By Xu Lai
Edited by Xu Lai
Yegorov publicly accused Khrushchev of "destroying the Sino-Soviet united front," believing that he sowed ideological fissures that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union, triggering a resurgence of Russian public opinion.
A "Secret Report" Tore Apart the Sino-Soviet Alliance
In 1956, Khrushchev delivered a "secret report" at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which was like a political nuclear bomb.
He labeled Stalin as an authoritarian despot and defined the Great Purge as a disaster.
The Soviet internal reaction was stunned, Eastern European allies were shocked, and Beijing remained silent for three days.
This report not only changed the direction within the Soviet Union but also created deep rifts in the international communist camp.
Khrushchev openly advocated for de-Stalinization, proposing peaceful transition and the "three harmonies" policy, which China did not accept.
Since then, the differences between the two countries rapidly expanded.
When the report reached Beijing, the Chinese leadership did not immediately make a statement.
Because in March of that year, Chairman Mao was still planning the NPC meeting, and it wasn't until June that the People's Daily published a cautious editorial, indicating that they should view Stalin from both positive and negative aspects.
The tone was moderate, but it did not agree with Khrushchev's complete rejection.
The conflict didn't stop at theoretical disagreements.
In 1958, Khrushchev visited China and proposed the idea of a "joint fleet," which China directly rejected.
The Soviet side demanded dominance, while China insisted on independence. This disagreement ignited long-standing strategic suspicions.
In 1960, the Soviet Union suddenly withdrew all its experts in China and stopped the construction projects.
This left dozens of large-scale projects stranded, and Chinese workers had to stop construction. The national public opinion quickly intensified.
Starting from that year, the People's Daily and the Soviet Pravda newspaper began open confrontations, and the debate became increasingly intense.
The Chinese side believed that the Soviet Union betrayed the principles of revolution and moved towards revisionism; the Soviet side criticized China for being impulsive and dogmatic.
The public opinion spread from official media to the general public, turning brothers into "enemies."
This ideological confrontation was not just diplomatic quarrels. It directly influenced the Asian landscape and also affected the leftist movements in the Third World.
Countries such as Vietnam, North Korea, Albania, and Cuba had to take sides.
And the starting point of all this was Khrushchev's "secret report."
He wanted to rewrite history, and also completely rewrote the power structure of the international communist movement.
From Disputes to Opposition, the Crack in the Cold War Camp
The initial cracks between China and the Soviet Union originated from theory and spread faster than expected.
After the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, China again criticized the Soviet Union for being weak and compromising, while Khrushchev secretly criticized China for adopting extreme policies.
The leaders of both countries had their own calculations, and the atmosphere of mutual distrust reached its peak.
Border tensions also escalated, with frequent disputes among fishermen along the Heilongjiang and Ussuri rivers.
By 1964, border troops no longer hesitated and occasionally fired shots.
In terms of public opinion, both countries openly called each other "false Marxists."
The sarcastic remarks were no less fierce than today's online rants.
China published nine long articles in a row, refuting the Soviet Communist Party's line paragraph by paragraph.
The Soviet side publicly supported India's position in the Sino-Indian war and increased military aid to Mongolia and Vietnam.
These actions further escalated the strategic confrontation between China and the Soviet Union.
In 1969, the Zhenbao Island conflict broke out. The Soviet army mobilized heavy troops, and the Chinese border forces fought fiercely under -40 degrees Celsius.
Although this battle was not large in scale, it pushed the Sino-Soviet opposition to the brink of actual military confrontation.
The Soviet Union once considered a nuclear strike against China and even privately discussed the possibility with the United States.
It was in this context that China began to reassess its policy toward the United States.
In 1972, Nixon's visit to China shocked the world.
The thaw in Sino-American relations forced the Soviet Union to reorganize, signing the Helsinki Accords and increasing investment in the European direction.
This strategic disadvantage made many Soviet military and political officials feel extremely oppressed.
By the 1980s, although China and the Soviet Union attempted to restore diplomatic relations on the surface, the cracks in their relationship had already been difficult to mend.
More importantly, China and the Soviet Union had completely different understandings of the future path of communism.
China emphasized self-reliance, while the Soviet Union was still struggling with its heavy planned economy system.
The Russian Communist Party frequently mentioned this period when summarizing the lessons of the Soviet Union's collapse.
They believe that Khrushchev destroyed the ideological unity of the communist bloc, severed the revolutionary link with China, and undermined the foundation of the Soviet ideology.
Yegorov has repeatedly stated that Khrushchev "destroyed the unified global communist party front," gradually isolating the Soviet Union.
He also pointed out that it was Khrushchev who opened the "gate of internal division," and later Gorbachev and Yeltsin were merely continuations of this broken chain.
Certainly, history is far more complex than slogans.
But it cannot be denied that this ideological split indeed created a significant crack in the Cold War structure.
The Soviet Union's "global alliance circle" thus lost a link, while China took a different path alone.
The comparison of these two paths is still being discussed by Russian intellectuals today.
Some people have started to re-evaluate Khrushchev, believing that he lacked historical patience and strategic resilience.
Others even say he is "not good at achieving success, but very bad at causing failure."
The Anger and Reckoning of Russian Left-Wingers
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the controversy surrounding Khrushchev increased further.
In the early 1990s, Russian society overwhelmingly negated the Soviet history, and in the 21st century, reflective voices gradually resurfaced.
Representatives of the Russian Communist Party, such as Yegorov, publicly listed Khrushchev as the originator of "spiritual generation gap."
They not only criticized him for ruining Sino-Soviet relations but also believed that he destroyed the political faith within the Soviet Union.
Yegorov once publicly said in a speech that Khrushchev's "secret report" split the revolutionary tradition, leading the younger generation away from their beliefs, and party officials also lost their direction.
He also emphasized that Khrushchev's "comprehensive negation" of Stalin not only violated party procedures but also hurt the sense of identity of several generations of people with the country.
Similar criticisms are not uncommon among Russian left-wing intellectuals.
Some scholars studying Soviet history believe that Khrushchev's initiation of de-Stalinization hollowed out the ideological foundation of the entire country.
The Soviet Union was a highly ideologically driven system. Once the narrative foundation was lost, systemic collapse became inevitable.
Many Russian historical documentaries directly list the "Sino-Soviet split" as the turning point for the rapid decline of the Soviet Union's international influence.
They mention that since the 1960s, the Soviet Union's "socialist friend circle" in Africa and Asia gradually shrank.
Many third-world countries turned to contact with China, especially those revolutionary countries of the Mao era, who looked down on Khrushchev's "peaceful coexistence."
In the view of these left-wing perspectives, Khrushchev not only cut off the ideological bloodline between China and the Soviet Union but also undermined the united front of the world communist system.
More importantly, he caused continuous factional struggles within the Soviet Union.
From Khrushchev to Brezhnev, from Andropov to Gorbachev, the top leaders of the CPSU never managed to repair the initial cracks.
Each power transition carried the issues left over from the Khrushchev era.
The Russian Communist Party believes that when Khrushchev "uprooted" Stalin, the political lifeline of the Soviet Union began to bleed.
Even if repaired, the cracks continued to widen.
And the Sino-Soviet break-up put the Soviet Union into a state of "global loneliness."
When China advocated "anti-imperialism and anti-revisionism" in the Third World, the Soviet Union was forced to suppress its allies with force.
In 1968, it invaded Czechoslovakia, and in 1979, it intervened in Afghanistan, becoming increasingly like a "red hegemon."
Many Russians now look back and believe that if the Soviet Union could have maintained strategic cooperation with China, its global image and voice might not have declined so quickly.
Certainly, this view is not mainstream in Russia, but it has considerable influence among some old party members and historians.
In their eyes, Khrushchev not only failed to save the party, but also "cut the root."
The Multi-Factor Resonance of the Soviet Collapse
The collapse of the Soviet Union had many responsible parties, but Khrushchev is undoubtedly one of the initiators.
From political lines, foreign policy to ideological identification, his "reforms" shook the foundations of the entire system.
However, from an academic perspective, the real reason for the Soviet Union's collapse was much more complex.
The core issue lay in the economic structure.
The entire planned economy system was overly centralized, with slow information feedback and rigid resource allocation.
Industrial output was artificially high, while agricultural products were in long-term shortage, and fiscal deficits increased year by year.
Plus the pressure of the arms race in the late 1970s, the whole country fell into fatigue.
National issues were also a time bomb.
The Soviet Union was not a nation-state, but a union of 15 republics.
The languages, religions, and historical backgrounds of the various republics were vastly different.
Khrushchev weakened central authority during his time without establishing a new coordination mechanism. By the time of Gorbachev, the separatist tendencies of the regions rapidly increased.
The most fatal was the collapse of ideology.
Khrushchev's de-Stalinization was just the first wave of impact.
Brezhnev's period made a slight return, but no new belief system was established.
Gorbachev's "new thinking" further dismantled the old framework, ultimately leading to the loss of control of the party and government system.
Once ideology was detached, the military no longer obeyed orders, the bureaucratic system collapsed, and the people lost direction.
At this point, an economic crisis was enough to collapse the entire country.
The rupture of Sino-Soviet relations was more evident on the strategic level.
From the 1960s onwards, the Soviet Union's security pressure in the East continued to rise.
It had to deploy millions of troops along the Sino-Soviet border to guard against "revolutionary shocks from the East."
This situation of internal and external difficulties kept the Soviet Union's strategic steps trapped for a long time.
At the end of the Cold War, the United States increased its containment of the Soviet Union, while China turned to reform and opening up, widening the technological gap with the Soviet Union.
From satellites to information technology, from electronic industry to computer networks, the Soviet Union was surpassed by the West and China in two directions.
Khrushchev's single "report" tore open the strategic coordination system.
Later, the Soviet Union could never repair this global layout.
The Russian left-wing's fixation on him is not just emotional venting, but also due to practical anxiety.
They clearly know that without rebuilding the country's historical cognition, today's Russia will also lose its support points in the global coordinates.
Historical legacies are never past events.
Some reports are forgotten after reading, while others are turning points after reading.
The speech on that night in 1956 still influences the narrative logic of a generation today.
Reference Information:
Yegorov: Khrushchev destroyed the Sino-Soviet common front, and is one of the beginning of the Soviet Union's collapse · Kunlun Ce Network · 2023-02-27
Analysis of the Political Logic of the Soviet Union's Collapse · China Social Sciences Network · 2019-05-10
The Far-Reaching Impact of the "Secret Report" on Sino-Soviet Relations and the World Pattern · China Social Sciences News · 2020-07-30
Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7547212290676818486/
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