ABSTRACT
In November 1949, Mao Zedong, as head of state of the People's Republic of China (PRC), finally moved into Beijing to live in Zhongnanhai. Oddly, in view of what was soon to follow, Mao and Stalin had not discussed the Korean question in their 1950 Moscow meetings. When Stalin first suggested that China should ally with North Koreans, Mao had hung back. The Korean War gave an indelible character to PRC. The Korean War, which had ended in 1953, had been used to justify a tightening of political control. The same reasoning was attached to Five-Year Plan. Mao's success in re-directing the Hundred Flowers campaign into a popular movement to defeat his rightist critics helped prepare the way for next stage of his economic programme. The Sino-Soviet estrangement had steadily widened since 1958 when Nikita Khrushchev had paid a return visit to Beijing following Mao's trip to Moscow the previous year.
