DID STALIN TRY TO STOP MAO?
It is an often mentioned claim that on the eve of the Chinese Popular Revolution, Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, asked Mao Zedong not to begin the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) final assault against the Nanjing Government. This claim, which rests on diverse memories and narratives of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai1 has become a cause for debate first between the historians of the USSR and the PRC, and then between Russia and China.