Now for the Main Event

Nikita Khrushchev had more reasons last week to wonder why he ever invited a Red Chinese delegation to Moscow. Twenty-five reasons, to be exact, all neatly numbered in a letter for convenient "point-by-point discussion" at the scheduled Sino-Soviet meeting next week. Mao Tse-tung's latest message to Nikita--the most vehement to date in the continuing quarrel--doomed the confrontation to failure before it began. Peking deliberately left the Kremlin no room for compromise. After years of discussion over whether the split was real, Western skeptics could no longer doubt that it was deep, jagged, and unbridgeable for a long time to come.

Parrot & Stick. In 24,000 brazenly contemptuous words, Mao accused Khrushchev of spawning a new personality cult worse than Stalin's, assailed the Kremlin for "great power chauvinism and economic pressure" against other Red nations, charged the Soviets with trying to purge foreign Communist parties. Exclaimed Red China: "What is all this if not subversion?"

At the same time, Peking was not above attempting some subversion of its own. Appealing to Moscow's East European satellites, the statement declared: "If a party cannot use its brains to think for itself, but instead is a party that parrots the words of others, runs hither and thither in response to the baton of certain persons abroad, such a party is incapable of leading the masses."

The crux of the Chinese dispute with Russia remained Moscow's propaganda line of peaceful coexistence with the West. This policy, said Peking scornfully, was plucked out of "some mystical book from Heaven"; moreover, those who dare to disagree are treated "as heretics deserving to be burned at the stake. How can the Chinese Communists agree? They cannot. It is impossible."

As always, Peking stuck to the dogma that the road to violent revolution in Africa, Asia and Latin America was the only path a true Marxist could follow. As for Soviet charges of warmongering, the Red Chinese replied with an argument that, ironically, echoed some Pentagon strategists. Brush-fire wars, declared Peking, need not necessarily escalate into an all-out nuclear struggle. Truth was, declared the manifesto, the Russians were too selfish and scared to risk their bourgeois gains in far-off battles. "To put it bluntly," said Red China, "whoever considers that a revolution can be made only if everything is plain sailing, only if there is an advance guarantee against failure, is certainly not a revolutionary."

Keep Talking. Peking's punch was neatly timed to catch the Kremlin off balance. It landed on the eve of a special Central Committee meeting called to discuss Russia's internal ideological troubles. For four days the Russians were stunned and speechless. Finally the Central Committee angrily announced that it would not even bother to publish Red China's "distorted, unwarranted attack."

Chinese Communist newspapers triumphantly headlined Russia's refusal to print the Chinese document. Even Russia's vaunted space feats were nothing that Nikita could take credit for. "During the Stalin era he was a third-or even fourth-rate man," the newspaper reported. "He had nothing to do with nuclear and space developments."

In Russia's own bailiwick, the Chinese Reds also stayed on the offensive. Communist Rumania, which has been feuding with the Kremlin over Moscow's interference in its economic affairs, gleefully published a lengthy summary of the Red Chinese indictment. Peking's embassy in Moscow boldly distributed Russian-language copies of its manifesto. Callers were greeted by an attache, and after a polite chat over tea, got as many translations of the 63-page document as they wanted.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.