Herblock portrays Communist China’s Mao Zedong and the Soviet Union’s Nikita Khrushchev seemingly united by the Soviet symbol of the hammer and sickle. However, by 1960, China and Russia were denouncing each other because of differences in ideology. Each leader, clenches his fist and glares at the other with a grim expression, enhanced by body language that indicates a face off between the two communist leaders. Herblock captures the tensions arising from Zedong’s anger at Khrushchev’s policy of peaceful coexistence with the capitalist West and his withdrawal of Soviet assistance for construction projects in China in 1960.