Editing Sino-Soviet split (section)

== Origins ==
=== Reluctant co-belligerents ===
[[File:重慶會談 蔣介石與毛澤東.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong, 1945]]
During the [[Second Sino-Japanese War]], the [[Chinese Communist Party]] (CCP) and the nationalist [[Kuomintang]] party (KMT) set aside their [[Chinese Civil War|civil war]] to expel the [[Empire of Japan]] from the [[Republic of China (1912–1949)|Republic of China]]. To that end, the Soviet leader, [[Joseph Stalin]], ordered [[Mao Zedong]], leader of the CCP, to co-operate with [[Chiang Kai-shek]], leader of the KMT, in fighting the Japanese. Following the [[surrender of Japan]] at the end of [[World War II]], both parties resumed their civil war, which the communists [[Chinese Communist Revolution|won]] by 1949.{{Sfn|Zubok|Pleshakov|1996|p=56}}

At World War II's conclusion, Stalin advised Mao not to seize political power at that time, and, instead, to collaborate with Chiang due to the 1945 [[Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance|USSR–KMT Treaty of Friendship and Alliance]]. Mao obeyed Stalin in communist solidarity.{{Sfn|Kohn|2007|p=121}} Three months after the Japanese surrender, in November 1945, when Chiang opposed the annexation of [[Tannu Uriankhai]] (Mongolia) to the USSR, Stalin broke the treaty requiring the Red Army's withdrawal from [[Manchukuo|Manchuria]] (giving Mao regional control) and ordered Soviet commander [[Rodion Malinovsky]] to give the Chinese communists the Japanese leftover weapons.{{Sfn|Goncharov|Lewis|Xue|1993|pp=2–14}}{{Sfn|Clubb|1972|p=344–372}}

In the five-year post-World War II period, the United States partly financed Chiang, his nationalist political party, and the [[National Revolutionary Army]]. However, Washington put heavy pressure on Chiang to form a joint government with the communists. US envoy [[George Marshall]] spent 13 months in China trying without success to broker peace.<ref>Daniel Kurtz-Phelan, ''The China Mission: George Marshall's Unfinished War, 1945–1947'' (2018).</ref> In the concluding three-year period of the Chinese Civil War, the CCP defeated and expelled the KMT from mainland China. Consequently, the [[Republic of China retreat to Taiwan|KMT retreated to Taiwan]] in December 1949.

=== Chinese communist revolution ===
[[File:1967-12 1967年 毛泽东与安娜·斯特朗.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Chairman Mao with US journalist [[Anna Louise Strong]], whose work presented and explained the Chinese Communist revolution to the Western world. (1967)]]
As a revolutionary theoretician of [[communism]] seeking to realize a [[socialist state]] in China, Mao developed and adapted the urban ideology of [[Orthodox Marxism]] for practical application to the agrarian conditions of pre-industrial China and the [[Chinese people]].<ref>Lüthi, Lorenz M. Historical Background, 1921–1955, ''The Sino-Soviet split: Cold War in the Communist World'' (2008) p. 26.</ref> Mao's Sinification of Marxism–Leninism, [[Mao Zedong Thought]], established political pragmatism as the first priority for realizing the accelerated [[modernization]] of a country and a people, and ideological orthodoxy as the secondary priority because Orthodox Marxism originated for practical application to the socio-economic conditions of industrialized [[Western Europe]] in the 19th century.<ref>''The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought'', Third Edition (1999) Allan Bullock and Stephen Trombley, Eds., p.&nbsp;501.</ref>

During the Chinese Civil War in 1947, Mao dispatched American journalist [[Anna Louise Strong]] to the West, bearing political documents explaining China's socialist future, and asked that she "show them to Party leaders in the United States and Europe", for their better understanding of the [[Chinese Communist Revolution]], but that it was not "necessary to take them to Moscow."

Mao trusted Strong because of her positive reportage about him, as a theoretician of communism, in the article "The Thought of Mao Tse-Tung", and about the CCP's communist revolution, in the 1948 book ''Dawn Comes Up Like Thunder Out of China: An Intimate Account of the Liberated Areas in China'', which reports that Mao's [[Intellectualism|intellectual]] achievement was "to change Marxism from a European [form] to an Asiatic form . . . in ways of which neither Marx nor Lenin could dream."{{citation needed|reason=could not find the book online|date=September 2022}}

=== Treaty of Sino-Soviet friendship ===
{{Main|Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance}}
In 1950, Mao and Stalin safeguarded the national interests of China and the Soviet Union with the [[Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance|Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance]]. The treaty improved the two countries' geopolitical relationship on political, military and economic levels.<ref>Lüthi, Lorenz M. ''The Sino-Soviet split: Cold War in the Communist World'' (2008) pp. 31–32.</ref> Stalin's largesse to Mao included a loan for $300 million; military aid, should Japan attack the PRC; and the transfer of the [[Chinese Eastern Railway]] in Manchuria, [[Lüshunkou District|Port Arthur]] and [[Dalian]] to Chinese control. In return, the PRC recognized the independence of the [[Mongolian People's Republic]].

Despite the favourable terms, the treaty of socialist friendship included the PRC in the geopolitical [[hegemony]] of the USSR, but unlike the governments of the Soviet satellite states in Eastern Europe, the USSR did not control Mao's government. In six years, the great differences between the Soviet and the Chinese interpretations and applications of Marxism–Leninism voided the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship.<ref>Crozier, Brian ''The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire'' (1999) pp. 142–157.</ref><ref>Peskov, Yuri. "Sixty Years of the Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance Between the U.S.S.R. and the PRC, 14 February 1950" ''Far Eastern Affairs'' (2010) 38#1 pp. 100–115.</ref>

In 1953, guided by Soviet economists, the PRC applied the USSR's model of [[planned economy]], which gave first priority to the development of [[heavy industry]], and second priority to the production of consumer goods. Later, ignoring the guidance of technical advisors, Mao launched the [[Great Leap Forward]] to [[Chinese industrialization|transform agrarian China into an industrialized country]] with disastrous results for people and land. Mao's unrealistic goals for [[Agriculture in China|agricultural production]] went unfulfilled because of poor planning and realization, which aggravated rural starvation and increased the number of deaths caused by the [[Great Chinese Famine]], which resulted from three years of drought and poor weather.<ref>Lüthi, Lorenz M. ''The Sino-Soviet Split: Cold War in the Communist World'' (2008) p. 31.</ref><ref>[[Shen Zhihua|Shen, Zhihua]] and Xia, Yafeng. "The Great Leap Forward, the People's Commune and the Sino-Soviet split" ''Journal of contemporary China'' 20.72 (2011): pp. 861–880.</ref> An estimated 30 million Chinese people starved to death, more than any other famine in recorded history.<ref name="China's Great Leap Forward">{{Cite web |title=China's Great Leap Forward |url=https://www.asianstudies.org/publications/eaa/archives/chinas-great-leap-forward/ |access-date=2024-03-20 |website=Association for Asian Studies |language=en-US}}</ref> Mao and his government largely downplayed the deaths.<ref name="China's Great Leap Forward"/>

===Socialist relations repaired===
In 1954, Soviet first secretary [[Nikita Khrushchev]] repaired relations between the USSR and the PRC with trade agreements, a formal acknowledgement of Stalin's economic unfairness to the PRC, fifteen industrial-development projects, and exchanges of technicians (c. 10,000) and political advisors (c. 1,500), whilst Chinese labourers were sent to fill shortages of manual workers in [[Siberia]]. Despite this, Mao and Khrushchev disliked each other, both personally and ideologically.<ref name="Luthi40">{{cite book |last1=Luthi |first1=Lorenz |title=The Sino-Soviet Split: Cold War in the Communist World |date=2008 |publisher=Princeton University Press |location=Princeton, NJ |isbn=978-0691135908 |pages=39–40 |chapter=Historical Background, 1921–1955}}</ref> However, by 1955, consequent to Khrushchev's having repaired Soviet relations with Mao and the Chinese, 60% of the PRC's exports went to the USSR, by way of the [[five-year plans of China]] begun in 1953.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Shabad |first1=Theodore |title=Communist China's 5 Year Plan |journal=Far Eastern Survey |date=December 1955 |volume=24 |issue=12 |pages=189–191 |jstor=3023788 |doi=10.2307/3023788}}</ref>

=== Discontents of de-Stalinization ===
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-B0628-0015-035, Nikita S. Chruschtschow.jpg|thumb|The Sino-Soviet split initially arose in the late 1950s over the ideological divergence between Soviet leader [[Khrushchev]]'s policies of De-Stalinisation and peaceful coexistence and Mao's affirmation of Stalinism and confrontation with the West. By the late 1970s, the positions were reversed; the [[Cold War#New Cold War (1979–1985)|New Cold War]] was beginning with the Soviet Union and the West in confrontation and [[China–United States relations#Normalization|China having achieved rapprochement with the United States]].]]
In early 1956, Sino-Soviet relations began deteriorating, following Khrushchev's [[de-Stalinization]] of the USSR, which he initiated with the speech ''[[On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences|On the Cult of Personality and its Consequences]]'' that criticized [[Stalin]] and [[Stalinism]] – especially the [[Great Purge]] of Soviet society, of the rank-and-file of the [[Soviet Armed Forces]], and of the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union]] (CPSU). In light of de-Stalinization, the CPSU's changed ideological orientation – from Stalin's confrontation of the West to Khrushchev's [[peaceful coexistence]] with it – posed problems of ideological credibility and political authority for Mao, who had emulated Stalin's style of leadership and practical application of Marxism–Leninism in the development of [[socialism with Chinese characteristics]] and the PRC as a country.{{sfnp|Lüthi|2010|pages=49-50}}

The [[Hungarian Revolution of 1956]] against the rule of Moscow was a severe political concern for Mao, because it had required military intervention to suppress, and its occurrence weakened the political legitimacy of the Communist Party to be in government. In response to that discontent among the European members of the Eastern Bloc, the Chinese Communist Party denounced the USSR's de-Stalinization as [[Marxist revisionism|revisionism]], and reaffirmed the Stalinist ideology, policies, and practices of Mao's government as the correct course for achieving socialism in China. This event, indicating Sino-Soviet divergences of Marxist–Leninist practice and interpretation, began fracturing "monolithic communism" — the Western perception of absolute ideological unity in the Eastern Bloc.{{sfnp|Lüthi|2010|pages=62–63}}

From Mao's perspective, the success of the Soviet foreign policy of peaceful coexistence with the West would geopolitically isolate the PRC;{{sfnp|Lüthi|2010||page=48}} whilst the Hungarian Revolution indicated the possibility of revolt in the PRC, and in China's sphere of influence. To thwart such discontent, Mao launched in 1956 the [[Hundred Flowers Campaign]] of political liberalization – the freedom of speech to criticize government, the bureaucracy, and the CCP publicly. However, the campaign proved too successful when [[Anti-Rightist Campaign|blunt criticism of Mao was voiced]].{{sfnp|Lüthi|2010|pages=71–73}} Consequent to the relative freedoms of the de-Stalinized USSR, Mao retained the Stalinist model of Marxist–Leninist economy, government, and society.

Ideological differences between Mao and Khrushchev compounded the insecurity of the new communist leader in China. Following the Chinese civil war, Mao was especially sensitive to ideological shifts that might undermine the CCP. In an era saturated by this form of ideological instability, Khrushchev's anti-Stalinism was particularly impactful to Mao. Mao saw himself as a descendent in a long Marxist–Leninist lineage of which Stalin was the most recent figurehead. Chinese leaders began to associate Stalin's successor with anti-party elements within China. Khrushchev was pinned as a revisionist. Popular sentiment within China regarded Khrushchev as a representative of the upper-class, and Chinese Marxist-Leninists viewed the leader as a blight on the communist project. While the two nations had significant ideological similarities, domestic instability drove a wedge between the nations as they began to adopt different visions of communism following the death of Stalin in 1953.

Popular sentiment within China changed as Khrushchev's policies changed. Stalin had accepted that the USSR would carry much of the economic burden of the Korean War, but, when Khrushchev came to power, he created a repayment plan under which the PRC would reimburse the Soviet Union within an eight-year period. However, China was experiencing significant food shortages at this time, and, when grain shipments were routed to the Soviet Union instead of feeding the Chinese public, faith in the Soviets plummeted. These policy changes were interpreted as Khrushchev's abandonment of the communist project and the nations' shared identity as Marxist-Leninists. As a result, Khrushchev became Mao's scapegoat during China's food crisis.{{sfnp|Lüthi|2010|pages=76–77}}

=== Chinese radicalization and distrust ===
[[File:Taiwan Strait.png|thumb|upright=1.2|The strait of Taiwan]]
In the first half of 1958, Chinese domestic politics developed an anti-Soviet tone from the ideological disagreement over de-Stalinization and the radicalization that preceded the [[Great Leap Forward]]. It coincided with greater Chinese sensitivity over matters of sovereignty and control over foreign policy - particularly where Taiwan was concerned. The result was a growing Chinese reluctance to cooperate with the Soviet Union. The deterioration of the relationship manifested throughout the year.{{sfnp|Lüthi|2010|pages=80-104}}

In April, the Soviets proposed the construction of a joint radio transmitter. China rejected it after counter-proposing that the transmitter be Chinese owned and that Soviet usage be limited to wartime. A similar Soviet proposal in July was also rejected.{{sfnp|Lüthi|2010|page=92}} In June, China requested Soviet assistance to develop nuclear attack submarines. The following month, the Soviets proposed the construction of a joint strategic submarine fleet, but the proposal as delivered failed to mention the type of submarine. The proposal was strongly rejected by Mao under the belief that the Soviet wanted to control China's coast and submarines. Khrushchev secretly visited Beijing in early August in an unsuccessful attempt to salvage the proposal; Mao was in an ideological furor and would not accept. The meeting ended with an agreement to construct the previously rejected radio station with Soviet loans.{{sfnp|Lüthi|2010|pages=92-95}}

Further damage was caused by the [[Second Taiwan Strait Crisis]] toward the end of August. China did not notify or consult the Soviet Union before initiating the conflict, contradicting China's previous desire to share information for foreign affairs and violating - at least the spirit - the Sino-Soviet friendship treaty. This may have been partially in response to what the Chinese viewed as the timid Soviet response to the West in the [[1958 Lebanon crisis]] and [[1958 Iraqi coup d'état]]. The Soviets opted to publicly support China at the end of August, but became concerned when the US replied with veiled threats of nuclear war in early September and mixed-messaging from the Chinese. China stated that its goal was the resumption of ambassadorial talks that had started after the [[First Taiwan Strait Crisis]] while simultaneously framing the crisis as the start of a nuclear war with the capitalist bloc.{{sfnp|Lüthi|2010|pages=95-103}}

Chinese nuclear brinkmanship was a threat to peaceful coexistence. The crisis and ongoing nuclear disarmament talks with the US helped to convince the Soviets to renege on its 1957 commitment to deliver a model nuclear bomb to China. By this time, the Soviets had already helped create the foundations of China's nuclear weapons program.{{sfnp|Lüthi|2010|pages=103-104}}

=== Mao's nuclear-war remarks and two Chinas ===
[[File:Peng Dehuai, Ye Jianying, Nikita Khrushchev, Nikolai Bulganin.jpg|thumb|A meeting of some Sino-Soviet leaders in 1958. From left to right: [[Ye Jianying]], [[Peng Dehuai]], [[Nikolai Bulganin]] and  [[Nikita Khrushchev]]. ]]
Throughout the 1950s, Khrushchev maintained positive Sino-Soviet relations with foreign aid, especially nuclear technology for the Chinese atomic bomb project, [[Project 596]]. However, political tensions persisted because the economic benefits of the USSR's peaceful-coexistence policy voided the belligerent PRC's geopolitical credibility among the nations under Chinese hegemony, especially after a failed PRC–US rapprochement. In the Chinese sphere of influence, that Sino-American diplomatic failure and the presence of [[Taiwan and weapons of mass destruction|US nuclear weapons in Taiwan]] justified Mao's confrontational foreign policies with Taiwan ([[Republic of China]]).{{sfnp|Lüthi|2010|page=80}}

According to various sources including official CCP publications, at the [[1957 International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties]] in Moscow, Mao Zedong made some controversial remarks on nuclear wars, saying that "I'm not afraid of nuclear war. There are 2.7 billion people in the world; it doesn't matter if some are killed. China has a population of 600 million; even if half of them are killed, there are still 300 million people left."<ref name=":18">{{Cite web |last=Shen |first=Zhihua |author-link=Shen Zhihua |date=2011-01-14 |title=毛泽东讲核战争吓倒一大片：中国死3亿人没关系 (4) |trans-title=Mao Zedong scared a lot of people when he talked about nuclear war: It doesn’t matter if 300 million people die in China (4) |url=http://history.people.com.cn/GB/205396/13725760.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120323002721/http://history.people.com.cn/GB/205396/13725760.html |archive-date=2012-03-23 |website=[[People's Daily|People's Net]] |language=zh |quote=大不了就是核战争，核战争有什么了不起，全世界27亿人，死一半还剩一半，中国6亿人，死一半还剩3亿，我怕谁去。}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Xie |first=Jiashu |date=2014-08-25 |title=毛泽东是否说过"死3亿人没关系" |trans-title=Whether Mao Zedong actually said "it doesn't matter if 300 million people die"? |url=https://www.dswxyjy.org.cn/n1/2019/0228/c423725-30920896.html |url-status=live |journal=Chinese Social Sciences Today |language=zh |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240827031636/https://www.dswxyjy.org.cn/n1/2019/0228/c423725-30920896.html |archive-date=2024-08-27 |quote=大不了就是核战争，核战争有什么了不起，全世界27亿人，死一半还剩一半，中国6亿人，死一半还剩3亿，我怕谁去。 |via=[[Institute of Party History and Literature]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=2019-11-21 |title=China's nuclear arsenal was strikingly modest, but that is changing |url=https://www.economist.com/china/2019/11/21/chinas-nuclear-arsenal-was-strikingly-modest-but-that-is-changing |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191121134129/https://www.economist.com/china/2019/11/21/chinas-nuclear-arsenal-was-strikingly-modest-but-that-is-changing |archive-date=2019-11-21 |access-date=2025-01-08 |newspaper=[[The Economist]] |issn=0013-0613}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Wolfsthal |first=Jon B. |date=2025-01-09 |title=How to Reason With a Nuclear Rogue |url=https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/07/12/north-korea-nukes-icbm-test-nuclear-weapons/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170712125048/https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/07/12/north-korea-nukes-icbm-test-nuclear-weapons/ |archive-date=2017-07-12 |access-date=2025-01-08 |website=[[Foreign Policy]] |language=en-US}}</ref> His remarks shocked many people, and according to the recollection of Khrushchev, "the audience was dead silent".<ref name=":19">{{Cite journal |last1=Shen |first1=Zhihua |author-link1=Shen Zhihua |last2=Xia |first2=Yafeng |date=2009 |title=Hidden Currents during the Honeymoon: Mao, Khrushchev, and the 1957 Moscow Conference |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26922964 |journal=Journal of Cold War Studies |volume=11 |issue=4 |pages=111 |doi=10.1162/jcws.2009.11.4.74 |jstor=26922964 |issn=1520-3972|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref name=":20">{{Cite journal |last=Shen |first=Zhihua |author-link=Shen Zhihua |date=April 2012 |title=毛澤東與1957年莫斯科會議 |trans-title=Mao Zedong and the Moscow Conference in 1957 |url=https://www.cuhk.edu.hk/ics/21c/media/articles/c105-200701085.pdf |url-status=live |journal=[[Twenty-First Century]] |issue=105 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240611072555/https://www.cuhk.edu.hk/ics/21c/media/articles/c105-200701085.pdf |archive-date=2024-06-11 |via=[[Chinese University of Hong Kong]]}}</ref><ref name=":18" /> A number of Communist leaders, including [[Antonín Novotný]], [[Władysław Gomułka]] and [[Shmuel Mikunis]], expressed concerns after the meeting, eventually aligning themselves with the Soviet due to the combativeness of Mao's policies.<ref name=":19" /><ref name=":20" /><ref name=":18" /> Novotný, then [[First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia]], complained that "Mao Zedong says he is prepared to lose 300 million people out of a population of 600 million. What about us? We have only twelve million people in [[Czechoslovakia]]."<ref name=":19" /><ref name=":20" /> Mao had reportedly said similar things in 1956 when meeting with a delegation of journalists from [[Yugoslavia]],<ref>{{Cite web |last=Mao |first=Zedong |date=1956-04-21 |title=接见南斯拉夫新闻工作者代表团时的谈话（摘录） |trans-title=Conversation when receiving a delegation of Yugoslav journalists (excerpt) |url=https://www.marxists.org/chinese/maozedong/1968/3-081.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240421205409/https://www.marxists.org/chinese/maozedong/1968/3-081.htm |archive-date=2024-04-21 |access-date=2025-01-08 |website=[[Marxists Internet Archive]] |language=zh}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=October 17, 1964 |title=Mao's theory on atomic bomb: They can't kill us all |url=https://www.upi.com/Archives/1964/10/17/Maos-theory-on-atomic-bomb-They-cant-kill-us-all/1653831424805/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241225162035/https://www.upi.com/Archives/1964/10/17/Maos-theory-on-atomic-bomb-They-cant-kill-us-all/1653831424805/ |archive-date=2024-12-25 |access-date=2025-01-08 |website=[[United Press International]] |language=en}}</ref> and in 1958 at the second meeting of the [[8th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Mao |first=Zedong |date=1958-05-17 |title=在八大二次会议上的讲话（二） |trans-title=Talk at the Second Session of the Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China (2) |url=https://www.marxists.org/chinese/maozedong/1968/4-030.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240611190338/https://www.marxists.org/chinese/maozedong/1968/4-030.htm |archive-date=2024-06-11 |access-date=2025-01-08 |website=[[Marxists Internet Archive]] |language=zh |quote=原子仗现在没经验不知要死多少。最好剩一半。次好剩三分之一。二十几亿人口剩几亿，几个五年计划就发展起来，换来了一个资本主义全部灭亡。取得永久和平，这不是坏事。}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Yang |first=Kuisong |author-link=Yang Kuisong |date=2014-05-23 |title=毛泽东清楚建国后中国农村仍存在逃荒及卖儿卖女现象 |trans-title=Mao Zedong knew that after the founding of the People's Republic of China, there were still phenomena of fleeing from famine and selling sons and daughters in rural areas of China |url=https://news.ifeng.com/a/20140523/40427960_0.shtml |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140722220309/https://news.ifeng.com/a/20140523/40427960_0.shtml |archive-date=2014-07-22 |access-date=2025-01-08 |website=[[Phoenix New Media]] |publisher=[[Caijing]] |language=zh}}</ref> In 1963, the Chinese government issued a statement, calling the quote of "300 million people" was a slander from the Soviet Union.<ref>{{Cite web |date=1963-09-01 |title=中华人民共和国政府发言人声明——评苏联政府八月二十一日的声明 |trans-title=Statement by the Spokesperson of the Government of the People's Republic of China - Comment on the Statement of the Soviet Government on August 21 |url=https://www.gov.cn/gongbao/shuju/1963/gwyb196316.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240702191343/https://www.gov.cn/gongbao/shuju/1963/gwyb196316.pdf |archive-date=2024-07-02 |website=[[Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China]] |page=299-300 |language=zh}}</ref>

In late 1958, the CCP revived Mao's guerrilla-period [[Mao cult|cult of personality]] to portray ''Chairman Mao'' as the charismatic, visionary leader solely qualified to control the policy, administration, and popular mobilization required to realize the Great Leap Forward to industrialize China.{{sfnp|Lüthi|2010|pages=81–83}} Moreover, to the Eastern Bloc, Mao portrayed the PRC's warfare with Taiwan and the accelerated modernization of the Great Leap Forward as Stalinist examples of Marxism–Leninism adapted to Chinese conditions. These circumstances allowed ideological Sino-Soviet competition, and Mao publicly criticized Khrushchev's economic and foreign policies as deviations from Marxism–Leninism.