Conflicts in World Communism

...One purpose of the Soviet leaders in making their journey, therefore, was to combat Tito's influence in South Asian Socialism and Mao's influence in South Asian Communism...

...For the first time in years, it is true, the budget was confirmed before rather than after it took effect...

...The question of the Cominform, he added, is "a purely internal affair of the [Soviet] Communist party...

...In recent months, Yugoslav propaganda has centered on the thesis, advanced even in official Belgrade pronouncements, that the Cominform should be dissolved and replaced by a much broader International...

...but that is nothing unusual for Khrushchev...

...but Peking will be quick to perceive any attempt by the Russians to exploit the present situation in order to undermine Chinese influence in South Asia...

...but, in contrast to some other years, it became law this time exactly as submitted by the Government...

...and, since Bulganin and Khrushchev could have delivered their foreign-policy speeches just as readily before some other forum, one wonders just why the Supreme Soviet had to convene for the third time in one year...

...Now the Congress has once more condemned Ana Pauker in a manner which bars even future rehabilitation--and this clearly with the concurrence of the Russian fraternal delegate Kirichenko, one of Khrushchev's closest confidants...

...There the Molotov Malenkov thesis, favoring exclusive Soviet domination of world Communism, will clash with the thesis, first advanced by Khrushchev, that world Communist leadership should be internationalized...

...They were also seeking admission of the Soviet Union to the Afro-Asian "Bandung bloe,' which Peking has thus far resisted...

...It would be different if genuine debates and hotly-contested decisions occurred at these sessions...

...According to the Yugoslav theoretical organ Communist, Nehru was to play a particularly important role in the new International...

...Khrushchev's and Bulganin's speeches in India, Burma and at the Supreme Soviet session may have been inspiring to the intellectuals of those two Asian lands, but their effect on Nehru and U Nu was quite different...

...This was the Soviet Parly boss's unequivocal statement that the Cominform is not to be abolished...

...The latest developments at the Supreme Soviet session, and earlier in Bucharest, New Delhi and Rangoon, show that Molotov's point of view has largely won out and that Khrushchev is forced to make major concessions to the Great Russian nationalism of the Soviet Army in order to maintain his position...

...It should be remembered, furthermore, that Tito's relations with U Nu (who, like him, is still a Marxist) are extremely close...

...Even Bulganin's and Khrushchev's addresses, with one exception to be discussed below, contained nothing that was really new politically...

...The only really noteworthy item in the speech was a small, virtually unnoticed paragraph...

...The Rumanian Communist Party Congress, held at almost the same time, provided a counterpoint to this theme, rejecting Tito's pet project in equally sharp terms...

...The point at issue was rehabilitation of the Rumanian Titoists...

...If Moscow and Belgrade do not make a new attempt to resolve their differences, last spring's Belgrade Agree ment will prove of little value...

...It was widely asked whether the Party Congress would accomplish or at least initiate this rehabilitation, and the outcome was regarded as a test case in gauging relations between Tito and the satellites...

...From the domestic political standpoint, the session was completely uneventful...

...Moscow is concerned about attempts by Tito and Mao to create new centers of leadership for the movement Conflict in World Communism By Franz Borkenau The recent session of the Supreme Soviet in Moscow was widely expected to produce important political developments, perhaps the fall from favor of Malenkov or Molotov...

...Tito's hopes of sharing Moscow's leadership in the satellite nations have thus been shattered...

...In characteristic fashion, he made this assertion in the form of an attack on the West: "The enemies of Communism do not like the Cominform, but it is a fact that Communism is everywhere gaining more and more adherents...

...Behind the furious attacks on the West, unfeigned through they may be, one senses a bitter dispute within the world Communist movement...

...Khrushchev's tone was, to be sure, so outrageous that the London Times commented on his "breathtaking effrontery...

...Man Tse-tung cannot defend his interests as effectively as Tito just now, since China has been caught up in a vast forced-collectivization drive for the past six months and is temporarily somewhat hobbled...

...Everything that is now happening is preparation for the Soviet Party Congress, which is to convene on February 14...

...The issues involved here touch not only Tito and Nehru, but also Mao Tse-tung...

...The West would do well to ignore Khrushchev's invectives and concentrate instead on exploiting the opportunity offered by Moscow's maneuvers against Tito, Nehru, UNu and Mao...

...The scope of this new group was not clearly defined, but its membership was definitely to include the Socialist parties of Asia, Africa and Latin America, the Communist parties of the Soviet Union, China and the satellites, and the leftist groups within the Western Social Democratic parties...

...Khrushchev's statement now conies as a deliberate, brusque rebuff to these plans of Tito, which Nehru may have supported...

...Nothing of the sort happened...

...and that the Burmese Communists unmistakably, and the Indian Communists partly, look to Peking rather than Moscow...

...That is not the case, however, and all that was accomplished was a pure formality: confirmation of the annual budget...

...Those statemen's subsequent statements show that they felt Khrushchev was trying to put something over on them in their own front yards...

...led by Ana Pauker, who was toppled from power in 1952...

...The continued existence of the Cominform, however, is a matter of far less concern to the West than to Tito...