One of the most important, although often forgotten, aspects of the Cold War was the Sino-Soviet split. In the late 1950s, Moscow and Beijing, who had once hailed their “eternal friendship,” began to openly attack each other.

A typical Chinese publication of the age would decry “A Disgusting Image of Soviet Social-Imperialism,” which argued that “Brezhnev’s gang is going down the same way Hitler did.” Moscow, meanwhile, published books like “Maoism – the threat to the humankind.”

The key reason for this antagonism was Soviet de-Stalinization, promoted by Nikita Khrushchev, and Mao Zedong did not welcome this new liberal line.