Communist Bloc Expansion in the Early Cold War: Challenging Realism, Refuting Revisionism Author(S): Douglas J

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Communist Bloc Expansion in the Early Cold War: Challenging Realism, Refuting Revisionism Author(s): Douglas J. Macdonald Reviewed work(s): Source: International Security, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Winter, 1995-1996), pp. 152-188 Published by: The MIT Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2539142 . Accessed: 09/01/2012 01:31

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http://www.jstor.org Connunist Bloc DouglasJ. Macdonald Expansionin the EarlyCold War Challenging Realism, RefutingRevisionism

W as there ever a unifiedcommunist threat facing the UnitedStates during the Cold War?Or did U.S. decision-makersmisperceive Soviet and communistbloc "defensiveness"and "caution"as expansionistthreats? Did U.S. leaders,realizing that the Sovietsand theirideological allies posed no securitythreat to theUnited States and its allies,create such claimsfor various domestic political reasons? Such questionshave dominatedanalyses of the Cold Warin theUnited States for thepast thirtyyears. To thesurprise of some and theconsternation of others, thedemise of theCold Warand theresulting flow of new evidencefrom the Eastin recentyears has reinvigoratedmany of these arguments over its origins, theprimary responsibility for its creation, and U.S. actionsduring that era. The Cold War is over,but the controversiessurrounding it and its meaningfor contemporaryscholarship and policyare not.' The argumentover the originsof the Cold Waris importantnot onlyfor historicalaccuracy, but also forthe consequencesit will have on theoretical questionsand thereforeon theirimplications for policy Since international relationsspecialists both learnfrom historical examples and utilizethem as illustrationand evidence,historical accounts and theirrelative plausibility directlyinfluence social sciencetheories. As thelate WilliamT.R. Fox used to tellhis students, good historywill not necessarily lead to good theory,but poor

DouglasJ. Macdonald is AssociateProfessor ofPolitical Science at ColgateUniversity.

I would like to express my deep gratitudefor the valuable commentsand advice that I received fromChen Jian,David Edelstein, Hao Yufan, Robert G. Kaufman, TimothyLomperis, Edward Rhodes, Randall Schweller,James Wirtz, and anonymous reviewers.

1. For recentdiscussions of the new evidence, see Jacob Heilbrunn, "The Revision Thing,' The New Republic,August 15, 1994, pp. 31-34, 36-39; Gideon Rose, "The New Cold War Debate," The NationalInterest, No. 38 (Winter1994/95), pp. 89-96; Steven MerrittMiner, "Revelations, Secrets, Gossip and Lies: SiftingWarily Through the Soviet Archives," The New YorkTimes Book Review, May 14, 1995,pp. 19-21; Karen J.Winkler, "Scholars Refight the Cold War,"The Chroniclesof Higher Education,March 2, 1994, pp. A8-A10.

InternationalSecurity, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Winter1995/96), pp. 152-188 ? 1995 by the Presidentand Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Instituteof Technology.

152 CommunistBloc Expansionin theEarly Cold War | 153

historywill lead to poortheory History lays the groundwork for the creation, testing,and improvementof internationaltheories. Thisarticle utilizes some of the new historical treatments of evidence emerging fromthe East to re-examinethe validity of Westernperceptions of Soviet bloc expansionin theearly Cold War.It beginswith a discussionof themajor schoolsof historicalthought on the Cold Warand theirrespective views on communistexpansion: traditionalism, revisionism, post-revisionism, and realism.I maintainthat many of the new interpretationsofthe Cold Warbased on thenew evidencesupport a traditionalexplanation and pose a challengeto the otherschools of thought.Supporting evidence is providedby recentBritish and Europeanscholarship on Westernthreat perceptions during the Cold War. I then examinetwo empiricalquestions: did a relativelyhierarchical and unifiedCommunist bloc existunder the leadership of theSoviet Union? If so, werethe perceptions of Western decision-makers accurate, that such a blocwas expansionistalong coordinated lines largely directed from Moscow? I answer both questionsin the affirmative.The firstanswer is based on the ample circumstantialevidence utilized by traditionalistsin thepast. The secondan- swerrelies on new interpretationsand primaryevidence that strongly support theearlier traditionalist claims. Taken together, the supporting, circumstantial, and new primaryevidence provide a compellingargument that the traditional explanationof theCold Waris superiorto thecompeting explanations. A case studyof the bloc's interventions in Asia exploresin greaterdetail the questionof bloc solidarity.With Europe and theMiddle East deniedthem as targetsof opportunityby 1948,the Soviets turned to Asia. I arguethat Soviet attemptsto expand into the regionwere made, not in responseto Western threats,as securitydilemma critiques of containmentsuggest, but becauseof the lack of such a threat,that is, the lack of a unifiedWestern containment policy.Moreover, Soviet bloc actionsin Asia stronglysuggest that had robust containmentpolicies not been followedin Europeand the Middle East,the Sovietswould have triedto expandtheir influence into those areas also. The new evidencesuggests that we need to modifymany of thenegative views of Westernthreat perceptions during the Cold War,widespread criticisms of robustcontainment policies, and theubiquitous but incorrect view of the Soviet Unionas an inherentlycautious imperial power.2

2. I do not examine the question of which areas of the world were objectivelyimportant to the national interestsof the United States and its allies, only the narrower,yet related,question of whetherthere existed expansionistSoviet bloc policies. InternationalSecurity 20:3 | 154

The HistoricalDebate over U.S. Policies:Traditionalism, Revisionism,Post-Revisionism, and Realism

As withmany historical events, a Hegelianpattern of argumentation-thesis or traditionalview, antithesisor revisionistview, and synthesisor post- revisionistview-developed foranalyses of the Cold War.The traditionalview ofthe Cold Warheld that the Soviet Union was an expansionistnation primar- ily responsiblefor political and militarycontention, and thatthere was a real and globalcommunist threat to independentbut internally weak nations, both thosethat ringed the Soviet Union in Europe,the Middle East, and Asia in the aftermathof World War II and theemerging new nations.U.S. securitypolicies weretherefore mostly reasonable and necessary,or at theleast understandable and defensible.The SovietUnion, according to thisview, headed a grouping of ideologicallylike-minded revolutionary entities and nationsthat were activelyexpansionist through the selectivesupport of non-rulingcommunist partiesin theirquests for power. The essenceof theearly Cold Warwas that theSoviet Union and itsideological clients were united and expansionist,and thatthe United States was relativelyslow in reactingto the globalnature of thethreat posed by thatexpansion. It was onlychecked when the West, and especiallythe UnitedStates, took strong,unified stands againstthe Soviet Unionto containit.3 Beginningin themid-1960s, largely in reactionto theVietnam War, a revi- sionistschool evolved amongU.S. historianswho proposedthat the United Stateswas primarilyto blamefor the Cold War.U.S. leaderswere driven by an unreasonablehostility to communism,largely generated by domesticpoliti- cal and economicneeds. Since the Soviets had at mostonly tenuous influence over communistgroups, U.S. actionsduring the Cold War,especially in the ThirdWorld, were unnecessary and overdone,even at timescriminal. In this view,the UnitedStates was seen as activelyexpansionist, while the Soviet Union was simplyresponding to U.S. provocations.These starklydrawn

3. See generallyJerald A. Combs, AmericanDiplomatic History: Two Centuriesof ChangingInterpre- tations(Berkeley: Universityof California Press, 1983), pp. 220-257, 322-346; Geir Lundestad, "Moralism, Presentism,Exceptionalism, Provincialism, and Other Extravagances in American Writingson the Early Cold War Years," DiplomaticHistory, Vol. 13, No. 4 (Fall 1989), pp. 527-546; Anders Stephanson, "The United States," in David Reynolds,ed., The Originsof theCold War in Europe:International Perspectives (New Haven, Conn.: Yale UniversityPress, 1994), pp. 23-52. For examples of traditionalistscholarship, see Hugh Seton-Watson,Neither War Nor Peace: TheStruggle forPower in thePostwar World (New York: Praeger,1960); HerbertFeis, FromTrust to Terror:The Onsetof the Cold War,1945-1950 (New York:W.W. Norton, 1970); Paul Y. Hammond, The Cold War Years:American Foreign Policy Since 1945 (New York:Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1969); Adam Ulam, Expansionand Coexistence:Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917-73, 2nd. ed. (New York:Praeger, 1974). CommunistBloc Expansion in theEarly Cold War | 155

argumentsaffected much of U.S. historiographyof the Cold War untilthe 1980s.In general,traditional analysis defended U.S. and Westerncontainment policies;revisionism rejected them.4 In the lateryears of the Cold War,there were attemptsto forgea post- revisionistsynthesis by historians,the foremostamong themJohn Lewis Gaddis.5The post-revisionistsessentially accepted U.S. Europeanpolicy while separatingit sharplyfrom U.S. ThirdWorld policies. This allowed themto avoid havingto defendthe VietnamWar and otherpolicies of whichthey disapproved.They acceptedsome U.S. responsibilityfor the Cold War and were stronglycritical of U.S. interventionsin the developingnations, for example,yet found credible the Sovietthreat to Europeand Japan.The post- revisioniststried to strikea balancebetween traditionalism and revisionism and to stakeout a middleground based on mutualmisperception, mutual reactivity,and sharedresponsibility between the superpowers. Borrowing in- sightsfrom the psychological decision-making and realistliteratures in political science,there was sometimesa strongemphasis on a supposedlyconsistent misperceptionof politicaland powerrealities by all concerned. Some historianswho rejectthe traditional stance from an allegedlyrealist or post-revisionistperspective, such as historianMelvyn Leffler in his award- winninghistory of theorigins of theCold War,A PreponderanceofPower, have also fixedprimary blame forthe globalization of theCold Waron U.S. anti- communismand the resultingflawed processes of determiningthreats. The Cold War,according to Leffler,was largelycaused by theactions of the United States,with the Soviets largely responding defensively to U.S. initiatives:"So- viet actionswere reactive."6Although Leffler at timesascribes mutuality of

4. See Combs, AmericanDiplomatic History, pp. 235-257; and Stephanson,"The United States,"pp. 30-35. For examples of revisionism,see Thomas G. Paterson,Meeting the Communist Threat: Truman to Reagan(New York:Oxford University Press, 1988); Bruce Cumings,The Originsof the Korean War, Vol. II: The Roaringof the Cataract,1947-1950 (Princeton,N.J.: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1990); RobertH. Johnson,Improbable Dangers: U.S. Conceptionsof Threatin theCold Warand After(New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994); R. Craig Nation, BlackEarth, Red Star: A Historyof SovietSecurity Policy,1917-1991 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell UniversityPress, 1992), especially pp. 158-201. 5. See JohnLewis Gaddis, The UnitedStates and theOrigins of theCold War (New York:Columbia UniversityPress, 1972); Gaddis, "The EmergingPost-Revisionist Synthesis on the Origins of the Cold War,"Diplomatic History, Vol. 7, No. 3 (Summer 1983), pp. 171-190; and Gaddis, Strategiesof Containment:A CriticalAppraisal of PostwarAmerican National SecurityPolicy (New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1982). The post-revisionistviewpoint continues to be dominant in the most popular historytextbooks; see J. Samuel Walker,"The Origins of the Cold War in United States HistoryTextbooks," Journal of American History, Vol. 81, No. 4 (March 1995), pp. 1652-1661. 6. Melvyn P. Leffler,A Preponderanceof Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War(Stanford, Calif.: StanfordUniversity Press, 1992), pp. 511-515; quotation,p. 513. See also Leffler,"New Approaches, Old Interpretations,and Prospective Reconfigurations,"Diplomatic History,Vol. 19, No. 2 (Spring 1995), pp. 173-196. InternationalSecurity 20:3 | 156

responsibilityto thesuperpowers, Anders Stephanson correctly notes that in thiswidely acclaimed work, "the case is closed:the United States initiated the Cold War,the Soviet Union did not."7 Post-revisionismwas supportedin importantways by thecriticisms of U.S. policiesemanating from the dominant paradigm of thepolitical science sub- disciplineof internationalrelations, realism, which posits the non-ideological pursuitof poweras thebasis forinternational relations. According to realists, it is the competitionover capabilitiesamong states that determines policies. Thisview suggeststhat the spread of communism presented little threat to the UnitedStates because nationalismand self-interest,not communistideology, are whatdrive states to act.Nationalism prevented a coordinationof internationalpolicies by thesegovernments. The actionsof each are thereforeonly properlyunderstood sui generis. There was no Sovietbloc unifiedby ideology in theearly Cold Warperiod, according to thisview; there were only discrete statesseeking individual versions of theirnational interests defined in terms ofpower.8 Such a stateof anarchy in internationalpolitics produces the security dilemma:each stateis ultimatelyleft to itsown resourcesto protectitself, but as each triesto do so it alarmsother states that are also seekingto protect themselves.Realist analysts portray a worldof endemic misperceptions within thecontext of theconstant struggle over power.9 This view complementsthe post-revisionistview of mutualreactivity between the superpowers and joint responsibilityin theearly Cold War. In this debate,the traditionalistposition has been under-representedin recentdecades and dealt withas a strawman. Historiographicdiscussions rarelymention traditionalist works written after 1970, and thoseprior to that yearare oftenportrayed as "ofmostly archaeological interest now."l0 This has recentlybegun to change.Largely drawing on the unprecedentedlevel of materialsbeing declassified and releasedfrom communist archives, as well as increasinglycandid interviews with policymakers of theformer Soviet Union and thePeople's Republic of China, new interpretationsare emergingthat can be characterizedas traditionalistin orientation,in theirviews on the new

7. Stephanson,"The United States," p. 47. 8. Althoughthere are major differencesbetween the two schools of thought,both classical realism and neorealismposit the non-ideologicalpursuit of power by states as the basis for international relations. The premier classical realist work is Hans Morgenthau,Politics Among Nations: The Strugglefor Power and Peace,5th ed., rev.(New York:Alfred A. Knopf,1978). The premierneorealist work is KennethWaltz, Theoryof International Politics (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley,1979). 9. See RobertJervis, "Cooperation Under the SecurityDilemma," WorldPolitics, Vol. 30, No. 2 (January1978), pp. 167-214. 10. Stephanson,"The United States," p. 29. CommunistBloc Expansionin theEarly Cold War | 157

empiricalfindings if not yet in analyticaland historiographicalcoherence.1 Divergentinterpretations of the Cold Warare again in livelycontention. The primaryreason for this resurgence of the traditional viewpoint is thata good deal of the new evidencehas not been kindto post-revisionist,realist, and especiallyrevisionist analyses. It turnsout thateven ardentU.S. Cold- Warriorssuch as JohnFoster Dulles werefar more sophisticated in theirview ofthe communist threat than their public rhetoric would suggest; that ideology was an importantfactor in decision-makingfor the Soviet Union and its potentialallies, especially in theearly Cold War,and thatthe communist world coordinatedexpansionist policies far more than believed by many critics of U.S. policies.This is creatinga new look at how U.S. decision-makersperceived threatsduring the Cold War.12Some post-revisionistanalysts have partlyin- corporatedthese insights into their work. John Lewis Gaddis, for example, has recentlydeclared that "American policy-makers at no pointduring the postwar era actuallybelieved in the existenceof an internationalcommunist monolith."'13Some new interpretationssuggest that U.S. and Westerndecision-makers

11. For recentexamples of new interpretationsthat I would place in the traditionalcategory on empirical grounds based on new evidence (although these authors may not thus characterize themselves),see Wilson D. Miscamble, "The Foreign Policy of the Truman Administration:A Post-Cold WarAppraisal," PresidentialStudies Quarterly, Vol. 24, No. 3 (Summer 1994),pp. 479-495; JohnW. Garver,"Polemics, Paradigms, Responsibility,and the Origins of the U.S.-PRC Confron- tationin the 1950s,"Journal of American-East Asian Relations,Vol. 3, No. 1 (Spring 1994), pp. 1-34; David Holloway, Stalinand theBomb: The SovietUnion and AtomicEnergy (New Haven, Conn.: Yale UniversityPress, 1994); Sergei N. Goncharov,John W. Lewis, and Xue Litai, UncertainPartners: Stalin,Mao, and theKorean War (Stanford,Calif.: StanfordUniversity Press, 1993); Hao Yufan and Zhai Zhihai, "China's Decision to Enter the Korean War: History Revisited," China Quarterly, No. 121 (March 1990), pp. 94-115; Zhai Qiang, "China and the Geneva Conferenceof 1954," China Quarterly,No. 129 (March 1992), pp. 103-122; Zhai, "Transplantingthe Chinese Model: Chinese MilitaryAdvisers and the FirstVietnam War, 1950-1954," Journal of Military History, Vol. 57 (Octo- ber 1993), pp. 689-713; Zhai Qiang, The Dragon,the Lion,and theEagle: Chinese,British, American Relations,1949-1958 (Kent,Ohio: Kent State UniversityPress, 1994); Chen Jian,China's Road to the KoreanWar: The Makingof theSino-American Confrontation (New York:Columbia UniversityPress, 1994); Chen, "China and the FirstIndo-China War, 1950-54," China Quarterly, No. 133 (March 1993), pp. 85-110. 12. See David Reynolds,"Great Britain,"in Reynolds,The Originsof the Cold Warin Europe,p. 92; Miner, "Revelations, Secrets, Gossip and Lies," pp. 19-21. For the new view of John Foster Dulles in particular,see David Allan Mayers, Crackingthe Monolith: U.S. PolicyAgainst the Sino- SovietAlliance, 1949-1955 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UniversityPress, 1986), pp. 110-150;John Lewis Gaddis, "The Unexpected John Foster Dulles: Nuclear Weapons, Communism, and the Russians," in Richard H. Immerman,ed., JohnFoster Dulles and the Diplomacyof the Cold War (Princeton,N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990), pp. 47-78; Richard D. Challener,"The Moralist as Pragmatist:John Foster Dulles as Cold War Strategist,"in Gordon A. Craig and Francis L. Loewenheim,eds., TheDiplomats, 1939-1979 (Princeton,N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994), pp. 135-166. 13. JohnLewis Gaddis, TheLong Peace: Inquiriesinto the History of the Cold War(New York:Oxford UniversityPress, 1987), p. 148. InternationalSecurity 20:3 1158

werenot that far off in theirperceptions of the threat posed by theSoviet bloc, at least in the earlyperiod. Even the commonview thatNSC 68 was an irrationalcall to armsbased on pureideology, or a cynicalploy to scarepeople, is beingquestioned by some scholars,and thatdocument is beingportrayed as a morerational depiction of actualthreats facing the West than previously believed.4 In sum,traditionalists portray the Soviet Union as an expansionist,ideologicallydriven power and theWest as primarilyreactive; revisionists argue that theSoviets were reactive, and theUnited States expansionist; post-revisionists, while assigningsome responsibilityfor the Cold Warto Sovietexpansionist pressures,often place equal or greaterblame on the UnitedStates; realists portraythe Sovietsas highlyreactive because of the securitydilemma, and thereforegenerally defensive and cautious.Determining whether the Soviet Union was an activelyexpansionist power is thus essentialto ascertaining responsibilityfor the origins of the Cold War,the plausibility of Western threat perceptions,the accuracy of realisttheories, and thedefensibility of theresulting containmentpolicies.

SupportingEvidence: Bringing the Allies BackIn

Althoughmany critics of theCold Warconcentrate their attention on alleged U.S. misperceptionsof Sovietexpansion, it is worthnoting that most other non-communistnations shared these perceptions in theearly Cold Warwith unusualconsensus. This included not only governments but also manygroups not afraidto criticizethe UnitedStates or to attemptto get along withthe Soviets,such as theBritish Labour Party or theFrench Socialists. Even such an unexpectedsource as BertrandRussell wondered aloud whethera preemptive attackon Stalinmight not be necessaryin the 1940s.15This particularlychal- lengesthose analysts who utilizecognitive theories of decision-makingand

14. Beatrice Heuser, "NSC 68 and the Soviet Threat: A New Perspective on WesternThreat Perception and Policy Making," Review of InternationalStudies, Vol. 17, No. 1 (January1991), pp. 17-40; Miscamble, "The ForeignPolicy of the TrumanAdministration," p. 494, fn.64; Garver, "Polemics,Paradigms, Responsibility, and the Originsof the U.S.-PRC Confrontationin the 1950s," p. 12, fn. 17. 15. VojtechMastny, "Stalin and the Militarizationof the Cold War,"International Security, Vol. 9, No. 3 (Winter1984/85), p. 121. See Alan Bullock,Ernest Bevin: Foreign Secretary (New York:Norton, 1983),pp. 530-531. The FrenchSocialists also gave up on cooperationwith the FrenchCommunists and the Soviet Bloc by 1947; Georges-HenriSoutou, "France," in Reynolds,The Originsof the Cold War in Europe,pp. 104-105. For a recent account that does include the views of the allies, see Gaddis, The Long Peace,pp. 45-47. CommunistBloc Expansionin theEarly Cold War | 159

domesticpolitics explanations for U.S. foreignpolicy Many such criticsem- phasizeSoviet defensiveness, caution, and decidedlylimited aims, disparaging thevery notion of a unifiedcommunist bloc.'6 Britishand otherallied threatperceptions were often higher than U.S. fears priorto theKorean War, both in Europeand in theperiphery. This phenomenon cannotbe explainedby referenceto internalU.S. psychologicalor political processes.Indeed, in congruencewith traditionalist interpretations, recent Brit- ish historicalworks emphasize that prior to theKorean War, the Foreign Office saw theUnited States as too sanguineabout the Soviet bloc threatand feltit necessaryto prodthe Americans into action in Asia and elsewhere."7Fears of Sovietbloc expansionbecame widespread among the other Western powers also, especiallyfollowing the Czech coup in February1948, the onsetof the BerlinBlockade in June,and the beginningof the collapse of the Chinese Nationalistarmies in thefall of thatyear.'8 The traditionalistview thatEuropean threat perceptions precipitated U.S. threatperceptions is supportedby historianGeir Lundestad's"Empire by Invitation"thesis.'9 Lundestad argues that,far fromthrusting itself upon

16. For argumentsthat threatswere exaggerated during the Cold War, see Johnson,Improbable Dangers,pp. 11-68; Richard Ned Lebow, "Conclusions," in RobertJervis, Janice Gross Stein,and RichardNed Lebow, eds., Psychologyand Deterrence(Baltimore, Md.: The JohnsHopkins University Press, 1985), pp. 203-232; John A. Thompson, "The Exaggeration of American Vulnerability," DiplomaticHistory, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Winter1992), pp. 23-44. For recentdomestic political explanations of the Cold War,see JackSnyder, Myths of Empire:Domestic Politics and InternationalAmbition (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell UniversityPress, 1991), pp. 255-304; Deepa Mary Ollapally, Confronting Conflict:Domestic Factors and U.S. Policymakingin the ThirdWorld (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1993); ArthurA. Stein,"Domestic Constraints,Extended Deterrence, and the Incoherenceof Grand Strategy:The United States, 1938-1950," in Richard Rosecrance and ArthurA. Stein, eds., The DomesticBases of GrandStrategy (Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell UniversityPress, 1993), pp. 96-123. 17. See BritishForeign SecretaryErnest Bevins's memo to Secretaryof State Dean Acheson on April 2, 1949, in U.S. Departmentof State,Foreign Relations of the UnitedStates (hereafter FRUS), 1948, Vol. VII, Pt. 2, pp. 35-37; PeterG. Boyle, "The BritishForeign Office View of Soviet-American Relations, 1945-46," DiplomaticHistory, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Summer 1979), pp. 307-320; Peter Weiler, "BritishLabour and the Cold War: The Foreign Policy of the Labour Government,1945-1951," Journalof British Studies, Vol. 26, No. 1 (January1987), pp. 54-82; M.L. Dockrill,"The ForeignOffice, Anglo-AmericanRelations and the Korean War," InternationalAffairs (London), Vol. 62, No. 3 (Summer 1986), pp. 459-476; R.B. Smith,"China and Southeast Asia: The RevolutionaryPerspec- tive, 1951," Journalof SoutheastAsian Studies,Vol. 19, No. 1 (March 1988), pp. 97-98. 18. Weiler,"British Labour and the Cold War,"pp. 56, 66, 71, 79; Reynolds,"Great Britain,"p. 92. See also Memorandum of Conversation,British and U.S. representativesin Washington(May 28, 1948), in FRUS, 1948, Vol. VI, pp. 788-791; Douglas J. Macdonald, "The TrumanAdministration and Global Responsibilities:The Birthof the Falling Domino Principle,"in RobertJervis and Jack Snyder,eds., Dominoesand Bandwagons:Strategic Beliefs and GreatPower Competition in theEurasian Rimland(New York:Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 122-124; Mastny,"Stalin and the Militari- zation of the Cold War,"pp. 115-119. 19. Geir Lundestad, TheAmerican "Empire" and OtherStudies of U.S. ForeignPolicy in a Comparative Perspective(New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1990), pp. 31-61. InternationalSecurity 20:3 | 160

Europein an anti-communistcrusade, as therevisionists would have it,the UnitedStates was invitedinto a positionof hegemonic leadership by European stateswho stillfaced the abysmal aftereffects ofWorld War II and whobelieved theywere facingan expansionistSoviet Union. Severalof thesecountries, especiallyFrance and Italy,were also facingthe challenge of large and vigorous local communistmovements who were verylikely to align with Moscow shouldthey come to power.20Although some criticsplay down theWestern Europeanfears of Sovietexpansion and emphasizethat their need foraid for internalreconstruction influenced their desire for a U.S. effortin Europe,21these issueswere strongly interconnected in the minds of manyin theWest. Thesethreat perceptions were not limited to actorsat thecore. Latin Ameri- can officials,for example, informed the United States that the growing Soviet blocthreat in Asia in 1949-50was causingthem great concern, and complained to such a degreethat the Trumanadministration began to worrythat they wouldquestion U.S. leadershipof the non-communist world.22 By January 1950 powersinterested in Asia,such as Britain,France, Australia, and New Zealand, and somenations in SoutheastAsia, such as thePhilippines and Thailand,had reachedthe conclusionwith surprisingunanimity that Soviet and Chinese communistplans forexpansion posed a region-widethreat.23 Concepts such as thecoordination of international communist policies, Soviet bloc expansionism,and even theso-called domino theory were not U.S. inventions:all had theirorigins in theshift from multipolarity to bipolarityin thelate 1940s. Fears of bandwagoningto the detrimentof the Westwere widespreadin the late 1940s,and notunreasonably so. U.S. powerwas widelyand correctlyperceived in the West,and increasinglyin theSoviet Union itself, as theonly credible obstacleto potentialSoviet bloc expansion.24

20. Macdonald, "The TrumanAdministration and Global Responsibilities,"pp. 123-124. 21. Leffler,"New Approaches, Old Interpretations,and Prospective Reconfigurations,"p. 189; Johnson,Improbable Dangers, pp. 45-46. 22. Memo, Corriganto Austin (December 7, 1949), HarryS. TrumanLibrary, Presidential Secretary File, Box 173; Memo, Corrigan to White House (December 22, 1949), ibid. See also the positive reactionsby Latin Americanand othernations to the U.S. response to the Korean invasion in June 1950, in FRUS, 1950, Volume VII, pp. 190-193. 23. RitchieOvendale, "Britain,the United States and the Cold War in South-eastAsia, 1949-1950," InternationalAffairs, Vol. 58, No. 3 (Summer 1982), pp. 454, 458, 460-461; JosephM. Siracusa and Glen St. JohnBarclay, "Australia, the United States,and the Cold War,1945-51," Diplomatic History, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Winter1981), pp. 39-52. 24. See the influentialrealist critiqueof bandwagoning fears in Stephen M. Walt, The Originsof Alliances(Ithaca, N.Y.: CornellUniversity Press, 1987). Leffleralso questionsfears of bandwagoning and disparages Soviet influencewith Western European communistparties; Leffler, A Preponderance of Power,pp. 504-505. For the fears of fallingdominoes widespread at this time,see Douglas J. CommunistBloc Expansionin theEarly Cold War | 161

In sum,given the fact that most other non-communists widely viewed Soviet actionsin theearly Cold Waras threateningto Westerninterests, analyses that focussolely on the psychologyof U.S. decision-makersand theirdomestic politicalmachinations cannot explain the causes of thisphenomenon. By con- centratingon internalcausation, recent critiques of U.S. policiesgive the erro- neousimpression that the fear of communist bloc expansion was largely,if not exclusively,in theminds of U.S. decision-makers. Whilean analysisthat includes allied perceptionschallenges the other ex- planationsof theCold War,it is necessarybut insufficientto confirma tradi- tionalinterpretation. That thesethreat perceptions were widelyshared does not necessarilyprove that the threatwas thereforeobjectively defined.25 But such analysisdoes properlyshift the focusof attentionto wherethe best evidenceis to be foundfor testing the "unified Soviet bloc" thesisof traditionalism.What needs to be assessedfurther is whetherthese shared threat per- ceptionshad a basis in reality,or wereerroneous or greatlyexaggerated as the criticscharge.

CircumstantialEvidence: Control of the Revolution and the Roleof Ideology

The U.S. standardfor judging coordination of Sovietbloc policiesassumed a considerabledegree of Sovietcontrol of thedirection of internationalpolicies in intra-blocand extra-blocrelations. This control over bloc policies,however, shouldnot be viewedas day-to-day,monolithic control of all actionstaken by bloc members:despite some of their public rhetoric, U.S. leadersdid notview thesituation in thisway Revisionists,post-revisionists, and realistsall argue, althoughfor different reasons, that the assumptionof Sovietleadership of a communistbloc was greatlyexaggerated by traditionalistscholars. Indeed, if thereis a singleissue that most distinguishes these schools from the traditional view,it is the positedexistence of a relativelyunified bloc actingin concert. Thusthe critics predict only low levelsof effort by theSoviets to aid individual

Macdonald, "Falling Dominoes and System Dynamics: A Risk Aversion Perspective,"Security Studies,Vol. 3, No. 2 (Winter1993/94), p. 229. The oral memoirsof both Khrushchevand Molotov, as well as much of the othernew evidence, confirmthat Stalin's fearof U.S. power was the most importantconstraint on Soviet expansionism.Viacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov,Molotov Remem- bers:Inside Kremlin Politics; Conversations with Felix Chuev (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1993),pp. 59, 65-66. 74, 78; Nikita Khrushchev,Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament(Boston: LittleBrown, 1976), pp. 7-8, 56, 62-63, 215, 217-218, 401-402, 424. 25. I am indebted to Ed Rhodes forraising this point. InternationalSecurity 20:3 | 162

communistgroups and a highdegree of independenceof actionby all com- munistsat theinternational and local levels,while traditionalists predict relativelygenerous support and a highdegree of coordinationof policiesunder Sovietstrategic direction. What must be examinedis thedegree of control over thegeneral direction of bloc policies,that is, theability of theSoviet Union to shape the behaviorof lesser members,especially revolutionary or foreign policies.There are few real puppetsin internationalpolitics, but thereare leadersand followers. The variousschools also disagreeover the role of ideologyin determining whethera coordinationof bloc policiesexisted. Although ideologies take form and emergefrom domestic politics, they also shape foreignpolicies over time by constrainingthe formand substanceof informationthat is viewed as credibleby decision-making elites. Marxist-Leninist ideology was used toiden- tifyopportunities for Soviet expansion by determiningpotential enemies and friends.In contrastto realistand othermaterialist assumptions, these determi- nationswere often divorced from the relative power positions of the respective statesor groups.To be sure,an analysisof therelative power of friendsand enemieswas importantin ascertainingthe existenceof "revolutionarysitu- ations"and targetsof opportunityfor the Soviets. But ideologyoften deter- mined who was a friendin the firstplace and whetherthey were worth aiding.26Shared world views can thereforebe as importantas powerfactors in seekingallies, especially in supportingideologically compatible non-ruling groupsprior to theircoming to power.This is particularlytrue with revolutionary"totalist" ideologies such as Marxism-Leninismthat do notaccept the idea ofpolitical pluralism. The desire to createcompatible regimes in theworld is virtuallyirresistible for such revolutionary states, and is viewedas necessary forboth ideologicaland securityreasons.27 Other Marxist-Leninists demon- stratedsimilar ideological proclivities. In relationto Mao Zedong's decision- making,Allen Whitinghas noted that "the consistencyof the bias in his erroneous forecasts. . . make probable his wholeheartedacceptance of Com- munistassumptions of world affairs."28 Traditionalism, in contrast to theother schools,would expectideological considerations to help shape securitygoals and actionsto a relativelyhigh degree.

26. John Lenczowski, Soviet Perceptionsof U.S. ForeignPolicy: A Study of Ideology,Power, and Consensus(Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell UniversityPress, 1982), p. 269. See also Goncharov,Lewis, and Xue, UncertainPartners, pp. 219-220. 27. See Stephen M. Walt, "Revolution and War," WorldPolitics, Vol. 44, No. 3 (April 1992), pp. 321-368. 28. Chen, China'sRoad to theKorean War, p. 25. CommunistBloc Expansionin theEarly Cold War 1163

NON-RULING COMMUNIST PARTIES Therehas longbeen abundant circumstantial evidence that, among non-ruling communistparties, the abilityof the Sovietsto directbloc policieswas relativelyhigh prior to World War II. Virtuallyall ofthe non-ruling parties accepted uncriticallythe Stalin-Hitler Pact of 1939,for example, and shiftedback to a pro-Westernpolicy after the invasion of theSoviet Union in 1941,even if this was at theexpense of local revolutionarygoals. Most non-rulingparties un- derwentsimilar ideological contortions throughout the period to staywithin thevarious international lines laid down by theSoviet Union.29 This pattern of temporarilyabandoning or pursuinglocal revolutionsto supportinterna- tionalpolicy as definedby the SovietUnion was virtuallyuniversal among Marxist-Leninists.In China duringthe 1930s,for example, as MichaelSheng has arguedpersuasively, new evidencedemonstrates that (in contrastto West- ernscholarship that strongly emphasizes Mao's earlyindependence from policy directionfrom Moscow), Mao consistentlyturned to Stalinfor advice and support.Indeed, Mao chose his militarystrategy in the 1930sto coordinate policieswith Moscow and Cominterndirectives. In general,all membersof the Cominternhad to subordinatetheir policies to controlby Soviet-dominated committeesin thisperiod.30 Thispattern of control continued among most non-ruling parties after World WarII, and manytimes they had difficultyin keepingup withsome of the abruptshifts in theinternational line. The Frenchand Italiancommunist par-

29. See Milorad M. Drachkovitchand BrankoLazitch, "The CommunistInternational," in Milorad M. Drachkovitch,ed., TheRevolutionary Internationals, 1864-1943 (Stanford,Calif.: Stanford Univer- sity Press, 1966), pp. 159-202; Trond Gilberg, "Marxist Coalitions in WesternEurope," in Trond Gilberg,ed., CoalitionStrategies of Marxist Parties (Durham, N.C.: Duke UniversityPress, 1989), pp. 66-75. On the role of internationalismgenerally, see AlfredJ. Rieber, Stalin and theFrench Communist Party,1941-1947 (New York: Columbia UniversityPress, 1962); JoanBarth Urban, Moscowand the Italian CommunistParty: From Togliatti to Berlinguer(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell UniversityPress, 1986); Donald L.M. Blackmerand Annie Kriegel,The International Role of the Communist Parties of Italy and France (Cambridge, Mass.: Center for InternationalAffairs [CFIA], Harvard University,1975); RichardStubbs, Hearts and Minds in GuerillaWarfare: The Malayan Emergency, 1948-1960 (New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1989), pp. 1-62; JustusM. van der Kroef,Communism in South-eastAsia (Berkeley,Calif.: Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1980), pp. 27-29, 58-60; Erik Van Ree, Socialismin One Zone: Stalin'sPolicy in Korea,1945-47 (New York:Berg, 1989), pp. 23-25. 30. Michael M. Sheng, "Mao, Stalin,and the Formationof the Anti-JapaneseUnited Front,1935- 37," ChinaQuarterly, No. 129 (March 1992), pp. 149-70. See also StefanT. Possony,"The Comintern as an Instrumentof Soviet Strategy,"in Drachkovitch,The Revolutionary Internationals, pp. 203-222; Ulam, Expansionand Coexistence,p. 161; JonathanC. Valdez, Internationalismand theIdeology of Soviet Influencein EasternEurope (New York:Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 28; RobertA. Scalapino and Chong-sikLee, Communismin Korea,Part 1: The Movement(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), p. 155. InternationalSecurity 20:3 1164

ties,for example, continued to proclaimthe Soviet line from 1945 to 1947that localparties in theWest should temporarily attempt to cooperatewith the local "nationalistbourgeoisie." When representatives of theseparties attended the foundingsession of theCominform in September1947, however, they found themselvescoming under intense criticism for espousing the line that,until then,the entirebloc had been directedto followby the Soviets.The bloc's internationalline had shiftedto promotingdisruption of deliveryof Marshall Plan aid by transportationunions and open confrontationwith local governments.The Frenchand Italiansstepped into line and returnedhome to lead demonstrationsand strikesthat led to a sharpdecline in theirpopularity31 Bothconstraining and promotingrevolutionary actions in non-rulingcom- munistparties constituted forms of Sovietpower over bloc internationalpolicies. For example,the SovietUnion used its power as bloc leader when it restrainedthe Italian and Frenchcommunists from an insurrectionistpolicy in 1945;restrained the Japanese communists before 1950; and restrainedthe North Koreansfrom invading the south prior to June1950; and whenit promoteda revolutionarypolicy in 1947 forItaly and France,and in 1950 forJapan and Korea.32Other non-ruling parties had similarexperiences with Soviet control. The consistentlystrong correlation between changes in Soviet international linesand thetiming of thecorresponding changes in thebehavior of virtually all of theworld's communist parties offers powerful circumstantial evidence thatthere was a significantdegree of Soviet control over non-ruling parties in theperiod. To be sure,these groups had local concernsand nationalistaspira- tions,and U.S. policymakerswere well awareof this. But they were also loyal to Sovietleadership and subjectto Sovietdirection in internationalaffairs. If traditionalistsat timesexaggerated the degreeof Soviet control,the other schools more oftenunderestimated it. The clandestinenature of the inter-

31. Donald L.M. Blackmer,"Continuity and Change in Postwar Italian Communism,"in Donald L.M. Blackmerand Sidney Tarrow,eds., Communismin Italyand France(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UniversityPress; 1975), pp. 45-46; Blackmerand Kriegel, The InternationalRole of theCommunist Partiesof Italy and France,pp. 8-9; Urban, Moscowand theItalian Communist Party, p. 221. 32. For Italy and France, see Nikita Khrushchev,trans. and ed. by JerroldL. Schecter with Vyacheslav V. Luchkov, KhrushchevRemembers: The GlasnostTapes (Boston, Mass.: Little Brown, 1990), pp. 99-100; Blackmerand Kriegel,The InternationalRole ofthe Communist Parties of Italy and France,pp. 8-9, 38-40; Rieber,Stalin and theFrench Communist Party, chap. 14; Soutou, "France," p. 104. For Japan,see Evelyn S. Colbert,The LeftWing in JapanesePolitics (New York: Instituteof Pacific Relations,1952), pp. 286-301. For Soviet controlover the North Korean CommunistParty in general,see Van Ree, Socialismin One Zone; forthe 1949-1950period, see Goncharov,Lewis, and Xue, UncertainPartners, pp. 135-141. CommunistBloc Expansionin theEarly Cold War | 165

nationalcommunist movement exacerbated this tendency towards suspicion of all anti-Westernnationalist movements by manyAmericans and others.

RULING COMMUNIST PARTIES In the aftermathof WorldWar II, Stalinhad to facethe prospectof getting along withother ruling communist parties for the firsttime. The recordof Sovietcontrol of rulingparties is moremixed than for non-ruling ones, yet substantialenough to demonstratethat ruling parties often acted in concert underSoviet leadership to threatennon-communist nations. Much evidence challengingthe independence thesis has longbeen available and typicallyhas been debatedonly by Sovietologistswhile it was ignoredby manyother U.S. foreignpolicy specialists. Rather than a simple,monolithic dominant-subordi- naterelationship in thesense of control over the micromanagement ofday-to- day policies,it is moreaccurate to thinkof theseSoviet affiliations with bloc membersin termsof patron-clientrelations with a strongdose of ideological solidarityand acceptanceof Sovietleadership. These relationships were char- acterizedby an importantdegree of controlover the dispensationof scarce resourcesby the patron, including a significantdegree of control over ideological legitimacy,which led to a limitedyet important degree of controlover the client.Both material and ideologicalfactors were crucial to thisSoviet leadershipof thebloc. Thus bothruling and non-rulingparties closely coordinated their policies withSoviet international lines in the earlyCold Warand did so to a degree thatwarranted the suspicion that the Soviets had controlover those policies. The case of Titoismis instructivein thisregard, and was used by Western decision-makersas an importantmeasure of fealtyto Moscow's directionof bloc policy.33Tito was chargedby the Sovietswith the crimeof nationalism because he would not allow Stalinistagents (a majormeans of ensuringthat ideologicallyfriendly factions rose to thetop) to roamfreely in Yugoslavia.All rulingand non-rulingparties stepped into line in condemningwhat should have been seen as relativelyminor challenges to Sovietleadership if the assumptionof independence were applicable. For example, the Chinese, despite theirreputation for subsequent independence from Moscow, went out oftheir way to reassureStalin of their loyalty to Soviet-ledinternationalism.34 Though

33. Gordon Chang, Friendsand Enemies:The UnitedStates, China, and theSoviet Union, 1948-1972 (Stanford,Calif.: StanfordUniversity Press, 1990), pp. 8-10, 12, 16, 18, 20. 34. Goncharov,Lewis, and Xue, UncertainPartners, p. 33; Chen, China's Road to the Korean War, p. 68. InternationalSecurity 20:3 1166

some criticshave pointedto Titoas an exampleof thelack of Sovietcontrol overbloc policies,he was theexact opposite: the exception that supports the rule.35Within that context, Soviet dictates along internationallines had to be followedor a partyran the risk of being labelled "Titoist." Criticism of Titoism, then,was a crudebut accurateindicator of adherenceto Stalin'sinternational policydirections. Morereasonable standards must be foundto describethese power relationships and measurethe degree of internationalcoordination of communist policiesduring the Cold War.On balance,the circumstantial evidence suggests thatWestern officials' perceptions of theSoviet bloc and traditionalanalyses of theSoviet threat were more correct than those of manysubsequent critics. A relativelyhigh degree of Sovietcontrol over bloc members'policies, espe- ciallyrelations with other bloc nations and otherinternational policies, but also oftena Stalinist-inspiredorthodoxy internally, was a consistentreality for most membersin theearly years of theCold War.

PrimaryEvidence: Soviet Bloc Expansionin Asia

If circumstantialevidence for the directionof internationalpolicies among rulingand non-rulingcommunist parties by theSoviets has long been abun- dantlyavailable, why has theopposite conclusion been so prevalent?Often the standardsof evidence demanded for demonstrating Soviet direction of foreign policiesin thebloc are so highthat they end up describinginvariably discrete foreignpolicies, with little chance of disconfirmation. China is oftenutilized as an archetypein such a way,as an illustrationof defiantresistance to Soviet controldue to its highlydeveloped sense of nationalism,its size and stature, and theindependent nature of itsleadership due to theleaders' having come to powerwithout direct Soviet aid. Thischaracterization is often used to claim thatthe solidarity of the Soviet bloc was an inventionof American "paranoia" about monolithiccommunism. The Chinesecommunists also fosteredsuch a perceptionthrough their own protestationsof earlyindependence following theSino-Soviet splits of the 1960s. New evidencenow allows us to testmore precisely the circumstantial infer- encesof Westernleaders and traditionalscholars in theearly Cold Waras to Sovietpolicy direction and bloc solidarityThe Chinacase can thereforeserve

35. There is apparentlyevidence thatStalin issued ordersto assassinate Tito,but thatthe plot was abandoned following the Russian dictator's death. See Steven Erlanger,"Soviet General Pens Historyand Finds Revelation,"New YorkTimes, August 1, 1995, p. A3. CommunistBloc Expansionin theEarly Cold War | 167

a heuristicpurpose as a formof an unlikely"crucial case."36 That is, if close coordinationof policieswith the SovietUnion can be demonstratedin the Chinesecase, where conditions would predictsuch behavior the least likely, it suggeststhat other cases will demonstratean even strongerrelationship as more new evidencebecomes available. I firstbriefly counter some of the prevailingarguments for a highdegree of Chinese independence of action. This is followedby an analysisof Sovietpolicy in Asia duringthe period. I then presenttraditional explanations for the Soviet-Chinese relationship, the Soviet- NorthKorean relationship, and theSino-Vietnamese relationship in thisperiod.

STALIN S ALLEGED CAUTION IN CHINA The Chinesecase exposesa contradictionin thelogic of the critics in assessing thedegree of Moscow's control over non-ruling parties. It is commonlyposited thatthe Soviets,and especiallyStalin in the earlyperiod, would back only revolutionarymovements that were amenable to Sovietcontrol. This is a major meansof promotingthe idea of thecautious and non-ideologicalStalin.37 Yet, as we shallsee, theSoviets supported the Chinese communists in a significant way.The criticscannot have it bothways. If Stalinonly backed those parties thatwere amenable to Sovietcontrol, then the Chinese were not as independent as typicallyportrayed. On theother hand, if Stalin strongly backed the inde- pendentChinese, then he backedparties that he could not controlto a high degree.The new evidencecalls into question the dominant views in thelitera- tureof both Stalin's revolutionary caution and theChinese communists' inde- pendencefrom Soviet influence. An anecdotethat is widelyutilized to demonstrateboth Stalin's caution and his lack of influenceis based on his remarksto theYugoslavs about China in 1948.Stalin acknowledged that he had advisedthe Chinese at theend ofWorld WarII to abandonhopes for a revolutionany time soon, and thatthe Chinese had gone theirown way and pursueda communistrevolution in defianceof his wishes.38Note, first, that Stalin's comment to theChinese in 1945displays

36. Harry Eckstein,"Case Study and Theory in Political Science," in F.I. Greensteinand Nelson W. Polsby,eds., Handbookof Political Science, Vol. 7 (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley,1975), pp. 79- 138. 37. See, for example, William Taubman, Stalin'sAmerican Policy: From Entente to Detenteto Cold War (New York:Norton, 1982), p. 22; Nation, BlackEarth, Red Star,pp. 189, 190-191; Mark N. Katz, "The Origins of the Vietnam War, 1945-1948," The Reviewof Politics,Vol. 42, No. 2 (April 1980), pp. 148-150. 38. Milovan Djilas, translatedfrom the Serbo-Croatby Michael B. Petrovich,Conversations with Stalin (New York: Harcourt,Brace and World, 1962), pp. 182-183; see also Ulam, Expansionand Coexistence,pp. 482-483. InternationalSecurity 20:3 1168

an expectationof a certaindegree of controlover theirbehavior and says somethingof his views of thesubordination of communistparties, although he was wrongin theshort term in thisinstance. Second, Stalin's policies were neveras anti-revolutionaryas they are made out to be by thisstatement. It is truethat he advised cautionto theChinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1945, but he simultaneouslyaided the Chinesecommunists in 1945,had begunto changehis mindover their chances for success as earlyas January1946, and by late 1947 had begun to aid the CCP in a majorway.39 Third, the CCP apparentlyinitially took Stalin's directionon dealing with the Nationalist government.From late 1945until the early months of the Marshall Mission in 1946,despite incidentsinstigated by both sides, the CCP was at least as cooperativeas theNationalists with the U.S. plansfor a coalitiongovernment. This was in congruencewith what Stalinadvised, at least untilMarch 1946 whenCCP spiesascertained that the Nationalists were going on theoffensive.40 The CCP continuednegotiations with the Nationalists until early 1947. Fourth, Stalinadmitted to the Yugoslavsthat the Chinesehad been rightin casting aside his adviceand pursuingtheir revolutionary goals. Surelythis calls into questionhis allegedcomplete distrust of the CCP, his allegedpervasive fear of all communistsnot completelysubservient to his control,and his alleged anti-revolutionaryactions, at leastin China. Thus theanalytical assumption of a consistentlycautious Stalin and a con- sistentlyindependent CCP mustbe reappraised.The evidencein the new interpretationsshows thatfollowing his admissionof erroron China to the Yugoslavsin early1948, Stalin gave steadyand growingclandestine support to theChinese revolution. He also frequentlyapologized to theCCP leadership forhaving misjudged the situation and providingthem with poor advice. The publicaloofness of the Soviets toward the CCP, so muchcommented upon by criticsas evidenceof Stalin'shostility toward the communistrevolution in China,was mostlikely meant to avoid underscoringthe Soviet role in a bloc victoryof giant magnitudebefore it had become a faitaccompli and thus provokinga unifiedWestern response against the Soviet Union. Thesenewly disclosed behind-the-scenes machinations put another anecdote used by theCold Warcritics in a new light:the Soviet ambassador continued to remainwith the Nationalist Government in 1949as it was forcedto move

39. Goncharov,Lewis, and Xue, UncertainPartners, pp. 6-7, 14, 24; Odd Arne Westad, Cold War and Revolution:Soviet-American Rivalry and theOrigins of the Chinese Civil War(New York:Columbia UniversityPress, 1993), p. 169. 40. Douglas J.Macdonald, Adventuresin Chaos:American Intervention for Reform in theThird World (Cambridge,Mass.: Harvard UniversityPress, 1992), pp. 87-88, 90. CommunistBloc Expansionin theEarly Cold War | 169

itscapital from Nanjing (Nanking) to Guangzhou(Canton) when other nations had theirambassadors stay behind to do businesswith the new communist government.This Soviet action has oftenbeen held up byboth Western scholars and theChinese communists as an illustrationof Stalin's hostility towards the CCP victory.41But given what is now knownabout the simultaneous clandestineaid and supportgiven to theCCP, the gesture's meaning does not appearto be so obvious.By April 1949, Stalin clearly did notsee a Nationalist victoryas possible.Given his actionsto hide Sovietacts of patronageelse- where,in all probabilityStalin ordered his ambassador to remainvery publicly and idiosyncraticallywith the Nationalists in orderto give theimpression to theWest that he was notinterested in or directlyinvolved with the CCP victory: to coverhis tracks,so to speak.If so, he apparentlysucceeded in doingso for manyWestern observers of Soviet foreign policy

THE SOVIET VIEW: ASIA AS A REVOLUTIONARY WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY An interpretationof Sovietthreat perceptions at the internationallevel also adds new insightsto understandingof Sovietactions. As traditionalismand perhapsrealism predict, it was primarilyfear of U.S. interventionin China, ratherthan suspicion of the Chinese communists or internal societal exhaustion in theSoviet Union, that caused theearly Soviet coolness to theChinese Civil War.Stalin told theYugoslavs: "I was so surethat the Americans would do everythingto put down an uprising[in China]."42 Once he becameconvinced thatthe United States would not intervene,Stalin began aidingthe CCP in a relativelybig way, especially given that the Soviet Union had paid sucha heavy pricein WorldWar II. As traditionalismpredicts far more clearly than realism, however,the new evidenceshows thatin returnfor this Soviet support, and in deferenceto theestablished Soviet leadership of international communism, by late 1947Mao had completelyaccepted Soviet bloc leadershipin theCold War.43This was notsimply a power-basedsecurity alliance; it also includeda strongdose of ideologicalsolidarity

41. Adam B. Ulam, The Communists:The Storyof Powerand Lost Illusions,1948-1991 (New York: Scribner's, 1992), p. 40; Bruce D. Porter,The USSR in Third WorldConflicts: Soviet Arms and Diplomacyin Local Wars,1945-1980 (New York: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1984), pp. 14-15; Nation, BlackEarth, Red Star,pp. 190-191;Chang, Friendsand Enemies,pp. 28-29. Mao's complaints over this incident can be seen in Dr. Li Zhisui, The PrivateLife of ChairmanMao: The Memoirsof Mao's PersonalPhysician trans. Tai Hung-chao, (New York:Random House, 1994), p. 117. 42. Quoted in Holloway, Stalinand theBomb, p. 274. See also, Chang, Friendsand Enemies,pp. 29, 64; Goncharov,Lewis, and Xue, UncertainPartners, pp. 10-14, 74, 99-100, 105, 106-107. 43. Goncharov,Lewis, and Xue, UncertainPartners, pp. 29, 30, 39, 60, 61, 76. For primaryevidence, see the testimonyof Stalin's main representativeto the Chinese communistsin those years,in "I.V. Kovalev, Stalin's Representative,answers questions of Sinologist S.N. Goncharov.Translated by InternationalSecurity 20:3 | 170

Sovietstrategic probes in Asia commencedfollowing the Cominform's call in late 1947for revolutionary uprisings. At thefamous Calcutta Conference of communistand revolutionaryparties of the East in early1948, the Soviets gave a greenlight to communistparties in Asia who wereinclined to revolt.In the ensuingmonths of 1948,communist insurgencies and revoltsof varying inten- sityflared in Malaya, Burma,Thailand, the federatedstates of Indochina, Indonesia,and the Philippines.The IndianCommunist Party also attempted to takeover a provincein thisperiod.44 Althoughhard evidence for a directand pervasivebloc rolein thesedevel- opmentsin SoutheastAsia is difficultto comeby, it strainscredulity to believe thatthey were simplycoincidental. The revolutionarysituation in Southeast Asia was theresult of a complicatedcombination of the destruction of indige- nous patternsof authorityby theJapanese during their occupations and the local powervacuums created by theirdefeat. This caused thedemoralization ofindigenous non-communist elites, some of whom had collaboratedwith the Japanese.The lack of a coherentWestern response in theregion fed the per- ceptionthat there were "contradictions" among the "imperialists," and thatthe Westwas in retreat.There was also widespreadanger in theregion directed at thecontinuation of colonialism in somecountries. Moreover, the United States was theonly state with the economic and politicalpower to respondeffectively, butit seemed to lacka senseof purpose; the Chinese communist victory offered inspirationto local non-rulingparties. Within this chaotic context, these con- vergedto createa revolutionaryopportunity of the firstmagnitude for the Soviet bloc and led to a region-wide,ideologically driven threat to non- communistnations and politicalgroups. At theinternational level, Stalin based his willingnessto supportcommunist revoltson two criteria:his comprehensionof the probable Western responses, especiallythose that might threaten the Soviet Union; and hisestimation of the clientrevolutionary group's chances for success. These elementswere often interrelatedin his planning.As he had told theYugoslavs in early1948, the

Craig Seibert: 'Stalin's Dialogue with Mao Zedong'," Journalof NortheastAsian Studies,Vol. 10, No. 4 (Winter1991-92), pp. 43-76, especially p. 59 (hereafter,Kovalev, "Stalin's Dialogue with Mao Zedong"). 44. See Evelyn S. Colbert, SoutheastAsia in InternationalPolitics; 1941-1956 (Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell UniversityPress, 1977), pp. 125-151; Jay Taylor,China and SoutheastAsia: Peking'sRelations with RevolutionaryMovements (New York:Praeger, 1976), pp. 1-10, 251-260; Ruth T. McVey,"The South- east Asian Revolts," in Cyril E. Black and Thomas P. Thornton,eds., Communismand Revolution: The StrategicUses ofPolitical Violence (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1964), pp. 145-184; van der Kroef,Communism in South-eastAsia, pp. 1-36. CommunistBloc Expansionin theEarly Cold War 1171

commitmentof the United States ("the most powerful state in theworld") and GreatBritain to Greecemeant that the bloc had to retreattactically and end supportfor the Greekcommunist insurgency because it had no chanceto succeedin theforeseeable future.45 With tactical caution in theface of Western resolve,he probedfor weaknesses and contradictionsamong his adversaries, whichhis comprehensionof a revolutionarysituation told him would appear at some point.Western containment policies in Europeand in theNear and MiddleEast checkedsuch probesby 1948.46It was in Asia beginningin that year thatthe impendingvictory of the Chinese communistsand the anti- colonialistfervor sweeping the region in theaftermath of thedefeat of Japan appearedto offera revolutionarywindow of opportunity As David Holloway aptlyputs it, by 1949"the Cold Warin Europehad becomea war ofposition; in Asia, wherethe situation was muchmore fluid and dynamic,it was a war ofmaneuver."47 This situation was reinforcedby theevident confusion among the Westernallies over how to respondto thelooming CCP victory.Europe and theMiddle East having been closed because of a unifiedWestern response, theSoviets turned their attention to Asia as theyhad in 1923,and as had the czarsbefore them.48 The impressionof emerging contradictions among the capitalist powers was probablyfortified by informationprovided by the infamous"Cambridge Cominform,"British communist spies holdingextremely sensitive positions dealingwith Asia policywithin the British government. These men stole and communicatedto Moscow virtuallyall informationconcerning regional plan- ningthat was passingbetween the UnitedStates and the UnitedKingdom, thensomewhat at odds withone anotherover how to respondto theturmoil in Asia.In particular,the spies were in a positionto tell Moscow that the United Stateswould not respond militarily to a Chinesecommunist victory, would not fightfor Taiwan, had no comprehensiveregional plan, and was generally unlikelyto intervenein an area oftertiary interest. The Britishfavored a much

45. Djilas, Conversationswith Stalin, p. 182. See also MacFarlane, "Successes and Failures in Soviet Policy Toward MarxistRevolution in the ThirdWorld," in Mark N. Katz, ed., The USSR and Marxist Revolutionin theThird World (New York:Cambridge UniversityPress, 1990), p. 14. 46. On the relativecaution in Soviet policies in Europe and theMiddle East where Westernpolicies were more coherent,and the growing communistinterest in Asia beginningin 1948, see Ulam, Expansionand Coexistence,pp. 488-489; Vladislav Zubok and ConstantinePleshakov, "The Soviet Union," in Reynolds, The Originsof theCold War in Europe,pp. 61-62; Macdonald, "The Truman Administrationand Global Responsibilities,"pp. 120-121. 47. Holloway, Stalinand theBomb, p. 274. 48. For Stalin's earlier interestin the Far East, see Conrad Brandt,Stalin's Failure in China (New York: Norton,1958). InternationalSecurity 20:3 1172

morevigorous policy in theregion. If these suppositions are true,they add an importantelement to our understandingof Stalin's decision to unleashKim Il Sung in June1950. Stalin saw therelatively tepid Western response in Asia in ideologicaland system-wideterms. By mid-1949he had cometo believethat "war is not advantageousto theimperialists. Their crisis [of capitalism] has begun,they are not readyto fight."49This analysiswas passed on to other communistparties in Asia and in some cases influencedtheir decisions to revoltagainst their governments.50

SOVIET INTERVENTION IN CHINA, 1945-50 Much of thenew evidenceemanating from the East confirmsthat the Soviet Uniondirected bloc partiesmore than had been previouslyknown. As importantas powerconsiderations were in affectingStalin's Asia policies,ideological factorswere just as crucialin shapingcommunist actions in theregion. Stalin's ideologicalinfallibility was stilltaken seriously by Marxist-Leninistsin the aftermathof World War II, despitehis monumentalerrors, and theycontinued to turnto Moscowfor guidance and leadership.There may have been a good deal of cognitivedissonance in the bloc in thisperiod, but therewas little politicaldissonance. Althoughthe Sovietsfeared a U.S. interventionin China and thoughtthe CCP incapableof defeatingthe Nationalistsprior to 1947,they continued to aid theChinese communists surreptitiously after World War II. From1945 to 1949 the Sovietsstrategically directed and physicallyfacilitated the move of some400,000 Chinese communist troops and 20,000cadres into the key region of Manchuriain late 1945and early1946 in violationof agreementsthey had made withthe UnitedStates and the NationalistGovernment; supplied the CCP withbloc-manufactured and capturedJapanese military equipment in sufficientamounts to equip 600,000men; provided tanks and heavyartillery

49. Quoted in Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb,p. 264. See also Peter Hennessy and Kathleen Townsend, "The DocumentarySpoor of Burgess and Maclean," Intelligenceand NationalSecurity, Vol. 2, No. 2 (1987), pp. 291-301; ChristopherAndrew and Oleg Gordievsky,KGB: TheInside Story (New York: Harper Collins, 1990), pp. 374, 389, 393-394; Verne Newton, The CambridgeSpies: The UntoldStory of Maclean,Philby, and Burgessin America(Lanham, Md.: Madison, 1991), especially pp. 191, 201-206, 268, 286, 404 fn. 16. 50. A communistparty leader in the Philippines,for example, said in July1950 that the party's decision to claim thata "revolutionarysituation" existed in thatcountry was based on a perception thatthe United States was not able to help the Filipino governmentfinancially. They had reached this conclusion,he stated, "based largelyon an analysis of the U.S. economy ... which actually relied a lot on one by a top Soviet economist."Benedict J. Kerkvliet, The Huk Rebellion:A Studyof PeasantRevolt in thePhilippines (Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1977), p. 225. CommunistBloc Expansionin theEarly Cold War1 173

thatproved critical in thecommunists' battles with the Nationalists; helped the Chinesecommunists build munitionsfactories in Soviet-controlledareas of Manchuriathat were crucialto the defeatof the Nationalists;and provided economicand politicalguidance, which was, especiallyafter 1947, largely followedby Mao and theCCP leadership.This aid and support,particularly in theearly stages of the revolution, "radically affected the outcome of the Civil War."51 Thiseffort can no longerbe crediblyportrayed as half-heartedSoviet support of the CCP. Mao laterrepeatedly claimed that the Sovietsnever gave the Chinesecommunists a singlegun or bulletduring the Civil War,and many Westernscholars portrayed the Soviet aid effortas modestand inconsequen- tial.52However, the new documentaryrecord demonstrates a majorSoviet effortto ensurethat a communistrevolution succeeded in China,especially followingthe formation of theCominform in late 1947.Moreover, that record shows thatthe Chinese communists recognized the value of the aid to their success,despite their later denials. 53 The Sovietsalso helpedcoordinate aid fromother bloc membersto support theChinese communist revolution. The CCP receivedsignificant backing from the NorthKorean regime of Kim Il Sung. Afterthe ChineseCivil Warbroke out in mid-1946,the CCP used NorthKorea as a rearbase area in which woundedsoldiers could be treated,families could be shelteredfrom the Na- tionalistpolice, and bloc suppliescould reachthe Chinese. In addition,North Koreaitself provided the CCP withlarge amounts of suppliestaken from the Japaneseor providedby theSoviets. From 1946 to 1948,the Koreans supplied morethan 500,000 tons of strategicmaterials to the Chinese.An estimated 100,000-150,000Korean-nationality troops remained in theChinese communist armyto fightin theCivil War. The bloc aid emanatingfrom North Korea and

51. Goncharov,Lewis, and Xue, UncertainPartners, pp. 10-12, 14, quotation fromp. 8. See also Chen, China'sRoad to theKorean War, p. 68. 52. For argumentsthat therewas littleaid given to the Chinese, see MacFarlane, "Successes and Failures in Soviet Policy,"pp. 24-25; Melvyn Leffler,The Specterof Communism:The UnitedStates and theOrigins of the Cold War,1917-1953 (New York:Hill and Wang, 1994), pp. 87, 98. Mao often complained to his personal physician that Stalin had given the CCP absolutelynothing. Li, The PrivateLife of Chairman Mao, p. 117. I too have argued thatSoviet interventionin the Chinese Civil War was minimaland unimportant,relying on theprevailing secondary treatments in the literature and U.S. intelligencereports on this issue fromthe 1940s. However, both appear to have been significantlyoff the mark,and so was I. See Macdonald, Adventuresin Chaos,pp. 81, 86, 90, 117. 53. Goncharov,Lewis, and Xue, UncertainPartners, p. 12, 14; Chen, China'sRoad to theKorean War, pp. 79, 84. InternationalSecurity 20:3 | 174

the SovietUnion dramaticallyimproved the Chinesecommunists' strategic positionin thenortheast.54 As theprospect of a CCP victorybecame more likely in mid-1948,Stalin was notwary, as oftenportrayed, but eager. His comprehensionof the situation was notbased on poweranalysis alone, but also containedan importantideological element.He toldaides thatthe Soviet Union wanted a communistvictory in China forboth ideological and securityreasons because theMarxist-Leninist conceptof a revolutionarysituation in the regionled him to expectit to be followedby otherrevolutions in Asia. The SovietUnion therefore had to act: "We will of coursegive thenew China all possibleassistance. If socialismis victoriousin Chinaand our countriesfollow a singlepath, then the victory of socialismin theworld will virtuallybe guaranteed.Nothing will threatenus. Therefore,we cannotwithhold any effortor means in our supportof the ChineseCommunists." Stalin continued to fearthat the UnitedStates might intervene,and he believedthat any aid had to be sentclandestinely to avoid provokingthe capitalist powers. The surprisinglack of a U.S. militaryresponse to thecommunist victory in China graduallyallayed those fears. In addition, theSoviet detonation of an atomicdevice in August1949 added to thepercep- tion of a precipitousshift in the global balance of power in favorof the communist"camp."55 In May 1948 the CCP requestedand receivedSoviet help in runningthe economyin "liberated"areas of China, where the Chinese lacked expertise and personnel.In completesecrecy, Stalin personallydispatched 300 economic advisersto Manchuria.Such support greatly enhanced the consolidation of the CCP's militaryvictory in thenortheast, one ofthe most industrialized areas of

54. Chen, China's Road to theKorean War, pp. 107-111.A total of 60,000 Korean-nationalitytroops were returnedto North Korea by the Chinese with theirfull equipment in the spring of 1950 to participatein the invasion of the South in June 1950. See Samuel F. Wells,Jr., "Additional Com- ments, 1992," in Ernest R. May, ed., AmericanCold War Strategy:Interpreting NSC 68 (New York: Bedford Books/St. Martin's, 1993), p. 139. For the number of Koreans overall fightingin the Chinese Civil War,see Cumings, The Originsof theKorean War,Vol. II, p. 363. This might help explain the enormous and rapid Soviet-directedexpansion of Chinese communist strengthin northeastChina in late 1945. On the fluid situationin Manchuria and the dominantSoviet role in settingcommunist policies in this period, see Goncharov,Lewis, and Xue, UncertainPartners, pp. 9-10. On the U.S. and Nationalistsense of shock upon the discoveryof the sudden growthof CCP strengthin Manchuria,see Macdonald, Adventuresin Chaos,p. 86. 55. Stalin quoted by one of those aides, Kovalev, "Stalin's Dialogue with Mao Zedong," p. 58. See also Zubok and Pleshakov, "The Soviet Union," p. 62; Goncharov,Lewis, and Xue, Uncertain Partners,pp. 30, 31, 39, 60, 61. Mao also believed that the U.S. reluctanceto intervenein China was crucial to the CCP victory.Chen, China'sRoad to theKorean War, pp. 85, 89, 101-102. For the Soviet atomic detonation and its effectson bloc perceptions,see Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb, pp. 264-272. CommunistBloc Expansionin theEarly Cold War | 175

China,ensuring the CCP a largebase area and denyingthe Nationalists one of themore economically developed regions of thecountry at a timewhen they weregoing bankrupt.56 By January1949, the Soviets were directly advising the CCP in itsdealings withthe Nationalists. The Chinese communists closely followed Stalin's advice by respondingto a Nationalistoffer for peace negotiationswith terms that they knewwould be unacceptable.57These tactics were quite similar to thoseused by theSoviets in their"peace offensive"in Europeand elsewherein 1949.The Sovietdictator then sent Anastas Mikoyan on a secretmission to China to advisethe CCP on finaloperations in theCivil War and to aid in thebeginning of reconstruction.The storythat Mikoyan advised the Chineseto halt their militaryadvance at theYangzi (Yangtse) River and be satisfiedwith controlling thenorthern half of thecountry, often used to demonstratethat Stalin feared thecommunist victory in China,58is evidentlynot true. In fact,former Soviet diplomatsaffirm that Stalin advised the Chineseon how best to advance militarilysouth of the Yangzi. In the meetingswith Mikoyan,ideological solidaritywas emphasizedby theChinese. Mao and hiscolleagues assured the Sovietsthat the New China would be a Marxist-Leniniststate, despite the presenceof somenon-communists in itsruling coalition. Later in thatyear, to demonstrategood faithand reduce Mao's suspicions,Stalin had the KGB informMao of pro-SovietChinese communist agents within the CCP59 The clandestineSoviet advising effort gradually expanded as theCCP con- tinuedto do well on thebattlefield. In thespring of 1949,Soviet advisers were secretlyaiding in theplans forthe creation of thePeople's Republic of China, evenas Stalin'sambassador to Chinaostentatiously traveled with the Nation-

56. Kovalev, "Stalin's Dialogue with Mao Zedong," pp. 46-47; Chen, China's Road to theKorean War,p. 68. Goncharov,Lewis, and Xue incorrectlystate thatU.S. support forthe Nationalistswas "uninterrupted"in the 1940s and drove Mao away fromthe West.Uncertain Partners, p. 29. In fact, therewas a U.S.-led arms embargo of the Nationalistsfrom August 1946 to May 1947 and uneven support afterthat. The CCP was well aware of these developments. Macdonald, Adventuresin Chaos,pp. 96-98. 57. "Communicationsbetween Mao and Stalin: Seven Telegrams,January 1949," trans. by Song Datu, ChineseHistorians, Vol. VII, Nos. 1-2 (Spring/Fall,1994), pp. 163-172. 58. Chang, Friendsand Enemies,pp. 28-29. Mao also oftenrepeated this story;see Li, The Private Lifeof Chairman Mao, p. 117. 59. On Mikoyan's visit, see the testimonyof Stalin's main agent in China, in Kovalev, "Stalin's Dialogue with Mao Zedong," pp. 48-50, 73 fn. 4. See also Goncharov,Lewis, and Xue, Uncertain Partners,pp. 42-43; Chen, China's Road to the KoreanWar, pp. 69-70. Many of these people were thenimprisoned or executed by Mao forspying. Various formerKGB officialsinvolved in the spy incidentmade anguished commentsin the Public BroadcastingSystem documentary, "Messengers fromMoscow: Part II, The East is Red," broadcast on January20, 1995, on WCNY-TV. See also Goncharov,Lewis, and Xue, UncertainPartners, p. 74. InternationalSecurity 20:3 J176

alistGovernment to Guangzhou.By mid-1949,the Soviets were comprehen- sivelyadvising the Chinesein the fightingwith the Nationalists.By March 1950,following a tripby Mao to Moscowto signa Sino-Sovietmutual defense treaty,the Soviet Union sent an air divisionto China,and Sovietpilots were shootingdown Nationalist planes in orderto helpconsolidate the CCP victory, an interventionin the Chinese Civil War that exceeded any by the United States or anyother Western nation.60 Despitesome apparently rough moments in thepatron-client bargaining, the CCP repaidthe Soviets for this aid by deferringto theirleadership in most majorareas of interactionbetween the two parties.During a tripto Moscow in July1949 by Liu Shaoqi (Liu Shao-chi),the second in commandin theCCP, thisbloc relationshipwas furthercemented. Prior to Liu's trip,and in lightof somelingering suspicions by Stalinof Chinese loyalty in thedispute with Tito, theCCP acceptedStalin's view of the Tito affair and theCold War.They again publiclycondemned the Yugoslavs and declaredallegiance to thecommunist "camp"in Mao's "leaningto one side" speechof June 1949. At thesame time, in a statementapparently aimed at Tito,Nehru, Sukarno, and otheradvocates ofThird World neutralism, Mao also statedpublicly that "neutrality is a hoax. No thirdpath exists."61Contrary to some revisionistarguments, this was in accordwith the international line that had been put forthby theSoviets.62 The Chineseadoption of the Sovietinternational line on Titoand on the inevitabilityof the Cold Warwas not simplya coincidenceor a reflectionof Chineseanger at theWest, but representeda sharedideological commitment. Whilein Moscow,Liu reiteratedthis theme and privatelyassured Stalin that theCCP would abide by all Sovietresolutions in bilateraland bloc policies.63 Mao made thesame entreatiesto theprimary Soviet representative to China, Ivan Kovalev,and "repeatedlyemphasized" that he "would fullydefer" to Stalin'sjudgment on internationalissues. The Chinesecommunists also re- warded Stalin'slargesse with completeagreement on Soviet dominancein

60. Kovalev, "Stalin's Dialogue with Mao Zedong," p. 51; Goncharov,Lewis, and Xue, Uncertain Partners,p. 320 fn. 123; Ulam, Expansionand Coexistence,p. 495; Chen, China's Road to theKorean War,p. 84. 61. Quoted in JieChen, Ideologyin UnitedStates Foreign Policy (New York:Praeger, 1992), p. 24. See also Garver,"Polemics, Paradigms, Responsibility, and the Origins of the U.S.-PRC Confrontation in the 1950s," p. 7. 62. For the revisionistargument that Mao's "leaning to one side" statementactually meant a middle positionbetween the superpowersin the Cold War,see the influentialRobert R. Simmons, The StrainedAlliance: Peking, Pyongyang, Moscow and thePolitics of the Korean Civil War (New York: Free Press, 1975), p. 61. For recent correctives,see Zhai, The Dragon, the Lion, and the Eagle, pp. 19-24; Chen, China'sRoad to theKorean War, pp. 71-78. 63. Goncharov,Lewis, and Xue, UncertainPartners, pp. 44-47, 55, 63-65, 73, 80-82. CommunistBloc Expansionin theEarly Cold War | 177

Mongoliaand relativelygenerous economic arrangements in Manchuriathat, takentogether, infuriated the non-communistnationalists in theircoalition. Caughtup in theinternationalist moment, one pro-SovietChinese communist factionalleader actuallysuggested that Manchuria be incorporatedinto the SovietUnion.64 DuringLiu's visit,Stalin officially acknowledged to the Chinesethat the centerof theworld revolution had shiftedfrom Europe to Asia, and gave his personalblessing for promoting revolutionary insurgencies in theregion. Spe- cifically,he advised theChinese to supportthe non-ruling communist parties in India,Burma, Indonesia, and thePhilippines in overthrowingtheir governments,although it is not yetclear what form that support was supposed to have taken.In a kindof Stalinistdomino theory, he statedthat if these efforts weresuccessful, Japan very well might be next.Stalin told Liu, "You must fulfill your [internationalist]duty with regard to the revolutionin the countriesof East Asia." Kovalevreports that Liu promisedthat the CCP would followthe decisionsof theCommunist Party of theSoviet Union. Stalin said thiswould notbe necessary,but that it was importantto form"an allianceof the communistparties of East Asia." The Sovietleader sent 600 moreadvisers to aid in thesetasks, and the pace of Sovietmilitary aid to the Chinesequickened to supportthis bloc effort.65 Throughoutlate 1949 and early1950, by exhortingthe Chinese to spreadthe revolutionin SoutheastAsia, preparing Kim Il Sungfor the invasion of South Korea,and proposingthe creation of a unionof Asian communist parties under the leadershipof China, Stalinbecame more expansionistin his strategic planningfor the bloc. As traditionalistsassumed, Stalin and Mao became emboldenedwhen they concluded from the lack of a U.S. responsein China thatthe United States was unwillingor unableto act. PreviouslyStalin had argued,as he had on revolutionin Chinain 1945or Greecein 1948,that Kim had littlechance for success; the Americans would "neveragree to be thrown out" of theKorean peninsula because theywould lose "theirreputation as a greatpower."66 With the U.S. failurein China,however, this perception of U.S. resolveunderwent drastic change. Mao declaredthe United States' possession

64. The quotations are from the Chinese minutes of a meeting between Mao and Kovalev in Moscow, probablyin early 1950. Mao specificallyasked Kovalev to pass the commentson to Stalin. See Kovalev, "Stalin's Dialogue with Mao Zedong," pp. 71-72, quotations fromp. 72. 65. Kovalev, "Stalin's Dialogue with Mao Zedong," pp. 58-59, 61. See also Goncharov,Lewis, and Xue, UncertainPartners, pp. 71-74; Garver,"Polemics, Paradigms, Responsibility and the Originsof theU.S.-PRC Confrontationin the 1950s,"pp. 11-13,18; Holloway,Stalin and theBomb, pp. 275-276. 66. Stalin is quoted by a formerSoviet diplomat in Goncharov,Lewis, and Xue, UncertainPartners, p. 138. InternationalSecurity 20:3 J178

of atomicweapons a "papertiger." Thus thetwo communistleaders general- ized fromthe particularU.S. failurein China and assumedthat the United Stateswould notreact in therest of the region. The China-Koreacase maytell us muchabout theeffects of failureson greatpower reputations that flies in the face of some recentrealist analyses of the role of resolvein deterrence policies.The flat declarations of analysts such as TedHopf that there exists "no evidence"that decision-makers "infer an opponent'sgeneral irresoluteness and weaknessfrom encounters in theperiphery" are incorrectin theAsian case in theearly Cold War.67 In November1949, Liu Shaoqi publiclyannounced the militant bloc policy forAsia at a conferenceof international leftist organizations in Beijing,an event muchnoticed in theWest. Both the Chinese and Vietnamesedelegations called on theparties of Southeast Asia to followthe Chinese revolutionary example. Althoughthis Asian alliance was neverformed because of the outbreak of war in Korea,the Sino-Soviet revolutionary link in theregion was forged.In Janu- ary and February1950, Mao and Stalinsigned a treatyof cooperationthat includedextensive mutual defense obligations: a $300 millionSoviet loan to theChinese government; provision of 60,000additional Soviet technical aides to Chinaover the next three years; and transferof whole industries, which by 1955 comprisednearly 90 percentof theChinese industrial base. The Soviets allowed the Chineseto use the loans to purchasemilitary equipment to up- grade theirnavy and air forcein anticipationof the invasionof Taiwan.In secretside agreementsonly recentlymade public,the Sovietsgot farmore concessionsthan the Chinese would have liked,undoubtedly sowing some of theseeds of the resentments that surfaced in theSino-Soviet splits of the 1960s. Yet some of the new evidencefrom China, including the memoirsof Mao's interpreter,strongly suggests that the Chineseleader was generallysatisfied withthe terms of theSino-Soviet alliance and aid agreements.68 As traditionalismpredicts, Mao madethe agreements for a mixtureof power and ideologicalreasons. Even afterde-Stalinization, Mao defendedhis acqui- escenceto Stalin'sbloc leadershipin 1950 even if it may have run against Chinesematerial interests in theshort run. During a March1958 conference in China,Mao said:

67. Ted Hopf, "Soviet Inferencesfrom Their Victoriesin the Periphery:Visions of Resistance or Cumulating Gains?" in Jervisand Snyder,Dominoes and Bandwagons,p. 147. 68. The views of Mao's interpreterare cited in Chen, China'sRoad to theKorean War, pp. 79, 84; see also Goncharov,Lewis, and Xue, UncertainPartners, pp. 99-100, 114, 121-122, 129; Chen, Ideology in UnitedStates Foreign Policy, p. 25, 58. CommunistBloc Expansionin theEarly Cold War | 179

In 1950I arguedwith Stalin in Moscowfor two months.... We adoptedtwo attitudes:one was to arguewhen the [Soviets] made proposals we did notagree with,and theother was toaccept their proposal if they absolutely insisted. This was out of considerationfor the interests of socialism.69 Thisattitude could be foundin anyideologically driven patron-client relationship, and representeda relativelyhigh degreeof Soviet controlover CCP policies. In the Philippinesin November1949, the communistsdeclared a "revolutionarysituation" and publiclymade commoncause with the communist victoryin China.70Beginning in December1949, communist-led labor unions in France,where the communist party was solidlyStalinist, staged a number of demonstrationsand strikesto blockthe shipment of troopsand suppliesto Indochina.71In January1950, the Cominform directed the Japanese Communist Partyto adopt a moremilitant policy line and to disruptthe U.S. occupation, perhapsto distractthe United States fromthe cominginvasion of South Korea.72In March1950, Molotov publicly declared the Chinese Revolution to be the most importantpostwar event, and in the followingmonth Stalin secretlygave approval forthe NorthKorean invasion.With revolutionary fervorrunning high, and internationaland local resistanceapparently low, the Sovietbloc appearedto be on themarch in Asia. It would be stoppedseveral monthslater in Korea.73

BlocExpansion: Spreading the Revolution in Koreaand Vietnam

Manyrevisionist, post-revisionist, and realistcritics of U.S. policieshave ques- tionedwhether there was a directSoviet role in initiatingthe invasion of South Koreaby Kim I1 Sung's regimein 1950and in China's adoptionof a roleas Sovietsurrogate among Asian communistparties. Traditionalists have argued

69. Stuart Schram, ed., ChairmanMao Talksto thePeople: Talksand Letters:1956-1971 (New York: Pantheon,1974), p. 101. See also Goncharov,Lewis, and Xue, UncertainPartners, pp. 122, 129. 70. Macdonald, Adventuresin Chaos,p. 137. 71. George McT. Kahin, Intervention:How AmericaBecame Involved in Vietnam(Garden City,N.Y: Anchor/Doubleday,1987), p. 23. 72. Holloway, Stalinand theBomb, p. 276; Colbert,The LeftWing in JapanesePolitics, pp. 286-301. 73. The UN militaryaction in Korea was followedby a numberof militaryand economic policies initiatedby the United States in Southeast Asia that,except in Indochina, helped immenselyin stabilizing the region and removing the kinds of revolutionaryopportunities that appeared to present themselves to the Soviet bloc in 1948 and 1949. See Gary R. Hess, The UnitedStates' Emergenceas a SoutheastAsian Power,1940-1950 (New York: Columbia UniversityPress, 1987), chap. 11. InternationalSecurity 20:3 | 180

thatthe Soviets played a directrole in theKorean War, and thatthey designated theChinese as thebloc's representativein supportingrevolution in Southeast Asia. The new evidenceon theSoviet role in Korea and the Chineserole in Vietnamstrongly supports a traditionalistinterpretation ofbloc expansion. Revisionisthistorians such as RobertSimmons and BruceCumings have arguedfor a highdegree of independenceof actionfor the northern regime, and SamuelWells has made therealist argument that the decision for war was primarilyChinese and Korean,thereby challenging the traditionalview of Sovietbloc leadership.74These views are no longercredible. As SergeiGon- charov,John Lewis, and Xue Litaiconclude in theirpath-breaking work based on a greatdeal ofnew evidence,the North Korean invasion was "preplanned, blessed,and directlyassisted by Stalin and hisgenerals, and reluctantlybacked by Mao at Stalin'sinsistence."75 Stalinpersonally informed Kim I1 Sung, formerly both a memberof the CCP and an officerin theSoviet army, and Ho Chi Minh,a formermember of the CCP and a Cominternagent for nearly thirty years, of the change to a militant policyand thenew Chineserole as bloc leaderin theregion in early1950. The Chinesecombat role in Koreais well known.It has also longbeen known that theSoviets and Chinesesupplied the North Koreans in theirattempt to take over the South.The questionthat deserves new attentionis the role of the Sovietsin initiatingand participatingin thehostilities. Thenew evidence demonstrates conclusively that North Korea was a satellite of theSoviet Union. Soviet control over Kim's revolutionarypolicy was such thatit could preventhim from attacking the Southor allow himto do so at will:the North Koreans had wantedto attackas earlyas thespring of 1949 but had to waituntil the Soviets gave theirpermission and materialsupport in the springof 1950.Once the decisionwas made,the Chinese and Sovietsupply effortto theNorth Koreans was massive.The detailedplans forthe invasion were drawnup by the Sovietsand thencommunicated to the Koreans.The NorthKoreans never took any majoractions without first consulting with the Soviets.The Sovietswere not onlynot surprisedby thetiming of theattack, as oftenclaimed, but helped choose its date and timing.Soviet advisers in

74. Simmons,The Strained Alliance, pp. xi-xvi,118, 120, 122-123;Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War,Vol. II, pp. 333-334, 445; Wells, "Additional Comments,1992," pp. 139-140. 75. Goncharov,Lewis, and Xue, UncertainPartners, p. 213. Hao and Zhai emphasize Mao's reluc- tance, based on interviewsin China, in "China's Decision to Enter the Korean War." Mao was apparentlyreluctant because he wanted to invade Taiwan first,and his relationswith Kim Il Sung were strained. CommunistBloc Expansionin theEarly Cold War | 181

Koreaplayed crucial roles in executingthe invasion in itsearly stages. By any reasonablemeasurement, this is an unusuallyhigh degree of controlover the freedomof action of another state. Most of the major claims of the revisionists, post-revisionists,and realistson Soviet-Koreanrelations are thuslargely incorrect,and mostof thoseof thetraditionalists essentially sound.76 Moreover,the Soviet actions in supportof the Koreans included a directrole in thefighting that was fargreater than previously known in theWest: a total of 70,000Soviet pilots, gunners, and techniciansserved in Korea,and claimed to have shotdown a totalof 569 allied aircraft.Elaborate precautions were typicallytaken to coverthe Soviet military role, such as Sovietsoldiers dressing in Chineseuniforms and attemptingto speak onlyin the Koreanlanguage duringair operations.The Sovietsplayed a similarclandestine role in the VietnamWar in themid-1960s.77 It can no longerbe statedcategorically that thesuperpowers never directly fought one anotherin theCold War.Yet some revisionistauthors play down theSoviet actions in Koreain theface of extensive evidenceto thecontrary, calling them defensive, "modest," insignificant, or not indicativeof Soviet expansionistdesigns because they were "un- official."78 In theirnew roleas bloc leaderin theregion, the Chinese began a large-scale effortin Indochinato supportthe Viet Minh under the leadership of Ho Chi

76. Soviet and Chinese supply and supportefforts included the manipulationof supplies to control North Korean plans foran invasion. See Goncharov,Lewis, and Xue, UncertainPartners, pp. 133- 138, 140-144, 147, 149-152, 154, 328 fn. 46, 330 fn. 77. Some of the translatedprimary documents can be found in KathrynWeathersby, "The Soviet Role in the Early Phase of the Korean War: New Documentary Evidence," Journalof American-EastAsian Relations,Vol. 2, No. 4 (Winter1993), pp. 425-458; see also Weathersby,Soviet Aims in Koreaand theOrigins of the Korean War, 1945-1950: New Evidencefrom the Russian Archives (Washington, D.C.: WorkingPaper No. 8, Cold War Inter- national HistoryProject, Woodrow Wilson InternationalCenter forScholars, 1993), pp. 1-32; and the oral historyof the formerOperations Bureau Commander of the North Korean Army,in Yu Song-chol,"My Testimony,"FBIS-EAS-90-249 (December 27, 1990), pp. 20-30. 77. For primaryevidence on the Soviet militaryrole, which included air operationson the front lines, referto oral historiesand articlesbroadcast fromRadio Moscow: GeorgiyPlotnikov, Chair- man of the Korean Group of the Soviet VeteransCommittee and Associate Doctor of History, "Soviets Remind North Korea of Past Sacrifices,"FBIS-SOV-90-059, March 17, 1990, pp. 17-19, citing one source that claims 1,200-1,300allied planes downed; Aleksandr Smortskov,a former Soviet pilot in Korea, "On Soviet Pilots and Those Who Participatedin the Korean War," FBIS- SOV-90-121,June 22, 1990,pp. 9-10; RetiredHero of the Soviet Union Lieutenant-GeneralG. Lobov, "Blank Spots in History:In the Skies of North Korea," JPRS-UAC-91-003,June 28, 1991,pp. 27-31; and Lobov, "Soviet AntibomberCampaign in Korean War Described," JPRS-UAC-91-004,July 2, 1991, pp. 22-25. For the Soviet role in Vietnamese anti-aircraftoperations in the mid-1960s,in which dozens of U.S. planes were shot down by Soviet and Soviet-Vietnameseanti-aircraft teams, see Francis X. Clines, "Russians Acknowledge a Combat Role in Vietnam,"New YorkTimes, April 14, 1989, p. A13. 78. Nation, BlackEarth, Red Star,p. 193, and fn. 79; Johnson,Improbable Dangers, p. 74. InternationalSecurity 20:3 | 182

Minh,as wellas to helpthe Vietnamese reorganize the Cambodian and Laotian communistswho had been membersof theIndochinese Communist Party in the 1930s.This was done fora mixtureof securityand ideologicalpurposes. Cold War criticsportrayed these actions as minimaland ineffective,but the new evidenceemerging from China challenges this notion. Direct Chinese aid to theVietnamese was criticalto theirmilitary victory over the French, as was Sovietaid to the Chinesein theircivil war,just as traditionalistscholarship suggested.79 As theChinese approached the border with Vietnam in 1949,the prospects fora communistvictory in Indochinadid not appearbright. Although Cold Warcritics often assume the inevitability of an indigenousViet Minh victory, Ho himselfacknowledged that his strategicsituation was stagnantprior to 1950.This immediately began to changewith the arrival of theChinese communists.80Liu Shaoqi had alreadypublicly declared in his militantspeech of November1949 that China would materiallysupport the Indochinese communists,and itwas at Chineseinitiative that Ho traveledto Moscowin early1950 to meetwith Stalin during Mao's visitthere to negotiatethe Sino-Soviet mutual defensetreaty Stalin informed Ho thataid forthe Vietnamese revolution was a Chineseresponsibility, in accordance with the new Chinese role as blocleader in theregion.81 The aid beganto flowimmediately. From 1950 to 1954,the Chinese clandes- tinelyassisted the VietMinh in a majoreffort to ensurethe successof the Vietnamesecommunists. As earlyas March1950, more than 50,000 small arms reportedlyhad been givento the Vietnamesecommunists by the Chinese,a significantarms cache for what were still guerrilla fighters.82 On June27, 1950,

79. For a traditionaltreatment of the Sino-Vietnameserelationship that has stood the testof time, see King C. Chen, Vietnamand China,1938-1954 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1969). 80. In March 1950,Ho told Leo Figueres,the leader of the FrenchYoung Communists,that "until the advent of the new China he and his colleagues had lived in a stateof siege in the mountains." JeanLacouture, Ho Chi Minh: A PoliticalBiography (New York:Vintage, 1968), p. 186. 81. The Viet Minh publiclyannounced as early as April 1949 thatChinese troopshad reached the Sino-Vietnameseborder and that "importantsupport" had begun as the CCP carried out "great activity"in the area. See the reportin FRUS, 1949, Vol. VII, Pt. I, pp. 17-18. Contacts between the Soviets and Vietnamesehad begun in earnestin mid-1948in Bangkok.With the CCP victory, those bloc consultationswere taken over by the Chinese afterStalin told Ho in January1950 that aid forthe Vietnamesecommunists was Mao's responsibility.See Hoang Van Hoan, A Drop in the Ocean (Beijing:Foreign Languages Press, 1988),pp. 251-252,276, 281. (Hoan was a formermember of the Vietnamese politburo and ambassador to China who defected to China afterthe Sino- VietnameseWar in 1979.) See also Goncharov,Lewis, and Xue, UncertainPartners, pp. 107-108. 82. WilliamJ. Duiker, U.S. ContainmentPolicy and theConflict in Indochina(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford UniversityPress, 1994), p. 89. For the entireChinese effortfrom 1950 to 1978,see Hoan, A Drop in CommunistBloc Expansionin theEarly Cold War | 183

twodays after the North Korean attack on SouthKorea and whenthat military actionwas goingvery well, Mao told a ChineseMilitary Assistance Group (CMAG) prior to theirdeparture for Vietnam:"Since our revolutionhas achievedvictory, we have an obligationto help others.This is called interna- tionalism."83Mao himselfsometimes directed tactical maneuvers and chose targetareas for the Vietnamese; he did so duringthe battle of Dien BienPhu.84 The Chinesealso directedand suppliedViet Minh military operations to an extentthat is only now becomingclear. These actionswere always cleared throughHo and his politburo,but he oftenoverruled his own militarycom- mandersto followChinese advice. From 1950 to 1954,the CMAG drew up mostof thestrategic and tacticalplans forthe three major campaigns against theFrench; it sentChinese military advisers to commandVietnamese troops in thefield; the Chinese brought large numbers of Vietnamese cadres and soldiers to Chinato train;China acted as a safebase areafor the Viet Minh in thecrucial BorderCampaign meant to securea borderwith China for future supplies; and it was at Chineseurging that Laos became a majortarget for Vietnamese militaryoperations.85 Directmaterial aid was also extensive.In theBorder Campaign of 1950,the Chinese providedthe Vietnamesewith more than 14,000additional small weapons;1,700 machine guns; 150 artillerypieces of varioussizes; 2,800tons of grain;and largeamounts of ammunition,medicine, uniforms, and communicationsequipment. Like Soviet soldiersin Korea, Chinese officerswho plannedand directedthe campaigndressed in Vietnameseuniforms to hide bloc involvementfrom the outside world.86

the Ocean, pp. 284-293. The Vietnamese have reluctantlyadmitted that China was the "main supplier" of arms in this period. The Socialist Republic of Vietnam,The TruthAbout Vietnam-China RelationsOver theLast ThirtyYears (Hanoi: Ministryof ForeignAffairs, 1979), pp. 5, 18. 83. Zhai, "Transplantingthe Chinese Model," p. 695. 84. Chen, "China and the FirstIndo-China War,"pp. 92-94. 85. Ibid., pp. 93, 97, 101-102; Zhai, "Transplantingthe Chinese Model," pp. 698-704; Hoan, A Drop in theOcean, pp. 276-277, 281, 294-296. 86. Chen, "China and the FirstIndo-China War,"p. 93; Zhai, "Transplantingthe Chinese Model," pp. 698-704. According to the Chinese, they sent a total of 320,000 soldiers to North Vietnamin the 1965-70 period. The majorityof these were so-called "logisticstroops" who labored to rebuild the infrastructuredestroyed by U.S. bombing and to freeup Vietnamesetroops to go south. An anti-aircraftcontingent shot down dozens of U.S. planes and took casualties that numbered approximatelyfour thousand dead and wounded. People's Daily and Xinhua News Agency,On the VietnameseForeign Ministry's White Book Concerning Viet Nam-China Relations (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1979), pp. 11, 18, 22; Hoang Van Hoan, "Distortionof Facts About Militant FriendshipBetween Viet Nam and China is Impermissible,"Beijing Review, No. 49 (December 7, 1979), pp. 16-17; Hoan, A Drop in theOcean, pp. 288-291. InternationalSecurity 20:3 | 184

In thebattle of Dien BienPhu in 1954,which convinced the French and much of theworld that the Vietnamese communists' military victory was inevitable, theChinese claim that all majormilitary operations, as well as strategyand tactics,were devised and planned by the CMAG. All arms,ammunition, communicationsequipment, and othersupplies apparentlycame fromthe Chinese.There have been some reportsin Chinesearmy publications that Chinesesoldiers served in thefield during the battle. Emergency engineering battalionswere sent to supervisethe construction of the tunnel system used so effectivelyagainst the French. For thatbattle alone, the Chinese supplied 200 trucks;10,000 barrels of oil; over100 artillery pieces; 3,000 medium-sized guns; 2,400,000rounds of small armsammunition; and 1,700tons of grain.When Frenchresistance proved much stronger than predicted, the Chinese assured theVietnamese that they could have whatevernecessary to achievevictory In the finalassault, the Chineseprovided all of the rocketlaunchers that were crucialto thedefeat of theFrench.87 Timeand again throughoutthe FirstIndochinese War, the Vietnamese ac- ceptedChinese advice and directionon planning,strategy, and tactics.In terms ofmaterial aid, from1950-54 the Chinese armed and traineda totalof 116,000 VietMinh fighters: five infantry divisions, one engineeringand artillerydivi- sion, and one guard regiment.They also provideda totalof 4,630artillery pieces.This constituteda significantbloc effortto expandits influence.88The new evidencecoming from China demonstratesthat the Vietnamesewere clientsof theChinese during this period. Nonetheless, although Vietnamese leaderspublicly declared that "we could not have defeatedFrance without China's help,"many Western critics continue to portraythe effortas almost completelyindigenous with minimal and ineffectivebloc support.89In fact, however,China's new rolein SoutheastAsia representedan activeattempt by

87. Chen, "China and the FirstIndo-China War," pp. 101-104; People's Daily and Xinhua News Agency,On theVietnamese Foreign Ministry's White Book Concerning Viet Namn-China Relations, p. 14. 88. For comparison,at the heightof the Huk rebellionin the Philippines in the same period, the communistsonly fielded a maximum of 15,000 armed troops. Macdonald, Adventuresin Chaos, p. 153; Kerkvliet,The Huk Rebellion,p. 210. Estimatedcommunist guerrilla strength in Malaya at the beginningof the armed insurgencyin 1948 was 4,000. Stubbs, Hearts and Minds in Guerrilla Warfare,p. 87. 89. Vietnameseleader Le Duan quoted in Hoan, "Distortionof Facts About MilitantFriendship Between Viet Nam and China is Impermissible,"p. 13. See also Chen, "China and the First Indo-China War," pp. 92-93, 96-100, 103, 105, 107; Zhai, "China and the Geneva Conferenceof 1954," p. 106. Accordingto Chinese sources,Vietnam publicly credited China's aid as being crucial to their revolutionas late as 1977. People's Daily and Xinhua News Agency,On the Vietnamese ForeignMinistry's White Book Concerning Viet Nam-China Relations, p. 4. CommunistBloc Expansionin theEarly Cold War | 185

theSoviet bloc's regionalleader to expandthe revolution, in good partunder thegeneral direction of the international strategic planning of the Soviet Union.

Conclusions

U.S. and otherWestern leaders did not misperceiveeither the actionsor the intentionsof the SovietUnion and othercommunists in theearly Cold War. Much of thenewly available evidence confirms many traditionalist analytical assumptionsabout bloc expansion,in particularthat there was a system-wide Sovietbloc threatwith a significantamount of unity,and thatthis bloc was bothheld together and drivento expandits sphere of influence by theshared totalistideological tenets of Marxism-Leninism, largely as definedin Moscow. As traditionalism,post-revisionism, and realismmight predict, Soviet bloc expansionoccurred when there was a powerand policyvacuum. It was largely deterredwhen relatively coherent Western policies made it clear that expansion would be costlyThe Sovietsexpanded into Asia not in reactionto Western provocationsor fearof Westernexpansion, as realisttheory might predict accordingto theassumptions of thesecurity dilemma, but because of a com- binationof the lack of Western actions and theexistence of ideologically driven opportunism,as traditionalismmore clearlypredicts. It was the relatively robustcontainment policies in Europe and the Middle East thatmade the Sovietscautious and checkedtheir expansion. What varied most among the regionssurrounding the Soviet Union in theearly Cold Warwas theWestern response,not the Soviet bloc interestin spreadingrevolution.90 Realists argue thatrevolutionaries lose theirambition for spreading the revolution and become"socialized" into the system fairly soon after coming to power.91 Yet thirty yearsafter the BolshevikRevolution, Stalin still saw such policiesas viable. This calls intoquestion the influentialrealist assumption that ideology does not matterto statesmen,and its generaldisparagement of long-termrevolu- tionarygoals. Post-revisionistsand realistsdo not explainthe revolutionary outbreaks in Asia wellbecause they underestimate the levels of coordination of international communistpolicies in theearly Cold War.They could crediblyposit such an argumentuntil recently because there was relativelylittle primary evidence of Sovietand Chinesemotivations for their actions. The new evidencethat has

I 90. am indebted to JimWirtz for helpfulcomments on these points. 91. See Waltz, Theoryof International Politics, pp. 127-128; Walt, "Revolutionand War,"passim. InternationalSecurity 20:3 | 186

reachedthe Westthus far, however, strongly supports many of the original traditionalistassumptions of an expansionist,internationalist, revolutionary communistmovement: sort of an undergroundepistemic community with weapons. In contrastto traditionalism,many realistsand post-revisionistsportray communistalignment choices essentially as reactionsto Westernprovocations. Since statebehavior is viewed as reactionsto threatswithin the securitydilemma,Soviet bloc alignment behavior is explainedby portraying itas a failure ofthe West, and especiallythe United States, to restrainitself. According to this logic,bloc members'policies were predominantlyreactive. The realistview, and especiallyits "balanceof threat"variant, must explain the Soviet bloc as largelythe creation of littlemore than discrete balancing reactions to external Westernprovocations if it is to remainlogically consistent.92 Applying realist and post-revisionistpredictions suggests that if onlythe West had been less threateningin its actionsand had offeredthe right degree of conciliation,the securitydilemma might have been overcome,many of thesemisunderstand- ingsmight have been averted, and perhapsthe Cold Waravoided. By ignoring ideationalfactors, realists cause basicmisunderstandings over why these enti- tiesacted as theydid. Powerpolitics assumptions minus ideological factors do notexplain well the dynamicrevolutionary nature of the SovietUnion's anti-statusquo policies and its willingnessand abilityto use "fifthcolumn" surrogates to pursue internationalgoals. Because states are seen according to the famous billiard-ball metaphorin realism,that is, as completelydiscrete entities, the concept of an ideologicallydriven bloc made up ofboth governments and non-rulinggroups is beyondthe capacity of realismalone to explainor predictadequately The effectsof bloc members'local successeson thewillingness of the Soviet Union as bloc leader to interpretcapitalism as in generalcrisis and to take risks elsewhereare also eitherignored or poorlyunderstood. Stalin's ideology led himto generalizefrom a particularfailure of theUnited States to respondin Chinaand assumethat the U.S. policyresponse would be similarlyconfused elsewherein the region.U.S. claimsthat China was a special case wentun-

92. See Walt, The Origins of Alliances,chap. 8. Although Walt plays down the importance of ideology,he does emphasize that power analysis divorced fromperceptions is a sterileexercise. Walt's own data demonstratethat the United States ended the Cold War with roughly a 2:1 advantage in allies over the Soviet Union. Inferringmotives fromresults, this stronglysuggests that most states saw the Soviet Union as more threateningthan the United States, and that U.S. actions generallyattracted rather than repelled allies. CommunistBloc Expansionin theEarly Cold War | 187

heeded in the communistworld because Marxism-Leninismpreached that capitalistgreat powers fail to respondto revolutionsbecause of acute internal crises.Thus relative U.S. restraintin Asia,its "waitingfor the dust to settle"in Dean Acheson'sfamous phrase, did not convinceStalin to seek cooperation, but ratherto attack. The realistassumption of undifferentiatedmotivations among statesob- scuresreal differences in methodsof perception and thepurposes of collective behavior.It mighthave done the Chinesecommunists more good to have remainedofficially neutral, like Yugoslavia,India, Indonesia, and otheranti- imperialistnations. However, China's Marxist-Leninist leadership, blinded by a revolutionaryhubris caused by itsvery political success, was convincedthat it was partof a largerglobal social revolution that could expectonly hostility froma worlddominated by capitalistimperialism. Materialist theories cannot explainor predictthe potential appeal ofMarxism-Leninism as a globalrevo- lution-a meansfor "liberation" both domestically and internationally-inthe unsettleddays followinga globalconflict in nationsseething with resentment over past injustices.In such a worldview,at such a time,allying with past oppressorsor tryingto avoid takinga stand mighthave been objectively rationalbut was notsubjectively possible. Every actual or imaginedslight by Westernerswas interpretedas typicalcapitalist great-power chauvinism. Yet substantialdemands visited on themby theSoviets were largely embraced in thename of socialistinternationalism. If ideology does notmatter much, and any Chinesegovernment would have seen its positionin the same material and powerterms as thesecurity dilemma suggests, one mightask whatwould have happenedif JiangJieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) had won the ChineseCivil War.Perhaps he would have followedsimilar policies and joinedthe Soviet blocin promotingrevolution in SoutheastAsia, but this seems highly doubtful. The inclusionof ideologyhelps explainboth bloc solidarityand expansion. This is not to say thatideology always helps to unifya bloc; theSino-Soviet splitsof the 1960s show thatthis is not the case. But it took a decade of disappointmentbetween the two communist giants before China turned away fromthe bloc, and a seconddecade of growing hostility with the Soviet Union beforethe Chinese began to lose theirglobal revolutionary ambitions.93 Realistsand post-revisionistscan playdown these ideational factors only by projectingbackward some of thesubsequent centrifugal political pressures in the bloc,brought about as rulingcommunist parties increasingly questioned

93. I would like to thank Bob Kaufman and Randy Schwellerfor helping me framethese issues. InternationalSecurity 20:3 | 188

Moscow'scontrol. Thus realism and post-revisionismdo notexplain either the formationor maintenanceof theSoviet bloc in theearly Cold Waras well as do traditionalistassumptions about the importance of ideology.It is also now clearthat U.S. decision-makersanticipated those long-term fissures within the bloc, but had to deal in the shortterm with a good deal of revolutionary expansionism. The revisionistparadigm for understanding the Cold Warhas failedthe test of the new evidence.In particular,the view of the SovietUnion and other communistnations as inherentlycautious status-quo powers is not tenable. Stalin'svaunted caution was causedby thevery Western containment policies in Europeand theMiddle East thatthe revisionists blame for the Cold War.In Asia, theone regionwhere there was no earlyunified Western response, the Sovietsand theirruling and non-rulingbloc clientsplanned and attempted revolutionaryuprisings on a region-widescale in an ideologicallydriven powermove. Revisionists cannot explain this coordinated expansionism. They insteadportray any suchmoves as strictlybased in local conditionswith little Soviet or Chinese directionor even input.Soviet controlover rulingbloc members'international policies and non-rulingbloc members'revolutionary policiesin theStalinist period was at timesmonolithic, at timesnot, but it was almostalways great.Western threat perceptions of a militant,revolutionary groupingunder Stalin's international leadership were therefore justified. The new evidencedemonstrates conclusively that the revisionists have been wide ofthe mark in theirefforts to explainthe Soviet Union, other Marxist-Leninists, and theCold War. AndersStephanson has questionedthe apparentdesire among many ana- lystsof U.S. foreignpolicy for synthesis and consensus.Perhaps what is needed instead,he argues,is increasedcompetition among contendingschools of thought.94This is likelyto happengiven the depth of the challenge to existing schoolsposed by thenew evidenceon theCold Waremanating from the East. Despiteits absencefrom the debate in recentdecades, the new traditionalism will be at thecenter of thatintellectual ferment.

94. Stephanson,"The United States," p. 51.