Sino-Soviet Split

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Sino-Soviet Split happened when China's leader, Mao Zedong didn't want to be friends with the Soviet Union anymore.

[edit] Sino-Soviet cooperation

It was Mao Zedong himself who at first was friends with the Soviets. The Soviet leader, Stalin wanted to help spread communism, especilly in China. During the Chinese Civil War, the Soviets helped him by giving him weapons and supplies during the war. This was one major reason for the Communists defeated the Kuomintang at this time. China became an ally of the Soviet Union.

[edit] The Split

Suddenly, in 1953 Stalin died. Mao saw Stalin as the leader of Communism. Now that Stalin was gone, he wanted to be leader. He always wanted to be just like Stalin, so now he wanted to be the leader of Communism. The new Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev was not like Stalin. He didn't want Capitalism to collapse like Stalin did, and he didn't really care. Mao got angry about this, and he wanted Nikita Khrushchev to help him crush the "imperialists". Nikita said no, and then Mao decided that if Nikita was not going to play his way, they wouldn't play at all. Mao got so mad at Nikita, he even tried to invade the Soviet Union. (See Sino-Soviet border conflict) The Chinese army was so neglected and undertrained by Mao, who didn't really care much about the welfare of his army. The "People's Liberation Army" was stopped at the border, and the Soviets gave him one last chance to surrender, or face invasion. Mao somehow came to his senses and agreed to stop attacking the Soviet Union.

[edit] Afterwards

There was peace between the USSR and China, but they were suspicous of each other. They were no longer friends. Mao's supporters said that it had been a big mistake.