Understanding the Sino-Soviet Dispute: From the 20th Congress to the Party Letters in 1963

The socialist revolution in China gave significant power to the socialist camp in the beginning of the Cold War. The Soviet Union gave great support to the construction of socialism in China. But these close relations did not last too long and began to gradually deteriorate starting by the mid- 1950s. The Sino-Soviet dispute was officially cemented in the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. This dispute came to an irreversible point with the letters both sides’ communist parties sent to each other in 1963. In this context, the present study focuses on the emergence and the causes of the Sino-Soviet dispute. It is argued that the different interpretation of class struggle by China and its situation in international politics, alongside its choice to follow a different model of socialist development from the Soviet Union, constituted the starting point of the Sino-Soviet dispute.