February 15 - Sino-Soviet Alliance

This Day in History: 15 February 2020

 

15 February 1950

 

70 years ago, today, the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, the two largest communist countries in the world, announced the signing of a mutual defense and assistance treaty. The negotiations that made up the treaty began in Moscow between Chinese leaders, Mao Zedong and Zhou En-lai, and Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin, and Foreign Minister, Andrei Vishinsky. This treaty called for Soviets to provide $300 million to China, and made it compulsory for the Soviet Union to return the Chinese control of a major railroad, and the cities of Port Arthur and Dairen in Manchuria. All of the areas were seized by the Soviets near the end of World War Two. The mutual defense section was concerned with any future threat of Japan, and Zhou En-lai declared that these two communist nations were now "impossible to defeat".

 

US commentators viewed this event as proof of communism being a strong movement, directed mainly from Moscow and the Kremlin. However, the treaty was not exactly a concrete bond, as by the 1950s, flaws were already appearing in the alliance between the two countries. In public, the Chinese charged the Soviets with compromising the main principles of Marxism-Leninism by adopting 'peaceful coexistence' with the West's capitalist nations. By the early 1960s, Mao Zedong was openly declaring the Soviets were actually allying themselves with the United States against the Chinese revolution.

 

Want to find out more about the Sino-Soviet Alliance? Click here to find out more.