Podcast / American Prestige / Apr 29, 2025

The Sino-Soviet Split, Part 2

On this episode of American Prestige, Jeremy Friedman on the Sino-Soviet Split.

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The Sino-Soviet Split, Pt. 2 w/ Jeremy Friedman | American Prestige
byThe Nation Magazine

Please listen to ⁠⁠our Sino-Soviet primer episode⁠⁠ and part one of this discussion for some background!

On this episode of American Prestige, Danny and Derek welcome back Jeremy Friedman, assistant professor in the Business, Government, and International Economy at Harvard, to talk about the Sino-Soviet Split. The conversation picks up in the 1960s with the Soviets’ push for peaceful coexistence vs the PRC and developing world’s push for anti-imperialist armed struggle, how the Cultural Revolution affects the calculation, Mao’s growing distrust of the USSR, the split itself, ideological vanguardism vs elitism, imperialism without capitalism, whether a split was inevitable, and more. 

Grab a copy of Jeremy’s book⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠Shadow Cold War: The Sino-Soviet Competition for the Third World⁠⁠!

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Russian premier Nikita Khrushchev, Chinese Communist leaders Mao Zedong and Liu Shaoqi survey the Chinese troops at Peking Airport (now Beijing), China October 1959.

(Express Newspapers / Getty Images)

On this episode of American Prestige, we welcome back Jeremy Friedman, assistant professor in the Business, Government, and International Economy at Harvard, to talk about the Sino-Soviet Split. The conversation picks up in the 1960s with the Soviets’ push for peaceful coexistence vs the PRC and developing world’s push for anti-imperialist armed struggle, how the Cultural Revolution affects the calculation, Mao’s growing distrust of the USSR, the split itself, ideological vanguardism vs elitism, imperialism without capitalism, whether a split was inevitable, and more.

Listen to Part 1 of the conversation here.

The Nation Podcasts
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Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.

How the New Deal Invented the National Security State w/ Andrew Preston / American Prestige
byThe Nation Magazine

Danny and Derek speak with historian Andrew Preston about the origins and development of the American national security state as we know it. They discuss the original meaning of “national security” in the early days of the republic; the idea of free security; the New Deal and the relationship between social security and national security; World War II, the Cold War, and the expansion of the security state; liberalism and American empire; and what national security looks like moving forward.

Be sure to grab a copy of Andrew’s book on the subject, Total Defense: The New Deal and the Invention of National Security.

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Daniel Bessner

Daniel Bessner is an historian of US foreign relations, and cohost of American Prestige, a podcast on international affairs.

Derek Davison

Derek Davison is a writer and analyst specializing in international affairs and US foreign policy. He is the publisher of the Foreign Exchanges newsletter, cohost of the American Prestige podcast, and former editor of LobeLog.

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