Use a war-ready standpoint to observe everything, examine everything, determine everything

Artist: Jinnan Region Revolutionary Committee Political Section

Year: ca.1969

Publisher: Jinnan Region Arts & Crafts Fine Art Plant

Size (mm): 530x770

Condition: excellent

Tensions between Beijing and Moscow had been increasing throughout the 1960s with multiple clashes along the Sino-Soviet border. Russia, the US and Britain had attempted to limit China's access to the nuclear club with a partial test-ban treaty, and China felt under pressure to demonstrate that they could not be cowed by the Russian announcement of the Brezhnev doctrine - claiming Moscow's right to intervene in any country that departed from the Communist road. Against the backdrop of these concerns and border tensions, Zhou Enlai told an emergency conference of PLA generals on 22 September 1969 that "we must be prepared to fight a war. Preparing for war is the new strategic plan." On 27 September Marshal Lin Biao, at the time Mao's closest comrade and viewed as his likely successor, told a war conference "Use a war-ready standpoint to observe everything, examine everything, determine everything."