Mao: The Unknown Story

How forceful Chou En-lai was! Relentlessly pursuing the Master as he tried to evade. Two and a half years and a devastating war before, when Mao was in wintry Moscow, Stalin had blocked him from any such meetings. Now, Stalin was forced to concede: “in this case, we shall find the time.” Then, another little sarcasm when the smooth Chou, “ending the conversation, says they would like to receive instructions concerning all these issues.”

STALIN asks — instructions or suggestions?

CHOU EN-LAI answers that from comrade Stalin’s perspective this would be advice, but in their perception these would be instructions.

Chou’s tact masked a startling new degree of assertiveness on Mao’s part. In fact, Mao had even begun conspiratorial operations in the USSR itself.

CHOU’S MISSION in August — September 1952, transparently aimed at enabling Mao to become a major power and a rival to Stalin, drastically sharpened Stalin’s sense of the threat from Mao, and so he set about undermining Mao by exhibiting special intimacy towards Mao’s top colleagues. Stalin first cultivated army chief Peng De-huai, who came to Moscow in early September, with Kim, for the only tripartite Russo-Sino-Korean summit of the war. At the end of one meeting, most unusually, Stalin took Peng aside for a tête-à-tête, without Chou, which Chou reported to a furious Mao. Peng explained to Mao that Stalin had only talked about the way the North Koreans had been maltreating POWs (which had been causing problems for the Communists diplomatically). Mao remained suspicious, but seems to have concluded that this was just a ploy of Stalin’s to unsettle him.

Then came another attempt by Stalin to drive a wedge — this time between Mao and Liu Shao-chi, who came to Moscow for the Soviet Party Congress in October. Stalin was extraordinarily, and noticeably, attentive to Liu, demonstrating a degree of intimacy that amazed Liu’s entourage. “Stalin even mentioned his personal matters and moods,” Liu’s interpreter, Shi Zhe, observed. Shi had also interpreted for Mao, and saw the sharp contrast with the way that Stalin had treated Mao. Chou En-lai was to comment to a small circle that Stalin had given a far warmer welcome to Liu than to Mao.

Stalin then fired a salvo across Mao’s bows with an unprecedented gesture, unique in the annals of world communism. On 9 October, Pravda published Peking’s congratulations to the Congress, which Liu had delivered the previous day. In large type, Liu was billed as “General Secretary” of the CCP (the highest post in other parties). But, as Moscow well knew, the CCP did not have a general secretary. It was inconceivable that this was an accident. “Pravda in those days didn’t make mistakes,” one Russian ambassador to Britain commented to us. Stalin was saying to Mao: I could make your No. 2 the No. 1!

Liu had to clear himself, so he immediately wrote a note to Stalin’s No. 2, Georgi Malenkov, saying that he was not general secretary, and that the CCP was “all under the leadership of Comrade Mao Tse-tung [who] is the Chairman.” Clearly deciding that the wise thing to do was not to panic, he sent no frantic excuses home to Mao. After the congress, he stayed on as planned to talk to other Asian Communist leaders, including Ho Chi Minh, and together the two discussed not only Vietnam, but also Japan and Indonesia with Stalin. Stalin then kept Liu in Russia for months, until January 1953, to meet the people who were at the top of Mao’s list — the Indonesians. On the night of 6–7 January 1953 Liu finally joined Stalin and Russia’s top agent in Indonesia for an unusually long meeting with the Indonesian Communist leaders Aidit and Njoto, to discuss Peking “taking over” the Indonesian Party. Afterwards, Aidit celebrated by going out into the freezing night to throw snowballs, unaware that little more than a decade later, in 1965, Mao’s tutelage would condemn him and Njoto and hundreds of thousands of their followers to premature and ghastly deaths.

As soon as the meeting with the Indonesians was over, Liu left Moscow for home that same day. Altogether, he had stayed in Russia for three months. Mao could do nothing about Stalin’s machinations to needle him and stir up suspicion, nor was he able to take it out on Liu, which would play into Stalin’s hands. But he flashed a warning signal to Liu the moment Liu returned to Peking, which amounted to: Don’t get ideas!