One of my main examples is from the Communist Party of Burma’s newspaper during the turning point in their relations with the PRC. For reference the “Chinese Khrushchev” mentioned over and over is Liu Shaoqi who was an old comrade of Mao’s who Mao denounced as a capitalist roader and traitor during the Cultural Revolution. He is very much rehabilitated by Deng and his allies, and famously wrote the book “how to be a good communist”, so before anyone jump down my throat, I am not saying he was evil or deserved it, just giving the context of who the paper is speaking about.
But so Ne Win the self-proclaimed Socialist military junta leader of Burma following his so called “Burmese Road to Socialism” was isolationist, but also upheld by foreign powers. The USA protected him, as did the PRC, even though there was a famous incident which this article is responding to, in which the Chinese ethic population and overseas students in Burma got slaughtered by Ne Win because of accusations of a plot against Burma. Earlier during a coup against Ne Win in '64, China warned him and later sent Zhou Enlai to tell Ne Win he had their support. All this while the CPB is armed by the PRC and is actively being killed by Ne Win.
You can see here the attitude of “oh it must be that any support he got from the PRC was from Shaoqi, because before he took power Mao openly armed us”, only for it to become clearer and clearer than the PRC, while pissed about its citizens and ethnic brothers being killed, did not consider this a dealbreaker. And certainly did not consider the continued butchering of the Communist Party and the peasants it represented to be worth caring about.
China cut ties with Burma for 3 years and there was support for the Communist Party who had still been fighting Ne Win from his rise to power to this point. However this ended 1 year in when Zhou Enlai took control of the foreign ministry though the ceasing of cooperation with Burma economically and with friendship societies did continue to halt. In 1971 Enlai began claiming that the foreign affairs ministry was taken over by the Red Guard supporters in '68 and THAT is what caused Chinese citizens in Burma to oppose the government that was harassing them. Effectively pushing blame off of Ne Win and onto the Cultural Revolution for China’s mostly rhetorical opposition to the slaughter.
the PRC did maintain assistance for the CPB up to Mao’s death, but even before then the party felt that there was a segment within the PRC that was opposed to them. During their own Cultural Revolution they purged their ranks to an absurd degree, including executing some of their most important members, calling them the “Burmese Deng and Shaoqi”.
Ne Win supported the Khmer Rouge in order to appease China in the 70s right after Mao died, essentially gaining the support of the PRC against the CPB. The CPB leadership also had effectively been replaced with ethnic Wa by this point, the intense fighting and decades of moving around and losing Red Base Areas meant radical shifts in party makeup. By 1978 the PRC pulled its support and left the CPB high and dry.
I amend my point about the CPB being already betrayed, because it really is Deng who cut all their aid, but still importantly during Mao’s life the supposed capitalist roaders had been able to push for support of both the CPB and Ne Win. Mao himself is untouchable for the CPB, and so Deng, despite being their big enemy, not denouncing Mao, meant that they could sort of realign their positions especially by the Third Party Congress in the mid 80s.
For Maoists in many places, the PRC was already contradictory in its support, and so weirdly when Deng takes over, those in active warfare are less obsessed with him as they had been during Mao’s lifetime when he was used as the reason for limits in Chinese support. Now it was just easier to accept that they are mostly on their own instead of supported and their enemies being supported at once.
Maintaining Mao as a symbol meant there was no clear break. Now Maoists in the Philippines do have a much clearer opposition to Deng and the modern PRC, but that is due to them not having the high levels of support the CPB once had, and their own internal developments particularly post Mao. Similar case with the Naxalites.
Thank you! It’s difficult for me to assess what you’re saying, I’m a bit tired but I also don’t know much about this history, but I want to thank you for posting this and I’ll reread it a couple of times.
One of my main examples is from the Communist Party of Burma’s newspaper during the turning point in their relations with the PRC. For reference the “Chinese Khrushchev” mentioned over and over is Liu Shaoqi who was an old comrade of Mao’s who Mao denounced as a capitalist roader and traitor during the Cultural Revolution. He is very much rehabilitated by Deng and his allies, and famously wrote the book “how to be a good communist”, so before anyone jump down my throat, I am not saying he was evil or deserved it, just giving the context of who the paper is speaking about.
But so Ne Win the self-proclaimed Socialist military junta leader of Burma following his so called “Burmese Road to Socialism” was isolationist, but also upheld by foreign powers. The USA protected him, as did the PRC, even though there was a famous incident which this article is responding to, in which the Chinese ethic population and overseas students in Burma got slaughtered by Ne Win because of accusations of a plot against Burma. Earlier during a coup against Ne Win in '64, China warned him and later sent Zhou Enlai to tell Ne Win he had their support. All this while the CPB is armed by the PRC and is actively being killed by Ne Win.
You can see here the attitude of “oh it must be that any support he got from the PRC was from Shaoqi, because before he took power Mao openly armed us”, only for it to become clearer and clearer than the PRC, while pissed about its citizens and ethnic brothers being killed, did not consider this a dealbreaker. And certainly did not consider the continued butchering of the Communist Party and the peasants it represented to be worth caring about.
China cut ties with Burma for 3 years and there was support for the Communist Party who had still been fighting Ne Win from his rise to power to this point. However this ended 1 year in when Zhou Enlai took control of the foreign ministry though the ceasing of cooperation with Burma economically and with friendship societies did continue to halt. In 1971 Enlai began claiming that the foreign affairs ministry was taken over by the Red Guard supporters in '68 and THAT is what caused Chinese citizens in Burma to oppose the government that was harassing them. Effectively pushing blame off of Ne Win and onto the Cultural Revolution for China’s mostly rhetorical opposition to the slaughter.
the PRC did maintain assistance for the CPB up to Mao’s death, but even before then the party felt that there was a segment within the PRC that was opposed to them. During their own Cultural Revolution they purged their ranks to an absurd degree, including executing some of their most important members, calling them the “Burmese Deng and Shaoqi”.
Ne Win supported the Khmer Rouge in order to appease China in the 70s right after Mao died, essentially gaining the support of the PRC against the CPB. The CPB leadership also had effectively been replaced with ethnic Wa by this point, the intense fighting and decades of moving around and losing Red Base Areas meant radical shifts in party makeup. By 1978 the PRC pulled its support and left the CPB high and dry.
https://www.marxists.org/subject/china/peking-review/1967/PR1967-29.pdf
https://www.irrawaddy.com/from-the-archive/how-ne-wins-diplomacy-weakened-burmas-communists.html
I amend my point about the CPB being already betrayed, because it really is Deng who cut all their aid, but still importantly during Mao’s life the supposed capitalist roaders had been able to push for support of both the CPB and Ne Win. Mao himself is untouchable for the CPB, and so Deng, despite being their big enemy, not denouncing Mao, meant that they could sort of realign their positions especially by the Third Party Congress in the mid 80s.
For Maoists in many places, the PRC was already contradictory in its support, and so weirdly when Deng takes over, those in active warfare are less obsessed with him as they had been during Mao’s lifetime when he was used as the reason for limits in Chinese support. Now it was just easier to accept that they are mostly on their own instead of supported and their enemies being supported at once.
Maintaining Mao as a symbol meant there was no clear break. Now Maoists in the Philippines do have a much clearer opposition to Deng and the modern PRC, but that is due to them not having the high levels of support the CPB once had, and their own internal developments particularly post Mao. Similar case with the Naxalites.
Thank you! It’s difficult for me to assess what you’re saying, I’m a bit tired but I also don’t know much about this history, but I want to thank you for posting this and I’ll reread it a couple of times.