Sino-Soviet Split

Fall of 1963

By the fall of 1963, relations between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China had seriously deteriorated. The Sino-Soviet friendship of the 1950s was a thing of the past, and no longer did strains of "The Russian and the Chinese are brothers forever. The union of peoples and races grows strong" resound across the Soviet Union.

Perhaps Mao Zedong really did not see the point of Khrushchev's criticism of Stalin, or perhaps, as he later claimed, he was just pretending, to see how his adversaries would react. In any event, soon after the 20th Soviet Communist Party Congress in 1956, all the "fraternal communist parties" were supporting the new policy and exposing Stalin's "cult of personality," and China was proclaiming "Let a hundred flowers bloom." But before long, any ideologically incorrect flowers started to be pulled out by their roots in China, and in 1958 the horrors of the Great Leap Forward began.

Backyard furnaces were set up outside residential buildings, supposedly to produce steel out of scrap metal, and people were posted on the roofs of buildings round the clock to swat away sparrows with sticks and rags as part of the Four Pests Campaign. In the end, with nowhere to land, more than a million birds died of exhaustion, but instead of leading to the expected boost in crop yield, the harvest was reduced because of swarming insects unchecked by their natural avian predators. Millions of Chinese starved to death.

It was around this time that Chinese and Soviet officials began exchanging civilly worded jabs. China accused the USSR of abandoning true Lenin-Stalinist ideals, even branding the Soviets with the dreaded "revisionism." Soviet ideologues, for their part, were outraged by China's territorial pretensions. The Soviet Central Committee issued a series of "open letters." Since they were open, they had to be studied at open party meetings to which not only party members but even non-members were forcibly herded.

All across the USSR, resolutions were being adopted expressing the Soviet people's outrage at the incorrect policy being followed by the PRC's Central Committee. Given the absurdity of this political theater, the bard Vladimir Vysotsky could not resist composing his own open letter on behalf of the workers of Tambov, brilliantly parodying officialese and comically blending it with the folksy speech of the common people.

В Пекине очень мрачная погода,
у нас тут на заводе - перекур.
Мы пишем вам с тамбовского завода,
любители опасных авантюр!
Ведь тем, что договор не подписали,
вы всем народам причинили боль
и, извращая факты, доказали,
что вам дороже генерал де Голль.
Нам каждый день насущный мил и дорог,
но если даже вспомнить старину,
так это ж вы изобретали порох
и строили Китайскую стену!
Мы понимаем: вас совсем не мало,
чтоб триста миллионов погубить.
Но мы уверены, что сам товарищ Мао,
ей-богу, даже очень хочет жить!
Когда вы рис водою запивали,
мы проявляли интернационализм.
Небось, когда вы русский хлеб жевали,
не говорили про оппортунизм!
Боитесь вы, что реваншисты в Бонне,
что Вашингтон - грозится перегнать...
Но сам Хрущев сказал еще в ООНе,
что мы покажем кузькину им мать!
Вам не нужны ни бомбы, ни снаряды,
не раздувайте вы войны пожар.
Мы нанесем им, если будет надо,
ответный термоядерный удар!
А если зуд - без дела не страдайте,
у вас еще достаточно делов:
давите мух, рождаемость снижайте,
уничтожайте ваших воробьёв!
И не интересуйтесь нашим бытом, -
мы сами знаем, где у нас чего...
Так наш ЦК писал в письме открытом.
Мы одобряем линию его!

There in Beijing, the weather could be better.
Here at the plant, we've paused to take a smoke.
We Tambov folk convened to write this letter
Because we're told you're very dangerous folk.
Along with France, you didn't sign the pact.1
And by this act, all peoples you appall.
With no regard for simple truth or fact,
You've shown you'd rather stick with Charles de Gaulle.
Our daily lives, we do sincerely treasure,
But even back, far in the distant past,
You built a Chinese Wall of great, great measure,
And came up with a powder that can blast.
You've got a lot of people, yes we get it,
300 million's not a major loss2
But we suspect that not kicking the bucket
Is a main goal of Mao, your party boss.
When you had only rice to keep you going
We put our faith in internationalism
We doubt when you on Russian grain were chewing
You gave a thought to opportunism.
In Bonn you fear revanchism is growin',
That Washington is gaining in the race,
But at the UN Khrushchev really showed ‘em:
He banged his shoe and put them in their place.
You don't need bombs or piles of lethal ordnance.
Do not pump warlike moods. Take our advice:
If ever there arises such an instance,
We'll launch a thermonuclear device.
And if you itch for action, there's no dearth
Of things to do, no need at all to wallow:
You could swat flies, reduce the rate of birth,
Or rid your land of every single swallow!
And keep your noses out of Soviet matters
Don't worry – we can handle things just fine.
Our party bosses said so in a letter.
And you can bet – we trust the party line!

1. Presumably the 1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, signed by the US, the USSR and the UK.

2. Mao boasted that China could lose 300 million persons and still be a great power.