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The Sino-Soviet Border Dispute: Background, Development, and the March 1969 Clashes*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Thomas W. Robinson
Thomas W. Robinson*
Affiliation:
Council on Foreign Relations, New York
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Abstract

Sino-Soviet border fighting in early 1969 had many causes. The two Damansky Island incidents, moreover, were quite different in level of conflict and outcome. Only an investigation of the details of the incidents, together with a composite analysis of domestic, foreign policy, and international political variables suffices to determine what actually happened and why. Fitting the pieces together reveals that the Chinese caused the March 2 incident, while the Russians initiated fighting on March-14. The first incident involved only local forces; the second included regular army forces of several thousand and heavy equipment.

The history of the border conflict since 1954 is traced and found to have entered a critical stage in 1966, with the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution and increased Soviet military readiness. The 1964 border negotiations aborted because the Chinese wished no agreement then; but no insurmountable obstacles stand in the way of a definitive border agreement. A combination of local excesses, regional power struggle, and national-level policy changes motivated the Chinese to initiate action on March 2. The Soviets caused the March 14 incident primarily for revenge and as the opening move in forcing the Chinese into new border talks.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 66 , Issue 4 , December 1972 , pp. 1175 - 1202
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1972

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Footnotes

*

The author wishes to acknowledge the helpful advice and assistance of Charles Cooper, Lilita Dzirkals, Anna Ford, Oleg Hoeffding, Arnold Horelick, Fred Ikle, Paul Langer, Michel Oksenberg, Allen Whiting, and especially Robert North; also the participants in the Social Science Research Council Conference on Chinese Foreign Policy, Las Corabas, Puerto Rico.

References

1 The Russian name of this island (and other disputed islands) rather than the Chinese name (Chenpao, “Treasure” Island), is used for convenience only.

2 I have abstracted from a number of long-term parametric variables which, because of their constant presence, are difficult to specify as developmental factors (i.e., those influencing the history of Sino-Soviet relations since, say, 1956) or immediate background factors (i.e., elements which seem to have been the short-term causes of the two March incidents). Nonetheless, such parameters must be kept in mind, because they have shaped historic Sino-Soviet relations and still affect the attitudes of Soviet and Chinese decision makers. They include: the ancient Chinese view of China as the “Middle Kingdom,” that is, the center of the world around which all other states must revolve as satellites or tributaries; the historic Russian urge to expand into Siberia and its hinterland and to find outlets on the Pacific; Chinese awareness of periods of past weakness, exploitation, helplessness, and frustration; Chinese recollections of Stalinist manipulations of the Chinese Communist movement and Stalinist errors in the 1920s; the Russian view that the Soviet Union is the rightful hegemon in the world Communist movement and will not tolerate an attempt by China to challenge its pre-eminence; and the vague Russian fear of the “yellow peril.”

Another set of factors relates to the way self-perceived Great Powers conduct their policies. Established Great Powers tend to be sensitive to challenges from aspiring Great Powers; competing Great Powers often find that intersecting spheres of influence and common boundaries become sites for conflict; a state that perceives general hostility from (or expresses hostility toward) the outer world often feels encircled; and a state acquiring the sinews of modern industrial might may be perceived as a threat to its neighbors, no matter what the state's actual policy or the real relation of forces is.

3 See especially Brzezinski, Zbigniew, The Soviet Bloc, Revised and Enlarged ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967), pp. 180–184Google Scholar; Leonhard, Wolfgang, The Kremlin Since Stalin (New York: Praeger, 1963), pp. 167–192Google Scholar; and Zagoria, Donald, The Sino-Soviet Conflict, 1956–1961 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1962). Chaps. 1–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Zagoria, Chaps. 8–17; Hudson, G. F., Lowenthal, Richard, and MacFarquhar, Roderick, The Sino-Soviet Dispute (New York: Praeger, 1961)Google Scholar; Klochko, Michel, Soviet Scientist in Red China (New York: Praeger, 1963)Google Scholar; Brzezinski, Chaps. 12 and 15; Floyd, David, Mao Against Khrushchev: A Short History of the Sino-Soviet Conflict (New York: Praeger, 1963)Google Scholar.

5 See Dallin, Alexander, Harris, Jonathan, and Hodnett, Gray, eds., Diversity in International Communism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963)Google Scholar; Ulam, Adam, Expansion and Coexistence: The History of Soviet Foreign Policy (New York: Praeger, 1968), Part XI, Chap. 2Google Scholar; Crankshaw, Edward, The New Cold War: Moscow vs. Peking (Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1963)Google Scholar; Cheng, Chu-yuan, Economic Relations Between Peking and Moscow (New York: Praeger, 1964)Google Scholar; Griffith, William E., The Sino-Soviet Rift (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1964)Google Scholar, and idem., Albania and the Sino-Soviet Rift (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1963)Google Scholar.

6 Griffith, William, Sino-Soviet Relations. 1964–1965 (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1966)Google Scholar; U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee on the Far East and the Pacific, Sino-Soviet Conflict (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1965)Google Scholar; and Labedz, Leopold and Urban, G. R., The Sino-Soviet Conflict (London: The Bodley Head, 1965)Google Scholar.

7 See, for instance, Mehnert, Klaus, Peking and Moscow, trans. Vennewitz, Leila (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1963). Chap. 10Google Scholar; Wei, Henry, China and Soviet Russia (Princeton: D. Van Nostrand, 1956)Google Scholar; Cheng, Tien-fang, A History of Sino-Russian Relations (Washington, D.C.: The Public Affairs Press, 1957)Google Scholar; Schwartz, Harry, Tsars, Mandarins, and Commissars: A History of Chinese-Russian Relations (Philadelphia and New York: Lippincott, 1964)Google Scholar; Yakhontoff, Victor A., Russia and the Soviet Union in the Far East (New York: Coward-McCann, 1931)Google Scholar. The Soviet view is summed up in Kapitsa, M. S., Sovetsko-kitaiskie otnosheniia [Soviet-Chinese Relations] (Moscow: State Publishing House for Political Literature, 1958), Part IGoogle Scholar, and Kai-shek's, ChiangSoviet Russia in China (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Cudahy, 1957)Google Scholar puts forth the Chinese Nationalist (and, to some extent, the Communist) case.

8 The English texts of these treaties can be found in Beloff, Max, Soviet Policy in the Far East, 1944–1951 (London: Oxford University Press, 1953), pp. 260–266Google Scholar. The Russian texts are reprinted in Kurdiukov, I. F.et al., Sovetsko-kitaiskie otnosheniia, 1917–1957 (Moscow: Eastern Literature Pub. House, 1959), pp. 217–229Google Scholar. The Chinese texts are found in Chung-Hua Jen-rnin Kung-ho-kuo Tiao-yueh-chi, Vol. 1, 1949–1951, pp. 3–5Google Scholar. See also Boorman, Howard L., “The Borderlands and the Sino-Soviet Alliance” in Boorman, Howard, Eckstein, Alexander, Mosely, Philip E., and Schwartz, Benjamin, The Moscow-Peking Axis (New York: Harper and Bros. for the Council on Foreign Relations, 1957), pp. 142–197Google Scholar. Mao Tse-tung, upon his arrival in Moscow in December, 1949, for negotiations leading to the Sino-Soviet treaty, stated that no more unequal treaties existed between the Soviet Union and Communist China. See Kapitsa, , Sovetsko-kitaiskie otnosheniia, pp. 216–217Google Scholar; Pravda, December 16, 1949; and Jen-min Jih-pao, December 17, 1949. The Soviets depend heavily on this statement to counter Chinese arguments concerning “unequal” treaties.

9 See Boorman, et al., The Moscow-Peking Axis, pp. 2–53Google Scholar, and Kapitsa, , Sovetsko-kitaiskie otnosheniia, pp. 299–307Google Scholar. The Chinese press at the time was full of complaints against Soviet “extraterritoriality.” In the post-1963 series of accusations against the Soviet Union, the Chinese charged the Russians with “largescale, subversive activities in Chinese frontier areas ….” (“Letter of the Central Committee of the CPC of February 29, 1964, to the Central Committee of the CPSU,” Hung Ch'i, No. 6, 1964, pp. 12–18Google Scholar, and Peking Review, No. 19 [05 8, 1964], pp. 11–19Google Scholar).

10 See “Chairman Mao Tse-tung Tells the Delegation of the Japanese Socialist Party that the Kuriles Must be Returned to Japan,” Sekai Shuho, 08 11, 1964Google Scholar.

11 Interview with Premier Chou En-lai by Okada [Haruo], a Socialist member of the Japanese Diet, Asahi Shimbun, August 1, 1964.

12 Dates and descriptions of incidents are found in the following sources. On the Soviet side, Moscow Radio to China, March 6, 1969; Moscow Radio to South Asia, March 25, 1969; Pavlov, B., “Preposterous Ambitions,” New Times, No. 12 (03 26, 1969), pp. 8–10Google Scholar; “Statement of the USSR Government,” Pravda, March 30, 1969, (translation in Current Digest of the Soviet Press [CDSP], Vol. 21, No. 13 [04 16, 1969], 3–5Google Scholar); Dmitriyev, Yuri, “Far Away on the Border,” Trud, 03 16, 1969Google Scholar, (translation in CDSP, Vol. 21, No. 11 [April 2, 1969], p. 4); and Simonov, Konstantin, “Thinking Out Loud,” Pravda, 05 3, 1969Google Scholar. On the Chinese side, “China Lodges Strong Protest with Soviet Government.” New China News Agency (NCNA) and Jen-min Jihpao, March 3, 1969; Report on Border Film, NCNA Domestic Radio, April 18, 1969; “Statement of the Government of the PRC,” NCNA and Jen-min Jihpao, May 24, 1969.

13 Many Russian and Chinese sources cited below make this point explicitly.

14 Simonov, “Thinking Out Loud.” During the Hundred Flowers Campaign in China in 1957, a number of Chinese intellectuals openly questioned Soviet occupation of “Chinese” territory, including the Amur River region, the Maritime Province east of the Ussuri, Sakhalin, and areas in Central Asia and Kazakhstan. But contrary to current Soviet allegations, the official Chinese press has repudiated these charges. See Pavlov, , “Preposterous Ambitions,” p. 8Google Scholar. For translations of anti-Soviet remarks during the Hundred Flowers episode, see MacFarquhar, Roderick, The Hundred Flowers Campaign and the Chinese Intellectuals (New York: Praeger, 1960), p. 50, p. 163Google Scholar; and Doolin, Dennis, ed., Communist China: The Politics of Student Opposition Hoover Institution Studies, 2 (Stanford: The Hoover Institution, 1964)Google Scholar. The Chinese press was filled during the early 1950s with refutations of anti-Soviet feelings expressed by apparently large numbers of Chinese citizens. What was contrary to policy but widely felt during the 1950s became official policy during the 1960s.

15 Moscow Radio in English to South Asia, March 25, 1969.

16 “Statement of the USSR Government,” Pravda, March 30, 1969.

17 Dmitriyev, “Far Away on the Border.”

18 “A Comment on the Statement of the Communist Party of the USA,” Jen-min Jih-pao editorial, March 8, 1963. The same editorial declared that existing boundary treaties perpetuated Russian occupation of Chinese territories.

19 See especially the series of reports translated in Doolin, Dennis J., Territorial Claims in the Sino-Soviet Conflict, Hoover Institution Studies, 7 (Stanford: The Hoover Institution, 1965), pp. 31ffGoogle Scholar. These include Chinese charges and Soviet denials of Soviet subversion in Sinkiang; Soviet charges of border violations; feelers on both sides about border talks; reports of the beginnings of border talks; and various Soviet initiatives in the United Nations on the inviolability of state boundaries. Most of the developments that were hinted at in 1964 have been substantiated by subsequent Russian and Chinese testimony.

20 “Chairman Mao-Tse-tung Tells … that the Kuriles Must Be Returned to Japan.”

21 Asahi Shimbun interview of Premier Chou En-lai, see above, fn. 12.

22 The map is in P'ei-hua, Liu, ed., Chung-kuo Chin-tai Chien-shih [A Short History of Modern China] (Peking: I-Ch'ang Shu-chu, 1954), following p. 253Google Scholar. It is also reproduced in Doolin, , Territorial Claims, pp. 16–17Google Scholar. The map was never intended by the Chinese to be used as a basis for claims on Soviet territory. It was reprinted from a Nationalist Chinese secondary school history text and circulated for teaching purposes only.

As for changes in Soviet and Chinese troop dispositions, the annual The Military Balance (London: Inst. of Strategic Studies), 1963–1968Google Scholar, shows only minor order-of-battle changes along the border through 1966, intended to improve the readiness of existing units as well as their logistics and equipment.

23 See Pravda, September 2, 1964, for a major statement rebutting previous Chinese charges and referring to the 1954 map. This editorial appears to be the first instance of the Soviet tactic of fighting fire with fire: if China claimed that certain areas of the Soviet Union do not, because of “historical circumstances,” “belong” to that state, the Russians would then claim that certain areas of China were historically non-Chinese and disputed by more than one state. Hence, Chinese title to those areas is open to question. This line of argument, essentially a debating point, was elaborated in a Soviet statement to the PRC of June 13, 1969 (text in Pravda, June 14, 1969).

24 This analysis relies on the following Soviet and Chinese sources. On the Soviet side: interview with Major-General of Border Troops Anikushin, A. N., “The USSR Borders Are Inviolable,” Sovetskaia Rossiia, 03 19, 1969Google Scholar; Moscow Radio to South Asia, March 25, 1969; Pavlov, “Preposterous Ambitions”; “Statement of the USSR Government,” Pravda, March 30, 1969; “Note of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the CPR Ministry of Foreign Affairs, April 11, 1969,” Pravda, April 12, 1969; Borisov, O. and Koloskov, B., “The Anti-Soviet Course of the Mao Tse-tung Group,” Kommunist. No. 7 (05 6, 1969), pp. 86–97Google Scholar; and the Soviet Government Statement, Pravda, June 14, 1969. On the Chinese side: Information Department of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, “Chenpao Island Has Always Been Chinese Territory,” NCNA and Jen-min Jih-pao, 03 10, 1969Google Scholar; NCNA report on border film, April 18, 1969; and “Statement of the Government of the People's Republic of China,” NCNA and Jen-min Jih-Pao, May 24, 1969.

25 The Soviets have failed to point out an obvious contradiction in the Chinese argument. On the one hand, the Chinese claim the treaties are unequal because they were signed when “power was not in the hands of the people.” But if the Tsarist government was nondemocratic, so was the Ch'ing government, being feudal in the Chinese Communist lexicon. Treaties signed between governments that are both nondemocratic can hardly be termed unequal by successor governments. The question is irrelevant, and either all old treaties should be regarded as having ceased effect (international law gives no credence to that argument, however: treaties are signed between states, not governments), or new treaties should be signed. But the Chinese have accepted the old treaties as continuing in effect, both de facto and de jure.

On the other hand, the Chinese contend that the treaties are unequal because the Ch'ing government allegedly was forced to sign them under duress. But if the Communist government of China is complaining of this alleged treatment of a previous Chinese government, then it is defending that government's integrity, which it need not do if “power was not in the hands of the people” then. Further, international law does not recognize this argument. Treaties signed under duress are as legal as treaties signed in other circumstances; examples are peace treaties and terms of surrender. Without such a provision, the fabric of international law would be even more tattered than it already is. It is true that law is intimately related to politics, and hence to power, in international relations, but the line must be drawn somewhere, and it has been a long-standing rule that states adhere to treaties even when conditions have changed since their signing. See, for instance, Briggs, Herbert W., The Law of Nations (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1952), Part XIGoogle Scholar, “Treaties and Other International Agreements,” pp. 836–946; DeVisscher, Charles, Theory and Reality in Public International Law (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957)Google Scholar; and Chiu, Hungdah, “Communist China's Attitude Toward International Law,” American Journal of International Law, 60, No. 2 (04, 1966), pp. 245–267CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 See Briggs, , The Law of Nations, pp. 917–918Google Scholar for arguments against rebus sic standibus. The standard work on the subject is Hill, Chesney, The Doctrine of “Rebus Sic Standibus” in International Law, University of Missouri Studies, No. 11, 1934, which concludes (p. 78)Google Scholar that “customary international law lays down the rule that a party who seeks release from a treaty on the grounds of a change of circumstances has no right to terminate the treaty unilaterally.” This holds true even if a change occurs in the type of state (e.g., from a colony to a state), much less if in the form of government.

27 Thalweg is the German word for “channel course.” i.e. the deepest part of the river, not necessarily its center.

28 It is intriguing to speculate whether any connection exists between the Chinese decision to terminate negotiations in September, 1964 and the removal of Nikita Khrushchev in October, 1964. Were Sino-Soviet relations heading for a showdown, as Hinton, Harold argues in Communist China in World Politics (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin Co., 1966), pp. 469–488?Google Scholar Unfortunately, evidence either way is lacking and Hinton's argument is, for the most part, unconvincing.

29 The Chinese did keep the border issue public through such occasional remarks as those uttered by Foreign Minister Ch'en Yi. Before a group of Scandinavian journalists, May 17, 1966, he declared that: China is willing to negotiate with the Soviet Union on the basis of modifications in the present series of treaties; the Russians have refused to negotiate on these terms; the Chinese have kept and will keep the status quo along the border, but the Soviets violate the border constantly—5000 violations since 1962; the Soviets occupy regions far beyond what the old treaties themselves lay out, provoking internal strife in China; and there is no truth to the charge that China wishes large areas of Soviet territory to be returned. See Joint Publications Research Service (JPRS) 36,136, Translations on International Communist Developments, No. 852, 06 23, 1966, especially pp. 13–14Google Scholar.

30 These include: (1) a 1951 Soviet-Chinese agreement on navigation along the Amur, Ussuri, Argun, and Sungari Rivers and on Lake Khanka (an agreement alleged by the Soviets, in their defense against Chinese charges, to be explicitly based on historic Russo-Chinese boundary treaties). Unfortunately, the text of this treaty seems not to have been published. It is referred to in a Soviet Government Statement of March 29, 1969 (Pravda, March 30, 1969); (2) joint investigation of the Argun River, completed August 19, 1956, Survey of China Mainland Press (SCMP) 1355 (08 22, 1956), p. 49Google Scholar; (3) Sino-Soviet Agreement On Heilungkiang Prospecting, SCMP 1355 (08 22, 1956), p. 49Google Scholar, and Peking Review, August 19, 1956; (4) Sino-Soviet Agreement on Commercial Navigation on Common Rivers and Lakes, December 21, 1957, NCNA, December 22, 1957, SCMP 1679 (December 27, 1957), p. 40, Jen-min Jih-pao, December 23, 1957, Izvestiia, December 22, 1957, and United Nations Treaty Series (UNTS), No. 305, p. 215; (5) Treaty of Commerce and Navigation Between China and Soviet Union, April 23, 1958, NCNA, April 23, 1958; SCMP 1760 (April 29, 1958), p. 29; UNTS, No. 313, p. 142; (6) Plan for Shipping and Waterway Maintenance Along the Amur River for 1959, NCNA, No. 1975 (March 18, 1959), p. 47; (7) Sino-Soviet Agreement on Scientific Research Along the Amur River, August 18, 1956 (report of Committee Session of 1959), NCNA, April 17, 1962, SCMP 2724 (April 25, 1962), pp. 36–38; (8) Sino-Soviet Mutual Agreement on Survey and Classification of Ships, May 7, 1962, NCNA, May 16, 1962, SCMP 2743 (May 22, 1962), p. 30, Jen-min Jih-pao, May 17, 1962, and Jen-min Shou-tse, 1962, p. 106Google Scholar.

31 This treaty does not mention boundary settlement per se, and merely grants each state's vessels and products most-favored-nation status while in the territory of the other. But throughout it refers to the “territory of the other party,” and the parties would be expected to have reached accord on the location of boundaries in order to have agreed on shipping and navigation practices.

32 The text of the 1966 “Regulations” was published in NCNA, April 19, 1966. Article Two states, “All foreign vessels entering or leaving rivers and ports on the national border [China's riverine boundary is shared only with the Soviet Union] shall abide by these regulations.” Article Three provides for the installation of “harbor superintendents” on each port and river, who would oversee the examination of ships, the approval of applications for entry and departure, mandatory pilotage, the maintenance of order and safety of navigation, and the investigation of maritime accidents. Article Four states that only countries that have signed commercial navigation agreements with China (as had the Soviet Union in 1958) may traverse these rivers, but their vessels would still have to obtain Chinese permission for each voyage. Article Six specifies the information to be given the Chinese concerning the vessels in question—in effect, everything about the ship, its crew, and its cargo. Article Seven stipulates that on sailing vessels through these rivers and in Chinese ports, “a CPR flag shall fly at the top of the foremast.” (That would be tantamount to admission of Chinese sovereignty over the entire river boundary and the midriver islands.) Article Eight prohibits use of firearms except in distress. Article Nine requires vessels to obtain permission to enter and leave ports. The other articles are similar, though less peremptory.

33 Dmitriyev, “Far Away on the Border,” quotes border guards as saying the Chinese “made attempts to provoke brawling and fighting,” drove ostentatiously across Soviet territory in buses, cars, and trucks, “tried to run our border guards down and waved sticks and carbines,” offered vodka to Soviet border guards, waved Mao-quote books and chanted phrases for hours, “pushed our border guards, tried to grab the lapels of their coats and urged our soldiers to disobey the officers.”

For long periods during the Cultural Revolution, the central leadership in Peking was not unified. From January 1967 on, many State Council officers and ministries were disorganized, policies radicalized, and the voices of moderates unheard. In the spring and summer of 1967 the Foreign Minister was under Red Guard attack and the Foreign Ministry controlled by the Red Guards during parts of July and August. In such an atmosphere, border incidents could easily have been perpetrated without the knowledge or against the policy of the Peking leadership. Red Guards, not local residents, may have been behind many of the border incidents about which the Soviets complained. From January 1967 the militia was dominated by the Red Guards, and until late summer the Army was forbidden to interfere in Cultural Revolution activities except under the direction of local Red Guard-revolutionary rebel leftist forces.

British experience in Hong Kong in 1967 is germane: it was quite clear that local Red Guards were initiating outbreaks of violence along the border and in the city. The Soviets may, like the British, have recognized the border incidents as Russian-baiting by Cultural Revolution extremists rather than as deliberate policy from the center, and decided to put up with the temporary annoyance. Still, Russian nerves must have become frayed after two years of such antics.

34 Dmitriyev, “Far Away on the Border.”

35 “Soviet Revisionist Renegade Clique Directs Soviet Frontier Guards Flagrantly To Intrude into Areas of Chenpao Island, Heilungkiang Province, China, and Open Fire, Killing and Wounding Chinese Frontier Guards,” “Note of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China to the Soviet Embassy in China,” NCNA, March 3, 1969, Jen-min Jih-pao, March 4; 1969, (translation in SCMP 4372 [March 10, 1969], pp. 19–20); NCNA report on border film, April 18, 1969; “Statement of the Government of the People's Republic of China, May 24, 1969”; and “Down with the New Tsars!.” Jen-min Jih-pao, March 3, 1969 (translation in SCMP 4373 [March 11, 1969], pp. 17–19). The Chinese claimed, in the April 18 NCNA report and elsewhere, that the Soviets' “intrusions” occurred during the ice-bound winter months. Sixteen intrusions over a period of about two years would give an average frequency of less than one a month. The Chinese also claimed that from January through February 1969, Soviet forces entered Damansky eight times. This would imply that the Soviets ordinarily stayed off the island for most of the year, leaving it to the Chinese for economic purposes.

36 NCNA, May 27, 1969.

37 “Statements of the Government of the People's Republic of China, May 24, 1969.”

38 Anikushin, Aleksandr (Major-General of Border Troops), “Again Damansky Island,” Sovetskaia Rossiia, 03 19, 1969Google Scholar, (translation in CDSP, Vol. 21, No. 12 [April 9, 1967], p. 3); Fomenko, V., “Far But Near,” Pravada Ukrainy, 04 2, 1969Google Scholar; and “Statement of the USSR Government,” Pravda, March 3, 1969, (translation in CDSP. Vol. 21, No. 13 [April 16, 1969], pp. 3–5). That the border is fraught with potential conflict at many strategic points can be seen from a map of the Khabarovsk area. Just west of the city, a “winter road” (i.e., over the ice) originates on Soviet territory, and continues along the middle of the Amur River, cuts directly across Hsin hei tzu Island (parts of which the Soviets have long claimed as theirs and occupied), and reenters Soviet territory some miles distant.

39 Kosterin, S., Mikhaylov, V., and Troyanovskiy, P., “Frontier Post on the Ussuri,” Sovetskaia Rossiia, 05 7, 1969Google Scholar, quoting a Chinese request to procure hay on Damansky Island. The article says the Soviets had maintained a frontier post in the area after 1922 but had abolished it in 1950 when the Chinese People's Republic was formed.

40 Apenchenko, Yuri and Mokeyev, Yuri, “Report from Far Eastern Frontiers,” Pravda, 03 12, 1967Google Scholar, (translation in CDSP, Vol. 21, No. 11 [April 2, 1969], p. 3). Similar reports of Soviet nonviolent repressive tactics are in Fomenko, “Far But Near” and Osanin, Konstantin, “Duplicity Chinese Style,” Moscow Radio, 03 29, 1969Google Scholar. As we shall see below, the Chinese, on March 2, took advantage of the Soviet practice of strapping their weapons to their chests when first meeting Chinese “intruders.”

41 Information on this topic is scanty and inconclusive. Here we rely mainly on The Institute for Strategic Studies' The Military Balance, 1960–1969 annual issues.

42 For a study of the Production and Construction Corps, see Moseley, George, A Sino-Soviet Cultural Frontier: The Ili Kazakh Autonomous Chou (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1966), pp. 35–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On March 4, 1969 (two days after the first Damansky Island incident), Inner Mongolian Radio announced the formation of the Inner Mongolian Production and Construction Corps of the Peking Military Region. Its purpose, according to an editorial in the Inner Mongolian Daily, May 8, 1969, is essentially similar to that of the Sinkiang Corps—border defense and military-directed construction of bulwarks, waterworks, and agricultural reclamation projects—and its personnel similarly include demobilized army men and students (e.g., Red Guards). For an informative article, see Yun-kwang, Wu, “Peiping's Military Region,” Chung-kung Yen-chiu (Taipei), Vol. 3, No. 6 (06 1969), pp. 4–8Google Scholar.

43 An issue of some importance is which troops within a given military district are actually earmarked for border defense, which actually guard the border, and which work exclusively at such other tasks as garrisoning interior regions. For instance, by no means all of the troops assigned to the Shenyang Military District guard the borders. Moreover, what percentage of troops in the Peking Military Region have been assigned to border duty? Even though the Peking Military Region does not border directly on the Soviet Union, its proximity to that frontier means that some troops some of the time must train as defenders of the state boundary. Likewise, in the Inner Mongolian and Sinkiang Military Districts, garrison duties divert troops who otherwise would be assigned to border defense. The same factors operate on the Soviet side of the border.

These variances render it extremely difficult to estimate precisely the disposition of forces in the frontier region, to say nothing of calculating tradeoffs in equipment, logistics, and strategy. Nonetheless, we have arbitrarily chosen to regard all forces in the Chinese military regions bordering the Soviet Union as working exclusively on border defense.

44 The Wall Street Journal, January 2, 1968, reported that in Sinkiang the Chinese authorities had replaced all Uighurs and Khazaks within 15 to 30 miles of the Soviet border with Chinese, equipped with rifles as well as plowshares. “Further back, Chinese army construction units are building roads and waterworks, and perhaps military bunkers as well. Further back still … are villages now inhabited by Chinese ex-soldiers still subject to militia duty. Only past these villages are minority-group members permitted to farm.”

45 See Harrison Salisbury's article on Soviet airfields in The New York Times, May 24, 1969. By contrast with the Chinese geopolitical situation, the Russians have fewer points of population concentration and less of a hinterland into which to retreat. Few Russian settlements exist north of the Trans-Siberian railway. Were the Soviets to lose the railway and the land to its south, there would be no place for them to go. For this reason, the Soviets probably maintain a higher proportion of their available forces close to the border than do the Chinese, and at specific points they may outnumber the Chinese.

46 The Military Balance, 1960–1969 annual issues, reported that the Soviets completely re-equipped their military forces, sometimes twice over, with the latest equipment. The Chinese, on the other hand, not only did not, until at least 1965, have the knowledge and industrial base to do so, but the withdrawal of Soviet aid in 1960 seriously crippled the Chinese military machine, especially those units dependent upon advanced weaponry, for several years.

47 The Military Balance figures vary only slightly up to that time. This estimate is suggested by that of Malcolm Mackintosh's article, “The Soviet Generals' View of China in the 1960s,” in Sino-Soviet Military Relations, ed. Garthoff, Raymond L. (New York: Praeger, 1966)Google Scholar.

48 Information about the Soviet buildup in the Far East in 1966, aside from that contained in The Military Balance for that year, can be found in: The Washington Post, December 11, 1966; Süddeutsche Zeitung, December 29, 1966, and The New York Times, August 17, November 22, December 11 and 29, 1966, and January 11, 1967.

49 The twenty-year “Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Aid Between the USSR and the MPR” was signed with great fanfare in Ulan Bator on January 15, 1966. It replaced a similar treaty signed in 1946. The earlier treaty made explicit the Soviet right to station troops on Mongolian soil; the 1966 treaty did not, although several of its articles could be construed as implying that right. Text in Pravda, January 18, 1966 (translation in CDSP, Vol. 18, No. 3 [February 9, 1966], pp. 7–8).

50 For an interesting, although admittedly speculative, account of that debate, see Ra'anan, Uri, “Peking's Foreign Policy Debate, 1965–1966,” in China in Crisis, ed. Tsou, Tang, Vol. 2 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), pp. 23–27Google Scholar.

51 The Military Balance, 1966–1967.

52 An Austrian correspondent's account of a trip through Soviet Central Asia during 1967 conveys some interesting information. First, the Soviets were constructing a barrier of the Iron Curtain type along the Sinkiang border. Second, the Russians described the public Chinese execution of Chinese citizens along the Amur and Ussuri Rivers, on one occasion witnessed by 20,000 people, and another incident near Chita, where 30,000 elderly were allegedly pushed over the border by Chinese military authorities. Third, in September 1966, Moscow was said to have delegated responsibility and authority for handling border incidents to local commanders. That arrangement was said to hold two advantages for Moscow: it could repudiate the local commander if he failed to maintain order, and it enabled him to move promptly and independently when necessary. See Portisch, Hugo, in the Vienna Kurier (translated in Atlas, Vol. 14, No. 3 [09 1967], pp. 15–19)Google Scholar.

53 The Military Balance, 1965–1966 and 1966–1967, reports an increase in border troops from 230,000 to 250,000. It is difficult to say exactly where most of these additional men were assigned, but the increase coincides with reports of increased Soviet border patroling activity.

54 See above, footnote 30. Also in The New York Times and The Washington Post, December 11, 1966.

55 Krasnaia zvezda, February 15, 1967.

56 See Krasnaia zvezda, January 11, February 15, and March 10, 1967, for typical articles, and The New York Times, January 21, 1967. This emphasis continued throughout 1968, as reported, for instance, in Krasnaia zvezda, July 31, 1968, and Dal'nii Vostok, No. 1, 1968.

57 Major floods in Mongolia in 1966 ripped out large stretches of railroad and, for a time, isolated Ulan Bator. The Soviets repaired the railroad connections with the Trans-Siberian but allowed the link between Ulan Bator and the Chinese border to remain in disrepair. The floods, however, probably set back the Soviet military construction schedule in Mongolia so that not until 1967 do we hear of Soviet troop presence and plans for military construction there. See articles by Salisbury, Harrison in The New York Times, 08 17, 1966, and 05 24, 1969Google Scholar.

58 The New York Times, January 3, 1969.

59 Novosti Mongolii, November 11, 1967.

60 Los Angeles Times, July 10, 1968. Available information does not allow us to judge whether or not these maneuvers actually took place on Mongolian soil.

61 The New York Times, May 24, 1969.

62 See Yi-san, Chiang, “Military Affairs of Communist China, 1968,” Tsu Kuo, No. 59 (02, 1969), pp. 20–36Google Scholar. This article quotes Sing-tao Jih-pao, August 3, October 7, and December 9, 1968. Additionally, Communist China 1967 (Kowloon: Union Research Institute), pp. 230–231Google Scholar, reports that at the end of 1967 China had completed transfer of 200,000 additional troops to the Soviet frontier, bringing the total to 600,000. This would be about 50 divisionequivalents, which accords with earlier estimates. Two hundred thousand men were said to be in Sinkiang and 400,000 in Inner Mongolia and the Northeast. One of the Institute's sources was The Japan Times, Tokyo, March 19, 1967. But the limitations noted in footnote 43 would still apply.

63 See, for instance, Lin Piao's July 1968 directive to the Peking Military Region, which mentions “the need of engineering endeavors for national defense, and specifically to construct defenses around desert areas” and the necessity of physical fitness of the construction corps; and the speech of Wang En-mao (then political commissioner of the Sinkiang Military Region) on October 8, 1968, in which he stated that “Sinkiang is the front line of our struggle against imperialism and revisionism” and that China was “vigorously strengthening war preparedness and border defense” there. Cited in Chiang, “Military Affairs.”

64 The Economist, March 22, 1969, states that the Soviets at that time had 300,000 men along the border (25–27 divisions, as compared with 15–17 divisions before) and that the Chinese had 500,000 men (40 divisions) in the same region. The latter figure probably excludes the Production and Construction Corps. Le Monde, April 14, 1969, quotes “informed Austrian sources” as saying that symbolic contingents of Warsaw Pact troops would soon be on their way to the Soviet-Chinese frontier. If these figures are not entirely erroneous, Chinese reinforcements have not kept pace with Soviet deployments: a ratio of 5 to 3 in men does not overcome the Soviet preponderance in weaponry, air power logistics, and capacity to reinforce quickly.

65 The New York Times, March 30, 1969.

66 Primary sources for this section are maps of the area and Jackson, W. A. Douglas, Russo-Chinese Borderlands (Princeton: D. Van Nostrand, 1962)Google Scholar; Shabad, Theodore, Geography of the USSR, A Regional Survey (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961)Google Scholar; idem, China's Changing Map (New York: Praeger, 1956)Google Scholar; Cressey, George B., Land of the 500 Million: A Geography of China (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1955)Google Scholar; and Thiel, Erich, The Soviet Far East: A Survey of Its Physical and Economic Geography (London: Methuen, 1947)Google Scholar. Secondary sources are those cited in footnotes 67 and 68 below.

67 In this section, the following sources were used. On the Soviet side: “Note of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the CPR,” March 2, 1969, Moscow Domestic Radio, March 3, 1969; Dmitriyev, Yuri, “Dangerous Provocations,” Trud, 03 5, 1969Google Scholar (also TASS of the same day), “Provocative Sally of Peking Authorities,” Pravda, March 8, 1969 (translation in Information Bulletin, Vol. 7, Nos. 5–6, 1969, pp. 66–70Google Scholar, and CDSP, Vol. 21, No. 10 [March 26, 1969], pp. 3–4); Moscow Radio to China, March 6, and March 9, 1969; Tanyug (Belgrade) Radio, March 8, 1969; “Press Conference in the USSR University of Foreign Affairs,” Pravda, March 8, 1969 (translation in CDSP, Vol. 21, No. 10 [March 26, 1969], pp. 4–5); Goltsev, Val., “What Happened on Damansky Island,” Izvestiia, 03 8, 1969Google Scholar (translation in CDSP, Vol. 21, No. 10, pp. 6–7); Kosterin, S. and Anikeyev, V., “How It Was,” Sovetskaia Rossiia, 03 9, 1969Google Scholar (translation in CDSP, Vol. 21. No. 10, pp. 7–8); TASS Radio, March 12, 1969; “The USSR Borders are Inviolable,” interview with Major General of Border Troops Anikushin, A. N., Sovetskaia Rossiia, 03 19, 1969Google Scholar (translation in CDSP, Vol. 21, No. 12 [April 9, 1969], p. 31); “Statement of the USSR Government,” March 29, 1969, TASS and Pravda, March 30, 1969 (translation in CDSP, Vol. 21, No. 13 [April 16, 1969], pp. 3–5); Apenchenko, Yuri and Mokeyev, Yuri, “That's How It Is on the Border,” Pravda, 03 12, 1969Google Scholar (translation in CDSP, Vol. 21, No. 11 [April 2, 1969], p. 3); Barents, Col. S., “This Happened at the Ussuri,” Krasnaia zvezda, 04 2, 1969Google Scholar; Simonov, Konstantin, “Thinking Aloud,” Pravda, 05 3, 1969Google Scholar, and May 4, 1969; and Demidenko, Mikhail, “A Night on the Ussuri River,” Literaturnaia gazeta, 05 21, 1969, p. 13Google Scholar.

On the Chinese side: NCNA Radio and Jen-min Jih-pao, March 3, 1969; “Note of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China to the Soviet Embassy in China, March 2, 1969,” NCNA Radio, March 3, 1969 (translation in SCMP 4372 [March 10, 1969], pp. 18–19); “Down with the New Tsars,” Jen-min Jih-pao and Chieh-fang-chün Pao joint editorial, March 4, 1969 (translation in SCMP 4373 [March 11, 1969], pp. 17–19); Jen-min Jih-pao, 03 19, 1969, six photographs on p. 4Google Scholar; NCNA Domestic Radio, April 18, 1969, describing the film, “Anti-China Atrocities of the New Tsars”; and “Statement of the Government of the PRC, May 24, 1969,” Jen-min Jih-pao, May 24, 1969.

68 The main sources for this section are, on the Soviet side: “Statement of the Government of the Soviet Union to the Government of the People's Republic of China,” TASS, March 15, 1969, and Pravda, March 16, 1969 (translation in CDSP, Vol. 21, No. 11 [April 2, 1969], pp. 3–4); TASS Radio, March 15 and 16, 1969; interview with Major General Lobanov, Pravda, March 17, 1969; Moscow Radio to East Africa, March 18, 1969; Moscow Radio Peace and Progress to China, March 17, 1969; “The USSR's Frontiers are Sacred and Inviolable,” Pravda, March 17, 1969; Apenchenko, Yuri and Mokeyev, Yuri, “They Have Defended With Their Hearts! A Report From the Far East Frontiers,” Pravda, 03 17, 1969Google Scholar; TASS Radio, March 20, 1969; Kuvshinnikov, Major Yuri, “Report on Damansky,” Krasnaia zvezda, 03 20, 1969Google Scholar; Prichkin, Lt. Col. B. and Dynin, Major I., “Three Attacks,” Krasnaia zvezda, 03 20, 1969Google Scholar; “Provocateurs Rebuffed,” Pravda, March 17 (translation in CDSP, Vol. 21, No. 11 [April 2, 1969], pp. 5–6); Budapest Domestic Radio, April 21, 1969; and a series of eight articles, “Frontier Post on the Ussuri,” Sovetskaia Rossiia, May 7–17, 1969.

On the Chinese side: “Note of the Foreign Ministry of the PRC to the Soviet Embassy in Peking,” NCNA, March 15, 1969; NCNA Radio, March 16, 1969, also in CDSP, No. 4381, March 21, 1969, pp. 26–27. Additional sources are cited in footnote 67, above.

69 Russian sources are themselves inconsistent. They all state that the battle began around 10:00 a.m. and was finished by 7:00 p.m., an elapsed time of nine hours. Yet they also say the battle lasted seven hours. The Chinese, however, agree with the Soviet end points.

70 The breakdown between dead and wounded is not clear in the statistics of either side. Surely the Chinese figure, even if accurate, represents both dead and wounded.

71 Portisch, see fn. 52. Soviet border troops, being a functional subdivision of the Committee of State Security (KGB), would not necessarily report first to local Red Army units. Although the information is somewhat dated, at the time of the German invasion in 1941, MVD border units reported vertically to Moscow and not horizontally to local army units or to the military district. In this regard, see Nekrich, A. M., 1941 June 22 (Moscow: Nauka, 1965), pp. 111–112Google Scholar.

If the same sorts of arrangements were in effect on March 2, 1969 (Soviet sources speak only of border troops involved at Damansky), the Soviets either were surprised by the Chinese, or the clash followed from a meeting of patrols, for it is unlikely that a local Soviet commander would have had the numbers of men and amount of matériel necessary to assure victory over the size of force—more than 300 men—reportedly deployed by the Chinese.

72 The Heilungkiang Production and Construction Corps was founded sometime in April 1968 and by March 1969 was several tens of thousands strong. Their arrival on the scene undoubtedly caused administrative confusion, which may have added to any latitude that local commanders already possessed. See Heilungkiang Provincial Broadcasting Station broadcasts of June 14, July 1 and 20, August 11, September 18, October 8, and November 11 and 23, 1968.

73 For evidence of such disorders, see Heilungkiang Provincial Broadcasting Station, 1968 broadcasts of March 1, 3, 4, and 24; April 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, and 21; May 1, 14, 24, 28, and 29; June 1, 17, 20, and 22; July 10, 14, and 27; August 18, 27, and 29; September 14, 17; November 30; December 1, 2, 6, and 16; and almost continually during the first three months of 1969.

The Cultural Revolution saw much friction between the Military Region and Peking and even outright disobedience of the center. The most notable instance was the Wuhan incident of July-August 1967, when both provincial political authorities and the local military conspired (in Peking's eyes) against the center. The continuing disorganization and factionalism at all levels in China more than a year after Wuhan make it possible to accept an explanation based on intraregional or regional-center disagreement or failure of communications.

74 This competition may have been reflected in the kinds and number of appearances of the two men during the period from the close of the Twelfth Plenum, October 31, 1968, to the March incidents. P'an appeared eleven times and Ch'en five times: the one who is behind in the race has to run faster. Ch'en reserved his appearances for the more important occasions.

75 See Izvestiia, 03 19, 1969, p. 3Google Scholar.

76 See TASS, Vladivostok, March 16, 1969; Pravda, March 17, 1969; and Sovetskaia Rossiia, March 19, 1969.

77 Our survey included a study of articles and editorials in the central press and the public statements of the following individuals: Mao Tse-tung; Lin Piao; Chou En-lai; Ch'en Po-ta; Chiang Ch'ing; Yao Wen-yuan; Ch'en Yi; Hsieh Fu-chih; Huang Yungsheng; Hsü Hsiang-chen; Yeh Chien-ying; Nieh Jungchen; Wu Fa-hsien; and Su Yu.

Of the foregoing persons, only Lin Piao, Ch'en Yi, Huang Yung-sheng, and Wu Fa-hsien spoke at length on public occasions. None of them wrote authoritative articles in the press. Only Huang Yungsheng's two speeches in Albania in early December 1968 could be interpreted as more rabidly anti-Soviet than the pronouncements of the others, and this can be rationalized by the necessity to please his Albanian audience. Of the 34 major reports, editorials, and speeches noted between October 31 and March 1, almost all are standard, relatively undeviating anti-Soviet polemics. If there were debates or differences of opinion as to how to handle the Soviet Union (as is possible), they were thus kept quiet. The very absence of indicators might itself be taken as an indication of a debate. But this does not seem to accord with the pattern of known previous debates.

78 For example, the summer of 1965 (American intervention in Vietnam), the summer of 1958 (Quemoy crisis), and early fall 1950 (Korean War).

79 Nanch'ang (Kiangsi) Provincial Broadcasting Station on July 31 reported, “Some time ago, some PLA personnel failed to understand clearly the relationship between preparedness against war and the task of ‘three supports’ and ‘two militaries’ [the ideological expression of military rule at the local level and correct popular attitudes toward it], thinking that in the face of major enemies, these tasks should be suspended.” Others, the broadcast reported, “felt that since our country was so powerful, the imperialists, revisionists, and reactionaries would not dare to invade China and there would be no war.”

80 This does not exclude, of course, the possibility of non-Sino-Soviet related factionalism at the center. Many of the 34 statements referred to above spoke of differences, reluctance, misunderstandings, ideological deviations, and shortcomings on a wide variety of domestic issues. Differences on some of those issues might have masked, or included, differences on relations with the Soviet Union. But evidence is lacking.

81 NCNA, November 25, 1968.

82 The other possibility, of course, is that the Chinese overture was designed to deter the Russians from taking military action against China. It is doubtful, however, whether the Chinese would want to make too much of such an argument, even if implied: the possibility of backfire was too great.

83 See Jen-min Jih-pao, November 25, for the speech and the joint editorial with Hung Ch'i (Red Flag) and Chieh-fang-chün Pao (Liberation Army Daily), “Consciously Study the History of the Struggle Between the Two Lines”; translation in Peking Review, No. 48 (November 29, 1968). The 1949 speech also stressed the diplomatic, not military, struggle against the enemy. For later pronouncements that indicate a renewed hard-line attitude toward the United States, see NCNA, December 11, 1968; January 16, 20, 22, and 30, and February 8, 1969; and Jen-min Jih-pao, January 27 and February 2, 4, and 18, 1969.

84 Changes instituted about the time of the Twelfth Plenum included the permanent relocation of several tens of millions of urban residents to the countryside; reform of the medical system through the “barefoot doctors” campaign, which, although it extended rudimentary medical services to the lowest levels, also disrupted the medical system and temporarily lowered medical standards and impeded disease control; the reform of the educational system, to put production teams in charge of staffing and financing basic education (where the state had helped before); and the militarization of industry and education, by elevating “worker-peasant propaganda teams” to leadership positions and by installing military leadership and organization, ending hopes of putting the economy on a rational basis.

The relocation campaign may be traced in Jen-min Jih-pao, October 5, 1968, and January 16, 1969; Chiehfang-chün Pao, October 5 and 9; NCNA, October 12, 13, 18, and 21; Radio Honan, October 20 and 22; Radio Hunan, October 23; Radio Hupeh, October 12, 15, 21, and 23; Radio Canton, October 7, 23, and 25; Radio Szechuan, October 13, and 24; Radio Anhwei, October 11; Radio Heilungkiang, October 7 and 11; Radio Kiangsi, October 12; Radio Kweichow, October 12, 22, and 25, and November 1; and Radio Wuhan, February 3, 1969.

See Radio Harbin, June 26, Jen-min Jih-pao, July 9 and 22, and Radio Canton, November 6, 1968, for information on medical problems.

For educational reforms, consult Hung Ch'i, Nos. 3 and 4, 1968; Jen-min Jih-pao, July 22, August 25, September 11, October 18, 21, 26, 27, and 31; November 14, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 24, and 25; and December 2, 5, 6, 10, 12, 16, and 27; NCNA, October 12, 13, 18, and 21; Wen Hui Pao, December 24; Radio Honan, October 20; Radio Hunan, October 23; Radio Hupeh, October 12, 15, and 23; Radio Canton, October 25; Radio Szechuan, October 13, Radio Anhwei, October 10 and 11; and Radio Kiangsi, October 9, 1968.

For developments in industry, see Jen-min Jih-pao, August 26, October 22, and November 15; and Kuangming Jih-pao, October 30, 1968.

85 The arguments developed here are entirely heuristic; no factual evidence is available to support them. The Ninth Congress had, during early 1968, been termed “imminent.” Later that word was dropped. In early 1969, indications pointed to a March 1 opening date, then March 15. The Congress finally opened April 1.

86 The 1968 draft Party constitution contained many provisions that would be seriously questioned by many Chinese. For example: Lin Piao is specifically named as Mao's only successor; Mao's Thought alone is placed at the center of Marxism-Leninism in the present era; improved living standards are no longer mentioned as the goal of the Party; class struggle is stressed to the extreme; the previous warning against great-Han chauvinism is dropped; the united front policy of cooperation with other parties is abrogated; the policy of peaceful coexistence is replaced by one of outright enmity toward the Soviet Union and the United States; the section on rights of party members is truncated; election of party organs by the membership is replaced with vague wording suggesting appointment from the top down; the length of tenure of office in central party organs is not specified; power is specifically concentrated in the Politburo, with a concomitant downgrading of the Central Committee; the Secretariat is not mentioned, nor are the control organs of the party; and no room is made for an Honorary Chairman, meaning that Mao will retain his present position for life.

87 On the other hand, it is surprising that in his major report to the Ninth Congress, Lin Piao devoted disproportionate space (for a report of that nature) to his handling of Kosygin's telephone calls concerning the incident of March 15. If Lin felt constrained to speak in such detail to justify his actions at that juncture, it is possible that the entire Maoist anti-Soviet policy was under attack at, and presumably before, the Congress.

88 The periodicals surveyed were Kommunist; Partinaia zhizn'; Voprosy filosofii; Sovetskoe gosudarstvo i pravo; and Mirovaia ekonomika i mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia. The reportage showed the Soviet Union to be experiencing the problems of advanced industrialization and the increasingly apparent contradictions between the concomitants of economic progress—easier communication, social mobility, more bureauracy, and higher education levels—and the Party's desire to preserve monolithic rule by a tiny percentage of the population. There was also evidence of continuing differences over agricultural policy in the debate over the proposal to institute “mechanized links” at the lowest rural administrative level.

89 The only exception is the rise of local nationalist sentiment in Central Asian Soviet republics, which the Soviets increasingly repressed after March 2 by appeals to pan-Soviet nationalism in the face of the border crisis.

90 A methodological note is in order. Nearly every major decision of the Soviet Politburo (or Presidium) in the past has been accompanied by either or both of these indicators. See, in this regard, Leonhard, The Kremlin Since Stalin; Conquest, Robert, Power and Policy in the USSR (New York: Harper and Row, Torchbooks, ed., 1967)Google Scholar; and Tatu, Michel, Power in the Kremlin (New York: Viking, 1969)Google Scholar. But often some time must pass before evidence of intra-elite dissension or struggle appears in any but the most esoteric manner. Propaganda change, on the other hand, is a more reliable short-term indicator of unannounced policy changes. Thus, absence of detectable leadership changes in the short run does not necessarily indicate absence of a change in policy, but absence of propaganda changes in the same period would indicate absence of policy change.

91 Based on the following Russian sources: Pravda, Izvestiia, TASS, Kommunist, Kommunist Vooruzhennykh Sil, Radio Moscow (Domestic and International), Radio Peace and Progress, Komsomol'skaia pravda, Literaturnaia gazeta, Radio Tashkent, Sovetskaia Rossiia, Pravda Ukrainy, Krasnaia Zvezda, Trud, and International Affairs.

92 The following subthemes are included: the Maoist “military-bureaucratic dictatorship”; the revolutionary committees as Mao's personal political machine; Mao's overreliance on the PLA; worker-peasant-student-soldier resistance to Mao; repression of national minorities; and great-Han chauvinism.

93 Including: Maoist betrayal of the principles of Marxism-Leninism; diminution of the leading role of the Party; syndicalist, anarchist deviations; and Maoist subversion of Marxist-Leninist principles of armed struggle and national liberation.

94 Includes charges that: anti-Sovietism is the main content of Chinese foreign policy; China provokes border disputes with the Soviet Union; China tries to sow dissension in the socialist camp and is thus anti-proletarian internationalist; anti-Sovietism acts to consolidate Mao's dictatorship and channels domestic discontent away from the leadership; Maoist China is like traditional China—imperialist and hegemonic; and China is in collusion with “capitalist” countries, as seen by common policies on the Vietnam and Czechoslovak questions.

95 For example, protestations of solidarity and friendship with the Chinese people, as opposed to the Maoist leadership; invocations of Soviet defense of “proletarian internationalism” and world socialism; and explanation and defense of the “Brezhnev doctrine” justifying Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia.

96 The one significant exception occurred in treatment of the border issue. Only from October 2 to 31 did Soviet sources mention the problem of the Sino-Soviet border. From then until the March 2 incident there was total silence on the issue. See Moscow Radio, October 1, 2, and 7; Radio Peace and Progress, October 21; and the Soviet note to the Chinese Foreign Ministry of October 31 (rebutting the Chinese charge of border provocations in a note of September 16); Pravda, November 1. See also Izvestiia, November 2, for an interview on the subject with the Deputy Chief of Staff of the USSR Armed Forces, and Chou En-lai's Albanian banquet speech of September 29, 1968, Jen-min Jih-pao, September 30.

We can speculate on explanations for Soviet silence on the border issue after October. It might signify resolution of a difference within the Soviet leadership on the matter or actual power changes in the Kremlin. Perhaps the Soviets dropped the subject, intending “negative conditioning” (allowing a hiatus so as to take up another issue). Third, Soviet propaganda on the border may have so irked the Chinese that they threatened punitive action if the Russians continued it. This seems highly unlikely, given the Soviet military buildup along the frontier. On the other hand, with the end of the Cultural Revolution in sight and foreseeing Mao's resumption of control over Chinese politics, perhaps the Soviets were hesitant to provoke just the kind of violent incident that finally took place in March. Finally, cessation of propaganda can be taken as a signal to the Chinese of Soviet desires to settle the border dispute, now that the Cultural Revolution had subsided and the “professionals” were presumably back in control of Chinese foreign policy. Unforunately, the opposite interpretation is possible: with troops moving eastward and rumors sure to flow through the Soviet populace about the buildup, perhaps the Russians did not wish to alert the Chinese or cause concern among Russians regarding Soviet intentions. In any case, it seems likely that a decision was indeed made after a certain date (early November 7) to speak with acts, rather than words, about the border dispute. Half of the new policy involved frequent and intensified patrolling by newly stationed troops. The other half, visible after late October, was cessation of propaganda related to the border problem. This seems to be the most likely and consistent evaluation of Soviet intentions.

97 On Brezhnev's varying status, compare Pravda, 09 13, 1968, p. 6Google Scholar, with Izvestiia, September 15 (the latter article slighted Brezhnev's war role); see Izvestiia, October 25, p. 3, extolling his war role (Pravda did not carry a similar story); compare Pravda, December 11, p. 1, showing Katushev, Brezhnev's protégé, in an unusually prominent place, with Pravda, December 19, p. 1, where Katushev's title was conspicuously lowered from Secretary of the Central Committee to Secretary under the Central Committee; and compare the doctoring of Brezhnev's Belorussian liberation anniversary speech in Pravda, December 28, with the speech as carried on Moscow Domestic Radio, December 28.

98 Kommunist Vooruzhennykh Sil (KVS) is a semimonthly journal published by the Main Political Administration of the Armed Forces. Our survey covered issues from October 1968 to March 1969, and sought statements about China, border problems, and general strategic policy. A survey of Krasnaia zvezda (Red Star), the daily military newspaper, from October 1968 to February 1969, was not fruitful, and the other major military journal, Voennaia mysl' (Military Thought) was impossible to obtain because its circulation is restricted to the Red Army command staff.

99 “The Political Side of Soviet Military Doctrine,” KVS, No. 22 (11, 1968), pp. 11–18Google Scholar. In advocating opposition to “imperialism” by more direct means, this article seems to have been a new departure from the prevailing Party opinion.

100 In October 1968, Babakov, Colonel A., in “The Unity of Science and Policy in the Military Activity of the CPSU,” KVS, No. 19, pp. 61–67Google Scholar, wrote of the necessity for Party control over military thought and operations, particularly over the scientific-technical aspects of the modern military machine. The Larinov article in November dissented from this somewhat by stressing the “military-technical” factor. Although this “side” of Soviet military doctrine was still dominated by the political, the author's use of the term “side” signifies an enhanced view of the nonpolitical elements of warfare.

The hints thrown out by Larionov were explicitly developed in a major article by Lieutenant Colonel V. Bondarenko a month later. (“The Contemporary Revolution in Military Affairs and the Combat Readiness of the Armed Forces,” KVS, No. 24 [December 1968], pp. 22–29Google Scholar). Bondarenko argued expressly that “the military field is a relatively independent area of social life” and hence “has its own logic of development.” True, science, economics, and politics (i.e., Party policy) all influence military doctrine and developments (and Party policy directs the development of the first two); but within each, including military affairs, there is a relatively independent development, and external sources (politics being external to military affairs) can only “facilitate or hinder the process which has objectively matured and is developing directly.”

As if to emphasize the point, he stated, p. 24, that “In some studies, the sole cause of the revolution in military affairs is declared to be politics, and sometimes individual political organizations alone, or even just their leaders.”

101 Strategic weapons arguments could have been used in regard to China since it now possesses a nuclear capability. But they are much more likely to have been used in the debate over the strategic balance with the United States. Further, if China policy figured in a debate over military investment, we would expect to see arguments about the relative weight to be accorded conventional versus nuclear weapons. Such arguments do not appear in the sources consulted.

102 See Captain 2nd Skryl'nik, Rank A., “The All-Conquering Force of Lenin's Ideas,” KVS, No. 24 (12, 1968), pp. 14–21Google Scholar, and Captain 1st Demidov, Rank B., “For the Unity of Action of Communist and Worker Parties.” KVS, No. 3 (02 1967) pp. 18–25Google Scholar.

103 Thus, in the positive sense, “the Soviet Union, as the most powerful socialist state, in carrying out its internationalist duty, gives and will give all that is necessary for the strengthening of the socialist system as a whole and each of its links taken separately.” (Korolev, N., “V. I. Lenin on Social Democracy and Proletarian Internationalism,” KVS, No. 2 [01 1969], p. 14.Google Scholar) See also Parnev, M. and Ermakova, T., “The Most Influential Political Force of the Present,” KVS, No. 4 (02, 1969), pp. 20–26Google Scholar.

Neutrally, “internationalism cannot remain indifferent to the fate of socialism in fraternal governments …. The defense and consolidation of the gains of socialism in fraternal countries is the sacred international duty of communists.” (Korolev, p. 13.)

And negatively, “the negation or denigration of the leading role of the party leads to the deformation of socialist democracy, and creates a direct threat to the gains of socialism.” (Korolev, p. 12.)

104 See Korolev, p. 12; “Editorial,” KVS, No. 3 (02, 1969), pp. 3–8Google Scholar; Demidov, and Parnev and Ermakova.

105 Khrustov, F., “V. I. Lenin's Works on the Socialist State,” KVS, No. 23 (12, 1968), p. 19Google Scholar.

106 Abdrakhmanov, M., “V. I. Lenin on the Strategy and Tactics of World Communists,” KVS, No. 3 (02, 1969), p. 10Google Scholar.

107 Demidov, p. 20, and Skryl'nik, p. 19.

108 Several options present themselves: Army-Party differences, each institution taken as a whole; intra-Army debates; intra-Party debates; or an alliance of subgroups within each. The last is most probable, because of the difficulty of debates on these subjects taking place within only one of the concerned institutions, and because KVS is a creature of the Party within the Army.

109 The Soviets claimed after the March 2 incident that the Chinese had stabbed them in the back by attacking while their attention was taken up with the Berlin mini-crisis. This claim strains credulity, since no one, including the Russians, thought the Berlin problem would develop any threat proportions. The claim was a formal exercise, and the Soviets as much as told Washington so.

110 It was easy for Soviet military writers to arrive at those conclusions, given the anti-China atmosphere in the Soviet Union. That such conclusions were not openly expressed in print probably means either total control over every written expression on the subject or a policy that did not recognize overt military action against China as a viable alternative. The former is possible; the latter is more probable.

111 Whether or not the Soviets had thought out the second half of the decision, namely, that such a policy might lead to war, the outlines of a “dual policy” came into clearer focus after the post-November decision.

112 Various stages of increasing violence can well be imagined: division-sized temporary incursion across the border; more than temporary occupation of small portions of Chinese territory; pinching off a chunk of Sinkiang and providing a Soviet-installed “autonomous” government; conventional attack against Chinese nuclear installations; nuclear attack against Chinese nuclear installations; turning Sinkiang into an Outer Mongolia; frontal attack at several points along the border, i.e., extending the range of large-scale hostilities to Inner Mongolia and Manchuria; and all-out attack with the goals of partitioning China, overthrowing the Maoist leadership, and installing a government in Peking favorable to the Soviet Union.

113 Official Soviet reports and eyewitness accounts of the March 2 events, as well as the mass meetings held throughout the country after March 7, called for revenge.

114 The Soviet Communist Party had been working with non-pro-Chinese branches of the movement for over four years to schedule the conference. At the meetings of the Preparatory Committee in Budapest in September and November 1968, member parties had finally agreed to hold the conference in May 1969. For documentation of these meetings, see CDSP, Vol. 20, No. 40 (October 23, 1968), pp. 10–11, and Vol. 20, No. 47 (December 11, 1968), pp. 3–5. The Soviets had the remaining task of ensuring the attendance of the signatories to the Budapest Declarations and enticing other Communist parties, particularly the Italian and Rumanian, to the meeting.

115 On the other hand, too severe a Russian action might have driven the Italians and the Rumanians away from the May meeting. These parties opposed the Russian efforts to turn the conference into an anti-China diatribe. The Soviets therefore had to modulate carefully their response at Damansky on the 15th, being less severe with the Chinese than they otherwise might have been. As it was, the May meeting had to be postponed to June because of the border outbreak, and the Rumanians and the Italians agreed to attend only if no adverse mention of the Chinese was made in the official declarations of the conference.

116 The few meetings held immediately after the March 2 event did not swell to any climax. Only when the Russians were certain that the March 2 attack was not part of a larger military operation did they turn on the propaganda machine in earnest. Massive demonstrations and commentaries began on March 7, five days after the initial announcement of the fighting and the exchange of diplomatic notes, reached a peak on the 8th, and declined to a constant, low-keyed effort by the 14th. A demonstration at which ink bottles were thrown was held in front of the Chinese embassy March 7 and demonstrations spread to major Soviet cities during the week of March 4–11.

117 On nationalism in the Soviet Union, see “The Soviet Moslem World,” Studies on the Soviet Union (Zurich), Vol. 7, No. 4 and Vol. 8, No. 1, 1968Google Scholar (entire issues); Pipes, Richard, “The Solution of the Nationality Problem,” Studies on the Soviet Union, Vol. 6, No. 3, 1967, pp. 35–47Google Scholar; and Urban, P., “A Soviet Discussion of the Concept of Nationhood,” Bulletin of the Institute for the Study of the USSR (Munich), Vol. 14, No. 5 (05 1967), pp. 37–48Google Scholar.

118 It is possible, but not probable, that the Chinese did begin action on the 15th as well as on the 2nd of March. If they did, the reason was simply a desire to gain a tactical advantage over the Russians. In other words, the Chinese may have attempted to forestall the expected Russian attack. The difference between the two incidents then would lie in the relative success of the Chinese: this tactic worked in the first instance but not in the second. The reason, of course, was that the Russians were ready for them the second time and by then had a clear local superiority in equipment, if not in men.

119 See especially NCNA Domestic Radio, March 4; NCNA International Radio, March 3; joint Jen-min Jih-pao and Chieh-fang-chün Pao editorial, “Down With the New Tsars,” March 3; Budapest MTI Domestic Radio, March 3; NCNA International Radio, March 5 and 6; Kweiyang Radio, March 5; Chengtu Radio, March 5; Kunming Radio, March 5; Chengchow Radio, March 5; NCNA International Radio, March 6 and 7; Budapest MTI Domestic Radio, March 6; NCNA International Radio, March 7, 8, 9 and 10; SCMP 4373 (March 11), pp. 18–20; SCMP 4374 (March 12), pp. 20–27; SCMP 4375 (March 13), pp. 26–33; SCMP 4376 (March 14), pp. 18–20. Current Background, No. 876 (April 11, 1969), gives 50 pages of translations of reports on the demonstrations.

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