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Bourgeois Comrades. Almost as vehement was a 19,000-word open letter from the Kremlin that called the Chinese liars, hypocrites and cowards. Moscow dismissed the Red Chinese claim to proletarian purity and accused them of trying to goad Russia into war with the U.S. Printed in Pravda, the Soviet counterattack was addressed to Communist cadres throughout the world and it served notice that Moscow would push its platform before all 81 "fraternal" parties at all costs. As the Soviets themselves angrily pointed out, Peking was actively "organizing and supporting bands of renegade" Reds in seven nations. Throughout the world the Sino-Soviet quarrel has sharply divided local Communist parties, splitting race from race and continent from continent.
In Europe the quarrel is noisiest among the Italian comrades. Nowhere does the Communist Party seem more bourgeois; for just that reason, nowhere in Europe has Peking found more supporters for its credo of all-out revolution. In Padua a group of Communist Party members, expelled for favoring Peking, published a pamphlet denouncing Red bureaucrats who lived the sweet life, complete with "wives and mistresses in jewels and furs." Some 30,000 Italian Reds, many of them sons of prominent Communists, have formed about 20 chapters of the Chinese-Italian Friendship Society. The rebels are backed by funds believed to be channeled through the Albanian legation in Rome; they circulate propaganda material prepared by Red Chinese specialists operating from a fancy villa in Bern, Switzerland. Last week Communist Party Vice Secretary Luigi Longo rushed to Milan to put down a rebellion of Sinophiles, and explained that by appearing moderate, Italian Reds have prospered at the polls. As he emerged from the meeting, Longo discovered the slogans "Viva Stalin," "Viva Mao" painted on nearby walls.
Airmail War. In Africa and Asia the split is increasingly racial. The Soviets are complaining that at the recent Asian-African Solidarity Conference in Tanganyika, a Red Chinese official told the Moscow delegation: "The whites have nothing to do here." Such a blatant racist line, argues Moscow, is pursued in the underdeveloped areas at Russia's expense; it "implants the sneaky idea that the peoples of some regions are more revolutionary than others."
India's Communist movement has been deeply divided, but last week formally lined up with Khrushchev, just as an Indian government purchasing commission arrived in Moscow shopping for arms—to be used in defense against the Red Chinese. In Japan, most of whose Communists favor Red China for ethnic reasons, the struggle has become pretty petty, resulting in an airmail circulation war. Soon after Pravda began to arrive in Tokyo by air, Peking's People's Daily dropped its sea-mail delivery, which used to take a month, and also took to the air—at no increase in postal rates to subscribers.
The Nightmare. Though the leadership of most Latin American Communist parties is firmly pro-Moscow, the rank and file lean toward Peking. Reds in Brazil have split into three rival sects. One of Uruguay's top Reds was recently expelled for his Red Chinese sympathies; however, the party newspaper still accepts paid announcements from Peking propagandists.