Mao Zedong's First Visit to Russia. From the History of the Formation of Cooperation Between the USSR and China

Abstract

The article is devoted to the history of Mao Zedong's visit to the Soviet Union in late 1949 — early 1950. To date, this visit remains insufficiently studied, and there are differences in the content approaches and assessments of this event in Russian and Chinese historiography. The importance of this event was due to the fact that Mao Zedong's trip to Moscow at the end of 1949 was not only the first visit by the leader of the People's Republic of China to the Soviet Union, but also his first trip abroad. The research focuses on an important but least studied component of Mao Zedong's visit to the USSR — his visits to major Russian cities, acquaintance with enterprises of the Urals and Siberia, various institutions and organizations, meetings with local authorities and representatives of the public. The research is based on written and visual sources of personal origin, both of Russian and Chinese origin, periodical press materials and office documents. The visit of the Chinese delegation led by Mao Zedong to the cities of the Urals, Siberia and the Manchuria border station became an important factor in the development of successful and fruitful cooperation between the USSR and China in the 1950s.