How Stalin Helped Mao Zedong Become the Leader: New Archival Documents on Moscow`s Role in the Rise of Mao

Abstract

The newly discovered archival documents point toward the need to reexamine some basic assumptions regarding the Chinese Communist Party`s (CCP) relationships with Moscow. The history of the CCP in the 1930s and 1940s can only be understood if we pay attention to the unchanging ideological and, to a significant degree, political dependence, of CCP leaders on Moscow. Contrary to the conventional Western beliefs, the CCP even under Mao Zedong did not cut its apron strings to the Communist International (Comintern) and was not increasingly autonomous and self-directed. The Soviet ideological influence on Chinese Communism remained domineering. The archival documents make clear that starting from the late 1920s and early 1930s Moscow actively assisted the rise of Mao. Moreover as improbable as it may seem, Moscow was responsible for initiating the cult of Mao. It was Stalin who made his decisive choice in favor of Mao and it was the Comintern General Secretary Georgii Dimitrov who conveyed this decision to the CCP. In other words, Mao owed his rise to Moscow and, in particular to Stalin, the Kremlin dictator.