Special Section: Dealing with a Matsadoon

You might say that China is both close to us and far from us. It's close in that it's our next-door neighbor and shares a long border with our country. At the same time, China is far away in that the Chinese have little in common with our people.

[I remember when] Mao Tse-tung was in Moscow for Stalin's 70th birthday on Dec. 21, 1949. I came up from Kiev and ran into a secretary of the Moscow District party.

"Anything new?" I asked him.

"Yeah," he said, "we've got this Matsadoon in town."

"What the hell is a Matsadoon? You must mean Mao Tse-tung, don't you?"

"You know," he said, "that Chinaman."

During Mao's stay, Stalin would sometimes not lay eyes on him for days at a time, and since Stalin neither saw Mao nor ordered anyone else to entertain him, no one dared go see him. Rumors began reaching our ears that Mao was not at all happy, that he was under lock and key, and that everyone was ignoring him. Mao let it be known that if the situation continued, he would leave. When Stalin heard about Mao's complaints, I think he had another dinner for him. Stalin was anxious to create the impression that we were on the best of terms with Mao and firmly on the side of the Chinese people. Finally, the Chinese delegation returned to Peking.

During that period, much of the Kremlin's information about the Chinese came from Kao Rang, who was then the representative of the Chinese Politburo and the strongman in Manchuria. To win Mao's trust and friendship, Khrushchev says, Stalin gave Mao reports by the Soviet ambassador in Manchuria about his conversations with Kao, saying, "Here, you might be interested in these."

Kao Kang was put under house arrest, and later died. Khrushchev's opinion is that "most probably, Mao had him strangled or poisoned. Mao was capable of such things, just as Stalin was." Why did Stalin betray Kao Kang? Khrushchev's judgment is that the Soviet dictator figured that sooner or later Mao would have learned on his own that Kao Kang had been informing on him and, if that had happened, Mao could have accused Stalin of fomenting opposition to the Chinese government. "Stalin wanted to win Mao's trust and friendship, so he took reports about conversations with Kao Kang and handed them to Mao . . . Stalin decided to sacrifice Kao Kang and thereby earn Mao's trust."

During a 1954 visit to Peking, Khrushchev and his colleagues proposed that Chinese workers be sent to Siberia to help exploit its vast timber resources.

Mao's response to our proposal was typical of him—and indicative of what was to come. He really knew how to put us down. First, you have to imagine what Mao was like in person. He moved as calmly and slowly as a bear, swaying from side to side. He would look at you for a long time, then lower his eyes and begin talking in a relaxed, quiet voice:

"You know, Comrade Khrushchev, for years it's been a widely held view that because China is an underdeveloped and overpopulated country with widespread unemployment, it represents a good source of cheap labor. But you know, we Chinese find this attitude very offensive. Coming from you, it's rather embarrassing."