This book is primarily an account of relations between the two largest Communist countries in the world, Russia and China, since the establishment of a Communist régime in China in 1949. It is an attempt to describe the development of their relations from the beginning of 1950, when the Soviet and Chinese governments concluded what appeared to be a natural and almost unbeatable alliance, to the moment in mid-1963 when their relations in every sphere had been reduced to the barest minimum and the leaders of both countries were denouncing each other in the strongest terms.

I have tried to tell the story in two ways. In the first part of the book I have described the various stages of the dispute in my own words with a certain amount of necessary interpretation and comment. In the second part will be found the essential documents on which the story is based, arranged in chronological order. The verbosity of Communist leaders made it impossible to include their complete outpourings. I think I have retained the essential passages from the main documents and speeches that will enable the student of the Communist world to read the story in the original, so to speak, and will provide the general reader with all the necessary references.

This is, however, not only an account of relations between Communist Russia and Communist China; it is also to a certain extent a study of the situation in the international Communist movement, of the present state of affairs in the camp of those who proclaim themselves to be the enemies and gravediggers of the democratic world. This was inevitable, because any study of the deterioration of relations between the two main Communist powers must also be a study of the failure of Marxism or Communism to provide a sure basis for their relations or for the 'unity' of the world Communist movement. But in the text and in the documentation, I have been able only to touch lightly on this much wider subject.