The whirlwind of China: Zhou Enlai's shuttle diplomacy in 1957 and its effects

Zhou Enlai's shuttle diplomacy in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in January 1957 was an important link between Liu Shaoqi's visit to the Soviet Union in October 1956 and Mao Zedong's attendance at the Moscow Conference of World Communist and Workers' Parties in November 1957. Based on recently available Chinese and Eastern European archival sources, this article argues that Zhou's shuttle diplomacy achieved certain degree of success because it helped to consolidate socialist unity and strengthen the socialist bloc after the Polish-Hungarian Crises. For a brief period of time, Beijing became a second parallel 'center of world revolution'.