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Central Committee Secretary Konstantin Katushev is in charge of relations with ruling Communist parties, while Boris Ponomarev attends to the affairs of the nonruling parties, and both are busy all year long as hosts or traveling salesmen. Their emissaries try to influence developments within the parties. After Luigi Longo's strong stand against the invasion of Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Embassy in Rome distributed a pamphlet criticizing the Italian party leader —and cut back on aid to the Italians.
Russia might have done better in maintaining its leadership of the Communist world if the Soviet model were more attractive. Despite the Soviets' excellence in weaponry, space, aeronautics and many other scientific pursuits, they have failed to build either an effective, well-balanced economy or a pleasing life style. Soviet economic weakness is, in fact, a major reason that the Russians must use force in order to keep their grip on Eastern Europe. The Eastern European countries badly need outside aid in order to overhaul and modernize their industries. Since the Soviets cannot provide the aid without harming their own economic plans, the Eastern Europeans want to seek technical and financial assistance from the West. Fearing that economic ties with the West might loosen political allegiance, the Soviets oppose such links. One manifestation of the Soviets' attitude is their denunciation of the West's attempts to "build bridges" of tourism, culture and trade to Eastern Europe.
On a global scale, Russia's reliance on force and authoritarianism hurts its role as a Communist leader. Partly for that very reason, the movement's fission has proved to be a downright political advantage to many Communist parties. The image of Communism's being run by an alien despotism in Moscow has faded to a great extent as individual parties have become more independent. The French party for years cringed under Socialist Guy Mollet's indictment that "the Communists are not of the Left but of the East"; by asserting a moderate amount of independence, the French Communists have gained a new respectability in French political life (see page 41). The Italian party, the largest European Communist Party outside the East bloc, which is likely to share power in an Italian government sooner rather than later, stresses its independence of the Soviet way of doing things. Long the lepers of Finnish politics, Communists now participate in the coalition government in Helsinki. By campaigning on an independent platform, Indian Communists have gained power through free elections; they now head coalition Cabinets in the states of Kerala and West Bengal. One reason that the Communists are the fastest-growing political party in Japan is that they refuse to identify with either Peking or Moscow, insisting on the priority of their own interests over those of Russia and China.