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have much to lose by allying itself too closely with the Chinese Communists.: 23
An at least temporary truce along the Yangzi, while Moscow and Washington talked about China's future, would serve Soviet purposes well. A truce resulting from international negotiations would take some of the heat out of East-West confrontation after the Berlin crisis and could even give the Soviet Union a permanent say in Chinese affairs. Such a truce would enable the Soviet Union

     

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to train and equip the Chinese Communists who in Moscow's view were poorly prepared to govern a large country while they were still alive to Soviet experience and not, like the Yugoslavs, too dazzled by their own success to take Moscow' s advice.
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Stalin's attempts to promote international negotiations over China's future in January 1949 was received coldly by Mao Zedong. Moscow's approach, Mao said, would "make the United States, England and France assume that participating in mediation is an appropriate thing, and give the Guomindang a pretext for scolding us as warlike elements." The CCP leader accused Stalin's policy of "exact fulfillment of the U.S. government's wishes" with regard to China and claimed that such a policy would "bring much dissent among the people of China, the democratic parties and popular organizations, and even within the CCP, and would be very damaging for our current position." 25
In spite of the quarrel which ended with Stalin acquiescing to Chinese demands and refusing to participate in mediation Mao remained convinced that a close alliance with the Soviet Union was the supreme foreign policy aim of his government-to-be. First and foremost, Mao argued, "we shall need economic assistance. We believe it possible only to receive this assistance from the USSR and countries of the new democracy." 26 The new CCP government also needed a large number of Soviet experts to give advice on how to gradually build a socialist society and a state directed by the party. Last, China needed security. Only an alliance with Moscow could provide the new revolutionary regime with the protection it needed from attacks by the United States, its ally Japan, and anti-Communist forces in China.
Mao's meetings with Soviet Politburo member Anastas Mikoyan in January/February 1949 in Xibaipo constituted the first step on the road to a formal alliance. Mikoyan's report to Stalin seems to have opened the way for an increased Soviet interest in dealing with the CCP as a partner. Soviet assistance grew in many vital areas, including heavy weapons, railway repairs, and money. Mao felt that it was time for him finally to go to Moscow three Chinese suggestions for him to be Stalin's guest had been turned down by the hosts in 1947-1948 on grounds ranging from the urgency of the military situation in China to the Soviet grain harvest. But even after reading Mikoyan's report, Stalin was worried about inviting the unbiddable Mao to Moscow. The Soviets instead agreed to ask Liu Shaoqi, Mao's second in command, to visit in the summer of 1949.
The meetings in Moscow between June 26 and August 14, 1949 in which Liu, Gao Gang, and Wang Jiaxiang were the main participants on the CCP side, primarily meeting with Stalin, CCP-Soviet Molotov, and Mikoyan were breakthroughs for cooperation. Liu Shaoqi temperamentally and politically

     

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more well tuned to Soviet socialist models than his boss in Beijing managed to instill in the Moscow leadership some confidence in the Chinese wish for a close but subservient relationship with the CPSU. In his report to Stalin, Liu stressed that:
the Soviet Communist Party is the main headquarters of the international Communist movement, while the Chinese Communist Party is just a battle-front headquarters. The interests of a part should be subordinated to international interests and, therefore, the CCP submits to decisions of the Soviet Communist Party. . . . If on some questions differences should arise between the