Mao vs Stalin/Russians (1921-1946)
1) Mao said he was unlucky with "even" numbers, i.e., his disqualifications for CCP 2nd and 4th Central Committee conference. Mao's early fortune with CCP was very much explained by Jung Chang: Mao was never the only communist forerunner in Hunan Province; Liu Shaoqi was sent to Moscow in 1920 by senior Hunanese communist movement activists; Mao's first party struggle was to rid of senior communism activists in Hunan.
Mao's credential came from participating in 1st congress at the personal invitation from Chen Duxiu. Mao built up his wealth by engaging in publications of communism-related books and materials. Mao took part in 3rd congress as a result of his activity in merging CCP into KMT with Russian auspice. So, Mao and Russians had good starting point.
Sergei Dalin called Mao by Marin's man for Mao's call for the Nationalist Party to join the Comintern in lieu of the Chinese communists. Mao also claimed that wealthy landlords and peasants should not be pitted against each other, but against the imperialists.
As someone from H.K. had researched, Mao could be the culprit who killed his fellow founder of the New Citizen Society in a heist to monopolize the 30,000 around
silver dollars that Mao purportedly borrowed from Hunan elderly for the purpose of lending support to the financially stricken
students in France.
However, the money never went to France, and the radical students in Paris and Lyon had staged some "occupy campus" movement after a break-in at the Chinese legation.
The radical students were subsequently recruited by the Soviet agents and were to play a role in subverting the Republican China.
(There was a talk about Mao tse-tung and Cai Hesen setting up this overseas study venture for the pure purpose of milking money.)
2) Mao could have fabricated to Edgar Snow his story of slipping away from an arrest during the Autumn Harvest Uprising in Sept of 1927. In fact, someone just pointed out that Mao had betrayed the uprising by disclosing the scheme and selling out some CCP county secretary. Mao's escaping to Mt Jingangshan was the start of his breaking away from Russians and the "Moscow-returnees".
Mao kept a tight lid over the communication between CCP Central in Shanghai and his base in Jiangxi Soviet. The "Anti-Bolshevik League Purge" was his order to kill the Jiangxi communists who circumvented Mao in sending an emissary to Shanghai. Moscow and Moscow-returnees failed to control Mao till the CCP Central moved to Jiangxi in a whole group in 1932. Hence began the reversal of Mao's fortune with Moscow and Russians till Zunyi Meeting of Jan 1935. Nevertheless, Mao's control over Red Army was retained via cronies such as his brother who acted as the manager of Soviet Bank, as well as cronies such as Lin Biao and Peng Dehuai.
Though, in 1940s, Vladimirov could manage to retrieve the original correspondence between Mao and Jiangxi communists in regards to AB League purge - a manifestation that anti-Mao factions had kept the records for their Russian masters to arbitrate.
3) Mao and Stalin reached an understanding sometime in 1935-1936 as to the change of leadership ensuing from Zunyi Meeting, which led to Zhang Guotao's downfall. However, Mao's position was not secure since Wang Ming was sent back to China from Moscow in 1937. Stalin personally intervened in Xian Incident of Dec 1936, and made Mao resentful throughout his life. Russians finally confirmed Mao's position by having Wang Ming submit to Mao. But Mao did not feel secure after all. Mao, from 1942 to 1945, launched a three-year "political study" to root out Moscow influences. CCP generals, one by one, were recalled to Yenan for studies, to the extent that they were stuck in Yenan when Japan surrendered and had to rely on Americans for flying them out.
4) Mao and Stalin were feuds during this time period. Vladimirov, who came to Yenan with a mission in 1942, failed to get Mao fight Japan. Vladimirov was worried about a possible Japanese attack at USSR in the Far East. Mao apparently was totally written off by Stalin as useless, while Mao almost wrote off Stalin when Moscow was on the brink of falling into German hands. Vladimirov, in almost every telegram, blasted Mao. Mao's pretext to Russians was they could not fight Japanese without weapons from USSR.
5) After Japanese surrender, Mao's communist force did not get greenlight to do everything in Manchuria till Feb-March 1946, after Jan 1946 murder of engineer Zhang Xinfu and Chinese nationwide protests against Russians. Mao's troops, already mauled by KMT 13th Corps and 52nd Corps, were then asked by Stalin to fight back against government troops, ending in the Sipingjie Debacle. Both Zhang Zhihua and Yang Kuisong had good research into the secret Stalin orders.
6) Massive Russian aid did not come till after Lin Biao fled to Harbin in June 1946. After few months, Lin Biao counter-attacked the government troops in Nov/Dec 1946 and Jan/Feb/March 1947, i.e., "Three Crossings of Sungari River". With Russian aid, Lin Biao did not succeed in the Dehui Siege and the Second Sipingjie Siege. Tide finally turned after the middle of 1947, by which time over 100,000 Koreans came to China, in addition to Mongol cavalry. Zhang Zhihua and Yang Kuisong had detailed numbers as to the locomotives and carriages sent to China by Russians from Siberia and Dairen, plus the ammunition, fleet, guns and railway tracks.
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As discussed at http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?/topic/36096-georgy-malenkov-in-chinese-civil-war-1947-48/page__pid__5006943#entry5006943
Mao vs Stalin/Russians (1944-1950)
The Soviet sabotage against the R.O.C. came in two flavors: 1) direct proxy war in Chinese Turkistan; 2) indirect proxy war in Manchuria. If Malenkov was directing war against CHina in cenTral Asia, it had to do with the hiring of the "Eastern Turkistan" rebels in attacking Xinjiang, which lasted from 1944 to 1950, all triggered after Sheng Shicai jumped fence to the R.O.C. side.
Malenkov's link to China's civil wars would be that in Chinese Turkistan. The Soviet-directed rebellion and invasion started in 1944. There were at least 30,000 rebel armies, with 60% comprising of Khazaks, and the rest Kirghiz and Uygurs and other Turkic elements. Today's so-called Eastern Turkistan Republic separatists derived from the Soviet instigation of 1944. Those guys continued the practice of ethnic cleansing as seen in the 1930s, and killed Han Chinese whenever they laid hands on. The war continued till 1950, when the CPC came in, and purportedly Mao and CPC were more cunning than those guys, and blew apart a plane carrying the Turkic rebel leaders to a meeting with Mao in Peking.
As to the direct proxy war in Chinese Turkistan, it should be considered a war by Soviet Turkic people, not Chinese Turkistan turkic people. I did not know the exact motive behind the Soviet funding of the war in Chinese Turkistan other than what Ledovsky referred to as the demand for 50% ownership of the mines and industries that the Soviets operated with Sheng Shicai previously. This 50% matter went all the way to the 1945 Sino-Soviet treaty, and it shows how pragmatic Stalin was. For a pragmatic person like Stalin, Chiang could have loosened a bit his patriotism and "sold out" some interests to appease Stalin to keep his power.
While the R.O.C. national assembly was talking about maintaining the 51 % nominal sovereignty in early 1946 while Mao and the Chinese Communists, blood-thirsty as always, went ahead to bayonet engineer Zhang Xinfu to create a national anti-Soviet fervor in a deliberate sense, hence shutting off the rapprochement between Stalin and Chiang.
Ledovsky, who was once rep at Lanzhou, talked about the origin of schism between Chiang and Stalin, with the main hurdle being the demand for 50% interests of industries and mine in Chinese Turkistan. Ledovsky said that Chiang was playing goodwill to Stalin by sacking Sheng Shicai who should be considered to have betrayed Stalin. Though, Sheng betrayed Stalin because the Chinese Communists were conspiring to take over Chinese Turkistan,
killing Sheng Shicai's brother, for example. There was an interesting writeup about why Stalin refused to pressure Sheng Shicai on rescuing Mao's brother, Mao Zemin from Sheng's prison.
Stalin was a real dictator, and I don't see him delegating anything significant to someone else.
I checked my records all around, and still do not see any Malenkov activities prior to the Korean War. Everything I read about pointed to a personal participation by Stalin from day one. Yuan Nansheng, a Chinese writer who published a good on Mao and Stalin, had detailed accounts on the day-to-day operations of Stalin concerning China. Stalin, who already had his agents controlling the United States treasury department and state department, was apparently not feeling comfortable about his ultimate scheme on the Republic of China. Stalin repeatedly said to Jiang Jingguo that should the R.O.C. allow a single American soldier to stay in mainland China (not Manchuria, note it), then things could be difficult between the U.S.S.R and R.O.C. What Stalin meant was that Chiang and R.O.C. had to stay in the Soviet orbit; otherwise, Stalin had no choice but to foment the civil war by the Chinese Communists.
Stalin was multi-faceted in his intrigue against China. In early 1946, Stalin was still trying to control 50% of China's industries. There was an episode of Chinese Communists bayoneting engineer Zhang XInfu and China's Manchuria commission. The CPC soldiers wanted to bayonet the railway guards of the Chinese Eastern railway who were supposed to protect the entourage. The Red Army told the CPC that the railway guards were hired for the Chinese Eastern Railway, a joint Sino-Soviet property. I don't know what was exact behind this. What I could sense was that Stalin did not want an open conflict with R.O.C., but Mao and the CPC decided to provoke it so that Stalin would be with CPC wholeheartedly. As late as today, there were a bunch of so-called experts in Russian and CCP fields, who claimed that Stalin did not want to antagonize the R.O.C., did not provide aid to the Chinese Communists, and hence moved his embassy to Canton while the U.S. stayed put in nanking in 1949. All craps. Stalin, in 1945-6, gave all the Japanese Kwantung Army weapons to the CCP, and he was interested in hauling the Manchurian industries to Siberia, only. The Soviet shipping, by land, air and sea, was 100% occupied with stealing the industries of Manchuria, not the weapons. All the locomotives were stolen as well, with less than half towed to the Soviet-controlled Dairen, when the time was running out as the Soviets procrastinated in pulling out of manchuria. Stalin had to order Mao to defend Sipingjie as China's Madrid to win time for more stealing work.
The next stage of assistance came in 1947 when Chinese Communists worked with Russians on two deals: 1) direct trade with the Soviets; 2) free pickup of the Japanese Kwantung Army weapons in North Korea - which was the source of supply for the communists in Hebei-Shandong Provinces initially. Basically, Stalin wrote off the Japanese goodies once and for all, believing they were all for the Chinese Communists, and there was no need for prior approval to obtain it nor money to pay for it. I doubt the Soviet commander in Korea did it for free for Chinese Communists out of the selflessness, nor disobey Stalin's order. The direct trading with the Soviets in 1947 amounted to:
3300 TONS OF PETROL FROM RUSSIANS IN 1947 ALONE; PLUS
2000 TONS OF DIESEL,
1000 TONS OF PLANE FUEL, &
2000 TONS OF MACHINERY OIL. (Noted at http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?/topic/33559-why-did-china-become-communist/page__st__30 )
In later 1947 and early 1948, Stalin finally decided that the Chinese civil war went on for too long, and needed a push. Hence Stalin, in early 1948, matched the U.S. China Aid Act with a loan for the Chinese Communists of the same amount, and sent in railway army corps to manchuria, instructed the Outer Mongolia cavalry to assist the CPC in the war in Jehol, instructed Kim Il Sung to send in the Korean mercenaries - amounting to 250,000 per Kim Il Sung memoirs, and transferred the U.S. August Storm lend-lease weapons, captured German weapons, and the Russian weapons, to the CPC. That's how I roughly wrote about on basis of what i read: TEN TRAINS EQUIVALENT AMERICAN LEND-LEASE WEAPONS THAT STALIN & RUSSIANS GAVE TO MAO & CHINESE CommunistS; FORTY SHIPS EQUIVALENT QUANTITY OF TANKS & CANNONS, BOTH AMERICAN-MADE & JAPAN-MADE.
Stalin time and again delayed Mao's visit to Moscow, for like 2-3 years, from 1947 to 1950, over the two dictators' claim for the leadership in the worldwide communist revolution.
( http://www.kanzhongguo.com/node/425557 carries a very interesting piece article about the 2-3 years of tit for tat correspondence in regards to Mao's visit to Moscow. It talked about what Stalin thought about Mao, including episodes on Armstrong, Tito, and the so-called Yangtze demarcation peace talk.
It appears to me that Chiang Kai-shek could have utilized the schism between Stalin and Mao to strike some deal, and Stalin was a pragmatist, interested in grabbing 50% interests in China.
Chiang was naive about the Americans, not knowing that Stalin's agents already controlled the U.S. state department and treasury department; otherwise, Chiang had more chips to strike a deal with Stalin than Mao.)
Stalin himself was a bit surprised by the success of the Chinese Communists' war in 1948, perhaps underestimating the impact of the United States arms embargo on the R.O.C.'s military capabilities. In my opinion, the domino collapse was triggered by the Soviet railway army corps' assistance in shipping the heavy artillery pieces to the battle front of Jinzhou, and at will around Manchuria, while CPC already bought over the Manchuria commander Wei Lihuang who refused to withdraw troops to CHina proper but disperse the government troops to defending "points" (cities). -- In early 1948, Lin Biao was loitering between Jinzhou and Sipingjie for half a year, and at one time expressed wish to go west towards Inner Mongolia. The siege of Jinzhou with 900+
Soviet artillery pieces changed the whole picture of China's civil war. Lin Biao bo longer feared the debacle of siege campaigns as he encountered in the multiple attacks against Siping. (In the early days, you had Fu Zuoyi, using the 80 lend-lease trucks, sent a "mechanized" relief into Manchuria from Suiyuan-Chahar to defeat the communists, which shows how important 'mobility' was in a war.)
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Mao vs Stalin/Russians (1950-1953)
7) After the Korean War eruption, Stalin renegaded on airforce support for Chinese armies in the initial months of the war which caused some hiccups between Mao and Stalin. The Sino-Russian relationship was not good at all.
After Stalin's death, real Russian aid came to China under Nikita Khrushchev. For the next 7 years, Russians gave huge economic aid to China as well as military aid other than atomic bomb secrets. Nikita Khrushchev gave up Port Arthur, too. In 1956, Nikita Khrushchev negated Stalin. Nikita Khrushchev was a good 'communist' in both Russian nationalism and internationalism perspectives.
8) CCP memoirs invariably pointed to Nikita Khrushchev's negating Stalin as the fundamental cause of the Sino-Russian split. In all talks of CCP leaders inside and outside of China, the Chinese said to Russians that Stalin was not merely a Russian leader but an international [Chinese] leader. It is just unfortunate that Mao's personal cult was strong enough to neutralize the deStalinization across the communist countries. China's political movements, like the Great Leap Forward and anti-Rightists movement, could find the root cause in Mao's attempt at maintaining the Stalin stature and doctrines since Mao himself was really Stalin the Second.
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![Though, Anna Wang [Anneliese Martens], in her memoirs, expressed jealousy over Gong Peng by stating that the Anglo-American reporters had flattered the Chinese communists and the communist movement as a result of being entranced with the goldfish-eye'ed personal assistant of Zhou Enlai](GongPeng.jpg)
