Free at Last, Now What: The Soviet and Chinese Attempts to Offer a Roadmap for the Post-Colonial World

This article seeks to understand the motivations behind the People's Republic of China's attempt to present an alternative development model for the post-colonial world and challenge Soviet leadership in the international communist movement in mid-1960s. When the wave of post-war decolonization crested in Africa in the late 1950s and early 1960s, inaugurating dozens of new states desperate for a political and economic model that would put flesh on the bones of independence, the USA and USSR were eager to offer aid and advice to promote their own models. The PRC, suffering the consequences of a century-long tangle with imperialism and decades of war coupled with the effects of the Great Leap Forward, was in a distinctly disadvantageous position to compete with the two superpowers. However, it did compete, and the question is why. The existing historiography on the Sino-Soviet split focuses on Mao's desire for leadership of the international communist movement, his contempt for Khrushchev, and his battle for control of the Chinese Communist Party line. This tends to render the Chinese as the unpredictable aggressor and the Soviets as playing a reactive game. This article argues instead that the timing and nature of the Chinese challenge reflect the reactive elements in the PRC's own policy, which was formulated largely in response to a perceived security threat resulting from the Soviet policy of "Peaceful Coexistence" as well as Soviet misunderstanding and neglect of the anti-colonial revolution.