Cold War Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ===Sino-Soviet split=== {{Main|Sino-Soviet split}} [[File:Soviet empire 1960.png|thumb|Map showing greatest territorial extent of the Soviet Union and the states that it dominated politically, economically and militarily in 1960, after the [[Cuban Revolution]] of 1959 but before the official [[Sino-Soviet split]] of 1961 (total area: c. 35,000,000 km<sup>2</sup>){{Efn-ua|{{convert|34374483|km2}}.}}]] [[File:Sino-Soviet split 1980.svg|thumb|upright=1.25|A map showing the relations of [[Communist state|Marxist–Leninist state]]s after the Sino-Soviet split of 1980: {{legend|#dd0000|The USSR and pro-Soviet socialist states}} {{legend|#FCC200|China and pro-Chinese socialist states}} {{legend|#000000|Neutral socialist states ([[North Korea]] and [[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|Yugoslavia]])}} {{legend|#e0e0e0|Non-socialist states}}]] After 1956, the Sino-Soviet alliance began to break down. Mao had defended Stalin when Khrushchev criticized him in 1956 and treated the new Soviet leader as a superficial upstart, accusing him of having lost his revolutionary edge.{{sfn|Gaddis|2005|p=142}} For his part, Khrushchev, disturbed by Mao's glib attitude toward nuclear war, referred to the Chinese leader as a "lunatic on a throne".{{sfn|Kempe|2011|p=42}} After this, Khrushchev made many desperate attempts to reconstitute the Sino-Soviet alliance, but Mao considered it useless and denied any proposal.{{sfn|Gaddis|2005|p=142}} The Chinese-Soviet animosity spilled out in an intra-communist propaganda war.{{sfn|Lüthi|2010|pp=273–276}} Further on, the Soviets focused on a bitter rivalry with Mao's China for leadership of the global communist movement.{{sfn|Gaddis|2005|pp=140–142}} Historian Lorenz M. Lüthi argues: :The Sino-Soviet split was one of the key events of the Cold War, equal in importance to the construction of the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Second Vietnam War, and [[China–United States relations#Rapprochement|Sino-American rapprochement]]. The split helped to determine the framework of the [[Second Cold War]] in general, and influenced the course of the Second Vietnam War in particular.{{sfn|Lüthi|2010|p=1}} Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page