It seemed at the time that the USSR, while relinquishing many tactical advantages, was gaining a critical global edge. The country with the planet’s largest population now belonged to the Soviet bloc. China had become the gravitational center and a source of real assistance for the many movements throughout Asia opposing Western influence in the region. The idea that the USSR was surrounded by capitalist countries—an enduring theme of Soviet propaganda—had been turned on its head. One could now talk about socialist encirclement of the Western world.
Immediately after signing the treaties, Stalin again showed his respect for the new Chinese leaders by attending a reception held by the Chinese embassy at the Metropol Hotel that same day, 14 February. According to Stalin’s interpreter, Nikolai Fedorenko, the choice of where to hold the reception was a source of disagreement between Stalin and Mao. The Soviet leader proposed the Kremlin, but Mao preferred, as a matter of prestige, to hold it elsewhere. “The Kremlin,” he explained, “is a place for state receptions by the Soviet government. Our country, a sovereign state, finds this unsuitable.” Stalin responded that he could not attend such a reception: “I never attend receptions at restaurants or foreign embassies. Never.” Mao insisted. After a conspicuous pause, throughout which Mao kept his intent gaze on the Soviet leader, Stalin relented: “Fine, Comrade Mao Zedong, I’ll come if you want me to so much.”86 A standard invitation in the name of the Chinese ambassador to the USSR, handwritten, arrived requesting the presence of Generalissimo Stalin and his wife (the invitation of whom may have reflected diplomatic protocol but more likely showed that the Chinese knew nothing about Stalin’s personal life). The attire: dress uniforms with medals.87
Stalin’s appearance was the highlight of the reception. He was late, and as Fedorenko describes it, an aura of anticipation hung over the banquet hall as everyone whispered the same question: Would he show up? He was greeted, Fedorenko wrote, “with loud applause and noisy exclamations of delight.” Stalin stopped, paused, and then headed toward Mao. A round of toasts began. “Everyone who spoke, and not only they, kept their eyes on the two figures standing side by side and occasionally engaging one another in conversation.” After lengthy and tiresome toasts and ovations, Stalin made a gesture. Once the room settled into silence, he pronounced a toast to Mao and the success of the People’s Republic of China. All drained their glasses in synchrony. “There was another burst of applause, enthusiastic exclamations, and general rejoicing.”88
On 16 February Stalin hosted a farewell luncheon in honor of the Chinese. The following day the delegation set off for Beijing by train. The heyday of “Sino-Soviet friendship” had begun. With the support of the USSR, China repaired its economy and built hundreds of new factories in its most important sectors. The Korean War, which began shortly after Mao Zedong’s visit, strengthened the bond between the two regimes, especially its military component. Beneath the surface, however, was the tension that had already manifested itself during Mao’s visit. Proclamations of common ideological objectives and unity against a common enemy could not hide differences rooted in diverging national interests. The coming to power of the Chinese Communists was just the beginning of a complicated relationship in which both states pretended to the role of leadership of the international Communist movement. The principles Stalin established to guide his relationship with his vast neighbor to the east would work only so long as the Chinese leadership felt dependent on Soviet aid and support. Like much else that Stalin left to his heirs, these principles would not be viable for long.
The Communist victory in China coincided with another important development. In late August 1949, having devoted tremendous resources to developing a nuclear capability, the Soviet Union conducted its first test of an atom bomb.89 With the success of this test, the Stalinist system showed that it was ready to do whatever it took to achieve high-priority military objectives. Lavrenty Beria was put in charge of the atom bomb project, a telling choice given his reputation for ruthlessness and decisiveness. He must have known that failure at this high-priority task could have brought his career—even his life—to a sudden end. Later, after Stalin’s death, he recalled that he left for the test site in Kazakhstan “in a dejected mood.”90 Soon, however, he was able to breathe a sigh of relief.
Possession of an atom bomb, despite its tremendous significance for the Soviet Union’s stature as a military power, is unlikely to have gone to Stalin’s head. He probably took sober account of both the relatively limited options for using such a weapon and the real balance of power in the world. The Western powers had shown decisiveness in opposing the Soviet bloc and building up their already impressive military potential. Stalin could not rely on force alone. In the realm of foreign policy (much more than domestic policy), he exercised caution and pragmatism. Over several years the situation in Korea, the site of the first “hot” war between the Western and Communist blocs, offered examples of Stalin’s approach.
After the defeat of Japan in 1945, Korea was partitioned along the 38th parallel. North of the parallel, the Japanese surrendered to Soviet troops, and in the south, to the United States. As in Europe, a pro-Soviet government was established in the Soviet-occupied zone and a pro-Western one in the U.S.-occupied zone. The starting point for this process was the installation of puppet regimes by each side. The Americans put in power a seventy-year-old professor named Syngman Rhee, who had spent thirty-three years in exile in the United States, where he received his education. In the North, Moscow installed a thirty-three-year-old Red Army officer, Kim Il Sung.
Several years after the capitulation of Japan, Korea was far from calm. Small military clashes and saber rattling were a part of everyday life. Both sides were coming to the conclusion that the only path to reuniting Korea was through war—a war kept at bay only by the presence of American and Soviet troops. Fearing a direct confrontation, Stalin and the American leaders preferred to tread with caution. Stalin’s approach was summed up in instructions he gave to Soviet representatives in North Korea in May 1947: “We should not meddle too deeply in Korean affairs.”91 In late 1948 Soviet troops left the country, and the United States began to withdraw its contingent the following summer.
The North Korean leaders saw the American departure as opening the door to military action, but in the fall of 1949 Stalin was still rejecting their insistent requests to sanction an armed offensive against the South. In early 1950, with the victory of Mao Zedong in China and the return home of North Korean units that had fought alongside the Chinese Communists, the situation began to change. Kim Il Sung hoped that the Chinese might offer the Korean Communists reciprocal assistance. He intensified pressure on Moscow, hinting at the possibility of a reorientation toward China.92 Stalin was confronted with a convoluted web of arguments for and against war that historians are still trying to sort out today.