The soviets were 100% in the right in the sino soviet split. Whatever issues the Chinese govrrnment had with the soviets (The arrogance of the Soviet government in dealing with other communist countries including the refusal to consider others equal partners in building, and disagreement about the implementation of communism) were rendered totally moot by the Chinese government deciding to buddy up to the Americans who were openly anticommunist and in this capacity supporting basically every major anticommunist movement in the second and third world. I simply don't accept that your problem with the soviets is their revisionism hen you're willing to ship guns to Pol Pot and help the Great Satan kill communists in Afghanistan
this post was submitted on 07 May 2025
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I agree with you, though I'd say that the chinese were right in their issues for the split, which you outlined, but completely wrong in their conduct after it. Their original points aren't rendered moot because of what happened afterwards but they don't justify what they did either, which I think is what you're saying.
I do actually think that the PRC can't legitimately claim to be opposed to revisionism and support the Khmer Rouge and the United States against other communists. I just don't accept that their opposition to revisionism was legitimate in that context. Whatever issues they had with revisionism were clearly secondary to other concerns and one of those concerns was clearly just spiting the Soviets. I, in a way, am claiming that at least one of the stated motivations given by representatives of the PRC was a lie.
But you're right that I don't think they were lying about their problem with being viewed essentially as secondary to the "Real" soviet revolution, and I do think this was a legitimate complaint to have. But as you say, I find their actions in response to this to be deeply unjustified.
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The sino soviet split is one of the elephants in the room of modern leftist discourse. But hey, if China manages to become the world’s leader and spreads world wide communism, that era will be forgiven I imagine
Socialist states absolutely can and have done cringe. Western socialists ("socialists") need to understand that even when they fuck up that's still "our guy" in charge [the party]. Unfortunately, the power received in victory includes the power to fuck things up. Look it in the eye, understand it, don't repeat the same mistakes. Any westerner who starts using the word "socialist" to describe themselves must be held to this.
With people on the more liberal end, be more smug than mean:
"Oh you're 'socialist'/'anti-capitalist' too? Yeah of course the Russian, Chinese, Cuban, and Vietnamese (etc) revolutions are fascinating cause they went out and actually defeated capitalism. You don't like that some of them were revisionist? I don't agree with every decision that was made after the revolution either, that would be ridiculous with hindsight and all that. It's definitely worth discussing what went on and understanding what the decision making process was in the circumstances of those countries.If we are successful at overthrowing capitalism like you just said, we are probably going to be faced with some similar decisions. It's also important that we contrast with the more palatable movements like in Chile, Burkina Faso, and Central America that ended in failure."
Some resentment should be reserved for sabotaging the Soviet Union.
I’ll defend them against the US and the West, but I find it hard to be a die hard supporter of China the way some people are, considering its history in the sino-soviet split and, well, their lack of vocal ideological support for communism on the world stage
their lack of vocal ideological support for communism on the world stage
This is the biggest caveat to China support for me, too. Like I've read and understand the arguments that if China were to support global socialist movements the way the USSR did, they would lose a lot of the leverage and power that they've accrued for themselves in the past couple of decades - but that doesn't make it any easier to swallow them supporting right wing governments against socialist guerillas. If they're not going to send PLA volunteers to aid the rebels then at the very least they should use their neutrality to play some wishy washy word games about how they can't get involved!
Plus, I think there needs to be a reckoning with the fact that in every way that matters China is the largest power in the world right now. America's hegemonic status has been broken for a long time and the rest of the world is just figuring it out, China might see it in its interest to keep the dollar as the world reserve currency or whatever but they absolutely have room to be making moves that advance the socialist cause.
but that doesn't make it any easier to swallow them supporting right wing governments against socialist guerillas. If they're not going to send PLA volunteers to aid the rebels then at the very least they should use their neutrality to play some wishy washy word games about how they can't get involved!
Exactly. Palestinians are literally on the brink of extinction, and China’s support for Iran is by million layers of proxy. Pakistan is their closest ally in the region. There are simply so many contradictions with China I can’t personally hand waive away through n degrees of abstraction.
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These are important things for all socialists to consider among ourselves. Let's not make the same mistakes in the future and do our best to build unity among the working class at a global scale.
I'm very uneducated, but I feel like the USSR would have had a much better chance at pulling through if they had close relations with the PRC. Socialism would be in much better shape in the modern day if that were the case, it's truly a shame.
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the power received in victory includes the power to fuck things up
This is a great way to put it. A lot of the condemnation of socialist governments is specifically condemnation of the big programs they put into place to try and reverse the ongoing horrors of capitalism - success or failure, the socialist government fully owns the results of those programs, meanwhile since most of the horrors of capitalism are done in a kind of decentralized way, capitalist governments get to play the blame shifting game where the bad things that happen under their own rule are the result of forces beyond anyone's control and the good things are totally the result of capitalism and would be impossible under any other system.
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Been saying this for years now, on sino-Soviet split issues always side with the Soviets. (Not an absolute rule but I've yet to stumble on something where the Soviets were on the wrong side and the pre-21st century PRC was on the right side)
The PRC even ended up on the same side as Taiwan, backing the contras to spite the soviets.
I like your quality commie-posting new guy, I'm gonna remember your name
oh fuck now there's pressure. I'm gonna fuck this up, but I promise to do so in a new and interesting way
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It seems to me that China's one and only W from this era was surviving to become the 21st century PRC.
At what costs 
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The way this division manifested really aligned China with some dark forces, it would seem.
You've nailed it. It's just literally this. Could've been another way, but it wasn't.
Also get ready because season 6 will be about Angola, where China backed UNITA which while fighting the portuguese also collaborated with them against the soviet and cuba backed MPLA.
Got Damn!
Is there any kind of reconciliation about this history? What do modern Chinese historians have to say about this period of their history? I have to wonder what someone like Xi would have to say about the split. As I wrote that, I decided to do a quick google search: https://www.hamptonthink.org/read/xi-jinping-and-the-memory-of-the-soviet-union
The only thing I know about that is that there's one interview somewhere with deng where he's asked about china's support for the khmer rouge and he said something like "we fucked up, we didn't know".
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The sino soviet split was basically the biggest disaster of the 20th century
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It doesn't get any better. Cynically the Gambit worked. The demon killed all other regimes and only china was left unscathed.
I'm right there with you though in wanting to learn more.
China's foreign policy was completely unhinged during this period.
The transition from leadership by a war hero guiding a fledgling country through difficult circumstances into a more "relaxed" leadership governing over a more stable and peaceful country is a conundrum that AES states struggle with. Mao attempted to prevent that transition by any means necessary, and splitting with the Soviets, training the Khmer Rouge, and normalizing with the US were driven by that fear, fear of a Chinese Khrushchev.
From a big picture, outside view, and with the benefit of hindsight, it's easier to say the Khrushchev and Deng were the result of changing material conditions, and no matter how hard one tries to stop it, changing conditions lead to changing leadership.
However, if you're the wartime leader it's harder to see that, not only for self-interested reasons, but also just in terms of personal experience and personality. The person most capable of leading the revolution to victory is generally not a person who is easy to convince to stop seeing threats everywhere. I agree with what seems to be the prominent strain of thought on Hexbear that people like Stalin and Mao were necessary but also that modern China is socialist. Unfortunately, I don't really know what the solution is to get from point A to point B other than waiting for the leadership to die.
Imo Mao really put the cart before the horse with his concept of "permanent revolution," as if the end goal of leftism is to create ideologically pure revolutionaries. The goal is to create a more peaceful and equitable world where we don't need revolutionaries.
In any case this is a definite black spot on the PRC and it's worth noting that it's history is pretty messy in general. Don't think you can or should defend everything.
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Out of all the seasons, this one has been the hardest for me to understand the "blowback" part. All the consequences of US foreign policy seemed to fall on the Cambodian people, even after the bombing stopped.
The main critiques I recall (it's been a while since I finished it) are that the attempts to force untrained people into agricultural work failed and racist / nationalist elements within the revolution prevented international cooperation, both of which created a feedback loop of paranoia and human misery.
I also am learning more about the sino-soviet split, which seemed to play a large part in this too.
One could say that the "blowback" part of S5 is basically how the USA under the belief of the Domino theory trying to recreate what they did in Korea and do regime change in the 3 countries in Indochina but then ended in catastrophe. Like they said in the podcast, Cambodia is inextricable from the Vietnam war. Had America acted normal towards Cambodia and the Sihanouk government, they could've avoided a lot of problems. It's the beginning of the decline of their prestige setting the stage for the failures of Iraq and Afghanistan.
That's a great point. It's probably worth my time to listen through the series again now that I have much better context for earlier seasons (at the time I listened to the first season I was still fighting a lot of conservative brainworms I grew up with). Thanks for the insight :)
All the consequences of US foreign policy seemed to fall on the Cambodian people, even after the bombing stopped.
My takeaway so far, having not finished the final episode, is that this is definitely the blowback. No one except, maybe Vietnam, had any interest in the well-being of the Cambodian people, including China and the USSR.
I guess that doesn't exactly constitute blowback, since the instigators walked away pretty clean from the whole ordeal... Perhaps after 5 seasons, "Blowback" has become more of a title than a directive. This really feels more like an untold history than anything else.
I agree. It calls to mind that proverb "when elephants fight, the grass gets trampled." I think you're right that this is more an untold history.
Just processing out loud here: it's useful for getting rid of brainworms as well. Embarrassingly, I sat with the cognitive dissonance of the PRC supporting Pol Pot for a long time before resolving it with the obvious answer of it being wrong and bad, as others have mentioned in this thread. Getting out of that mindset of geopolitical "teams" is rough lol
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It is worth noting that China doing this is not an immediate consequence of the split. Afghanistan in late 70s, same with UNITA. Khmer Rouge is earlier, but the other stuff is mostly post-Cultural Revolution shift in policy. Like you said "79-89" which is effectively the fall of the Gang of Four and the ascendance of Guofeng and then Deng all the way to the end of the USSR as a stable actor.
Not to say Mao didn't make the shift to the US, he and Zhou 100% did, but China going completely off-kilter foreign policy wise really kicks in in 79
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUpWuxhj1_8
American Prestige just did a good two-parter on the Sino-Soviet Split.
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What are blowback's sources for PRC's support for these?
I ask because I recently finished a book by a Sri-Lankan Buddhist anti-imperialist, who claimed that the PRC backed the soft-left party against the communists in an uprising in 1971. Yet when I looked into the sources, it seemed like the PRC supported the other side.
Interestingly the USSR backed the nominally socialist party against the communists in that one, but only with a small number of advisors.
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