26 THE CONTRADICTIONS OF NEW DEMOCRACY
Mao wanted China to develop rapidly into a modern socialist country. But in the early years of the PRC, Stalin's suspicious nature, urge to dominate, and dogmatism combined to limit his provision of Soviet aid to China. Even had he really wanted to do more, the war-devastated Soviet economy would have prevented him from substantially increasing assistance to the PRC. The available documents indicate, however, that political rather than economic reasons motivated Stalin to limit aid to the PRC. The reminiscences of Konstantin Koval, Soviet deputy minister of foreign trade, concerning Stalin's negotiations with Zhou Enlai in August–September 1952 are eloquent in this regard.1 Stalin ignored Zhou when the latter suggested, “You will help us to build a socialist China, and we will help you to build a communist Soviet Union.”2 Stalin likewise disapproved of China's efforts to draft a five-year plan for 1951–55, deeming it unrealistic.3 The financial aid he provided the People's Republic, judging from the agreement signed on February 14, 1950, was US $300 million in credits over a five-year period at a favorable annual interest rate of 1 percent.4 It is true that this is the amount Mao requested, supposing it “better for us to borrow less than to borrow more at present and for several years.”5 Yet Stalin did not offer any more and during the Korean War the Chinese were forced to apply the loan to buy Soviet arms. Naturally, they considered this unfair since the loan had initially been intended to help with domestic economic problems, and the Chinese believed they were fulfilling their “internationalist duty” in Korea.6
By the time of Stalin's death on March 5, 1953, the Soviet government had formally approved only 50 of the 147 industrial projects that Beijing had proposed,7 and it had been in no hurry to fulfill these obligations.8 Stalin rebuffed all Chinese requests to accelerate the pace of assistance, consistently advising the leaders of the CCP not to force the pace of modernization. At a meeting with Zhou Enlai on September 3, 1952, to discuss the proposed Five-Year Plan, Stalin expressed dissatisfaction with the Chinese desire to establish an annual 20 percent industrial growth rate. He could not agree since, according to official statistics, the Soviet economy during the First Five-Year Plan had grown at only 18.5 percent per annum.n58 For competitive reasons Stalin advised Zhou to lower the overall rate of growth to 15 percent and agreed to consider the 20 percent limit for annual plans only as a propaganda slogan.9 In early February 1953, Mikhail Saburov, chairman of the State Planning Committee of the USSR, sent Li Fuchun, deputy chairman of the PRC Financial-Economic Commission, who was in Moscow at the time, a set of comments by Soviet experts on the PRC's draft Five-Year Plan. Following Stalin's precepts, Saburov advised the Chinese comrades to set an even lower rate of industrial growth of between 13.5 and 15 percent.10 The State Administrative Council of the PRC was forced to agree.11 Ultimately, the figure for the annual industrial growth rate was set at 14.7 percent.12
Stalin's meeting with Liu Shaoqi, a member of the Politburo and deputy chairman of the Central People's Government of the PRC, held in October 1952 during the Nineteenth Congress of the CPSU, likewise demonstrated Moscow's caution with respect to building socialism in China. At this time, Stalin firmly opposed Mao's idea of introducing the cooperativization and collectivization of the Chinese peasantry over a period of ten to fifteen years, an idea Mao had first expressed at a meeting of the Secretariat of the Central Committee one month earlier.13 Liu Shaoqi informed Stalin of this when he presented a report on the policies of the CCP Central Committee.14 As Liu Shaoqi recalled in a conversation with Soviet ambassador Vasily Kuznetsov in November 1953, “Comrade Stalin advised not to hasten cooperativization and collectivization of agriculture inasmuch as conditions in the PRC were more favorable than in the USSR during the period of collectivization.”15 Liu conveyed Stalin's opinion to Beijing, and Mao was forced to take it into account.
But Mao did not always follow Stalin's directives. Between 1949 and 1953, on his own initiative he undertook a number of measures directed toward accelerating the Stalinization of China. After the proclamation of the PRC and the expulsion of the remnant Guomindang army to Taiwan, the communist regime continued regular military actions against various social forces that had not consistently supported the Guomindang during the civil war. Among these were the traditional rural elites, representatives of some local power structures who had remained on the sidelines during the civil war, hoping to wait out this time of troubles. After the complete defeat of the Guomindang, Mao gradually but surely began to establish his power at the local level, displacing local elites and empowering new pro-communist supporters during the course of establishing new organs of power.
Now the CCP encountered fierce resistance from its social antagonists and the civil war acquired a mass character, affecting millions of persons. According to probably conservative official figures, by the end of 1951 more than two million people had been killed in the course of the struggle. Another two million had been imprisoned and sent to labor camps.16 This war continued, but no further statistics were published on the number of victims. According to data compiled by the Russian China specialist Colonel B. N. Gorbachev, 39 corps of the PLA, or more than 140 divisions numbering some 1.5 million troops, participated in these battles.17 One of the cruelest acts was the purge of unreliable elements among former Guomindang officers who had gone over to the CCP side during the war. According to the reminiscences of General Georgii Semenov, adviser to the commander of the North China Military District, among the former units of General Fu Zuoyi of the Beijing Garrison that had defected to the PLA side, 22,014 criminals were “unmasked” during “peacetime,” among whom, by decision of the political commissar, 1,272 deserved an immediate death sentence, 1,415 a delayed death sentence, and 6,223 exile.18 The situation was complicated by the fact that during the first years of the PRC there was no law that regulated punishment for civil crimes. Between 1949 and 1954, the CCP ruled the country by means of political campaigns and mass mobilization.
The sharpest struggle took place in the countryside during the agrarian reform. By 1948 Mao had shelved the slogan not only of land redistribution, but also those of rent and interest reduction, thereby guaranteeing the party the neutrality of the landholders in the countryside and expediting the Guomindang's defeat by isolating it from its social roots. The day of reckoning, however, came quickly. Over approximately three years, progressing from north to south, the CCP gradually carried out an agrarian reform that might better be termed an agrarian revolution “from above.” The passivity of the peasantry was remedied by the dispatch of special teams to the countryside composed of party activists, approximately three hundred thousand yearly, who organized peasant unions, implanted new local elites, and dealt harshly with everyone labeled as landlords and counterrevolutionaries. Popular tribunals dispensing rough justice were established in the villages and given the power to impose death sentences. Many who resisted were summarily shot or sent to concentration camps. Despite the CCP's avowed policy of protecting rich peasants, their numbers declined sharply. Power in the countryside and a number of economic privileges were conferred upon a new “communist” elite.
After the rural rich were eliminated, urban property owners were the next target. In December 1951, Mao launched campaigns directed against the bourgeoisie: the Sanfan (Three Anti) campaign against corrupt officials, and the Wufan (Five Anti) campaign against private entrepreneurship. Popular tribunals empowered to pronounce death sentences were established in the cities. Public trials were held that often resulted in on-the-spot public executions. The main form of repression applied to the bourgeoisie was the imposition of staggering indemnities that seriously weakened their economic position. The result was that by September 1952, at a meeting of the Secretariat of the CCP Central Committee, Mao Zedong was able to assert that the state share of industry was 67.3 percent and of trade 40 percent; thus the socialist sector occupied the dominant and leading position in the Chinese economy.19
Gradually, the intelligentsia became the target of the ideological campaign. In 1951, on Mao's initiative, a campaign of Marxist indoctrination began under the pretext of discussing a film called The Life of Wu Xun. This film about a well-known nineteenth-century Confucian educator who had risen from desperate poverty to prominence first evoked the fury of Jiang Qing, a self-proclaimed specialist on cinematic art. “Continued veneration of Wu Hsun's [Wu Xun's] model,” she said to Mao, “was dangerous because his actions discredited present national imperatives: overthrow the landlord class, bury Confucian scholars, and put down the reformist …… tenet that education dissolves class contradictions and leads to social and political success.”20 Mao agreed. The campaign quickly transmuted into an ideological condemnation of dissent, kicking off a movement for the ideological remolding of intellectuals in which the methods of ideological terror that played a sinister role in the subsequent development of spiritual life in the PRC were already evident.
According to some data, during these campaigns in the early years of the PRC more than four million “counterrevolutionaries” were repressed.21 The ruling party itself did not escape the sharpening struggle. In 1951, Mao already had decided to conduct a verification and reregistration of CCP members that led to a new “purge” of “alien” elements. By 1953, 10 percent of the party members had been expelled.
During the period of New Democracy, intended as a transitional period to socialism, however, not all the leaders of the PRC agreed with Mao's policies. Several high-ranking leaders conceived of New Democracy differently from Mao. Liu Shaoqi was the most important. We know that as early as 1949, Stalin was receiving confidential information on Liu Shaoqi from another member of the CCP Politburo, Gao Gang, chairman of the Northeast regional government, who accused Liu of “right deviation” and “overestimating the Chinese bourgeoisie.” Some of Gao's assertions, albeit without direct reference to Gao himself, were contained in a critical secret report from Kovalev to Stalin titled “On several questions regarding policies and practice in the CC Chinese Communist Party.” The report also contained accusations against Zhou Enlai and such Central Committee members as Peng Zhen, Li Fuchun, Li Lisan,n59 Bo Yibo, and Lin Feng.22 Stalin, however, did not accept all these accusations, and asserted that “regarding the question of democratic parties in China and the necessity to reckon with their leaders Com. Gao Gang …… is wrong, but Coms. Zhou Enlai and Liu Shaoqi are certainly right.” During one of his meetings with Mao Zedong at his dacha in the vicinity of Moscow, Stalin even gave Mao a copy of Kovalev's report and some other documents received from Kovalev and Gao Gang.23 Kovalev, who was in the hospital at this time, learned this from Shi Zhe, Mao's personal interpreter, who was present at the meeting.24
Mao Zedong viewed Stalin's conduct as yet another demonstration of his “mistrust and suspicion” of the Central Committee of the CCP.25 One may also discern other motives in Stalin's actions. In the first place, he may not have believed Gao, who had earlier also provided him information on members of the Chinese communist leadership that seemed suspicious. Among those whom the regional CCP leader “unmasked” was Mao himself. In late 1949, for example, Gao Gang informed Stalin via Kovalev of the anti-Soviet and “right Trotskyite” tendencies of Mao and his associates in the Chinese Communist Party.26 He repeated his accusations against the CCP leaders, albeit in a “restrained and cautious form,” in a conversation with Yudin, who returned to the Soviet Union in 1952 via Manchuria and visited Gao en route.27 Stalin might have considered all these accusations evidence of intraparty struggle within the CCP and simply paid no attention to them.
Second, from the summer of 1949, Stalin was deeply disappointed in Gao, who he thought had behaved very stupidly during one of the Kremlin leader's meetings with the Chinese delegation headed by Liu Shaoqi. Trying to appear “holier than the Pope,” Gao, a member of the delegation, made in the presence of the others some very far-reaching proposals, including that the USSR should increase the number of its troops in Dalian and station naval forces at Qingdao, and, most important of all, that Manchuria should become a republic of the Soviet Union. Irritated, Stalin cut him off, calling him “Comrade Zhang Zuolin.”28 (Zhang Zuolin, it will be recalled, was a Chinese militarist who ruled Manchuria independent of the Chinese central government up to 1928.)n60
Third, if Stalin trusted the information he had received, he might have considered Liu's “deviation” useful insofar as it could help in his own policy of “containing” Mao Zedong's radicalism.
Finally, Gao was not Stalin's sole source of information within the Chinese leadership. According to some sources, Liu Shaoqi himself provided Stalin some confidential information. Petr Deriabin, a former official of the Ministry of State Security (MGB), claims that Liu Shaoqi began to work for the Soviet secret service in the 1930s when he was in Moscow as a representative of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions to the Trade Union International (Profintern). Liu continued to supply secret information to Stalin in the 1940s.29 If Deriabin's account is accurate, then it is logical to suppose that Liu must have been more valuable to Stalin than Gao, since he was the second-ranking person in the CCP after Mao. By sacrificing Gao Gang, Stalin could strengthen the position of his more important informant.
In any case, Gao Gang was correct. The leadership of the CCP was not united on the question of New Democracy. Unlike Mao, who had abandoned the term “New Democracy,” several other CCP leaders continued to use the terminology of the New Democratic revolution. Zhou Enlai as well as Liu Shaoqi apparently took seriously Stalin's admonitions concerning a gradual transition to socialism in the PRC, and spoke of the New Democratic state, of the construction of New Democracy, of New Democratic trends in literature and art, and so on.30 They formed at the time a cautious opposition to Mao, who was interpreting New Democracy in an extremely radical fashion.
This is why CCP policies were somewhat contradictory during these years. The concept of a democratic transformation of society was reflected in the Common Program of the united front, whose organizational embodiment was the Chinese People's Political Consultative Council (CPPCC), convened by the communists in Beijing in late September 1949. The CPPCC as the organizational form of the united front took upon itself the functions of a constituent assembly, with Mao as its chairman. It was in the name of the CPPCC that the communists established the new organs of state power and adopted the Common Program, which became the main programmatic document of the new state authority, functioning like a provisional constitution. The program proclaimed democratic values but emphasized the leading role of the CCP within a multiparty system in which eight political parties that acknowledged the leading role of the CCP received legal status. The program guaranteed the people's right to own private property and contained clauses supporting private national entrepreneurship and the mutually beneficial regulation of relations between labor and capital. The document proclaimed a policy of democratic development for the country. The idea of the socialist reconstruction of Chinese society was entirely absent, as was the very word “socialism.”31
The Agrarian Reform Law, adopted by the government on June 28, 1950, likewise corresponded fully to the spirit of people's democracy. Land was given to the peasant as private property, and the rich-peasant economy was preserved.32 “The policy of preserving the rich-peasant economy,” Liu Shaoqi said in his report to a session of the All-China Committee of the CPPCC in June 1950, “is not a temporary policy but one intended for the long term. In other words, the rich-peasant economy will be preserved for the duration of the entire period of New Democracy.”33
The policies of the new government were supported by democratic and patriotic circles that welcomed the transformation and development of the system of popular education aimed at liquidating or, more accurately, reducing illiteracy, opening new higher education institutions and creating the preconditions for their democratization, training scientists, and establishing a system of modern scientific institutes.34 The law on marriage and the family adopted in 1950 received broad public support; it provided women with full civil rights and was aimed at achieving their actual equality.35 Chinese public opinion was also impressed by the independent and, in the cases of Korea and Tibet,n61 even aggressive foreign policy of the new government.
Between 1949 and 1953, not only Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai, but Chen Yun and several other leading CCP officials expressed moderate views regarding New Democracy, even in unofficial conversations with representatives of other communist parties.36 In their muted opposition to Mao, these leaders relied upon the authority of Stalin, whose advice was not to hasten the construction of socialism. Such political support, independent of its actual goals, was particularly important since it provided an ideological foundation for the ideas they were putting into practice. Stalin's position also exercised influence over Mao and his associates, who had no choice but to pay heed to the viewpoint of the “Elder Brother.” It is revealing that Liu Shaoqi appealed to the authority of Stalin during his conversations with the Soviet ambassador in November 1953, even after he had suffered a defeat in his discussions with Mao.
Both Mao and his opponents accepted socialist ideals, but they differed in the methods of achieving them. Here are just a few examples. In the spring of 1951, the Provincial Party leaders of Shanxi proposed accelerating the pace of rural cooperativization. Liu Shaoqi not only criticized these ideas at a meeting of propagandists, but in July 1951 issued a document in the name of the Central Committee calling the provincial undertaking “an erroneous, dangerous and utopian notion of agrarian socialism.” However, Mao protected the local activists and two months later disavowed the document that Liu had prepared.37 At a session of the State Administrative Council chaired by Zhou Enlai in December 1952, a new draft tax system prepared by Finance Minister Bo Yibo was presented and approved. Its principal innovation was that all forms of property were subjected to uniform taxation. State and cooperative property lost their tax advantages, and the private capitalist sector was granted favorable conditions for competition. The draft law had not been cleared with the Central Committee apparatus and Mao did not know about it. Soon afterward, on January 15, 1953, Mao sent an angry letter to the leaders of the State Council—Zhou Enlai, Chen Yun, Deng Xiaoping, and Bo Yibo—saying that their aim of creating conditions for a revival of private entrepreneurship was ill-founded.38 This dispute led to an intensive ideological-political campaign against those who disagreed with Mao's line. In an informal talk with leaders of the Central South Bureau of the Central Committee in Wuhan in mid-February, Mao observed, “There are people who say, ‘We must strengthen the New Democratic order'; there are also people who speak in favor of the ‘four big freedoms' [i.e., freedom for peasants to take out loans, to rent land, to hire labor, and to engage in trade]. I think both of these are wrong. New Democracy is a transitional stage toward socialism.”39
By the summer of 1953, Mao's struggle against “moderate” leaders of the CCP intensified. The last link in a chain of ideological debates, it reached its climax at the All-China Conference on Financial and Economic Work, held in Beijing from June 14 to August 12. Almost all of the high-level officials of the party and the government participated in the conference, which formally was dedicated to discussing the new tax system. In fact it addressed the entire political strategy of the CCP. In addition to Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping, Gao Gang presided over the forum. Despite Mao's personal dislike of Gao, in ideological terms they were very close and Gao did his utmost to discredit the position of Liu Shaoqi and his supporters. In a conversation with the Soviet consul general Andrei Ledovsky in Shenyang, Gao Gang asserted not only that Liu Shaoqi supported “the erroneous bourgeois line of Bo Yibo,” but that in fact the line actually derived from Liu.40
The ideological key of the meeting was supplied by Mao Zedong in his speech at a session of the Politburo on June 15, 1953. Mao sharply criticized party leaders who were striving to “firmly establish the new-democratic social order.”41 They “have remained,” Mao said of Liu and his supporters,n62 “where they were after the victory of the democratic revolution. They fail to realize there is a change in the character of the revolution and they go on pushing their ‘New Democracy' instead of socialist transformation. This will lead to Right deviationist mistakes.”42 Mao was particularly exasperated by the effort of these leaders to “[s]ustain private property.”43 This was the first time that Mao had so clearly and directly dissociated himself from the concept of New Democracy and expressed himself in favor of a swift transition to the socialist revolution.
Reports by Gao Gang and Li Fuchun on economic construction and by Li Weihan on private capital were delivered at this lengthy conference. A majority of the top leadership took part in the discussion.
Gao was the most active. Subjecting Bo to criticism, not only for the “mistakes” he had committed but for “struggling against the Party line,” which was like handing down a death sentence, Gao repeatedly cited the “erroneous” pronouncements of Liu as proof of the finance minister's guilt. To be sure, he did not quote Liu himself, but pretended that it was Bo Yibo who had spoken this way.44 In other words, while openly denouncing Bo he was covertly attacking Liu. (Mao would not allow him to criticize Liu openly.) Everyone present, including Liu himself, understood these tactics perfectly well.
The situation for the “moderates” became ominous since no one knew whether Gao Gang was being egged on by Mao. Then, on July 7, Zhou wrote a letter to Mao, who was absent from the conference, informing him of what had happened at the sessions and requesting instructions. Clearly understanding that Liu and Zhou were terrified, Mao decided to act the peacemaker. In reality, he had no intention of removing them from their posts despite his disagreements with them. He simply wanted to teach them who was the master of the house. Having achieved this result, he could now take pleasure in his victory. This is why, hearing of Gao Gang's actions, he replied to Zhou: “We must conduct the struggle openly and solve the problems; we should not act boorishly. It is wrong to be silent face-to-face, but to prattle behind another's back, not to speak directly, but to beat about the bush, not to point to a specific person, but to engage in innuendos.”45 (One might suppose that Mao himself always conducted his struggles openly and that he never criticized Liu Shaoqi in veiled form.)
Zhou immediately transmitted this “revelation” to all interested persons. Bo Yibo, Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping, and Zhou himself quickly understood just what had to be done. Liu, Deng, and Bo took the floor and openly engaged in self-criticism, the latter on two occasions.46 Zhou acknowledged his “political and organizational errors” and his “isolation from the party leadership,” and he severely and extensively censured Bo Yibo. He accused the latter of “failing to acknowledge his errors over a certain period of time.”47 Bo's “right deviation,” according to Zhou, “originated from his not taking Marxism-Leninism, the policy of the party, and the interests of the working people as his point of departure, but from consciously and unconsciously reflecting many of the outlooks, opinions, and habits of the capitalist class.”48 Zhou reproached Bo for “insincerity towards the party.”49
Mao Zedong pronounced the work of the conference “a success,” praised Liu and Deng for their self-criticism, and supported criticism of the “bourgeois line.” In this and several other speeches he emphasized the enormous political and ideological significance of the work that had been accomplished. It was evident from his statements that he considered the conference a definite turning point in the development of the CCP and the PRC, and he emphasized the decisive importance of the tax issue. “That [tax] system, if allowed to develop, would have led inevitably to capitalism, in contradiction of Marxism-Leninism and the Party general line for the transition period,” he asserted.50 The conference, as Mao supposed, could remove this threat from China, lead to the liberation from New Democratic illusions, and open the way to the socialist development of the country. Mao also noted subsequently that the work of the conference was the most important factor in affirming the general line for the construction of socialism that was formulated at precisely this time: “But for the Conference on Financial and Economic Work held in July and August, the question of the general line would have remained unsettled for many comrades.”51 Thus Mao imposed his views on the leadership of the CCP. The course for “constructing socialism on the Soviet model” was officially proclaimed.
1 See K. I. Koval, “Moskovskiie peregovory I. V. Stalina s Chzhou En'laem v 1952 g. i N. S. Khrushcheva s Mao Tszedunom v 1954 g.” (J. V. Stalin's Negotiations in Moscow with Zhou Enlai in 1952 and N. S. Khrushchev's with Mao Zedong in 1954), Novaia i noveishaia istoriia (Modern and contemporary history), no. 5 (1989): 104–7. Koval gives the wrong months for these negotiations.
2 Quoted from ibid., 107; see also Westad, Brothers in Arms, 145, 197–200, 257.
3 See M. L. Titarenko, ed., Istoriia Kommunisticheskoi partii Kitaia (History of the Chinese Communist Party), vol. 2, part 1 (Moscow: IDV AN SSSR, 1987), 130; see also Heinzig, The Soviet Union and Communist China 1945–1950, 263–384.
4 See Kurdiukov, Sovetsko-kitaiskie otnosheniia (Soviet-Chinese Relations), 223. Mao asked Stalin to shorten from five to four years the period for the provision on credit of industrial equipment and arms, but Stalin did not agree. See “Zapis' besedy I. V. Stalina s Predsedatelem Tsentral'nogo narodnogo pravitel'stva Kitaiskoi Narodnoi Respubliki Mao Tsze-dunom 22 janvaria 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), 36; CWIHP Bulletin, nos. 8–9 (1996/1997): 229.
5 “Mao Zedong's Telegram to CCP CC, January 4, 1950,” CWIHP Bulletin, nos. 8–9 (1995/1996): 229; see also Ledovsky, SSSR i Stalin v sud'bakh Kitaia (The USSR and Stalin in China's Fate), 78.
6 See Zhang, Sino-Soviet Economic Cooperation, 197.
7 In this connection, the assertion by the Russian historian B. T. Kulik that Stalin supposedly agreed to fulfill all of Zhou Enlai's requests, including a request to plan for and build 151 ( ) industrial enterprises in China, does not correspond to the historical facts. See Kulik, Sovetsko-kitaiskii raskol (The Soviet-Chinese Split), 95.
8 See “Zapis' besedy tovarishcha Stalina I. V. s Chzhou En'laem 3 sentiabria 1952 goda” (Memorandum of Conversation between Comrade J. V. Stalin and Zhou Enlai, September 3, 1952), RGASPI, collection 558, inventory 11, file 329, sheet 81; CWIHP Bulletin, nos. 6–7 (1995/1996): 15–16; Kurdiukov, Sovetsko-kitaiskie otnosheniia (Soviet-Chinese Relations), 285; Chen Zhiling, “Li Fuchun,” in Hu Hua, ed., Zhonggongdang shi renwu zhuan (Biographies of Persons in the History of the CCP), vol. 44 (Xi'an: Shaanxi renmin chubanshe, 1990), 62–63, 67; Koval, “Moskovskiie peregovory I. V. Stalina s Chzhou En'laem v 1952 g. i N. S. Khrushcheva s Mao Tszedunom v 1954 g.” (J. V. Stalin's Negotiations in Moscow with Zhou Enlai in 1952 and N. S. Khrushchev's with Mao Zedong in 1954): 107.
9 “Zapis' besedy tovarishcha Stalin I. V. s Chzhou Enlaiem 3 sentiabria 1952 goda” (Memorandum of Conversation between Comrade J. V. Stalin and Zhou Enlai, September 3, 1952), 75, 85; CWIHP Bulletin, nos. 6–7 (1995/1996): 14, 16. See also Li and Ma, Zhou Enlai nianpu (1949–1976) (Chronological Biography of Zhou Enlai [1949–1976]), vol. 1, 258; Maurice Meisner, Mao's China and After: A History of the People's Republic of China, 3rd ed. (New York: Free Press, 1999), 127.
10 See Kulik, Sovetsko-kitaiskii raskol (The Soviet-Chinese Split), 126; Chen, “Li Fuchun,” 63.
11 See Li and Ma, Zhou Enlai nianpu (1949–1976) (Chronological Biography of Zhou Enlai [1949–1976]), vol. 1, 284–85; Kulik, Sovetsko-kitaiskii raskol (The Soviet-Chinese Split), 126.
12 See Li Fu-ch'un [Li Fuchun], “Report on the First Five-Year Plan, 1953–1957, July 5–6, 1955,” in Robert Bowie and John K. Fairbank, eds., Communist China 1955–1959: Policy Documents with Analysis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962), 53, 61.
13 See Kratkaia istoriia KPK (1921–1991) (A Short History of the CCP [1921–1991]) (Beijing: Izdatel'stvo literatury na inostrannykh iazykakh, 1993), 530.
14 See Liu and Chen, Liu Shaoqi nianpu, 1898–1969 (Chronological Biography of Liu Shaoqi, 1898–1969), vol. 2, 304–5.
15 Quoted from “Dnevnik sovetskogo posla v Kitae V. V. Kuznetsova. Zapis' besedy s Liu Shaoqi. 9 noiabria 1953 g.” (The Diary of Soviet Ambassador to China V. V. Kuznetsov: Memorandum of Conversation with Liu Shaoqi, November 9, 1953), AVP RF, collection 0100, inventory 46, file 12, folder 362, sheet 185.
16 See Stéphane Courtois et al., The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression, trans. Jonathan Murphy and Mark Kramer (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 481; Meisner, Mao's China and After, 72.
17 Arlen V. Meliksetov's interview with B. N. Gorbachev in Moscow, November 25, 1999.
18 G. G. Semenov, Tri goda v Pekine: Zapiski voennogo sovetnika (Three Years in Beijing: Notes of a Military Adviser) (Moscow: Nauka, 1978), 47–48, 60–62.
19 See Yang Kuisong, “Mao Zedong weishenma fangqi xinminzhuyi Guanyu Eguo moshide yingxiang wenti” (Why Did Mao Zedong Abandon New Democracy On the Influence of the Russian Model), Jindaishi yanjiu (Studies in contemporary history), no. 4 (1997): 182–83.
20 Witke, Comrade Chiang Ch'ing, 239.
21 See Jerome Cooper, “Lawyers in China and the Rule of Law,” International Journal of the Legal Profession, 6, no. 1 (1999): 71–89.
22 “Zapiska I. V. Kovaleva ot 24 dekabria 1949 g.” (I. V. Kovalev's Note of December 24, 1949), 135, 138, 139.
23 “[W]e members of the Politburo of the AUCP(B) were indignant over Stalin's action,” Khrushchev wrote in this connection, noting that it was Gao who accused not only Liu Shaoqi, but also Zhou Enlai as well as a number of other leaders of the country, of “especially expressions of displeasure” toward “the USSR.” Khrushchev, Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev, vol. 3, 412–14. The report, however, contains an indication that Zhou Enlai himself criticized Bo Yibo for economic mistakes in a talk with Kovalev.
24 See Kovalev, Dialog Stalina s Mao Tszedunom (Stalin's Dialogue with Mao Zedong), 91; Khrushchev, Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev, vol. 3, 412–14; Bo Yibo, Ruogan zhongda juece yu shijian de huigu (Recollections of Several Important Political Decisions and Their Implementation), vol. 1 (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao, 1991), 40–41; Ye, Ye Zilong huiyilu (Memoirs of Ye Zilong), 201; Chen Aifei and Cao Zhiwei, Zouchu guomende Mao Zedong (Mao Zedong Abroad) (Shijiazhuang: Hebei renmin chubanshe, 2001), 88–91; Heinzig, The Soviet Union and Communist China 1945–1950, 157, 158, 285–86, 296–97.
25 “Mao Tszedun o kitaiskoi politike Kominterna i Stalina” (Mao Zedong on the China Policy of the Comintern and Stalin), 106.
26 See Kovalev, Dialog Stalina s Mao Tszedunom (Stalin's Dialogue with Mao Zedong), 89; I. V. Kovalev, “Rossiia i Kitai (s missiei v Kitae)” (Russia and China [My Mission to China]), Duel' (Duel), November 19, 1997.
27 Lichnoe delo Mao Tszeduna (Personal File of Mao Zedong), RGASPI, collection 495, inventory 225, file 71, vol. 1, sheet 57.
28 See Kovalev, “Dialog Stalina s Mao Tszedunom” (Stalin's Dialogue with Mao Zedong), 89.
29 Peter S. Deriabin and Joseph Culver Evans, Inside Stalin's Kremlin: An Eyewitness Account of Brutality, Duplicity, and Intrigue (Washington: Brassey's, 1998), 110, 229–30.
30 See Liu Shaoqi, Selected Works of Liu Shaoqi, vol. 1 (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1984); Zhou Enlai, Selected Works of Zhou Enlai, vol. 1 (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1981).
31 See Obrazovanie Kitaiskoi Narodnoi Respubliki: Dokumenty i materialy (Establishment of the Chinese People's Republic: Documents and Materials) (Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1950), 30–49.
32 See N. G. Sudarikov, ed., Konstitutsiia i osnovnye zakonodatel'nye akty Kitaiskoi Narodnoi Respubliki (Constitution and Founding Legislative Acts of the People's Republic of China) (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo inostrannoi literatury, 1955), 381–92.
33 Quoted from L. P. Deliusin, ed., Agrarnye preobrazovaniia v narodnom Kitae (Agrarian Transformation in People's China) (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo inostrannoi literatury, 1955), 39.
34 See Sudarikov, Konstitutsiia i osnovnye zakonodatel'nye akty Kitaiskoi Narodnoi Respubliki (Constitution and Founding Legislative Acts of the People's Republic of China), 493–523.
35 Ibid., 475–81.
36 See A. V. Meliksetov, “ ‘Novaia demokratiia' i vybor Kitaem putei sotsial'noekonomicheskogo razvitiia (1949–1953)” (“New Democracy” and China's Choice of a Socioeconomic Development Path [1949–1953]), Problemy Dal'nego Vostoka (Far Eastern affairs), no. 1 (1996): 82–95.
37 See Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works of Mao Tsetung, vol. 5 (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1977), 71; Sladkovskii, Informatsionnyi biulleten'. Seriia A. “Kulturnaiia revoliutsiia” v Kitae. Dokumenty i materialy (perevod s kitaiskogo). Vypusk 1: Hongveibinovskaia pechat' o Liu Shaotsi (Information Bulletin. Series A. The “Cultural Revolution” in China. Documents and Materials [Translated from Chinese]. The First Installment: The Red Guard Press on Liu Shaoqi) (Moscow: IDV AN SSSR, 1968), 73–74.
38 Bo, Ruogan zhongda juece yu shijian de huigu (Recollections of Several Important Political Decisions and Their Implementation), vol. 1, 234–35.
39 Pang and Jin, Mao Zedong zhuan (1949–1976) (Biography of Mao Zedong [1949–1976]), vol. 1, 247.
40 A. M. Ledovsky, Delo Gao Gana-Zhao Shushi (The Gao Gang-Rao Shushi Affair) (Moscow: IDV AN SSSR, 1990), 99.
41 Mao, Selected Works of Mao Tsetung, vol. 5, 93.
42 Ibid.
43 Ibid., 94.
44 See Frederick C. Teiwes, Politics at Mao's Court: Gao Gang and Party Factionalism (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1990), 163.
45 Quoted from Bo, Ruogan zhongda juece yu shijian de huigu (Recollections of Several Important Political Decisions and Their Implementation), vol. 1, 247.
46 See ibid., 93–94, 101–11, 247–48; Zhou, “Rech' na Vsekitaiskom finansovo-ekonomicheskom soveshchanii” (Speech at the All-China Financial-Economic Conference), 8–19; Ledovsky, Delo Gao Gana-Zhao Shushi (The Gao Gang-Rao Shushi Affair), 99.
47 Zhou, “Rech' na Vsekitaiskom finansovo-ekonomicheskom soveshchanii” (Speech at the All-China Financial-Economic Conference), 18.
48 Ibid.
49 Ibid.
50 Mao, Selected Works of Mao Tsetung, vol. 5, 103.
51 Ibid., 138.
n58 According to the majority of Western specialists, during the First Five-Year Plan, Soviet industry grew by an annual rate of 12 percent. It is doubtful, however, that Stalin trusted Western statistics.
n59 Li Lisan was elected a member of the CCP Central Committee on Mao’s initiative in June 1945 at the Seventh Party Congress. It is worth mentioning that at the time he was still in Moscow and he was not even a member of the party because he had been expelled. But Mao wanted to play the role of unifier of the CCP; that is why he forgave Li.
n60 Kovalev mistakenly asserts that this took place at an enlarged plenum of the Politburo on July 27, 1949. On July 27, however, a Politburo meeting was not held but rather there was an exchange of opinions among Stalin, Bulganin, and Vyshinsky on one side and Liu Shaoqi, Gao Gang, and Wang Jiaxiang on the other. The Politburo meeting was held on July 11.
n61 Tibet, which had retained its formally independent status under the Guomindang, was conquered by the PLA in 1950–51.
n62 No names are mentioned in the published text of Mao’s speech. However, the Chinese publishers of his speech supplied notes to the published text that indicate the target was Liu Shaoqi and his supporters.