The Sino-Soviet split (1960–1989) was the worsening of political and ideological relations between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) during the Cold War. In the 1960s, China and the Soviet Union were the two largest Communist states in the world. The doctrinal divergence derived from Chinese and Russian national interests, and from the régimes' respective interpretations of Marxism: Maoism and Marxism–Leninism.

In the 1950s and the 1960s, ideological debate between the Communist parties of Russia and China also concerned the possibility of peaceful coexistence with the capitalist West. Yet, to the Chinese public, Mao Zedong proposed a belligerent attitude towards capitalist countries, an initial rejection of peaceful coexistence, which he perceived as Marxist revisionism from the Soviet Union. Moreover, since 1956, China and the USSR had progressively diverged about Marxist ideology, and, by 1961, when the doctrinal differences proved intractable, the Communist Party of China formally denounced the Soviet variety of Communism as a product of "Revisionist Traitors", i.e., the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, headed by Nikita Krushchev.

Seymour Topping (born December 11, 1921) is a highly accomplished and experienced journalist, editor, writer, and educator.

Topping was born in New York on December 11, 1921, and was married to photojournalist, documentary filmmaker, and author Audrey Ronning Topping on November 10, 1948. They have five children, four of whom were born abroad while either one or both Toppings were on assignment.

Following military service as an infantry officer in the Pacific during World War II, he joined the Associated Press in 1948 as a foreign correspondent in China and Southeast Asia. He joined The New York Times Company in 1959, and during his 33-year tenure held positions such as chief correspondent in both Moscow and Southeast Asia, foreign editor, managing editor, and director of editorial development.

During his career, Topping covered pivotal historical events all over the world including the Chinese Revolution and the French Indochina War, and he reported from countries and regions including China, Vietnam, Russia, Germany, the United Kingdom, Tibet, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Kuwait, Iran, South Africa, Zimbabwe, New Zealand, Australia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Salvador.