The Sino-Soviet alliance, the growth of the PLAN, and the Sino-Soviet split

The Chinese Communists had obtained the nucleus for the PLAN mainly by default, as a consequence of mutiny, desertion, and widespread abandonment. Lacking functioning ships, qualified sailors, and the necessary experience of how to organize a modern navy, the Chinese Communists turned to the Soviet Union for assistance. To a large degree, the formation and growth of the PLAN during the mid-to-late 1950s was a direct out-growth of the Sino-Soviet alliance. Amazingly, much of the naval equipment transferred from the USSR to China during this period was still widely in use 40 years later, when China once again began purchasing naval equipment from the post-Soviet Russian government.