China-Russia Keywords:, Chinese historiography, history of Russia

In the last 10 to 15 years, China has experienced a noticeable surge of interest in the history of Russia and relations between our countries.

In 1985, the All-China Society for the Study of the History of the USSR and Eastern European Countries was established. A specialized Institute for the Study of Russia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia has been established in Beijing, with branches in a number of provinces. Special research centers have been established within the institutes of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CAON), as well as at leading universities in various provinces (primarily in Beijing, Shanghai, Heilongjiang Province, etc.), and the Chinese Center for the Study of the History of Sino-Russian Relations has been opened.

Yu. V. CHUDODEEV

Candidate of Historical Sciences

In recent years, a significant cadre of new young specialists specializing in this topic has been trained (in the early 80s there were no more than 50 people, now there are already several hundred).

Much attention is paid to the study, translation and publication of newly discovered archival materials. In particular, "Soviet Historical Archival Materials" (in 34 volumes), "Collection of resolutions of the CPSU and the Soviet Government on economic issues" (in 15 volumes), etc. were published. ¹

Chinese historians have overcome and reinterpreted many of the stereotypes put forward by Chinese propaganda during the "cultural revolution" (for example, about the restoration of capitalism in the USSR, about the" social-imperialist " nature of the Soviet state, etc.). Today in China they write about "the need to abandon one-sidedness and outright lies during the "cultural revolution" in history The USSR" (adding that "at the same time, we must abandon the myth that everything in the history of the USSR was beautiful")².

However, they have not yet managed to completely overcome the influence of Maoist views, primarily on the nature of relations between our two countries.

"IF VLADIVOSTOK WERE HAISHENWEI..."

Today, many of the principles on which relations between China and the USSR were built, say, in the 20-50s of the XX century, which seemed to be unshakable and fundamental for decades, have faded or completely rejected.

This applies, in particular, to the theses about the "alliance with Russia" (Sun Yat-sen), about "volleys of the October Revolution that brought Marxism-Leninism to China" (Mao Zedong), about the slogans "follow the path of the Russians", and then-about "eternal and unbreakable friendship", about "fraternal and friendly relations" between the USSR and the PRC, about "big brother", that "your (USSR) today is our (PRC) tomorrow", about "selfless help", etc.

Today, relations between the two countries are built on the pragmatic basis of common interests, full independence and equality, and strategic partnership.

Unfortunately, until recently, Chinese historians continued to repeat the Maoist thesis that under "unequal" treaties, tsarist Russia allegedly cut off 1.5 million square kilometers of territory from China, and the Soviet Union in 1921 and 1944 also "seized" Chinese territories with an area of 35 thousand square kilometers (see, for example, the three-volume "Diplomacy new China-50 years "edited by former Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen and" History of Chinese Foreign Policy " in 3 volumes, Beijing, 1998-1999). Naturally, without the approval of the top leadership of the People's Republic of China, this thesis would hardly have been adopted.

In May 1989, during a conversation with Mikhail Gorbachev in Beijing, Deng Xiaoping, although he put forward the task of "closing the past and opening the future", agreeing to start normalizing relations between the PRC and the USSR, confirmed Mao Zedong's thesis about China's claims to our territories of 1.5 million square kilometers. To this day, China publishes booklets with maps of former Chinese empires, whose possessions allegedly covered Siberia and the Far East3. Books are published about the "wars" of China with the Soviet Union, which, in particular, tells about the events on the island of Damansky, of course, in the Chinese interpretation (by the way, on the island of Damansky itself - in accordance with the latest border delineations, it was ceded to the Chinese side - the Chinese museum of "military glory"is currently functioning).

In the 1996 book "And yet China can say no", prepared by a group of young political scientists and which became a kind of manifesto of the so-called angry youth (nationalists from the new left group), it was stated: "Historically,China has lost a very large part of its sovereignty; the consequence of many unequal treaties is that the situation in the world is not in which there is not enough strength to return their mountains and rivers... Now, if Haishenwei (Vladivostok-Yu. Ch.) was still in our hands, then we would have our most northerly magnificent harbor... However, the Chinese reserved the right of memory..."⁴. Apparently, in scientific, educational and mass historical research.-

In the literature of the People's Republic of China, the stereotype of Russia during the confrontation between the two states continues to persist-as if our country has always sought one thing - dominion over China.

It is significant that similar interpretations are also typical for the expositions of a number of historical museums. So, in the Beijing Museum of the Chinese Revolution, on the map of the lands allegedly "taken" from China by foreign powers, it was indicated that Russia had "torn away" from China the territories in the Pamirs, the land up to Lake Baikal. Balkhash (including Tuva) and in Transbaikalia (Primorsky and Khabarovsk Territories), as well as Sakhalin, to which China has never had any relation at all: as you know, Russia and Japan claimed it.

Special attention should be paid to today's assessment of the Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance between the USSR and the People's Republic of China, signed in Moscow in February 1950.

Prominent Chinese historians and political scientists (Li Fenglin, Liu Cunquan, Shen Zhihua, etc.) continue to assess it as " unequal for China." In their opinion, there could not be equality in relations between countries that were at that time in different "weight" categories. The Soviet Union, using the treaty, "displayed great-power chauvinism and national egoism" towards the PRC and thus " inherited the traditional anti-Chinese policy of the Romanov tsarist dynasty."

Apparently, some Chinese historians would like to present our country as a historical enemy and debtor of China, while completely erasing the positive aspects of the period when allied relations between the two countries were preserved.

For example, Professor Jiang Changbin, head of the Center for International Strategy Studies at the CPC Central Party School, in an article published in 2008 in the central Beijing foreign policy journal Shijie Zhishi, described political thinking in Russia as "aggressive, aggressive, and expansionist", burdened with self-conceit generated and reinforced by the idea of the great significance of the October Revolution for all mankind ⁵.

In the Chinese historiography of recent years, there have been voices aimed at downplaying the importance of our people's sacrifices, belittling the role of our country in the victory in World War II and, in particular, in the war against the Japanese occupiers. According to a number of historians and politicians, the Chinese, starting in 1931, fought with Japan for 14 years, suffered the greatest casualties in World War II, and the Soviet Union fought with the Japanese for only a few days. Moreover, the USSR allegedly illegally, using its superiority, removed industrial equipment from Manchuria after the war, etc.

Chinese historians (Xue Xiantian, Shen Zhihua, etc.) clearly ignore the fact that when China found itself alone with the Japanese invaders, in fact, only the USSR came to its aid and sent both weapons and its military to China.

It is characteristic that the expositions of the Beijing historical museums do not mention the union of our two countries during the Second World War, especially about the real military, material and financial Soviet assistance to China in the fight against the Japanese invaders, and about the significance of our contribution to the defeat of the fascist axis powers - Germany and Japan. Meanwhile, such exhibitions and expositions in terms of propaganda sometimes play an even greater role than the corresponding literature.

In 2004, an agreement was signed on the border line near Khabarovsk and on the Argun River, and in 2008, the demarcation of the entire length of the Russian-Chinese border was completed. The final settlement of the issue of the passage of the border between China and Russia has dampened the heat of territorial speculation in Chinese historiography, but has not yet sent them to the dump of history entirely.

Perhaps this kind of speculation could be removed by the signing of a new border agreement between the two countries (instead of a number of existing agreements). In this case, all questions about the nature of the current border agreements could become a thing of the past, become the subject of study by historians and finally cease to appear in interstate relations. But the Chinese side has so far refrained from such a step.

EVERYONE HAS THEIR OWN IMAGE OF STALIN

Chinese historians of the Soviet period are actively rethinking their previous ideas and positions, in particular, those drawn from the"Short Course on the History of the CPSU(b)".

New monographs were published on the October Revolution, on the role of the Left SR Party in it, on "military communism", on the new economic policy, on the internal party struggle in the CPSU in the 1920s and 30s (biographies of L. Trotsky and N. Bukharin were published in 1986-1988), and on the Socialist State of the Soviet Union. Finally, about the development of the USSR and Russia during the periods when the state leadership was headed by N. Khrushchev, L. Brezhnev, M. Gorbachev, B. Yeltsin and others.

Chinese historians believe that "it is impossible to write off the enormous merits of Stalin" in the formation of the Soviet socialist model, as well as the historically " progressive role of the Stalinist model in those conditions." In their opinion, Stalin at one time managed to combine Marxism with the real situation in the Soviet Union.⁶

At the present time, Chinese researchers argue, it is necessary to consider the historical processes in the USSR "from the height of today's development of Marxism, i.e. Deng Xiaoping's theory of building socialism with Chinese characteristics, Jiang Zemin's important idea of three representations* and the scientific concept of development." From the point of view of some historians, the ultra-centralized political and economic system in the USSR (the "Stalin model") With its inherent errors in theory and practice, it has predetermined the instability of the regime and the entire system as a whole.

Zhang Shengfa, author of the monograph "Stalin and the Origins of the Cold War" published in China in 2005, believes that "the cold war was a two-way process." In his opinion, although the initiator of the cold War was the United States, in the end, it became a reality.-

* At the 16th CCP Congress in 2003, CCP President Jiang Zemin formulated the "three party offices" thesis, meaning that the CCP "represents" advanced productive forces, advanced Chinese culture, and the absolute majority of the Chinese people" (ed.).

the result of mutual confrontation between the USA and the USSR. The final conclusion of the author is: "Not only the United States, but also the USSR equally generated the Cold War"⁷. A number of recent works published in China attempt to examine relations between the USSR and Eastern European countries during the Cold War through the prism of internationalism, state nationalism, and political culture. The authors believe that the structural shortcomings in these relations were ideological unanimity instead of differentiation of state interests and the mixing of inter-party and interstate relations.⁸

THE" DEMISE " OF THE CPSU AS A WARNING TO THE CCP

In recent years, special attention of Chinese historians and political scientists has been drawn to the causes and lessons of the collapse of the USSR, which was very acutely and painfully perceived in the socio-political and party circles of the PRC.

In 1992-2001 alone, 30 monographs and collections of articles were published in China on this topic, and more than 600 articles were published in newspapers and magazines. Among the most recent, we note the monograph by Zhou Xinchen and Zhang Xiu "Reasons and Lessons of the collapse of the USSR "(Beijing, 2008). A special 8-episode TV movie "Living in Peace, Think about Danger: Historical Lessons of the CPSU's Demise"was released.

Pan Dawei (Shanghai), a prominent Chinese philosopher and political scientist, considers the collapse of the USSR as a national catastrophe, and Zhou Xinchen, a historian, as a " tragedy of the century."

The forced transition from totalitarianism to a Western-style democratic model, Chinese scholars argue, has led to a weakening of the state, legal chaos, etc.Chinese experts, especially supporters of the "new left" current, consider this lesson a great warning for China, which is also experiencing the pressure of centrifugal forces.

Various points of view are expressed regarding the causes and predestination of the collapse of the USSR.

Some scholars believe that the over-centralized political and economic system that developed under Stalin, with its inherent errors in theory and practice, predetermined the instability of the regime, making the collapse of the country inevitable.

Others see the main reason for the collapse and collapse of socialism in the USSR in the fallacy of the reform course pursued by Gorbachev, in the "humane-democratic line" that he implemented, which contradicted the basic principles of Marxism, the real situation in the Soviet Union and directly led to the collapse of the USSR. At the same time, in their opinion, we should not lose sight of the many problems that have accumulated historically in the Soviet and party systems, which, in the end, served as the beginning of all the troubles. It is characteristic that Chinese researchers see the theoretical origins of Gorbachev's policy in the decisions of the XX Congress of the CPSU and the course pursued by Khrushchev.

Finally, a third group of Chinese scientists believe that the transformation of the Soviet socialist system was inevitable and necessary, but its collapse and the collapse of the Soviet state were not natural, inevitable, and could have been prevented.

Attention is drawn to the desire of a number of Chinese historians who analyze this acute problem for China to go beyond the traditional methods. Thus, historians Huang Lifu and Guo Chunypeng, using an interdisciplinary approach, attempted to identify the causes of the collapse of the USSR through the prism of the formation and evolution of the 6 "socio-political classes" they identified in the Soviet Union-the upper class of leaders, the privileged class, the intelligentsia, "dissidents", the national elite, workers and peasants.⁹ Xing Guancheng tries to solve the same problem by analyzing the decision-making process of the top leadership of the USSR from Lenin to Gorbachev.¹⁰

* * *

Even today, the interpretation of Russian-Chinese relations in Chinese historiography has not only purely scientific, but, to a certain extent, also political overtones.

In general, the process of rethinking can be described as a positive phenomenon that contributes to a more pragmatic and objective approach to our country and its history, although a number of Chinese historians have not yet completely abandoned the relapses of xenophobia, including anti-Russian.

At the same time, there is a considerable amount of truth in the opinion of many Chinese experts, who point out that Russia and Russian historiography underestimate the importance of China and relations with it, and are attracted to the West to the detriment of their great eastern neighbor.

¹ Xulian gongchandang he Xulian zhengfu jingji wenti juei huibian. Yuan 1-15. Zhongguo renmin daxue chubanshe, 1983 nian qi chuban. Xulian mingzu wentian wenxian xuanbian. Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 1987. Shen Zhihua zong zhubian. Xulian lishi dan'an xuanbian. Di 1-34 yuan. Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2002 nian qi chuban.

^{Shen Zhihua.} 2 Three decades of studying the history of the USSR in China (1978-2008) / / Problems of the Far East, 2009, N 5.

³ See: Zhongguo lishi zhaodai jianyu shiitu (The borders of China during the reign of historical Dynasties (221 BC-1820). Zhongguo minzu shein wenyi chubanshe, Beijing, 2006.

⁴ См.: http:/nvo/ng/ru/realty/l_pekin/ html.

⁵ See: Galenovich Yu.M. Kitay. How the "traditional political Culture" of Russia is interpreted / / Asia and Africa Today, 2009, N 11.

^{Li Zunyu deng.} 6 Sulyan moshi yanjiu (Study of the Soviet model). Zhongyang bianze chubanshe, 1999; Lu Zhichao, Wang Zhengqiu zhubian. Sidalin yu shehuizhui / / Shijie diige shehuizhui moshi paci (Stalin and Socialism-the anatomy of the world's first model of socialism). Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2002.

^{Zhang Shengfa.} 7 Sidalin yu lengzhan qiyuan (Stalin and the Origins of the Cold War). Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 2005.

^{Li Xing.} 8 Cong quanmian jiemeng dao fen dao yang biao-Lengzhan shiqi de Sulian yu Dong Ou guanxi yanjiu (From the general union to complete separation - relations between the USSR and Eastern European countries during the Cold War). Wuhan daxue chubanshe, 2000; Shen Zhihua zhubian. Lenzhan shiqi Xulian yu Dong Ou de guanxi (Relations between the USSR and Eastern European countries during the Cold War). Beijing, 2006.

^{Huang Lifu.} 9 Sulyan shehui jieceng yu Sulyan juibian yanjiu (A study on Soviet social stratification and the reasons for the collapse of the USSR). Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 2006; Guo Chunyien. Shehui zhengzhi jieceng yu Sulyan juibian-20 shiji 60-90 niandai Sulyan ge shehui zhengzhi jieceng yanjiu (Socio-political classes and the collapse of the USSR-Soviet social classes of the 60-90s of the 20th century). Dandai shijie chubanshe, 2006.

^{Xing Guangcheng.} 10 Xulian gaoceng juetse 70 nannies (Decision-making in the highest echelon of the Soviet Union for 70 years). 1-5 ce. Shijie zhengshi chubanshe, 1996.

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