Communists: The Battle over the Tomb

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that Communism ruled one-third of the earth's people and controlled one-fourth of the earth's land surface. Beyond the Iron and Bamboo Curtains were 6,000,000 Communists, more or less loyal to Soviet Russia. How badly that image has been shattered was illustrated by the very birthday greeters who came—or failed to come —to Moscow. Khrushchev apparently wanted to prepare a full-dress Communist summit meeting to condemn China. Instead of simply calling such a meeting and dictating the resolutions, Khrushchev had to plead and argue with foreign parties, including those from his own satellites. The Italians, among others, did not even send a delegation to Moscow. The rest plainly urged restraint, not because they like Mao any better than Khrushchev does, but because they are afraid of the consequences of widening the split even further. For one thing, the satellites—cherishing their new, limited but heady independence—do not particularly want to give Moscow a chance once again to play the supreme arbiter of the Communist world. They relish a situation in which their support is solicited and paid for—a situation in which even Cuba can afford to play both Communist camps against each other.

For the moment at least, it seemed that Khrushchev was not pushing for the ultimate break; he remarked that Moscow would "always leave an opportunity for rapprochement and understanding." From Peking came birthday greetings signed by Mao and other Chinese leaders, expressing the hope that the split was "only temporary." Yet almost in the same breath, the Peking press called Khrushchev a traitor, "a dragon who changes his colors," and "even more stupid than the Americans and Chiang Kai-shek."

Whether or not Moscow ever formally tries to read Peking out of the Communist movement—or breaks diplomatic relations with China—the quarrel is so deep and bitter that Communism can never be the same again.

Despairing Squeal. As only he can do it, Khrushchev last week once again defined the quarrel. For the first time in an attack on the Chinese, he mentioned Mao Tse-tung by name, and for the first time he publicly used the word "split," which, he said, "could no longer be hushed up." Gleefully, he imitated the high-pitched Chinese speech when he talked about their "seemingly revolutionary squeals, which are really squeals of despair." He called them Trotskyites, and hinting at the fate that lies ahead for Mao, Khrushchev shouted: "Where is Trotsky now? Rotting!"

Khrushchev hit hard at what he presents as the two main issues of the quarrel: 1) peaceful coexistence v. war, and 2) peaceful evolution toward Communism v. violent revolution. Returning to the defense of what the West has already taken to calling "goulash Communism," he said, in effect, that it is easier to fight a revolution on a full belly than on an empty one. The Chinese, he sneered, want him to tell the Russian people: "The economy has been sufficiently developed. Let us produce less so as not to become fat and thereby grow like the bourgeoisie."

China, he said, wants to tell the workers in the West: "Why the hell are you earning so much? Do you know what danger you are in? You have degenerated." To his audience, Khrushchev shouted: "Comrades, nothing but ridicule