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The western Communist empire under Moscow is the more powerful in terms of armaments, industrial potential, living standards and education. The eastern empire under Peking is far more populous, and as a revolutionary force, it has the advantages of its very shortcomings: want makes it more spartan; envy of the good life makes it fiercer: having less to lose may make it willing to risk more. Moscow sounds more realistic in its appreciation of overwhelming Western strength; Peking sounds more fanatical in its insistence that the West is only a paper tiger-although beneath the propaganda it is unlikely that ancient China is really as unrealistic as all that. Willy-nilly, Moscow is more committed to "polycentrism," while Peking still demands greater discipline among the Asian Communist parties in its domain.
But the fact is that nationalism, even though Communism can often exploit it, remains Communism's greatest enemy; neither Moscow, nor in the long run Peking, will really be able to establish itself as a supranational, imperial center. The Communist era after Khrushchev is bound to be more than ever an era of not one or two but a great many Romes.
Independent Dependencies. Brezhnev made this explicit in his speech when he said that "the choice of one or another method and form of Socialist construction is the sovereign right of each people." It was to safeguard this right that the Eastern and Western European parties had objected to Khrushchev's China policy: a Moscow crackdown on Peking, they felt, might re-establish too much of Moscow's old authority. But to safeguard that same independent right, the Western parties now also felt free to criticize Khrushchev's ouster.
The most significant area of independence is represented by the Eastern European satellites, whose growing tendency to be more European than Eastern is one of the really important facts of the time. The tendency, of course, is not uniform, and some satellites are more satellitic than others. The lineup:
>East Germany remains as anxious as ever to please Moscow. Despite earlier muted objections to the handling of Khrushchev's ouster, Party Boss Walter Ulbricht took pains last week to show his allegiance to the new "collective leadership" of the Kremlin. He flattered B. & K. by imitating them, showed up in Moscow trailing his puppet Premier, Willi Stoph, in a show of "collective leadership" of his own.
Never before had the spade-bearded Saxon shared billing with an underling at a major state function. But Ulbricht's aping of B. & K. is only to be expected as long as 20 Soviet divisions occupy his country. He is jubilant at the prospect of a Sino-Soviet détente, particularly if it leads to a tougher Russian policy toward the West and renewed pressure on Berlin.
> Bulgaria, whose tubby top-dog Todor Zhivkov was Nikita's best behaved satellite leader, has mixed feelings about both Khrushchev's fall and the prospect of a detente with China. Fearful of angering the new Kremlin rulers, Zhivkov refrained from putting in a good word for his ousted protector, busied himself by promising his people greater democratization and streamlining of the Bulgarian economy, which is closely tied to the Soviet's.