Communist Leaders Research Articles

Learning from Experience: Moscow’s Changing Approaches to ‘Third World’ Revolution

Starting in the 1950s, the Soviet Union, the United States, and China began to compete for the allegiance of the (emerging) post-colonial world. But which newly independent countries were ready for socialism? What paths should aspiring socialist leaders follow? How much room did they need to make for religion, nationalism, or even the market? And how did the USSR go about figuring out whom to support, what to advise, and when to cut its losses? The latter question occupied observers of the USSR during the Cold War era, and, over the last twenty years, many historians who have produced case studies and a few larger, synthetic works. Jeremy Friedman’s Ripe for Revolution: Building Socialism in the Third World, is an important and highly original entry into this discussion. Using well-chosen “episodes of a larger engagement between socialist powers and developing states,” Friedman analyzes the experiences of five revolutionary movements that were supported by Moscow, Beijing, or both (13). Chapter 1 traces the USSR’s support for Indonesia and its involvement with that country’s Communist Party (KPI). Indonesia was one of Nikita Khrushchev’s first targets when he decided to revive the Soviet commitment to anti-colonialism. Moscow’s relationship with Indonesian President Sukarno led it to support his elimination of a parliamentary system in favor of “Guided Democracy.” As Friedman shows, the Soviet involvement with Indonesia also forced Soviet scholars and policymakers to think more seriously about the role of religion (Islam proved to be a powerful mobilizing force not just among the bourgeoisie but also the peasantry and working class), and how to guide a popular communist party which was nevertheless locked out of power, and which refused to follow the Soviet line. Friedman sees the ties between the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and socialist parties in decolonizing countries as neither a patron-client relationship nor an alliance between equals but a “franchise system, in which the local communist leaders were basically licensed to operate the local franchise of the international communist movement, while headquarters in Moscow looked after the interests of the brand as a whole” (74).

The question of national identity and the immigration of Kosovo Muslims to Turkey during the Yugoslav communist regime

ABSTRACT This paper attempts to answer some questions about the Yugoslav communist regime's identity policy in Kosovo: did the authorities encourage Turkification of Albanians or Albanisation of Turks, and how was the issue of Turkish emigration from Yugoslavia to Turkey handled in the 1950s? Answers to these questions may also prove useful in discussing the question of the determinants of the nationality policy of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito. The study is based on the analysis of state documents kept in different archives in Belgrade, Pristina, and Tirana, and the relevant literature in Serbian, Albanian, Turkish, and English. It is my contention that the Turkish minority in Kosovo was in the first post-war years denied the recognition of its national identity and minority rights, and that its status largely depended on the Yugoslav communist leadership's strategy of subordinating Yugoslavia's national interests to the particular interests of the six federal and two autonomous units into which it was divided. I argue that the Yugoslav government implemented different policies regarding emigration to Turkey in Kosovo and Macedonia and that it sought to halt the emigration of Kosovo Albanians, as evidenced by available data.

CONTRIBUŢII DOCUMENTARE REFERITOARE LA CONSTRUIREA ŞI FUNCȚIONAREA CATEDRALEI ORTODOXE „SF. IERARH NICOLAE” ȘI „SF. MARE MUCENIC GHEORGHE”, DIN MUNICIPIUL SF. GHEORGHE, JUD. COVASNA, ÎN TIMPUL REGIMULUI COMUNIST (1945–1983)

Capitalizing on the documents from the secular and church archives, the present article presents an almost unique case, namely an Orthodox church built, but unfinished, in the city of Sfântu Gheorghe, Covasna county, a city with a majority ethnic Hungarian population. It resisted the pressures of the Horthyst and Communist regimes, and thus in 1983, 45 years after the foundation stone was laid, it was completed, with the approval of the local and central Communist leaders.

Xi Jinping's Pursuit of Absolute Security

Xi Jinping's Pursuit of Absolute Security Xia Ming (bio) On October 22, 2022, the Twentieth National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) concluded with an endorsement to Xi Jinping's third term. It shattered the key legacy of Deng Xiaoping on political reform, namely the abolition of lifelong tenure for leading cadres in 1980. Under Xi's watch, a constitutional coup was completed. It started with its 2013 "top-down design" symbolizing a "superstructural" reaction against the dynamic economic base, followed by the creation of the Central National Security Commission (CNSC, established in January 2014) and the revision of the state constitution to remove the term limit for the state president and vice-president. At the crowning moment of the Twentieth Party Congress, Xi had snatched all important powers into his hand and extended his dictatorship into an indefinite future, from the Chairman of Everything to the Chairman of Everything Forever. The public humiliation of his predecessor Hu Jintao who dutifully handed all his power to Xi can be viewed symbolically as Napoleon's coronation: Instead of being bestowed the crown by the Pope, Napoleon crowned himself. However, this dramatic change of course in China's political development was not without strong headwinds. While taking up the mantle, Xi inherited a flagging economy: in 2012, China's gross domestic product (GDP) growth dropped below 8 percent, henceforth, it has been on the skid. Considering under the Market-Leninism, the legitimacy of the communist rule relied heavily upon its economic performance, Xi's dismal track record on the economy, especially both the 2015 stock market crash in China and the 2017 trade war with Trump, could undermine Xi's power base. But what explained his reversal of fortune when he triumphed in a "winner-takes-all" manner and assembled a team filled with all his yes-men? In this essay, I would like to propose an explanation: through the top-down institutional design, Xi and his proteges had successfully [End Page 331] engineered a paradigm shift in Chinese governance, namely, a developmental state metamorphosizing into a security state. Security takes precedence over everything. The Twentieth Party Congress Political Report conspicuously highlighted this new mantra: "security" appeared 91 times ("national security" 29 times), and "stability," another code word for strong-handed statism in the Communist jargon, appeared 20 times. "Security" replaced "growth"; "Struggle" (22 times) diluted "reform." The goal of Xi's envisioned national security system is to "build a comprehensive, well-linked and interactive, three-dimensional and efficient national security protection system." It has the following features. Security Is Comprehensive Xi's comprehensive understanding of security has encompassed food, energy, supply chain, cyberspace, political ideology, regime, and overseas Chinese interests. The last category should be considered with the principle of jus sanguinis in China's nationality law; therefore, overseas Chinese could be the target of long-armed transnational law enforcement. For example, although the Hong Kong publisher Gui Minhai had been naturalized into Swedish citizenship, he was captured in Thailand and later transferred back to China for a trial for publishing a book entitled Xi Jinping and His Seven Lovers. In 2020 he was sentenced to 10 years in jail without being granted any consular service from Sweden. Xi's regime has asserted its sovereignty over the Internet; therefore, it does deem any critical speeches and oppositional activities outside of China as subversive to its national security, which can automatically apply its domestic security law and criminal law. Security Is Indivisible Since Deng set China's foreign policy to "hide the light and bide the time," China had kept a low profile to avoid taking a leadership role or confronting the United States in a major crisis. In 2010, then state councilor Dai Bingguo outlined a defensive nationalism by focusing on China's three core national interests: stability of Communist leadership and socialist system; sovereignty, territorial integrity, and national unification; and sustainable economic growth. Entering Xi's era, China has become more aggressive, and its core national interests have expanded [End Page 332] omnidirectionally and are more explicit. In particular, any criticism of the Communist regime and its leaders (Xi is the inviolable one...

BERLINGUER: THE ITALIAN COMMUNIST AND HIS AGE. ON THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTHDAY

The article examines the personality of the leader of the Italian Communist Party Enrico Berlinguer through the prism of his formation as a communist leader, theorist and practitioner of the communist movement. The authors analyze the four most important stages in the activities of the head of the PCI. The first of these is connected with the development of a special position of the PCI in relation to the CPSU and Soviet actions in Eastern Europe; the second is due to the development of the strategy of «Eurocommunism»; the third is related to the development and implementation of the concept of «historical compromise»; the fourth is characterized by the raising of a «moral question». The authors argue that Berlinguer continued the strategic line of the founders of the ICP A. Gramsci, P. Togliatti to develop the concept of a special «Italian path to socialism». The authors consider the discussions in Italy in connection with the assessment of Berlinguer's heritage. In their opinion, the theoretical legacy and practical actions of Berlinguer played an important role in the democratic transformation of the Communist Party and in the strengthening of democratic institutions in Italy.

Degrees of Difficulty: How Women's Gymnastics Rose to Prominence and Fell from Grace by Georgia Cervin

<i>Degrees of Difficulty: How Women's Gymnastics Rose to Prominence and Fell from Grace</i> by Georgia Cervin

Nepali Communist and Their Internalized Cultural Values

The communist political leadership in Nepal is the subject of this article, which focuses on their ideology and practices. Despite the fact that they identify as communists and support ideal political systems that feature equality, freedom, citizenry, the rule of the working class, and universal human rights, their internalized cultural values are centered on the hegemonic domination of one cultural group, gender, kinship, religion, area, and also serve the interests of power and wealth. The main features of communist political leadership are factionalism, opportunism, anarchy, individualism, petty bourgeoisie egoism, ultra leftism, double roles like right and leftist, reactionary and revisionist, as well as double roles like right and left. They declared themselves to be radical anarchist individualists who supported the monarchy in addition to adhering to Marxist, Leninist, and Maoist ideologies. The paper's foundation for this is scientific work in the areas of anthropology, sociology, political science, history, and other subjects by authors from Nepal and abroad. This study's major objective is to close the gap between communist leadership theory and practice in Nepal. Which of their internalized traditional cultural ideas have an impact on their leadership responsibilities? In order to analyze social scientists who are based on the communist leadership of Nepal and other nations, the paper uses empirical research with a primary focus on the study.

Ballet diplomacy: Political agency in the Japanese adaptation ofThe White-Haired Girl

AbstractThis article presents a sociological study of the various agents involved in the production, circulation and reception of a 1955 Japanese ballet adapted from the Chinese Communist opera The White-Haired Girl (1945). The ballet served as an effective means of unofficial diplomacy between China and Japan, even prior to normalisation of bilateral relations between the two countries. Apart from the expected agents, such as translators and theatre practitioners, this case study also reveals the role of some extraordinary agents, including Chinese Communist leaders, such as Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, and senior Japanese political figures and institutions. Saturation with political agency renders the Japanese adaptation into a text consumed mostly by audiences from the source culture. The artistic life of the ballet, which was sustained by political needs, demonstrates how fundamental political factors are to research on translation in authoritarian contexts and amid geopolitical tensions.

The Red Thread: The Passaic Textile Strike

The Red Thread: The Passaic Textile Strike

Profils du concept de Pologne dans la revue Polska en 1968. Étude des textes de propagande extérieure à destination des lecteurs du premier, du second et du tiers monde

This paper examines the profiles of the concept of Poland based on a corpus of foreign propaganda texts published in French and Slovak in 1968. The texts analysed come from three magazines: La Pologne, Polsko and La Revue Polonaise, created by political decision of the communist leaders to disseminate a positive image of Poland abroad. The purpose of this study is to test the hypothesis that the three profiles of the concept of Poland, aimed at first, second and third-world audiences, are different from each other due to differences motivated by extra-linguistic factors, and in particular, the various objectives of the country’s foreign policy. The study is inspired by the work of the Lublin School of Ethnolinguistics on the linguistic representation of reality. Its methods make it possible to identify variants of the representation of an object through the examination of textual data, such as the ways of naming it, the semantic relations of synonymy and antonymy, or the series of its aspects mobilised in the discourse.

‘For peace and defence of the Soviet Union’: the leadership of British Communism in the Popular Front era, 1935–1939

ABSTRACT This prosopographical investigation of the Central Committee (CC) of the British Communist Party during the Popular Front era analyses the origins, occupations, political careers and destinations of the 47 Communists who served on the CC in these years. The transition from Third Period leftism to class collaboration found minimal reflection in the characteristics of the Communist leadership, which remained in line with those of the preceding cohort. The Popular Front group was slightly older, the percentage of women declined and attention to the middle class saw only marginal increase in the numbers that experienced higher education. There were more Scots, fewer English while turnover remained high. ‘Debutantes’ were younger and relatively raw compared with the ‘Continuation Group’ − 40% of newcomers had joined the CPGB during the Third Period. However, a ‘core’ whose CC service stretched back to the early 1920s and a ‘core of the core’ who endured into the 1950s ensured continuity. The integration of CC members into the party bureaucracy observed in earlier years was maintained: 75% of CC representatives occupied full-time posts. Previous articles provided life histories of the ‘Continuation Group’; the biographical focus here is on the ‘Debutantes’. But the majority of committee members were ‘practical’ working-class activists. Executors of policy, in the end they left theory and strategy to the Comintern and the Soviet elite.

Why Has Marxism-Leninism Succeeded in Cuba?

Many dismiss Marxism-Leninism as an obsolete and discredited doctrine, one that died with the collapse of Soviet communism. Nevertheless, Marxism-Leninism lives on in Cuba, where the Communist Party is using it to guide the Revolution and construction of socialism. This raises the question: why has Marxism-Leninism succeeded in Cuba? This article identifies four reasons. First, and most importantly, Marxism is compatible with the Cuban revolutionary tradition, as exemplified in the legacy of José Martí. Second, Marxism is a scientific theory, one that offers a truthful insight into the causes and solutions to Cuba’s social problems. Third, Marxism has remained compatible with Cuba’s national conditions, even as they have changed over time. Fourth, Cuba’s communist leaders have developed and enriched Marxism, thereby achieving its successful Cubanisation. Together, the success of the Cuban Revolution and the development of Cuban socialism demonstrate the contemporary vitality, achievements, and significance of Marxism-Leninism.

New Turkey and Soviet Russia: First Contacts (Historical Perspective)

The first years of the establishment of the Republic of Turkey remain in the focus of attention of both Turkish and Russian historians. The introduction of new documents into circulation makes it possible to reveal in more detail some well-known and little-known aspects of the first contacts between the new Turkey and Soviet Russia. Special attention is paid to the issues related to the signing of the Moscow Treaty of 1921, which has served as a solid basis for cooperation between the two countries to this day. Aspects of the relationship between some communist leaders in Russia and the leaders of the Young Turk movement are also noteworthy. In addition, it is of interest to analyze the views of the leaders of the Soviet state regarding the prospects for cooperation between Soviet Russia and the new Turkey.

The Formation of the “United Front” Policy of the Comintern and Soviet Foreign Policy of 1921–1922

The author examines the policies of the Comintern in the context of the Soviet foreign policy in 1921–1922. He demonstrates that the dynamics of the former was not directly tied to the course of the latter and the turn to the NEP in March 1921. The Comintern had its own internal logic of development. With its help the communist leadership could manoeuvre between a more radical probing of the readiness of the capitalist world for a new wave of revolutionary destabilisation or a moderate policy of prolonged “siege” of capitalism, which involved rapprochement with social democracy under the banner of a “united workers&amp;apos; front”. By early 1922, following sharp discussions on the eve and during the Third Congress of the Comintern, its policies were gradually synchronised with the foreign policy course of Soviet Russia, which allowed rapprochement with West European Social Democracy to be exploited in Soviet foreign interests. However, there was little diplomatic gain from this, and after the failure of the Genoa Conference the Comintern continued to pursue a “united front” policy, no longer directly linked to the objectives of the People&amp;apos;s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, but as the basis of the Communist strategy for the struggle to ascend to power in Western Europe. At the same time, both in negotiations with the Social Democrats and in planning at the Fourth Congress of the Comintern, the Communists prioritised their monopoly on power, regarding the policy of alliances and concessions as tactical and temporary, rejecting the “political NEP” and the pluralist model of multiparty democratic socialism.

Yaroslav Salat-Petrlik: Czech Communist internationalist and Soviet Party functionary

Based on the documents from Russian archives, the article considers Yaroslav Salat-Petrlik’s participation in the revolutionary events in Russia in 1917–1918, especially in the establishment of Soviet authority in Zadonsk in Voronezh province. Significant attention is paid to the activities of Salat in Moscow as a secretary of the Central Executive Committee of the Czechoslovak Communist Group and as a chairman of the Central Czechoslovak Bureau of Agitation and Propaganda. The author also analyzes his underground revolutionary activities in 1919–1920 in Czechoslovakia and his work in the Comintern. The author points out the reasons that caused Czechoslovak communist leaders and Soviet diplomats in Prague to criticize Salat’s activities. As a result, he had to stay in the USSR at party work. In 1922–1936 he headed the Soviet party educational institutions in the North Caucasus, the Volga region and Central Asia. In these regions, Salat also led the agitation and propaganda work of the Communist Party. He always followed Stalin’s political line in everything, took an active part in the fight against Trotskyism and later the “Trotskyist-Zinoviev bloc”. However, it did not save him from the arrest in 1936.

Proces w Sarajewie w 1983 roku na tle sytuacji politycznej i społecznej Jugosławii lat 80. XX wieku

The 1983 Sarajevo Trial and the socio-political situation in Yugoslavia of the 1980s The text presents the trial of the Muslim intellectuals that took place in Sarajevo in 1983. They were put on trial due to the political pressure of the League of Communists of Bosnia and Herzegovina and then sentenced to harsh and long imprisonment. The article presents activity of the sentenced intellectuals, social attitudes of the republic’s citizens, and general decay among the communist leaders of Bosnia and Herzegovina, widely considered to be the most dogmatic in comparison to the other Yugoslav republics.

Alonso S. Perales: Pioneer of Mexican-American Civil Rights by Cynthia Orozco

Reviewed by: Alonso S. Perales: Pioneer of Mexican-American Civil Rights by Cynthia Orozco Katherine Bynum Alonso S. Perales: Pioneer of Mexican-American Civil Rights. By Cynthia Orozco. (Houston: Arte Público Press, 2022. Pp. 537. Notes, selected bibliography.) Scholarship on the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) has generally focused on the organization’s assault on school desegregation cases and the landmark Hernandez v. Texas Supreme Court decision in 1954. Chicana/o historians have either ignored or denigrated the work of Alonso S. Perales, who was not only the founder of LULAC, but also a lawyer, public intellectual, Pan-American ideologue, and a United States diplomat. Cynthia Orozco’s biography of Perales argues that the Mexican American civil rights activist was one of the most important figures [End Page 409] in Texas throughout the twentieth century. By embracing “Mexican Americanism” as early as the 1920s—well before Mexicanas/os began using the term—“the Mexican-American male middle class of the 1920s of which Perales was a major leader” was “the first truly bilingual, bicultural sector . . . which consciously asserted citizenship and membership in the United States” (xxxi). The book builds on the author’s previous publication No Mexicans, Women, or Dogs Allowed (University of Texas Press, 2009), in which she argues that LULAC was more diverse than the assimilationist, conservative, and anti-immigrant tropes long associated with it. Being born in 1898 to poor Mexican immigrants in South Texas—an area rife with anti-Mexican racism—did not prevent Perales from ascending the socioeconomic ladder throughout his life. He worked hard, entered the middle class through his education and profession as a lawyer, and always kept Mexican Americans, regardless of class, at the forefront of his civil rights organizing. Orozco credits Perales with keeping LULAC alive throughout the Great Depression and managing to help working-class Mexican Americans benefit from defense industry jobs with the Fair Employment Practices Committee. He also later prevented braceros from Mexico from working in small towns in South Texas because of widespread racism. Perales built relationships with other Mexican American political leaders, notably Henry B. González and Albert Peña from San Antonio and United States Senator Dennis Chávez from New Mexico. Orozco argues that Perales embraced candidates who worked to uplift La Raza (the people). She also details the numerous political positions in which he served at city, state, national, and international levels. Although the book is well researched, Orozco is overly apologetic for many of Perales’s shortcomings. He was a proud supporter of ultraconservative politicians like Representative Martin Dies (founder of the House Un-American Activities Committee) and Governor Allan Shivers, both of whom disguised their bigotry against Black and Mexican residents in the name of anti-communism. Perales was an ardent anti-Communist and only supported the San Antonio Pecan Shellers Strike in 1937 once its Communist leadership stepped away from the movement. Racism prevented him from supporting unionization or working in solidarity with Black activists. Furthermore, Orozco ignores the fact that Perales was a light-skinned Mexican American, and although he may have embraced La Raza, he ascended into the middle-class because of his privileged connection to whiteness, not just because of his ability to work hard for an education. Orozco criticizes Perales for his emphasis on homosocial spaces that separated Mexican women into LULAC auxiliary chapters, but the author had previously detailed this thoroughly in No Mexicans, Women, or Dogs Allowed. Her chapter on his time as a United States diplomat to several Latin American countries is where she is most critical in this volume. [End Page 410] Orozco reveals that he often followed orders and never spoke out in favor of democratic movements in Latin America, more than likely because they involved leftist politics. Altogether, the biography reveals that Alonso Perales dedicated his life to a limited civil rights cause, often at the expense of others. Katherine Bynum Arizona State University Copyright © 2022 The Texas State Historical Association

An Occasional Amnesty. How the Siberian Bolsheviks Granted Amnesty to Kolchak Ministers

The article analyses the history of the amnesty granted by the Bolsheviks in 1921–1923 to nine Kolchak ministers led by P. I. Preobrazhensky, G. A. Krasnov, A. A. Gratsianov and N. Ya. Novombergsky, prominent figures of the anti-Bolshevik governments, convicted by the Extraordinary Siberian Revolutionary Tribunal at the open trial in Omsk on 20–30 May, 1920. Based on a wide range of archival sources, the authors have reconstructed the entire pardon process, from the improvements in conditions of detention to the official decision of the VTsIK. Amnesty is considered as a political tool of the Soviet power, which allowed the communist leadership of the country to effectively correct the cruel punitive policy, play the card of restoration of social justice, and win the victims over to its side. It is concluded that the pardon of the Kolchak ministers was an individual but significant component of the process of restoring civil peace in Russia at the end of the internal military-political confrontation. What made this amnesty unusual among the many similar acts announced by the Bolsheviks in 1922–1923 was that not the rank-and-file members of the anti-Soviet struggle were pardoned, but its immediate leaders. The main reason for the rehumanization of former enemies were their personal ties and contacts in the upper echelon of the Soviet leadership in Siberia, which were formed primarily in the course of joint activities. The main criterion for applying the amnesty was the high quality work of the Kolchak ministers in the economic departments of the Siberian Revolutionary Committee under the conditions of severe labor shortage.

УКРАЇНСЬКІ ВЧИТЕЛІ В РОКИ ГОЛОДОМОРУ-ГЕНОЦИДУ

The article analyzes the contradictions that arose as a result of the Bolshevik occupation of Ukraine and the attempts of the Moscow communist leadership to introduce an educational and pedagogical model in Ukraine that is completely identical to the Russian one. However, these attempts failed for some time, as the leadership of the People's Commissariat of Education of the USSR defended its own position, which was based on theses about the need to develop a domestic model of education. Everyday life systematically demonstrated all the contradictions of the communist system. Teachers expressed dissatisfaction with the communist government and refused to teach children in the spirit of Soviet demagoguery. Everyday life systematically demonstrated all the contradictions of the communist system. Teachers expressed dissatisfaction with the communist government and refused to teach children in the spirit of Soviet demagoguery. The communist regime in Ukraine intended to form a so-called "new person", that is, a person devoid of emotions, attraction to his own history, family and homeland, ready to obediently give his life for the ideas of a totalitarian leader. For a long time, the model of raising a "new person" was not adapted to Ukrainian realities, which were traditionally characterized by love and respect for elders, adoration of the child, respect for land and bread, etc. With the aim of destroying the Ukrainian indomitable mentality and forcibly instilling communist ideas, the Bolsheviks led by Stalin resorted to committing the crime of genocide of Ukrainians by organizing the Holodomor in Ukraine. The Holodomor took the lives of millions of people, primarily children, it deformed the psychology of Ukrainians, provoked manifestations of cynicism and indifference to the grief of loved ones. During the Holodomor, the communists took measures aimed at the persecution and repression of nationally conscious teachers. They were deprived of their means of livelihood by not issuing food rations, they were followed and harassed for not wanting to spread myths about a happy Soviet everyday life during lessons, they were arrested and repressed. Instead of teachers and educators of the "old school", so to speak, low-qualified, inexperienced, who showed indifference and cruelty to children were appointed to educational institutions of Ukraine. The Genocide of Ukrainians in 1932-1933 became a disaster both for Ukrainian teachers who were still working and for their students. Teachers who received education the previous day were persecuted by the authorities. The latter was aimed at stamping submissive and obedient executors of the leader's will. The teachers of the "old" school, so to speak, were replaced by party and Komsomol members loyal to the Communists. They had neither pedagogical skills nor relevant work experience. However, belonging to the totalitarian system opened up prospects for them to hold positions and provide for themselves during the Holodomor.

MILITARY-TECHNICAL COOPERATION AS A TOOL OF CHINA'S FOREIGN POLICY

Background. From the moment of its proclamation, the People's Republic of China sought to modernize the armed forces – the People's Liberation Army. The lack of a military-industrial complex was a significant problem, which the Chinese communist leadership has been trying to solve through active military-technical cooperation with international actors. Indeed, the active procurement of weapons allowed the PRC to reach parity or even surpass the US in a number of aspects. Meanwhile, the MTC has turned into not only a mechanism for strengthening national security, but also a tool of foreign policy. Methods. The following methods were used: analytical, historical, statistical, generalization. In the course of the research, the author relied on the principle of objectivism. Results. Solving the problem of the weakness of the technical and technological level of the PLA, China used the geopolitical conjuncture to obtain arms supplies. A key role was played by cooperation first with the USSR, and then with the russian federation. This partnership was associated with the introduction of an embargo by Western countries due to the events in Tiananmen Square. An important factor was also the supply of military equipment from Ukraine. At the same time, in the conditions of a full-scale russian-Ukrainian war, Beijing became an exporter of dual purpose products to russia. Overall, using the factors of unauthorized copying, low price policies and arms sales to sanctioned regimes, Beijing has become one of the world's top five arms exporters. China mainly exports weapons to Asian countries, and has also significantly strengthened its position in the African market. However, quality and service issues are causing more and more questions from buyers. Conclusions. Among the consequences of China's MTC: 1. creation of its own autonomous military industry; 2. obtaining an additional source for financing the modernization of the PLA; 3. significant strengthening of military capabilities in the context of global rivalry with the USA; 4. increased aggressiveness in foreign policy and worsening of relations with neighboring countries and the USA; 5. course on militarization of neighboring Asian countries and strengthening of their cooperation with the USA; 6. creating additional opportunities for strengthening authoritarian regimes through military and technical support and even promoting its aggressiveness towards other countries; 7. fueling bloody wars by non-democratic regimes; 8. obtaining greater access to the minerals of the countries of the Global South and increasing the level of dependence on cooperation with Beijing; 9. strengthening of new arms exporters (such as Pakistan) and weakening of others (russia, USA, Germany).