How far were the relations between the PRC and the USSR affected by the differences over

ideology?
Before the PRC, China and the USSR didn't have a good relationship. There disputes
were because of shared borders and in the 19th century china lost territories to
Russia. That means that the bad relationship of the PRC and the USSR, both created
on the 20th century, was a continuation of their 19th century tensions.
On the one hand, already when the USSR existed and the PRC was created,
ideological differences created tension between both. The beginning of this was with
the disagreement of the interpretation of Marxism. Stalin felt that Mao’s interpretation
was not the right one. Mao saw Marxism as “using peasants as the basis of
revolution” when Stalin saw it as “workers leading an urban-based class war.”
Although it may seem a friendly disagreement, it wasn't as both took really serious the
interpretation and that led to the beginning of the relationship between the USSR and
the PRC being a bit tense as this was one of the reasons for Stalin’s failure in giving
support to China in their civil war. Although Stalin died in 1953 and Krushchev
assumed, differences still remained between the USSR and the PRC. This ideological
differences were based on the way to act and to “respond” to communism’s ideals.
The first problem between Mao and Krushchev began with the “secret speech” by
Krushchev who critizised Mao for his crimes against the party. Mao saw this as an
attack for his own style of leadership and this clearly shows that both thought
differently in how to take decisions. Another factor related to the begginig of
Krushchev was his doctrine of peaceful co-existence with the West. This meant that
Krushchev thought that armed struggle was not the only way to achieve global
revolution and for Mao this was an offense and a ideological heresy. Mao saw the
USSR as dominated by revisionism. Throughout the Conference of Communist
parties in 1957, Mao talked about his non-acceptance of revisionism as this meant
working along side Western Capitalists or “class enemies”. Also Deng, Chinese
spokesperson, put forward the PRC’s ideological stance and out-argued the leading
soviet theorist, Suslov. In Kruschev’s visit to Beijing in 1958, Deng used the
opportunity to say that Soviet’s had betrayed the international Communist movement
as they had a different way of thinking that lead to a different way to act. Also, he said
that the Soviets, viewed themselves as the only true “Marxist-Leninists” refering as
seeing themselves as a different communist country and that is what lead them taking
the decisions they felt that were appropriate. USSR’s attack to Albania, and the
accusation of the C.P.S.U to Albania for having “Stalinist” doctrines and backward
ways, was seen by Mao as an attack to China’s system also and USSR’s difference
of how to rule. Mao saw Krushchev as a coward by how he acted in 1962’s Cuban
Missile Crisis, critizised his peaceful co-existance by saying that existing peacefully
with non-Communist states went against everything their ideology dictated, that
Krushchev once again was betraying communism and the revolution. Within the
dipute between the PRC and the USSR, Mao viewed the position of the USSR of
stopping the test of atomic weapons as an abandon to its role as revolutionary leader
and instead working with te imperialist powers.
On the other hand, relations were affected between the USSR and the PRC
because of self-interests. To begin with, the difference of the ideology of Marxism
wasn’t the only reason for the USSR’s failure to support the CCP in te Chinese civil
war. There were 4 main reasons for this: First of all, Stalin feared Mao as a threat to
his leadership of the Communist world. Second, he didn’t want the Cold War to
spread through Asia. Third he knew that the GMD would recognize Soviet’s claims to
the dispute border territory. And 4th and last that he saw the GMD more powerful than
the CCP and wanted them to unite. From Mao’s perspective, Stalin wanted to divide
China to be weak and the USSR dominating Asia. In 1950, Mao was invited to
Moscow to be offered a treaty of low-interest aid and Soviet expertise. Mao saw this
treatment as an offense as the treatment benefited mostly Soviets. In the Korean War,
Soviets supplied Chinese but after demanded them to repay the materials supplied.
Also its suggested that Stalin deliberately delayed the end of the Korean War to
exhaust the PRC. After seeing and not accepting the USSR’s revisionism position,
Mao believed that the USSR was initiating a détente with the west to further isolate
China. In 1958, Mao decided to test the USA’s power of resolution in Taiwan and
prepared a full-scale attack which was not done as he didn’t have the support of the
USA. Khrushchev refused only because of thinking only about the USSR’s situation
which wasn’t the one able to go to war with the USA. Mao didn’t like this edition
because once again, the USSR was thinking only about their own and their self-
interests. The Great Leap Forward was a policy initiated by Mao to rapidly develop
China’s agriculture and industrial sectors simultaneously. This had really hard
consequences in China’s population related with starvation. Soviets saw this as an
opportunity to go hard to China and denounced it publicly. The result of this was a
humiliation to Mao which most probably created a better image of the USSR, or if not
a worst image of China. After the USSR bad handling of the 1962 Cuban Missile
Crisis, Mao took advantage to attack this ways of taking devotions of the USSR and it
was an opportunity to expose to the Communist world the USSR’s lack of
commitment to the revolutionary cause. Although Krushchev left in 1964, Soviet’s
leaders continued their attempt to isolate China and attacked Mao’s cultural revolution
which lead again to an internal crisis in China. In 1957 the USSR gained superiority
over the USA. Mao wanted help from the USSR for developing their own nuclear
power but the USSR saw this as a threat to them so they responded that they will only
look after them, but not help them develop. China developed its own nuclear power so
that the PRC would be recognized as an international power. This created tension as
the PRC’s intention was to be powerful and a threat to the USSR. The USSR invaded
Czechoslovakia in 1968 to “maintain order in “Eastern Europe” and Mao feared that
they could turn against them with this “Brezhnev Doctrine” and that this invasion and
will of control was to became more powerful, again thinking only about themselves
and using order excuses for this. The Vietnam War was the most obvious
demonstration of their self-interest as the only cause they intervened for was to win
Vietnam’s trust which was given to the USSR and impose their influence. The PRC
after did it with Cambodia. This led to conflicts between Cambodia and Vietnam.
To conclude, the tensions were almost equally generated by ideological
differences and self-interest. After, when Gorbachev and Deng assumed and forgot
this differences, China and the USSR finally set up a good relationship.