I N T R O D U C T I O N T O " S T A L I N ' S

D I A L O G U E W I T H M A O Z E D O N G "

Publication on the following pages of Sergei Goncharov's interview with Ivan Vladimirovich Kovalev, Stalin's personal representative in Mao Zedong's China during the formative years of Sino-Soviet relations, helps to understand Stalin's strategy more than any single document possibly can. But it also illustrates continuing difficulties encountered by Soviet histo- rians attempting to fill huge gaps in the official Soviet history. Although the advent of glasnost ushered unprecedented freedom of expression in Russia, it has not been accompanied by a corresponding freedom of archival research. Party and government archives, where tight secrecy has traditionally con- cealed not only high-level policy-making but also the elaborate mechanics of policy implementation, remain closed. Of course, there are trusted people with unlimited access to the documents who are charged with keeping the papers properly catalogued so that a document could easily be found if re- quested by a person of authority. These people have been carefully chosen for their obsession with secretiveness and for their zeal in guarding the deposito- ries of important documents entrusted to them. Glasnost has affected this situation only marginally. Although on occasion some papers from the secret archives become public knowledge these days, considerations behind it tes- tify more to pecuniary motives of the guardians than to the inroads of bona fide historians to the archival fortress. Although following the August 1991 "putsch," President Yeltsin ordered the seizure of secret Soviet archives and placed them under the authority of the newly created Russian government Committee for Archival Affairs (headed by trusted individuals), that was only the beginning. Years are likely to pass before truly sensitive documents would be declassified and released for study by independent scholars.

Among the especially protected are bound to remain documents that could shed light on motivations behind Soviet external strategy and those dealing with Moscow's relations with foreign communist parties. A public acknowledgement of Stalin's manipulation (or "influencing") of foreign com- munist leaders can provoke new suspicions in the West of Moscow's poten- tial for duplicity and perfidy. Such suspicions, whether well-founded or not, would impair the conduct of Russia's external affairs at a time of its great weakness and its arduous courting of Western goodwill. Several international scandals resulting from leakage of a few "juicy" documents to sensationalist Western periodicals no doubt have increased the archivists' vigilance.

Fortunately, the task of filling historical "blank spots" partially has been served despite the archivists' stonewalling. Some of the participants of great

44 JOURNAL OF NORTHEAST ASIAN STUDIES / WINTER 1991

events of the past began to publish their recollections. General Kovalev ex- plained his breaking of the vow of silence through the interview in the fol- lowing way. "It has always made me angry," he said, "to see how starved for documentation our historical literature has been. Because the archives remain under lock and key, even trusted researchers have a hard time finding what they need among important documents, all stamped 'top secret.' I wish to make my modest contribution to the cause of eliminating such an abnormal situation."

As the reader will discover, Ivan Kovalev's contribution to our knowledge of Stalin's strategy of drawing Chinese communists into the Soviet orbit, and the tactics he used to that end, is anything but modest. Equally valuable is his description of the efforts of the Chinese leaders to assert their independence of action and their ability, on occasion, to bend Stalin's will.

Kovalev's point of vantage was unique. While serving as Stalin's "back channel" to the Chinese leadership for crucial years preceding the proclama- tion of the People's Republic of China and its subsequent involvement in the Korean War, Kovalev was privy to the most sensitive communications be- tween Stalin and Mao. In addition to his sharp memory, he supports his account by references to Stalin's telegrams to Mao, whose copies he has preserved. His testimony is further corroborated by memoirs now appearing in China, such as those written by Mao's personal aide and interpreter of the time, Shi Zhe, who attended all the meetings between top Chinese and Soviet leaders alongside Kovalev and whose memory remained excellent despite, or maybe because of, the seventeen years he had spent in Chinese prison and labor camps. Taken together, reminiscences of these two remarkable men unfold for our benefit all the intricacies of the Sino-Soviet partnership and the complex maneuvering of the major protagonists.

Major credit for arranging Kovalev's interview belongs to a talented young Sinologist, Sergei Goncharov, a senior scholar at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences and a participant in the Woodrow Wilson Center's Cold War History Project. Superbly qualified to ask probing questions, Goncharov assured the historical value of the inter- view, whose original Russian text is appearing in his lnstitute's journal.

Vladimir Petrov