vypiska iz materiala vkh. no. 8497 ot 10 dekabria 1949 g. (Doklad t. Terebina, nakhodivshegosia v Kitae v kachestve vracha pri rukovodstve TsK KPK s 1942 po 1949 g.)” (Excerpts from Material Incoming No. 8497, December 10, 1949 [Report of Comrade Terebin Assigned to China as Physician Attached to the Leadership of the CC CCP from 1942 Through 1949]), 72.
2 See Kartunova, Vstrechi v Moskve s Tsian Tsin, zhenoi Mao Tszeduna (Meetings in Moscow with Jiang Qing, Mao Zedong's wife), 127.
3 Witke, Comrade Chiang Ch'ing, 449.
4 Li, Moi otets Mao Tszedun (My Father Mao Zedong), 29, 30, 32, 33.
5 Witke, Comrade Chiang Ch'ing, 166.
6 See “Vypiska iz materiala vkh. no. 8497 ot 10 dekabria 1949 g. (Doklad t. Terebina, nakhodivshegosia v Kitae v kachestve vracha pri rukovodstve TsK KPK s 1942 po 1949 g.)” (Excerpts from Material Incoming No. 8497, December 10, 1949 [Report of Comrade Terebin Assigned to China as Physician Attached to the Leadership of the CC CCP from 1942 Through 1949]), 71.
7 Li, Moi otets Mao Tszedun (My Father Mao Zedong), 38.
8 See Li, Zhenshide Mao Zedong, 750–56; Li, The Private Life of Chairman Mao, 66.
9 Quoted from O. B. Rakhmanin, “Vzaimnootnosheniia mezhdu I. V. Stalinym i Mao Tszedunom glazami ochevidtsa” (Relations Between J. V. Stalin and Mao Zedong Through the Eyes of an Eyewitness), Novaia i noveishaia istoriia (Modern and contemporary history), no. 1 (1998): 85.
10 See “Zapis' besedy tovarishcha Stalina I. V. s predsedatelem Tsentral'nogo narodnogo pravitel'stva Kitaiskoi Narodnoi Respubliki Mao Tsze-dunom 16 dekabria 1949 g.” (Record of the Conversation Between Comrade J. V. Stalin and the Chairman of the Central People's Government of the Chinese People's Republic Mao Zedong, December 16, 1949), 9–17; “Zapis' besedy I. V. Stalina s Predsedatelem Tsentral'nogo narodnogo pravitel'stva Kitaiskoi Narodnoi Respubliki Mao Tsze-dunom 22 ianvaria 1950 g.” (Record of Conversation Between J. V. Stalin and the Chairman of the Central People's Government of the Chinese People's Republic Mao Zedong, January 22, 1950), 29–38; CWIHP Bulletin, nos. 6–7 (1995/1996): 5–19.
11 I. V. Kovalev, “Dialog Stalina s Mao Tszedunom” (Stalin's Dialogue with Mao Zedong), Problemy Dal'nego Vostoka (Far Eastern affairs), no. 6 (1991): 84.
12 “Vypiska iz materiala vkh no. 8497 ot 10 dekabria 1949 g. (Doklad t. Terebina, nakhodivshegosia v Kitae v kachestve vracha pri rukovodstve TsK KPK s 1942 po 1949 g.)” (Excerpt from Material Incoming No. 8497, December 10, 1949 [Report of Comrade Terebin Assigned to China as Physician Attached to the Leadership of the CC CCP from 1942 Through 1949]), 69–70; Lichnoe delo Mao Tszeduna (Personal File of Mao Zedong), RGASPI, collection 495, inventory 225, file 71, vol. 3, sheet 289.
13 See RGASPI, collection 17, inventory 162, file 41, sheets 50–51; file 42, sheet 163.
14 Ibid., collection 17, inventory 162, file 42, sheet 163.
15 See I. V. Kovalev, “Rossiia i Kitai (s missiei v Kitae)” (Russia and China [My Mission to China]), Duel' (Duel), February 25, 1997.
16 See Lichnoe delo Mao Anina (Yun Fu) (Personal File of Mao Anying [Yong Fu]), 31; Ma, Hongse diyi jiazu (The First Red Family), 141–43.
17 Kovalev, “Rossiia i Kitai (s missiei v Kitae)” (Russia and China [My Mission to China]), Duel' (Duel), February 25, 1997.
18 See “Zapiska I. V. Kovaleva ot 24 dekabria 1949 g.,” Novaia i noveishaia istoriia (Modern and contemporary history), no. 1 (1998): 139; Shi Zhe and Shi Qiulang, Wode yisheng—She Zhe zishu (My Life—She Zhe's Reminiscences) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 2002), 323.
19 Pravda (Truth), December 17, 1949.
20 See I. V. Kovalev, “Rossiia i Kitai (s missiei v Kitae)” (Russia and China [My Mission to China]), Duel' (Duel), March 25, 1997; K. I. Krutikov, Na kitaiskom napravleniu: Iz vospominanii diplomata (Pointed Toward China: A Diplomat's Reminiscences) (Moscow: IDV RAN, 2003), 123.
21 CWIHP Bulletin, nos. 6–7 (1995/1996): 5, 6.
22 Kovalev, “Rossiia i Kitai (s missiei v Kitae)” (Russia and China [My Mission to China]), Duel' (Duel), March 25, 1997.
23 See Lichnoe delo Mao Tszeduna (Personal File of Mao Zedong), RGASPI, collection 495, inventory 225, file 71, vol. 1, sheets 180–84.
24 Ibid., sheets 182 reverse–183.
25 “Mao Tszedun o kitaiskoi politike Kominterna i Stalina” (Mao Zedong on the China Policy of the Comintern and Stalin), 106; Mao, Mao Zedong on Diplomacy (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1998), 253.
26 Several years later, in conversation with Mao Zedong, Khrushchev confirmed that Stalin did eavesdrop on him. “Yes…… He had bugged us as well, he even bugged himself. Once, when I was on vacation with him, he admitted that he mistrusted himself. I am good-for-nothing, he said, I mistrust myself.” Zubok, “The Mao-Khrushchev Conversations” (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1998), 255.
27 See Vereshchagin, V starom i novom Kitae (In Old and New China), 124; see also Wang Dongxing, Wang Dongxing riji (Diary of Wang Dongxing) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1993), 156–212.
28 Kovalev, “Rossiia i Kitai (s missiei v Kitae)” (Russia and China [My Mission to China]), Duel' (Duel), March 25, 1997.
29 N. T. Fedorenko, “Stalin i Mao: Besedy v Moskve” (Stalin and Mao: Conversations in Moscow), Problemy Dal'nego Vostoka (Far Eastern affairs), no. 1 (1989): 152, 156.
30 Shi, Zai lishi juren shenbian (At the Side of History's Giants), 446–47.
31 See “Zapis' besedy tovarishcha Stalina I. V. s Predsedatelem Tsentral'nogo narodnogo pravitel'stva Kitaiskoi Narodnoi Respubliki Mao Tsze-dunom 16 dekabria 1949 g.” (Report on Comrade J. V. Stalin's Conversation with the Chairman of the Central People's Government of the Chinese People's Republic Mao Zedong, December 16, 1949), 9–17; CWIHP Bulletin, nos. 6–7 (1995/1996): 5–7.
32 CWIHP Bulletin, nos. 6–7 (1995/1996), 8. See also “Zapis' besedy I. V. Stalina s Predsedatelem Tsentral'nogo narodnogo pravitel'stva Kitaiskoi Narodnoi Respubliki Mao Tszedunom 22 ianvaria 1950 g.” (Record of J. V. Stalin's Conversation with the Chairman of the Central People's Government of the Chinese People's Republic Mao Zedong, January 22, 1950), 32.
33 See CWIHP Bulletin, nos. 6–7 (1995/1996), 9; “Zapis' besedy I. V. Stalina s Predsedatelem Tsentral'nogo narodnogo pravitel'stva Kitaiskoi Narodnoi Respubliki Mao Tsze-dunom 22 ianvaria 1950 g.” (Record of J. V. Stalin's conversation with the Chairman of the Central People's Government of the Chinese People's Republic Mao Zedong, January 22, 1950), 37.
34 See RGASPI, collection 17, inventory 17, file 1080, sheets 65, 252; inventory 163, file 1595, sheets 115, 116; file 1607, sheets 70, 71; Kurdiukov, Sovetsko-kitaiskie otnosheniia (Soviet-Chinese Relations), 227–29; G. Ganshin and T. Zazerskaia, “Ukhaby na doroge ‘bratskoi druzhby' ” (Potholes on the Road of “Fraternal Friendship”), Problemy Dal'nego Vostoka (Far Eastern affairs), no. 6 (1994): 67–72; Shu Guang Zhang, “Sino-Soviet Economic Cooperation,” in Westad, Brothers in Arms, 198; Li Ping and Ma Zhisun, eds., Zhou Enlai nianpu (1949–1976) (Chronological Biography of Zhou Enlai [1949–1976]), vol. 1 (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1997), 22–25.
35 See “Zapis' besedy I. V. Stalina s Predsedatelem Tsentral'nogo narodnogo pravitel'stva Kitaiskoi Narodnoi Respubliki Mao Tsze-dunom 22 ianvaria 1950 g.” (Memorandum of Conversation between J. V. Stalin and the Chairman of the Central People's Government of the Chinese People's Republic Mao Zedong, January 22, 1950), 34–35; CWIHP Bulletin, nos. 6–7 (1995/1996): 8–9. See also Mao Zedong's January 25, 1950, telegram to Liu Shaoqi concerning the Soviet-Chinese negotiations and drafts of various documents in CWIHP Bulletin, nos. 8–9 (1996/1997): 235.
36 See RGASPI, collection 17, inventory 3, file 1080, sheets 61, 192–242.
37 See ibid., 82, 260, 261; Kurdiukov, Sovetsko-kitaiskie otnosheniia (Soviet-Chinese Relations), 221–22.
38 Khrushchev, Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev, vol. 3, 412, 414.
39 Quoted from B. T. Kulik, Sovetsko-kitaiskii raskol: Prichiny i posledstviia (The Sino-Soviet Split: Causes and Consequences) (Moscow: IDV RAN, 2000), 31, 32.
40 Konstantin Simonov, Istorii tiazhelaia voda (The Heavy Water of History) (Moscow: Vagris, 2005), 382.
41 See “Zapis' besedy tovarishcha Stalina I. V. s Predsedatelem Tsentral'nogo narodnogo pravitel'stva Kitaiskoi Narodnoi Respubliki Mao Tsze-dunom 16 dekabria 1949 g.” (Memorandum of Conversation between Comrade J. V. Stalin and the Chairman of the Central People's Government of the Chinese People's Republic Mao Zedong, December 16, 1949), 34; CWIHP Bulletin, nos. 6–7 (1995/1996): 7.
42 See “Record of Conversation: Mao Zedong and Soviet Ambassador to China Pavel Yudin, July 22, 1958,” in Westad, Brothers in Arms, 350.
43 Pravda (Truth), February 18, 1950.
44 “Tekst besedy lechashchego vracha Mao Tszeduna L. I. Mel'nikova s poslom V. N. Roshchinym o sostoianii zdorov'ia Mao Tszeduna. 15 iyunia 1950 g.” (Text of Conversation Between Dr. L. I. Mel'nikov, Physician in Charge of Mao Zedong's Treatment, and Ambassador N. V. Roshchin About Mao Zedong's Health, June 15, 1950), RGASPI, collection 495, inventory 225, file 71, vol. 1, sheets 187–187 reverse.
45 Lichnoe delo Mao Tszeduna (Personal File of Mao Zedong), RGASPI, collection 495, inventory 225, file 71, vol. 1, sheets 54, 55. See also Shi Zhe and Li Haiwen, Zhongsu guanxi jianzheng lu (Notes of an Eyewitness to Sino-Soviet Relations) (Beijing: Dangdai Zhongguo chubanshe, 2005), 89–98; N. Fedorenko, “Kak academik P. F. Yudin redaktiroval Mao Tszeduna” (How Academician P. F. Yudin Edited Mao Zedong), Problemy Dal'nego Vostoka (Far Eastern affairs), no. 6 (1992): 75.
46 Quoted from Vereshchagin, V starom i novom Kitae (In Old and New China), 75.
47 “Mao Tszedun o kitaiskoi politike Kominterna i Stalina” (Mao Zedong on the China Policy of the Comintern and of Stalin), 106–7.
n54 In her reminiscences, Li Min writes that it was the special plenipotentiary of the Soviet Union, Pavel Yudin; however, Yudin did not come to China until 1950. Stalin’s special representative in China in 1949 was Kovalev.
n55 A medicine made from Siberian stag antlers.
n56 On March 22, 1950, the Politburo of the CPSU approved the draft by the Soviet Council of Ministers, “On Securing Joint Administration of the Chinese Changchun Railroad.”