# Why did the USSR and the PRC hate each other? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 29, 2004, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-ussr-and-the-prc-hate-each-other/277087 "2004-11-29T04:05:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2004, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-ussr-and-the-prc-hate-each-other/277087/1 "2004-11-29T04:05:28Z")
Communism is, in every theoretical exposition I’ve ever heard, strongly based on an anti-nationalist Workers of the World rhetoric. The Revolution is supposed to sweep away national and cultural/racial borders and create a single unified Dictatorship of the Proletariat. There seems to be no room for fighting between Communist states, merely the eternal battle against Reactionaries and their Imperialist politics. Of course, I also know that in the real world, the Soviet Union and Communist China really, really didn’t like each other. What gives? They were both Communist, albeit one Marxist/Leninist and one Maoist, and they both had the USA to worry about. Were there any political justifications for this, or was it purely economic and (dare I say it) racist? What were the origins of this divide? ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2004, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-ussr-and-the-prc-hate-each-other/277087/2 "2004-11-29T04:22:56Z")
Because Russia and China share almost 2700 miles of border, and they have a [long history of border disputes](http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/prc-soviet.htm), with hundreds of thousands of square miles changing hands under armed incursions since the 1600’s: > [@](#): > > China and Russia had border disputes since the seventeenth century when Tsarist forces occupied Nerchinsk and Yakasa in the Amur region (north of Mongolia and west of northern Nei Mongol). The eighteenth century saw Russian incursions in the Lake Balkhash area, near Northwest Xinjiang. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Russians had seized a total 1.4 million square kilometers, and another 1.5 million by 1900. The Russians codified these gains through a series of ‘unequal treaties,’ as current Chinese histories call them. ---
**Author:** ![Crandolph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7cd45c/32.png) [@Crandolph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crandolph)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2004, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-ussr-and-the-prc-hate-each-other/277087/3 "2004-11-29T04:24:40Z")
Well, that’s it at least officially: Maoism vs Leninism. Lenin, incidently, espoused “socialism in one country,” which is a stick in the Workers of the World mud. You also have the Maoist claim of being able to leap over the industrial capitalist stage of Marxist historical progression directly from agrarian serfdom, which doesn’t sit well with many other Marxists. I’d be very interested to hear from others on the racism issue, as well as more practical geopoitical explanations. ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2004, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-ussr-and-the-prc-hate-each-other/277087/4 "2004-11-29T05:26:20Z")
It was a long list of small and not-so-small issues between the two countries. You could argue that they originated is very different interpretations of the communist doctrine. However, there’s more to it than that. The old truism goes: nations do not have friends, only interests. As it happens, Chinese and Soviet interests collided. Partly because of ideology and economics, partly because of history, partly because of geography. I don’t think racism played much of a role, however. Some sticking points: -Mao didn’t like Khrushchev’s friendly approach to diplomacy with the West. -The Soviets refused to support China in the Sino-Indian war in order to preserve good relations with India. -Refusal by China of playing second fiddle in security alliances with the Soviets. -Disagreement over the policies of the Great Leap Forward. -China trying to regain territory lost durring the Tsarist era, leading to military buildup at the border. -Both countries competing for influence in the third world. -Radicals going completely out of control during the Cultural Revolution. There’s more. See the following links for decent overviews: > **[Sino-Soviet split](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Soviet_split)** > > The Sino-Soviet split was the breaking of political relations between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), caused by doctrinal divergences that arose from their different interpretations and practical applications of Marxism–Leninism, as influenced by their respective geopolitics during the Cold War (1945–1991). In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Sino-Soviet debates about the interpretation of orthodox Marxism became specific disputes about t [http://countrystudies.us/china/128.htm](http://countrystudies.us/china/128.htm)