Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

With the proclamation of the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) found itself at the head of a country three times larger than Western Europe, with a population of some 500 million. The internal situation was favorable to the revolutionary regime. At the end of a long series of civil and foreign wars, the population sought and relied on the new leaders for peace while the ongoing people's mobilization opened the way for an in-depth reform of society. In December 1949, while fighting against the Guomindang nationalists still raged in the south, Mao Zedong flew to Moscow to meet Stalin . The USSR may have been the first country to recognize the People's Republic, but it had not yet abrogated the Sino-Soviet Friendship Treaty, signed with Mao's opponent, Chiang Kai-shek. For three consecutive weeks, the two heads of state played a game of cat and mouse before the Soviets agreed to prepare a new treaty – signed on February 14, 1950 by Zhou Enlai and A. Y. Vychinski, foreign ministers respectively of China and the USSR. After the victory of October 1949, distrust was the rule between the Russian and Chinese leaderships. Mao noted how Stalin looked down upon his experience (“He thought our revolution was fake,” he said) and did not want to commit to supporting China if it were attacked by the United States. However, it was Beijing that ... log in or subscribe to read full text