Khrushchev vs. Mao: Principles or Power?

Khrushchev is no less a Russian Communist today than yesterday, nor is Mao Tse-tung more of a Chinese Stalinist than he was the day before. The thaw did not, so to speak, produce the recent violence of conflict between the USSR and China. It is accordingly neither a patriotic mission to urge Khrushchev to give the Chinese what for, nor a socialist duty to join the “apostles of revolution” in raising the Chinese banner.

The seeds of dissension have been there from the day Chiang was chased off the Chinese mainland, and it can be fairly argued that they were there before that. Stalin leashed and unleashed the Chinese Communist party, as it suited his (Russia’s, the Comintern’s) international policy. It was ne...