Sergey Radchenko Research Articles

The Sino-Soviet Alliance: An International History by Austin Jersild

<i>The Sino-Soviet Alliance: An International History</i> by Austin Jersild

Editor's Note

Editor's Note

Unwanted Visionaries: The Soviet Failure in Asia at the End of the Cold War, by Sergey Radchenko

Our images of the international history of the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, writes Sergey Radchenko in this excellent book, remain overwhelmingly dominated by the triumphs of Central and Eastern Europe. We remember the East German protesters who broke through the Berlin Wall, that object which, more than any other, marked the East–West division of the Cold War. The 1980s, according to that particular narrative, mark the journey from Communism to Europe. Yet, as Radchenko shows, ‘the Cold War ended differently in Asia than it did in Europe’. The Soviet-sponsored regime in Kabul aside, none of the Communist regimes in Asia collapsed. If ‘the power of the powerless’ triumphed over state socialism in Berlin, authoritarian power made clear the reverse message on Tiananmen Square. Perhaps most importantly, after nearly two decades of bitter enmity, the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China reconciled their differences and achieved a normalisation of relations.

Sergey Radchenko.Unwanted Visionaries: The Soviet Failure in Asia at the End of the Cold War.

Sergey Radchenko.<i>Unwanted Visionaries: The Soviet Failure in Asia at the End of the Cold War</i>.

Campbell Craig and Sergey Radchenko, The Atomic Bomb and the Origins of the Cold War. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008. 232 pp. $27.00

In this ambitious study, Campbell Craig and Sergey Radchenko tackle two enduringly controversial topics: the U.S. decision to develop and use nuclear weapons against Japan during World War II and the role of the nuclear bomb in the origins of the ensuing diplomatic Cold War with the Soviet Union. In exploring the many complicated issues raised by the bomb from the birth of the Manhattan Project through the failure of the Baruch Plan for international control at the end of 1946, Craig and Radchenko offer interesting new evidence from the Soviet side. They also make good use of the existing literature, particularly works by Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, Gregg Herken, David Holloway, Martin J. Sherwin, and Wilson Miscamble. Throughout, they address the many controversies surrounding these issues in a calm, deliberative manner without any hint of the rancor that has sometimes attended academic debates on the nuclear bomb and the Cold War. This lively and concise study is a must-read both for specialists and for those more generally interested in the pivotal years surrounding the birth of the nuclear age. Stressing the “parochial, inward nature of the two Cold War powers” (p. x), the book is divided into chapters that alternate between Washington and Moscow. Although this device sometimes impedes the book’s narrative flow, it effectively underscores the authors’ conclusion that Soviet and U.S. leaders were “acting as if they were on different planets” (p. x). In covering pre-Hiroshima U.S. decision-making, Campbell and Radchenko lean heavily on the secondary literature. This seems an entirely appropriate strategy given that few relevant high-level documents from the Roosevelt-Truman era of nuclear policy have come to light since the 1970s. The authors make good use of new Russian-language sources, most notably Atomnyi Proekt SSSR, a nine-volume collection of documents issued beginning in 1998. Craig and Radchenko are careful, however, to note that currently available Soviet documents tell us little about high-level policymaking, particularly with respect to the role played by Iosif Stalin. Perhaps the most novel methodological contribution here is a long-overdue reassessment of Soviet nuclear espionage. Rather than engaging in the often-heated debate over exactly who was—and was not—a Soviet spy, Craig and Radchenko seek to answer the more interesting question (at least to most diplomatic historians) of how nuclear spying affected policy in Washington and Moscow A little over half the book is devoted to exploring pre-Hiroshima U.S. and Soviet nuclear policies. In the case of the United States, the key question was whether (and on what terms) to share the nuclear secret with its wartime allies. Craig and Radchenko build on Sherwin’s groundbreaking work in concluding that from 1943 onward, Franklin D. Roosevelt hoped to use the nuclear bomb as leverage in negotiations with Stalin. They suggest that Roosevelt sought to use the bomb to convince the Soviet Union to accept collective security and “Open Door” economic arrangements that

Socialist Revolutions in Asia: The Social History of Mongolia in the Twentieth Century

July 01 2014 Socialist Revolutions in Asia: The Social History of Mongolia in the Twentieth Century IrinaMorozova, Socialist Revolutions in Asia: The Social History of Mongolia in the Twentieth Century. New York: Routledge, 2009. 293 pp. Sergey Radchenko Sergey Radchenko Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information Sergey Radchenko Online ISSN: 1531-3298 Print ISSN: 1520-3972 © 2014 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology2014 Journal of Cold War Studies (2014) 16 (3): 224–225. https://doi.org/10.1162/JCWS_r_00463 Cite Icon Cite Permissions Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Search Site Citation Sergey Radchenko; Socialist Revolutions in Asia: The Social History of Mongolia in the Twentieth Century. Journal of Cold War Studies 2014; 16 (3): 224–225. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/JCWS_r_00463 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentAll JournalsJournal of Cold War Studies Search Advanced Search This content is only available as a PDF. © 2014 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology2014 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Perspectives on Sergey Radchenko's Two Suns in the Heavens

In this forum, three leading experts on Sino-Soviet relations and Mao Zedong's policy toward the Soviet Union offer their appraisals of Sergey Radchenko's Two Suns in the Heavens, The Sino-Soviet Struggle for Supremacy, 1962–1967, published by the Woodrow Wilson Center Press. The commentators praise many aspects of Radchenko's book, but Michael Sheng and to a lesser extent Qiang Zhai and Deborah Kaple wonder whether Radchenko has gone too far in downplaying the role of ideology in Mao's foreign policy. Unlike Lorenz Lüthi, who gives decisive weight to ideology in his own book about the Sino-Soviet split, Radchenko argues that a classical realist approach is the best framework for understanding Chinese foreign policy and the rift between China and the Soviet Union. Sheng and Zhai also raise questions about some of the sources used by Radchenko. Replying to the commentaries, Radchenko defends his conception of Mao's foreign policy, arguing that it is a more nuanced view than Sheng and Zhai imply. Radchenko also stresses the inherent shortcomings of the source base scholars are forced to use when analyzing Chinese foreign policy.

Reply to the Commentaries

In this forum, three leading experts on Sino-Soviet relations and Mao Zedong's policy toward the Soviet Union offer their appraisals of Sergey Radchenko's Two Suns in the Heavens, The Sino-Soviet Struggle for Supremacy, 1962–1967, published by the Woodrow Wilson Center Press. The commentators praise many aspects of Radchenko's book, but Michael Sheng and to a lesser extent Qiang Zhai and Deborah Kaple wonder whether Radchenko has gone too far in downplaying the role of ideology in Mao's foreign policy. Unlike Lorenz Lüthi, who gives decisive weight to ideology in his own book about the Sino-Soviet split, Radchenko argues that a classical realist approach is the best framework for understanding Chinese foreign policy and the rift between China and the Soviet Union. Sheng and Zhai also raise questions about some of the sources used by Radchenko. Replying to the commentaries, Radchenko defends his conception of Mao's foreign policy, arguing that it is a more nuanced view than Sheng and Zhai imply. Radchenko also stresses the inherent shortcomings of the source base scholars are forced to use when analyzing Chinese foreign policy.

Two suns in the heavens: the Sino-Soviet struggle for supremacy, 1962-1967

Using newly available archival sources, Two Suns in the Heavens examines the dramatic deterioration of relations between the USSR and China in the 1960s, whereby once powerful allies became estranged, competitive, and increasingly hostile neighbors. Sergey Radchenko's authoritative account of these years shows how the intrinsic inequality of the Sino-Soviet alliance-seen as entirely natural by the Russians but bitterly resented by the Chinese-resulted in its ultimate collapse. Through a careful and comprehensive investigation of policymaking in both Moscow and Beijing, Radchenko creates a new framework for understanding the role of power struggle, ideology, personalities, and culture in Sino-Soviet relations.

Editorial Introduction

AbstractThis issue of Inner Asia includes papers that deal with two broad areas: politics of identity in medieval and contemporary periods and socialist and post-socialist economic development in Central and Inner Asia. It also features a critical response by Peter Bol to Karl Ryavec’s paper published in vol. 6, no. 2 of Inner Asia (2004) and Ryavec’s reply. We are pleased with and encourage this kind of exchange, as we are interested in critical scholarship that challenges our conventional thinking, and through debate we can come to better understanding of the dynamics of not only the Inner Asian studies field but also the region and its peoples. In this regard, Sergey Radchenko’s critical review of the two Mongolian political memoirs is also welcome, for it not only highlights some of the problems in writing a genuine history of socialist Mongolia, but also engages national scholars and politicians who, after all, have the responsibility to document, research, systematise, create and maintain their national cultures, and who set the agendas and guide the developments in their own countries. Their scholarly or non-scholarly results deserve outside scholars’ scrutiny whatever ideological and methodological differences separate them. The issue also includes reviews of several international symposia or conferences that were held in the last year or so in the UK, America, Japan and Mongolia. These reviews alert the readers of Inner Asia to the wide-ranging important intellectual activities both at the theoretical and practical levels in and about Inner Asia.