AT its simplest, the Russian-Chinese quarrel is over what strategy to
follow toward the ultimate victory of Communism—and over who shall be
in charge of operations. But beneath this there lies a far deeper
split: the split between Communist theory and human reality. Ever since Karl Marx predicted that the Revolution would break out in
industrially advanced Western Europe, while it actually came in
backward, agricultural Russia, such contradictions have haunted
Communism. Today, according to Marxist theory, capitalism should be in
its death throes, the working class in utter misery, and the former
colonial peoples well on the road to Communism. Instead, capitalism is
thriving, Western workers are going middleclass, and the ex-colonies
tend toward Socialism but hardly toward Communism. Nikita Khrushchev
favors changing the theory to fit these facts more closely; he is, as
Peking accurately charges, a revisionist. Mao Tse-tung favors changing
the facts to fit the theory; he is, as Moscow says, a dogmatist. But both are also realists, motivated by different national interests,
different economies, and different histories. Khrushchev, the ruler of
a nation that has at last begun to gain some
material rewards, argues that people are not interested in war or
revolution but in peaceful prosperity, and that rocket-rattling will
only drive millions away from Communism. Mao, ruler of a country with a
lot less to lose, master of a peasantry whose appetites demand a bowl
of rice, not a TV set or a car, replies in effect that he is not
running a popularity contest with the West.
Power cannot be won by wooing adherents but by fighting for
it—otherwise Communism will atrophy. From the Golden Horde to Yenan Marxism pretends that it raises people
above race and nation, but Moscow and Peking are divided by racial
hostility and memories of conflict, which would persist even if
ideological differences could be ironed out. Russia has never forgotten
the Golden Horde of Genghis Khan, which swept west from Mongolia in the
13th century, conscripting Volga boatmen into the Khan's army and
forcing local princes to kowtow. When, after 200 years, the Mongol
Empire collapsed, the newly united Russians lost no time in getting
even. “Where is China?” asked Czar Mikhail Romanov. “Is it
rich? What can we lay claim to?” Russian claims caused friction for centuries, down to the present. As late as 1949, when the Chinese Reds had virtually conquered the
mainland .from the Nationalists, Moscow was still dickering for
territorial concessions. The Chinese still sneer at the Russians as “Big Noses” and consider them
as alien as other Westerners. Moreover, the population pressure along
the Sino-Soviet border is a constant menace to Moscow; by 1980 there
will be 1 billion Chinese. When a British visitor suggested to
Khrushchev not long ago that the Chinese masses would eventually
explode north into Siberia or south to Australia, Nikita replied
grimly: “I'm in favor of Australia.”
