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Two questions: Who supported North Vietnam during the Vietnam War? Soviets or China or both? andWhy was there a rift betwen Communist China and the Soviets during the 60's (or before)?
Mao and Stalin had competing visions of socialism, and neither trusted the other completely. The U.S. always feared a Sino/Soviet Bloc, but one never really existed. Russia and China tolerated each other because they both had a greater enemy they feared even more.
The Soviet Union's brand of communism differed from Mao's “communism with Chinese characteristics.” China comprised mostly peasants and hence Marx's vision of a socialist revolution for a country with a large urban working class was unsuited to a country like China without some appropriations.Beijing encouraged other communist movements, in Asia and beyond, to emulate China's model of peasant revolution, rather than Russia's model of urban revolution.Khrushchev's denouncement of Stalin shocked Mao Zedong, who had supported Stalin ideologically.Mao considered Khrushchev as too conciliatory towards America, particularly when he met with Dwight Eisenhower. USSR was alarmed by both the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward instigated by Mao.In the Sino-Indian War, the USSR continued to maintain moderate relations with India, which angered the Chinese. Mao criticised Khruschev's backing down in the Cuban Missile Crisis as capitulating to the Americans.The Chinese insisted on historical injustices done to them by the Russians in the Treaty of Aigun (1858) and the Convention of Peking (1860), but the Soviets ignored them. The Sino-Soviet rivalry extended to Africa and the Middle East, where both Communist powers funded and supported competing political parties, armed movements, and states, including during the Ogaden War, the Rhodesian Bush War, the Zimbabwean Gukurahundi, the Angolan Civil War and Palestinian factions
