Mao Zedong's Conversation with North Korean Official Choe Yong-geon (Excerpt), 1 October 1969, at the Tiananmen Gate

Mao Zedong: The relations between our two countries are special, and we should improve our relations. Our aims are identical. During the years of resistance against Japan, the Korean comrades fought against the enemy together with us for a long time. During the war against the Americans, we also fought side by side with the Korean comrades. In the future, it is possible that we will do the same thing again. In opposing Khrushchev's revisionism, we stood together on the same side! Toward the Soviet revisionists, we may not condemn them every day. It does not necessarily work if we condemn them every day. But we will continuously condemn them.... We have been old friends. We both opposed de-Stalinization, and we reached a consensus on this issue a long time ago. Stalin did commit mistakes, I cannot say that he did not commit any mistakes, but basically he was a good person. Stalin made big contributions to the revolution in the Soviet Union and to world revolution. Opposing Stalin was in fact for the purpose of refusing to carry out the Leninist policy line after the October Revolution.... The United States is happy to see the split between China and the Soviet Union. In the past ten days or so, there has been no fighting along the Chinese-Soviet borders. So long as there is no fighting, we are anxious to see it. We do not want to fight a war.