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Brezhnev hewed closely to basic Khrushchevian doctrines, though he was vastly more subdued in tone. He praised peaceful coexistence and argued that "world war is not inevitable," extolled the nuclear test-ban treaty, which Peking refused to sign, and made all the right noises about better relations with the U.S. while keeping Russia's guard up. Sounding like a Western executive or politician promising that things were going to get efficient or he would know the reason why, Brezhnev proclaimed his intention "to combat resolutely red tape and window dressing." He called for "fuller use of the material incentive," meaning the profit motive, in "overcoming the lag of agricultural production." In an indirect slap at Chinese collectivization, Brezhnev announced the removal of "unfounded restrictions" on private farming-"the plots of land worked by farmers, factory and office workers"-restrictions that Brezhnev even more than Khrushchev realizes are a drag on Soviet output.
A Call on Stalin. About the only concessions Brezhnev offered to China were promises to back Peking's claims on Formosa and pledges to support "the national liberation struggle of the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America," thus hinting at a more pressing pursuit of revolution than Khrushchev had espoused. Both Chou and Castro's henchman, Ernesto ("Che") Guevara, applauded vigorously when Brezhnev warned: "Hands off Cuba." As to restoring unity within the bloc, Brezhnev said: "There is every objective condition for cooperation between Socialist countries to grow stronger." And at the Red Square anniversary parade, Brezhnev wound up old Rodion Malinovsky, his Defense Minister, for a rocket-rattling speech aimed as much at Chou's ears as at the West's. As new thermonuclear behemoths rumbled by -among them a submarine missile which was meant to rival the U.S.
Polaris-Malinovsky darkly warned that Russia's armed forces would "protect the fatherland and all countries of the Socialist community against any plots of aggressors." If Chou was impressed, he did not show it. To demonstrate his continued disdain for Khrushchevian wrong-think, he ducked around the back of Lenin's Tomb and paid a reverential visit to Stalin's modest grave outside the Kremlin wall.
Two Empires. "Moscow is the third Rome," goes an old Russian saying.
"A fourth there shall not be." The first, of course, was the Rome of Augustus: the second was Constantinople, capital of the Eastern Roman Empire after the great schism split the Roman world.
The Chinese are obviously determined to prove the prophecy wrong and make Peking a fourth Rome.