The Sino Soviet Border War Of 1969 Volume 1

The victory of the communists in the Chinese civil war resulted in the formation of a new socialist state in Asia - the People's Republic of China (PRC). The Soviet leadership was the first to recognize the PRC, and subsequently provided China with considerable economic, scientific, and military assistance. After Stalin's death, however, relations between Moscow and Peking began to rapidly deteriorate, the main reasons being the disagreements regarding Stalin's legacy and the principles of co-existence with capitalist states. With the beginning of the so-called 'cultural revolution' in the PRC, these disagreements intensified: the two sides in the ideological conflict accused each other of revisionism, dogmatism and nationalism. Economic failures and social chaos forced the PRC leadership (first and foremost, Mao Zedong personally) to seek a method for divesting itself of the responsibility for what had taken place. As a solution, they organized a military conflict on the border with the Soviet Union - one that was adequate enough to mobilize and rally the people around the PRC leadership, while at the same time insignificant enough in scale to prevent it from escalating into a full-fledged war. On 2 March 1969, a specially prepared Chinese army detachment made a surprise attack on the Soviet border guards who were patrolling the border sector in the area of Damansky Island on the Ussuri River. In the subsequent battle, the dead alone on both sides numbered more than 50. Two weeks later, on 15 March 1969, a much larger battle took place in this same area, in which the two sides used artillery and armored vehicles; the casualties numbered in the hundreds. There were conflicts along the entire Sino-Soviet border - from Primorye to Central Asia - in the following weeks and months. Although smaller in scale than the Damansky events, men still died in them. Shooting on Damansky continued practically into mid-September. On 13 August 1969 there occurred one more large-scale military clash, in the area of Lake Zhalanashkol, after which the political leadership of the USSR and PRC recognised the very real possibility that the border war might escalate into a full-scale war, with the potential use of nuclear weapons. The first volume of this two-part mini-series examines, among other things, the historical and political precursors of the 1969 events, the reaction to them in different countries, and the battle of 2 March 1969. Principal attention is focused on a detailed chronological description of the battle, Soviet and Chinese tactics, and the weapons used. Inasmuch as the present state policies in Russia and China are aimed not only at keeping silent about the 1969 events, but also opposing any attempts to study what happened in detail, the authors have relied on finding veterans of the battles and obtaining from them documentary evidence of those distant events. The authors believe that this study is the most detailed and objective work on the theme of the 1969 Sino-Soviet border war.

The victory of the communists in the Chinese civil war resulted in the formation of a new socialist state in Asia - the People's Republic of China (PRC). The Soviet leadership was the first to recognize the PRC, and subsequently provided China with considerable economic, scientific, and military assistance. After Stalin's death, however, relations between Moscow and Peking began to rapidly deteriorate, the main reasons being the disagreements regarding Stalin's legacy and the principles of co-existence with capitalist states. With the beginning of the so-called 'cultural revolution' in the PRC, these disagreements intensified: the two sides in the ideological conflict accused each other of revisionism, dogmatism and nationalism. Economic failures and social chaos forced the PRC leadership (first and foremost, Mao Zedong personally) to seek a method for divesting itself of the responsibility for what had taken place. As a solution, they organized a military conflict on the border with the Soviet Union - one that was adequate enough to mobilize and rally the people around the PRC leadership, while at the same time insignificant enough in scale to prevent it from escalating into a full-fledged war. On 2 March 1969, a specially prepared Chinese army detachment made a surprise attack on the Soviet border guards who were patrolling the border sector in the area of Damansky Island on the Ussuri River. In the subsequent battle, the dead alone on both sides numbered more than 50. Two weeks later, on 15 March 1969, a much larger battle took place in this same area, in which the two sides used artillery and armored vehicles; the casualties numbered in the hundreds. There were conflicts along the entire Sino-Soviet border - from Primorye to Central Asia - in the following weeks and months. Although smaller in scale than the Damansky events, men still died in them. Shooting on Damansky continued practically into mid-September. On 13 August 1969 there occurred one more large-scale military clash, in the area of Lake Zhalanashkol, after which the political leadership of the USSR and PRC recognised the very real possibility that the border war might escalate into a full-scale war, with the potential use of nuclear weapons. The first volume of this two-part mini-series examines, among other things, the historical and political precursors of the 1969 events, the reaction to them in different countries, and the battle of 2 March 1969. Principal attention is focused on a detailed chronological description of the battle, Soviet and Chinese tactics, and the weapons used. Inasmuch as the present state policies in Russia and China are aimed not only at keeping silent about the 1969 events, but also opposing any attempts to study what happened in detail, the authors have relied on finding veterans of the battles and obtaining from them documentary evidence of those distant events. The authors believe that this study is the most detailed and objective work on the theme of the 1969 Sino-Soviet border war.

In March 1969 the two giants of the Communist world – the People’s Republic of China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics – came to blows over the control of a remote and uninhabited island on their mutual border in a conflict that risked barely controlled escalation, and in which the USSR gave consideration to the use of nuclear weapons. In 2021, Helion & Company published two books by Harold Orenstein and Dmitry Ryabushkin: The Sino-Soviet Border War of 1969 Volume 1: The Border Conflict that almost Sparked a Nuclear War and The Sino-Soviet Border War of 1969 Volume 2: Confrontation at Lake Zhalanashkol August 1969. These volumes relied largely on the Soviet accounts and presented the Soviet perspective on this confrontation. When Brothers Fight: Chinese Eyewitness Accounts of the Sino-Soviet Border Battles 1969 aims to fill the gap with accounts from Chinese veterans who took part in these border wars. The authors have selected two of the best-known incidents of the period, the Battle of Zhenbao (Damansky) Island (March–May 1969) and the Tielieketi (Lake Zhalanashkol) Incident (13 August 1969), as the focus for this book. This is an important episode of the Cold War that deserves greater exposure. This brief war marks a turning point between the two Communist giants and in one way or another, lay the foundation for international politics for the next 50 years. In 1972, China moved towards the US/Western camp by signing the Three Joint Communiqués, normalizing relations between the US and China and establishing a full diplomatic relationship in 1979. When Brothers Fight: Chinese Eyewitness Accounts of the Sino-Soviet Border Battles 1969 is richly illustrated with photographs and artworks from the period of the Sino-Soviet confrontation as well as specially commissioned artworks.

During the 1950s and 60s relations between the USSR and PRC deteriorated to the point that on 2 March 1969, the Chinese army attacked Soviet border guards around Damansky Island, and on 15 March, a much larger battle took place with casualties in the hundreds.

This volume examines the origins and early years of the Cold War in the first comprehensive historical reexamination of the period. A team of leading scholars shows how the conflict evolved from the geopolitical, ideological, economic and sociopolitical environments of the two world wars and interwar period.

A decade after the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China established their formidable alliance in 1950, escalating public disagreements between them broke the international communist movement apart. In The Sino-Soviet Split, Lorenz Lüthi tells the story of this rupture, which became one of the defining events of the Cold War. Identifying the primary role of disputes over Marxist-Leninist ideology, Lüthi traces their devastating impact in sowing conflict between the two nations in the areas of economic development, party relations, and foreign policy. The source of this estrangement was Mao Zedong's ideological radicalization at a time when Soviet leaders, mainly Nikita Khrushchev, became committed to more pragmatic domestic and foreign policies. Using a wide array of archival and documentary sources from three continents, Lüthi presents a richly detailed account of Sino-Soviet political relations in the 1950s and 1960s. He explores how Sino-Soviet relations were linked to Chinese domestic politics and to Mao's struggles with internal political rivals. Furthermore, Lüthi argues, the Sino-Soviet split had far-reaching consequences for the socialist camp and its connections to the nonaligned movement, the global Cold War, and the Vietnam War. The Sino-Soviet Split provides a meticulous and cogent analysis of a major political fallout between two global powers, opening new areas of research for anyone interested in the history of international relations in the socialist world.

The report analyzes the role of the border conflict in overall Sino-Soviet relations. In particular, this study details the two military clashes at Damansky Island in March 1969, examines plausible reasons for their occurrence, and sets them in the context of Soviet and Chinese foreign policy and domestic politics. (Author).