ABSTRACT
The Soviet Union was for better or for worse the leader of the world communist bloc, and therefore the only realistic major ally for a communist China. The price which the Chinese set on their alliance with Moscow was therefore closely related to the efficacy of the Soviet military guarantee. The real value of the Treaty and the alliance which it embodied was a political and a strategic one, for it provided China all with an ally at a time when the new revolutionary state was at its most vulnerable. A delegation from Yenan appears to have visited Moscow soon after the end of the anti-Japanese war. Chiang Kai-shek in his memoirs records that in May 1946 he was twice invited to Moscow, with a tempting picture of collaboration in which he would repudiate the United States while the Soviet Union ensured his dominance over the Chinese communists.
