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Theoretical God. The Chinese-Stalinist faction has its partisans in Moscow, particularly (so Western experts guess) among the middle echelons of the party secretariat. In Moscow, key Communist Party officials from the Soviet Union's 15 republics were summoned for a three-day conference on political and administrative problems. Also trying to straighten out the ideological mess was Leonid Ilyichev, Soviet propaganda boss, who demanded a "decisive cleanup of remnants of the personality cult" and reported that some officials will "stick to the viewpoint that Stalin was a theoretical god."
The open war of words is obviously having a demoralizing effect on the Communist world. But in one respect, it is to Khrushchev's advantage: it reinforces the idea in the West that he is not a bad fellow compared to the Stalinists, and it even leads such Soviet experts as Britain's Edward Crankshaw to suggest that Mr. K.'s Russia is slowly moving toward "a species of democracy."
Khrushchev at any rate was not worried enough by the situation to stay home. Last week, he was off on another of his periodic missions to rural pigsties and haylofts, while his chief international troubleshooter, Deputy Premier Anastas Mikoyan, was on a swing through West Africa. Artful Anastas got a coolly correct reception in Guinea, where he tried to mend some fences; the Soviet ambassador, since expelled, had stirred up demonstrations against President Sekou Toure, a Marxist but apparently not enough of one for Moscow. In Red-leaning Mali and Ghana, Mikoyan was treated like an honorary African, grinned while a provincial street was named after him.
Meanwhile Khrushchev, on a tour of Byelorussia, told hog farmers that he was "not here to read Pushkin's poems. You will read poems without me. I came to expose shortcomings." To dairy farmers, the peasant Premier proposed a taste test to decide between his recommendation for high protein cattle feed (sugar beets, peas) or simple hay, which some scientists favor. Khrushchev, who obviously can afford more liberalism toward cattle than toward comrades, suggested that the cows decide. Said he: "Well now, Burenushka [Bossy], what fodder do you vote for?"