In October 1964, after Khrushchev was ousted, the Chinese Communist Party
saw this as a possible chance to repair relations with the CPSU. So Zhou
Enlai was sent to head a delegation to Moscow:

"Zhou left for Moscow to take part in the celebrations for the 47th
anniversary of the October Revolution and to find out what was happening.
He arrived on 5 November, and talks with the new leadership began the
following day. At a banquet on the evening of 7 November, Marshall Rodion
Malinovsky, the Minister of Defence who had been part of the conspiracy to
remove Khrushchev, told Zhou that China should 'get rid of Mao Zedong'.
Zhou reacted angrily, as this was said in the presence of American
journalists, and walked out, followed by Malinovsky who continued to
insult Mao and the Chinese Communist Party. The Chinese viewed this as a
deliberate provocation, but Malinovsky was probably tired and emotional.
{For those who don't get the joke, "tired and emotional" was popularized
by Private Eye as a euphemism for "drunk" to get around British libel
laws...] Zhou made a formal protest and Kosygin apologized but this slight
overshadowed the remainder of the talks. Zhou could not risk the slightest
suspicion that he might sympathize with a move to oust the increasingly
paranoid Mao, who met Zhou at the airport with the rest of the leadership
when he returned to Beijing on 14 November." Michael Dillon, *Zhou Enlai,
The Enigma Behind Chairman Mao*.
https://books.google.com/books?id=KxPGDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT387

Another version of this incident: "On 7 November, at a glittering Kremlin
reception, Marshal Rodion Malinovsky, minister of defence, approached
Zhou. 'We don't want a Mao or a Khrushchev to stand in the way of our
relationship,' he commented. Zhou beat a hasty retreat. Then Malinovsky
turned to Marshal Ho Lung and said: 'We've got rid of our fool Khrushchev;
you can now get rid of yours, Mao. Then we can have friendly relations
again." The Soviet marshal then expressed himself very crudely. 'The
uniform I am wearing is Stalin's dog [excrement]. The marshal's uniform
you are wearing is Mao's dog [excrement].

"Zhou made a formal protest and Brezhnev and his colleagues apologised,
saying Malinovsky had not expressed their views and anyway had been drunk.
Mao was confirmed in his view that it had been a put-up job when he
discovered that the Marshal had not been demoted or even disciplined. The
Soviets had discovered what they wanted to know: it was impossible to
detach Zhou from Mao. No member of the Mao team visited Moscow officially
until his death." Martin McCauley, *The Cold War, 1949-2016*, p. 104.
https://books.google.com/books?id=akYlDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA104

IMO the idea that the whole incident was a deliberate provocation on
behalf of the Soviet leadership is a lot less plausible than that
Malinovsky was simply drunk. As Sergey Radchenko notes, "If the Soviet
leaders wanted to probe Zhou Enlai's and He Long's commitment to Mao , it
was certainly safer to do so in a private meeting rather than at a big
gathering in the presence of foreign diplomats. It seems likely that
Malinovskii got drunk and blurted out what everyone in the Kremlin
actually thought but would not say publicly , at least when sober ...It is
another matter, though, that the Soviet reaction to the Malinovskii
incident was entirely inadequate. Zhou drew a parallel between Malinovskii
and the ousted Chinese Peng Dehuai , claiming that Peng was purged for his
'chauvinism' and obviously implying that Malinovskii should be too. But
while the defense minister's blunder was not without consequences
(Brezhnev criticized him for making an 'inconsiderate statement' and for
'lack of tact' at a large meeting of party functionaries in November),
Malinovskii was not dismissed from his post or publicly punished in any
way, so that it plausibly appeared from the Chinese perspective that the
Soviet leaders approved of his behavior...Brezhnev never understood the
seriousness of the incident and blamed the Chinsese for using the incident
as a pretext to ruin the talks..."
https://books.google.com/books?id=5G_S0VIuPv8C&pg=PA134
https://books.google.com/books?id=5G_S0VIuPv8C&pg=PA135

When Brezhnev tired to assure Zhou that Malinovsky was only speaking for
himself and was in any event drunk, Zhou was not impressed and replied wih
the Chinese equivalent of *In Vino Veritas*:

"We are Marxists and adherents of dialectical materialism. Being
determines consciousness. If he did not have these thoughts in his head,
he would not have voiced them. We have a saying: 'Drunk people speak the
truth.' I also like to have a drink occasionally. Once Khrushchev got me
drunk...I was completely drunk then but never said anything like this. If
a person did not have these thoughts in his head, he would not voice them
, but c [ omrade ] Malinovskii spoke logically and orderly . Why didn't
this happen to me ?..."

(Incidentallly, *another* remark of Malinovsly's at the banquet--or rather
Kosygin's semi-apology for it to the US ambassador--contributed to Zhou's
displeasure. After Brezhnev had toasted Malinovsky, praising the
anniversary parade that had marched through Red Square earlier that day,
the flattered Malinovsky had made an impromptu hawkish speech, warning
that if the US ever dared to attack the USSR, it could hardly expect to
remain unscathed. A foreign diplomat later noted that "the speech was
delivered with a maximum of arrogance and on an increasingly hysterical
note so that at the end he was almost shouting.". "Kosygin was alarmed
lest the U.S. Ambassador Foy D. Kohler, present at the gathering, get
upset oner Malinovskii's warmongering."
https://books.google.com/books?id=5G_S0VIuPv8C&pg=PA132 So Kosygin walked
up to Kohler, and rather awkwardly asked him what he thought of the
speech. When Kohler said it was "too strong, too miltary" Kosygin replied
that "well, this is a holiday [implying that one must make allowances ].
It was a good parade but I hope some day these parades will be very small,
just like a show . That's what we aim at." Kohler replied, "I'll drink to
solving all our problems "
https://books.google.com/books?id=5G_S0VIuPv8C&pg=PA133& Zhou later
complained to Walter Ulbricht that the new Soviet leaders were acting just
like Khrushchev--reassuring Kohler (with western journalists present) that
Soviet hawkish talk didn't really mean anything. So in this case, it was
the impllcit *repudiation* of Malinovsky that upset Zhou, whereas in the
case of Malinovsky's remarks abuot Mao, it was the *failure* to publicly
repudiate them!)

So my POD is: Malinovsky has a heart attack early on November 7--and
though it is a relatively mild attack and he soon recovers, is unable to
make it to the banquet.

Now you may say: the differences between the CCP and the CPSU were by this
time too deep for the absence of this incident to make a difference.
Perhaps. But the Chinese were extremely sensitive to personal attacks on
Mao by Soviet leaders. And Zhou had done his best to convince Mao and
other skeptics that the change in leadership in the USSR really did open a
possible path to reconciliation. He dismissed suggestions that since the
new Soviet leaders had been close associates of Khrushchev's there would
be no change in policy. If that were true, Zhou asked, why did they
overthrow Khrushchev? Mao may not have been totally convinced, but at
least he did agree to send the delegation headed by Zhou to Moscow for
talks. Maybe the talks would have failed anyway, but Malnovsky certainly
didn't help their prospects...

--
David Tenner
dtenner@ameritech.net

The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote in
news:48nk1hdn6un86hkpugeksbeim043me3jot@4ax.com:

> On Sat, 26 Feb 2022 10:16:31 -0000 (UTC), David Tenner
> <dtenner@ameritech.net> wrote:
>
>>So my POD is: Malinovsky has a heart attack early on November 7--and
>>though it is a relatively mild attack and he soon recovers, is unable to
>>make it to the banquet.
>>
> Heck - given you say he was drunk a more probable POD would be he
> passed out (or had his driver take him back to the embassy) before he
> said what he said. A heart attack even a minor one isn't minor and can
> be life changing (or ending)
>
> After all one of the axioms of soc.history.what-if has always been
> 'make the POD as minor as possible'.
>
> If I'm learned anything in nearly 28 years in this newsgroup it's
> that!
>
> <grin>
>

I don't think passing out for awhile would be enough to keep him from the
reception. Russians expect their militaty men to be drunk
sometimes...,Anyway, Malinovsky was going to die in 1967, and I doubt that a
mild heart attack would hasten his death enough to change history very much
(other than by keepig him from the reception)..

--
David Tenner
dtenner@ameritech.net