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The London School of Economics and Political Science The Double Crisis: China and the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 Dandan ZHU A thesis submitted to the Department of International History of the London School of Economics for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, London, June 2009 UMI Number: U615950 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U615950 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 -meses W 3 Librarv e n t v s f ' L ^ a ' v ^ * ' •'•• and i0 Q W ^ - Scenci- i Z03 o"}o Declaration I certify that the thesis I have presented for examination for the MPhil/PhD degree of the London School of Economics and Political Science is solely my own work other than where I have clearly indicated that it is the work of others (in which case the extent of any work carried out jointly by me and any other person is clearly identified in it). The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. Quotation from it is permitted, provided that full acknowledgement is made. This thesis may not be reproduced without the prior written consent of the author. I warrant that this authorization does not, to the best of my belief, infringe the rights of any third party. 2 Abstract The 1956 crisis in Hungary had a profound impact on China’s international affairs and domestic politics. The Chinese Communist Party leadership - party chairman Mao Zedong in particular - had by the end of mid-1950s begun to conceive of “a great Chinese revolution”, which would largely take the form of large-scale industrial modernization. At the same time, China's awareness that it could develop into a leading player in the international socialist camp led Mao and his colleagues actively to intervene on the East European scene, posing an implicit challenge to the Soviet dominance in the bloc. The apparent desire of the Hungarian people to break free from Stalinist socialism, and the real risk, as Mao saw it, of the bloc foundering, convinced the Chinese Party that only reverting to a Stalinist pattern of inter-state socialism could keep the camp intact. In the domestic context, the Hungarian events likewise played a formative role in the evolution of Chinese social policy as top officials critically reviewed the Soviet experience of collectivization. Intellectuals and statesmen began to doubt the efficiency of the party’s rule, while Mao rejected meaningful reforms of institutional socialism in favour of'soft” means of conscripting the intellectuals and “remolding” popular thought. Having opened up to party to criticism from outside, Mao cited the risk of domestic opponents fomenting a Hungarian-style crisis in China in terminating the Hundred Flowers campaign and moving to a program of ideological purges and massive economic stimulation. By 1958 China was definitively set on the course of the Great Leap Forward and the break with the Soviet Union. 3 Acknowledgements I am first of all deeply indebted to Prof. Odd Arne Westad, my supervisor, for his direction of this research and helpful comments on the manuscript. I have been truly lucky to be his student for both my M.Phil. and PhD studies, during which time his example helped inspire me to make a career in International History. It would have been impossible for me to complete the task without his help and encouragement. Many people helped me in completing this thesis, but I would like to single out James Griffiths, who read each chapter, made numerous suggestions for improving phrasing. I owe a great deal to my husband, Yi Mingdeng, for his gathering Chinese materials for me in the first six months of research and for his encouragement and support over the last four years. My special acknowledgments go to the International History Department and IDEAS center of LSE and particularly to Mrs. Tiha Franulovic for her generous assistance. Most of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my mother, Liu Yiping, whose love, support, guidance have behind every successful step of my life. 4 Contents Introduction 6 Chapter 1: Communist China and the Communist world (1949 -1956) 19 Chapter 2: China and the East European bloc: after the CPSU 20th Congress 53 Chapter 3: China's Diplomatic and Political Involvement in the Hungarian Crisis October-Novem ber 1956 111 Chapter 4: The Impact of the Hungarian Crisis on Chinese Domestic Politics, 1956-1957 178 Conclusion 236 Bibliography Materials in Chinese 245 Materials in Other Languages 254 5 Introduction The idea of Europe as the central battlefield of the Cold War as that face-off took shape between the two great powers has to be revised to take account of the emergence into international prominence of events in Asia in the early 1950s.1 The Asian region, as an “other side” or front of the Cold War, has now started to enter into historiography with the end of the conflict and declassification of Chinese state documents, whose scrutiny promises to cast cold war history in a new light both globally and regionally.2 The development of the study of Communist China’s Cold War history has more than any other historiographical development begun to contribute to a more integral and truly global Cold War history. In Mao Zedong’s words, 1956 was a year of “big events”, both at home and abroad.3 The “secret speech” delivered by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union’s (CPSU) Twentieth Congress had, according to Mao, “opened the lid” on the repressiveness of the immediately post-War Soviet regimes, thereby “making a mess” in ideologically inspiring a wave of de-Stalinization marked by massive demonstrations in Poland and Hungary. These mass movements demanded from their governments the improvement of their countries’ living standards and the safeguarding of national independence and political rights in the teeth of the Soviet Union.4 The Hungarian events, in particular, were more complicated than either a populist anti-socialist protest or a form of proto-nationalist agitation, and the Chinese leaders exerted great effort in trying to apply the lessons of Hungary to their own domestic situation.5 1 On Europe as the origin and central battleground of the Cold Wars, see Antonio Varsori, ‘Reflections on the Origins of the Cold War', in Odd Arne Westad ed., Reviewing the Cold War.Approaches, Interpretations and Theory (London: Frank Cass, 2000), 281-302. 2 See the back cover of John Lewis Gaddis, We now Know: Rethinking Cold War History (New York: Oxford, 1997). 3 Liu Congwen, Chen Shaotao et al., Liu Shaoqii nianpu, 1898-1969 [A Chronological Record of Liu Shaoqi] (LSN), 2vols., (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian, 1996), 809. 4 See Wu Lengxi, Shinian lunzhan, 1956-1966: Zhongsu guanxi huiyilu [Ten-Year Polemical Debate, 1956-1966: A Memoir on Sino-Soviet Relations] (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian, 1999), 6. Wu Lengxi was then director of the ‘New China News Agency’ and editor-in-chief of ‘People’s Daily’, and he attended several Politburo Standing Committee meetings discussing the de-Stalinization issue. Mao repeated the same claim later on several occasions. Mao repeated the same claim later on several occasions. Also see Chen Jian, M ao’s China and the Cold War (Chapel Hill, London: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 64. 5 See Bo Yibo, Ruogan zhongda juece yu shijian de huigu (xiajuan) [Review on a Certain Number of Crucial Decisions and Events, vol. 2, thereafter huigu] (Beijing: Remmin, 1997) 597-599. 6 The purpose of this thesis is to make sense of the inner connection between China's political and diplomatic involvement in the Hungarian crisis and the influence this crisis had on China's domestic policy from late 1956 to 1957. In this short but very crucial period of time, Chinese domestic politics changed dramatically from the rhetorically inclusive and pluralistic "rectification" and Hundred Flowers campaigns (HF) to the repressive and authoritarian Anti-Rightist campaign, changes in which Chairman Mao's interpretation of the Hungarian Crisis of 1956 played an essential role. This thesis takes advantage of the wealth of newly available archival material in opting for a domestic-centered method in studying the relations between China and the Hungarian crisis of 1956. Its particular focus lies with how the crisis prompted Mao to adopt a more aggressive agenda in promoting the "socialist revolution and [effort of] reconstruction" at home, at the same time as emphasizing the necessity to keep hierarchical order within the Communist camp against the background of the Cold War. This attention, while centrally devotes to China, nevertheless captures an international dimension of the Hungarian crisis to which insufficient attention has as yet been paid.6 6 Up to 1990s, the books and articles on the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 either written by the Hungarian scholars or western researchers rarely touch upon Chinese diplomatic and political involvement in the process of the events, let alone seeking to assess the impact of the October Revolution on the Chinese domestic scene throughout late 1956 to late 1957. Janos Radvanyi, a senior official in the Hungarian diplomatic service in 1956, published an article in 1970 recollecting his observation of the Chinese role in the 1956 Hungarian Crisis.