By Harry Schwartz
J.B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia and New York,
1964, 252 pp., US$5
Reviewed by Charles C. Clayton
The conspicuous absence of a Red Chinese delegation at the May Day festivities in Moscow and the absence of delegations from many of the Communist countries in Peiping underscores the growing rift between the two giants of the Communist world and gives added significance to the growing list of books which seek to explain what has happened - and why. Harry Schwartz is a Soviet specialist on the staff of the New York Times and a competent interpreter of Communist policy and history. His manuscript was delivered to the publisher late last fall, so that it is only a few months behind the current headlines.
He points out that an understanding of earlier Sino-Soviet relations is essential to any interpretation of the recent developments, including the canceling of Moscow's promise to provide Red China with technical data on atomic weapons. In 1948-49, when Marshal Tito fell out with Stalin, he writes, there was speculation that a form of Chinese "Titoism" would emerge. However, Mao Tse-tung joined the other Communist leaders in condemning the Yugoslav regime. In the following years there were hints of rifts over the disputed Sino-Soviet border and in the competition to control the Communist parties of Asia. But after the suppression of the Hungarian revolt and the "hundred flowers" campaign in China, there appeared to be close harmony between the two leaders by the end of 1957.
Schwartz points out that from 1958 on there were signs of deteriorating relations, but it was not until 1960 that the rift was openly acknowledged and not until the middle of last year that some of the reasons became clear.
The core of the now open conflict, Schwartz believes, is not ideological differences, nor even how to crush the United States. Rather, it is a struggle for power and for control of the Communist movement. He insists that ideology "plays second fiddle to power politics," and that "the relationship between the two nations cannot be predicted in any simple manner for very long, solely on the basis of the dominant religion or ideology."
Schwartz believes that in 1961 there may have been an attempted alliance between Molotov and Mao, though he does not offer convincing proof of his suggestion. It is difficult to believe that Molotov was converted to Chinese Communism, though it is possible that he may have flirted with Mao in his own struggle for power in Moscow.
The inescapable conclusion is that no one yet knows enough of the inner story to deduce why the rift continues to widen—or what it portends. However, this book is of value for the comprehensive review it provides of Sino-Soviet relations in the two decades since the end of World War II.
THE PRESENCE OF TIBET
By Lois Lang-Sims
The Cresset Press, London, 1963
xii plus 241 pp. 30s
Reviewed by Miron A. Morrill
This is a book about Tibetan refugees in various cities on the Indo-Tibetan frontier. The reader will not find in it any crisp modern reporting nor any considerable grasp of Tibet's position on the international scene at a time when cries of "genocide" were being heard in the non-Communist world.
The author is a British woman who served for a time as volunteer secretary of the Tibet Society of the United Kingdom. Her observations seem to have been made during three trips to the Indian border of Tibet from November, 1958, until some time after the summer of 1961. (The chronology of the books is difficult to grasp.)
There is an adequate understanding of Tibetan Buddhist religion, some attention to its older Indian background, and a collection of thumbnail sketches of fascinating "characters"—Scotch, Indian, Japanese, and, of course, Tibetan. Among these persons the author moved with love in her heart and some understanding in her head. And then there is the box "labeled St. Ivel's Lactic Cheese," which "contained an eighteenth-century Crown Derby cup and saucer which I had bought at Canterbury antique shop as a present for His Holiness," the 14th Dalai Lama.
Kundun, the Dalai Lama, is in a sense the central figure of the book. The others are of interest because of their relation to him. He is "The Presence of Tibet," which gives the book its title, the current incarnation of that great Bodhisattva of Mahayana Buddhism, the Lord Chenrezig, Tibet's patron divinity and the father of the Tibetan people.
From March 17 to March 31, 1959, the period of the Dalai Lama's flight from Tibet, the author was at her home in Canterbury. On April 24, she attended a press conference in India given by Pandit Nehru, at which arose a question as to the authenticity of certain letters written by the Dalai Lama which said, "Reactionary evil elements .... are carrying out activities against me, endangering me under the pretext of protecting my safety." The Communists built on these phrases the claim that His Holiness did not want to leave Lhasa and had, to quote the author, "been willing to cooperate with the [Communist] Chinese against the 'reactionary evil elements.'" Pandit Nehru at this press conference acknowledged the Dalai Lama's authorship of this correspondence, but seemed to excuse him "because he was passing through a highly troubled time, trying to avoid a break with the [Communist] Chinese and to bring about some settlement."
The reader of this book gains the impression that there probably was no world religion less equipped to stand up against Communist pressure than Tibetan Buddhism - despite which thousands of Khamba tribesmen died in defense of the Dalai Lama's regime. The Tibetan church-state was a hopeless anachronism in our world.
As for the future, Miss Lang-Sims states: "It is of no service to anyone to maintain, as an eminent British Buddhist has publicly maintained, that it may well be the vocation of His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama to bring about a revival of Buddhism in India ... And it is of no service to anyone that a great deal of time and energy should be taken up and large sums of money spent in championing the Tibetan cause in the arena of world politics . . . I believe that the greatest of all dangers for the exiled Tibetans is that of being persuaded, with or without the concurrence of their friends abroad and their Indian hosts, to return to Chinese-dominated Tibet." She does believe that there is a true spiritual vocation for that fraction of the refugee Lamas in India "who have a true vocation to devote themselves to prayer and the quest for truth by means of the disciplines and exercise of the religious life."