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Commentary on the Issuance of the Document “How the Foreign Bourgeoisie Discusses the Sino-Soviet Differences” (January 12, 1960)

To be circulated for reading and study by all comrades. [2] It contains many insightful passages.

Printed from the manuscript by Mao Zedong on January 12.

Notes [ ] This document appeared in an internal reference material compiled and printed on January 9, 1960. It primarily consists of excerpts from reports and commentaries in foreign bourgeois newspapers over the preceding year or so concerning Sino-Soviet relations, organized under sixteen headings. Under several of these headings, Mao Zedong added emphasis marks:

1. The Soviet Union fears war and stresses détente, reconciliation, and peaceful coexistence; China does not fear tension, “will not renounce armed resistance,” and opposes “pacifism.”

2. The Soviet Union believes that “the U.S. government, like the American people, seeks peace” and pursues a pro-U.S. policy; China, however, “does not trust the United States” and maintains an anti-U.S. stance.

4. The Soviet Union advocates “luring” nationalist states to “spontaneously move toward socialism” and “refraining from fanning the flames of anti-imperialist struggle”; China, by contrast, seeks to unite anti-imperialist forces to strike at the United States, supports national liberation movements, and champions revolutionary struggle.

9. China persists in criticizing modern revisionism, whereas Khrushchev holds that there is no need to “swat flies.”

11. The Soviet Union feels “anxious” about China’s Great Leap Forward.

12. The people’s communes constitute “a challenge to Soviet leadership.”

[2] Refers to the comrades then attending the enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee in Shanghai.