There were serious differences in policy arising from the Kruschev thaw, and in the approach to the West (initially this was that the USSR was too friendly with the first world and was not sufficiently supporting of decolonial efforts). There were also geopolitical things going on, mostly over India and Central Asia.
Obviously Maoism is closer to Stalin era ML than late-Soviet ML, and diverged increasingly on a number of theoretical points.
Finally both sides thought the other too cavalier with the nukes (with some justification, especially for China.)
But it was a dumb, horrible thing to do, on the part of both parties. We as leftists really have to have more tolerance of comrades being terribly, annoyingly wrong in our presence.
There were serious differences in policy arising from the Kruschev thaw, and in the approach to the West (initially this was that the USSR was too friendly with the first world and was not sufficiently supporting of decolonial efforts). There were also geopolitical things going on, mostly over India and Central Asia.
Obviously Maoism is closer to Stalin era ML than late-Soviet ML, and diverged increasingly on a number of theoretical points.
Finally both sides thought the other too cavalier with the nukes (with some justification, especially for China.)
But it was a dumb, horrible thing to do, on the part of both parties. We as leftists really have to have more tolerance of comrades being terribly, annoyingly wrong in our presence.