SOVIET IMAGES OF THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA, 1949-1979.

摘要

During the period from 1949 through 1979, relations between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China changed from a military alliance to armed confrontation. Articulated Soviet images of the P.R.C. during this period were subject to equally dramatic changes. The purposes of this study are to document these changing Soviet views of China and to identify the sources of these images and changes in these images.;The dominant sources of Soviet images of the P.R.C. and changes in these images are Soviet policy toward the P.R.C. and Chinese behavior toward the Soviet Union. Other signficant sources include leadership changes in both the Soviet Union and China, Chinese and Soviet relations with third states, and certain domestic policies of both states. The Chinese Great Leap Forward and Soviet de-Stalinization policies have both had major effects on expressed Soviet views of the P.R.C.;The primary method used in this study is a qualitative analysis of Soviet writings on the P.R.C. placed in historical context. This qualitatitive analysis was supplemented by a quantitative analysis of Soviet policies toward and images of the P.R.C. In general, the quantitative analysis confirmed the qualitative analysis. Complex quantitative analysis was prohibited by the limited amount of quantifiable data, particularly during the most interesting periods when competing images of the P.R.C. appeared in the Soviet media.;This study identifies six distinct, reasonably coherent Soviet images of the P.R.C. over the entire period. During the 1950s, Soviet analysts described China as a friendly state building socialism. After the Chinese Great Leap Forward, a competing image of China emerged in Soviet literature--that of a country accelerating its transition to socialism. According to Soviet writers, the early 1960s constituted a period of 'regularization' in the P.R.C. During the late 1960s, after the fall of Khrushchev and the start of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Soviet writers depicted the P.R.C. as a military-bureaucratic dictatorship under the control of Mao and his supporters. After the Sino-Soviet border clashes in 1969, an alternative image emerged in Soviet writing. Soviet analysts continued to describe China as a military-bureaucratic dictatorship, but suggested that the roots of this dictatorship could be found in the continuing influence of bourgeois elements in the Chinese socio-economic system, rather than in the dominance of a single misguided leader. Since the death of Mao, Soviet analysts have described Chinese policies as "Maoism without Mao." Although all Soviet writers have described China in similar general terms, there are some discrepancies in their views of specific aspects of the situation in China. In particular, Soviet writers disagree about the degree of conflict within the P.R.C. and the reasons for the continuation of Maoism.