An Analysis of the Soviet Union's China Policy on the Eve of the Founding of the PRC ——A Case Study of the Withdrawal of the Soviet Embassy from Nanjing to Guangzhou

In January and February 1949, when the Chinese revolution was on the cusp of total victory, to people's astonishment the Soviet Union withdrew its embassy in China from Nanjing to Guangzhou when the KMT government fled there. For some time scholars have been intensely interested in the true intentions behind the shift of the Soviet embassy; the withdrawal has also formed the basis for claims that the Soviet Union and Stalin were skeptical of the Chinese revolution. The Soviet Union's withdrawal of its embassy was the inevitable result of its dual-track China policy, not merely an error of judgment in the Soviet's assessment of the Chinese revolution. On the contrary, when ideology (or revolutionary interests) clashed with national interests, the Soviet U-nion put its own national interests first. Withdrawing the embassy suited the Soviet Union's national interests-protecting the Soviet Union's political and economic interests in China to the maximum extent possible. Objectively, the withdrawal of the Soviet embassy from Nanjing to Guangzhou did, as a diplomatic maneuver, protect Soviet national interests. But in terms of the shared revolutionary interests of the Soviet Communist Party and Chinese Communist Party, it was clearly inappropriate.