Mao Zedong

=== Split from Soviet Union ===
{{Main|Sino-Soviet split}}
[[File:President Gerald Ford and Daughter Susan Watch as Secretary of State Henry Kissinger Shakes Hands with Mao Tse-Tung.jpg|thumb|U.S. President [[Gerald Ford]] watches as [[Henry Kissinger]] shakes hands with Mao during their visit to China, 2 December 1975]]

On the international front, the period was dominated by the further isolation of China. The [[Sino-Soviet split]] resulted in [[Nikita Khrushchev]]'s withdrawal of all Soviet technical experts and aid from the country. The split concerned the leadership of [[world communism]]. The USSR had a network of Communist parties it supported; China now created its own rival network to battle it out for local control of the left in numerous countries.<ref>{{Cite journal |jstor=20029719 |title=Sino-Soviet Competition in Africa |journal=[[Foreign Affairs]] |volume=42 |issue=4 |pages=640–654 |last1=Scalapino |first1=Robert A. |year=1964 |doi=10.2307/20029719}}</ref> Lorenz M. Lüthi writes: "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 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."<ref>{{cite book |first=Lorenz M. |last=Lüthi |title=The Sino-Soviet Split: Cold War in the Communist World |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dl4TRDxqexMC |year=2010 |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |page=1 |isbn=978-1400837625 |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref>

The split resulted from Khrushchev's more moderate Soviet leadership after the death of Stalin in March 1953. Only Albania openly sided with China, thereby forming an alliance between the two countries which would last until after Mao's death in 1976. Warned that the Soviets had nuclear weapons, Mao minimised the threat. Becker says that "Mao believed that the bomb was a 'paper tiger', declaring to Khrushchev that it would not matter if China lost 300 million people in a nuclear war: the other half of the population would survive to ensure victory".<ref>{{cite book |first=Jasper |last=Becker |title=The Chinese |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oyGtw4cXJjMC&pg=PA271 |year=2002 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |page=271 |isbn=978-0199727223 |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref> Struggle against Soviet revisionism and U.S. imperialism was an important aspect of Mao's attempt to direct the revolution in the right direction.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Garver |first=John W. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0_OuCgAAQBAJ |title=China's Quest: The History of the Foreign Relations of the People's Republic of China |date=2016 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=978-0190261054 |pages=132 |language=en |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref>

In the late 1950s, Mao wrote reading notes responding to the Soviet Book ''Political Economy: A Textbook'' and essays (''[[A Critique of Soviet Economics]]'') responding to Stalin's ''[[Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR]].<ref name=":322">{{Cite book |last=Hammond |first=Ken |title=China's Revolution and the Quest for a Socialist Future |publisher=1804 Books |year=2023 |isbn=9781736850084 |location=New York, NY |pages=}}</ref>''{{Rp|page=51}} These texts reflect Mao's views that the USSR was becoming alienated from the masses and distorting socialist development.<ref name=":322" />{{Rp|page=51}}

According to historian Mingjiang Li, Mao deliberately escalated Sino-Soviet diplomatic tensions as part of his attempt to reassert his domestic political power and limit that of his rivals by showcasing his commitment to revolution and his hardline stance against what he deemed Soviet revisionism.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Li |first1=Mingjiang |date=27 October 2010 |title=Ideological dilemma: Mao's China and the Sino-Soviet split, 1962–63 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14682745.2010.498822 |journal=[[Cold War History (journal)|Cold War History]] |volume=11 |issue=3 |pages=387–419 |doi=10.1080/14682745.2010.498822 |s2cid=153617754 |access-date=12 February 2023}}</ref>