The Disunited Front

Though often thought of as monolithic, the international communist body politic still had its fair share of internal dissent and power struggles. The most dramatic of these was the Sino-Soviet Split (1956-66). Another major aspect of this event was Chairman Mao Zedong’s (1893-1976) perception of Soviet strongarm politics. Moscow tended to use its preeminent position among the other communist states to its advantage and coerce the rest into towing the line behind them. Mao had an issue with this and started to clash with the USSR more frequently and publicly as time went on. Finally, there was the competition over power and resources globally. This paper shall argue that the Sino-Soviet Split was caused largely by ideological differences, Soviet paternalism, and competition over power and resources. Nikita Khrushchev’s (1894-1971) destalinization program had several issues ranging from indirectly attacking allies like Mao to showing that the party was not infallible. The Soviet Union was also domineering in its relations with the rest of the communist world. Albania was also a battleground between the two powers with each trying to convince it to join their subset of Marxism