The downfall of Nikita Khrushchev and Peiping's detonation of an atomic device dominated editorial comment on world affairs.
The Des Moines Register said October 17: "Outside the grim walls of the Kremlin no one can surely know the significance of the forced retirement of Nikita Khrushchev and the transfer of political power to Leonid Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin. Later events may show that the change represents a redirection of policy in both domestic and foreign affairs. At this early date only a negative conclusion is possible. There is no evidence pointing to substantial shifts in policy.
"The mechanics of the takeover by the new leaders seems to have been more orderly and smoother than the upheavals of the past. There have been no troop movements, arrests of political leaders, assassinations. It is evident that Khrushchev did not retire voluntarily, but he apparently was not deposed by violent methods. This does not look a Byzantine palace revolution in the old pattern but has the appearance of a constitutional change in government.
"Brezhnev, the new first secretary of the Communist Party, and Kosygin, the new chairman of the Council of Ministers, are of the 'new generation' of Soviet leaders. For the first time, the Soviet Union will be ruled by men who were too young to have taken part in the Red Revolution. They both represent the new class of business men, engineers, technologists and administrators who have been rising to power in replacement of the Old Bolshevik doctrinaire party men...
"There is considerable evidence that Khrushchev's policies of peaceful coexistence abroad and more consumer goods at home have been highly popular. It seems most likely that the ruling group in Russia has decided, not that these policies are wrong, but that they need younger and more businesslike leadership.
"Anastas Mikoyan, who has been a symbol of these policies and who kept his footing in earlier struggles for power, apparently is continuing in the center of the new government. He has the title of president of the Soviet Union, which is largely a ceremonial job. But it would seem that if the new rulers wanted to signal new departures in policy, they would remove Mikoyan. Instead, everything visible indicates that they want to create the impression of continuity of policy.
"This line of thought should not carried too far. The growing hostility between Red China, which has just now exploded its first nuclear device, and the Soviet Union undoubtedly is a cause of deep worry among the Russians. The decision to retire Khrushchev may have been made partly because there was no chance of achieving better Red Chinese relations with him in power. It would not be surprising if Brezhnev, Kosygin and their associates took steps to try to reach a more amicable relationship with Red China.
"Such steps might involve new demonstrations that the Soviet Union is unalterably opposed to the 'capitalist imperialist' nations, especially the United States. This would not necessarily mean a change in basic policy of peaceful coexistence but might be only a tactic to appease the Red Chinese advocates of violent world revolution.
"Americans ought not to be too quick, therefore, to interpret the first moves of the new rulers to show their dedication to world Communism as signs of aggressive intent toward the West. Undoubtedly the new Soviet chieftains have the same healthy respect for America's military power and the same dread of nuclear devastation that Khrushchev did."
Khrushchev's Misjudgement
Headlined "Mr. Khrushchev's Misjudgement", the Christian Science Monitor said October 19: "There is no doubt that Nikita Khrushchev had gotten himself into embarrassing tactical difficulties because of the way he had handled the Soviet Union's dispute with Red China. And if that is one of the main reasons why he has lost his job, the world should look for confirmation in two directions.
"First, it should wait to see if the men who have replaced Khrushchev change the plans for a meeting of representatives of 26 world Communist parties in Moscow on December 15. That meeting was expected to lay the groundwork for a later conference of the world Communist movement, at which it was believed Khrushchev might try to 'excommmunicate' Peiping.
"Second, and perhaps a little less likely, there might develop visibly a cooler Soviet policy toward India. Moscow's material and moral support for India in the face of Red Chinese military incursions and pressure has long-been—on the government as opposed to the party level—a flagrantly divisive element between Moscow and Peiping.
"When Khrushchev got an idea into his head, it was always hard to shift him. He had decided apparently that the only way to deal with Red China was to take the bull by the horns and end the fiction (as he doubtlessly saw it) that the government in Peiping was in the hands of fraternal party members. And his exchanges with the Red Chinese in recent weeks had been anything but brotherly.
"But his all-out campaign against the Chinese Communists was getting increasingly disruptive of the Communist movement in Europe—upon whose help Khrushchev had seemed to think he could count.
"Perhaps the best exposition of the case against Khrushchev's tactics by those who nevertheless prefer Moscow to Peiping came from the late Palimiro Togliatti, leader of the Italian Communist Party until his decease last August. Togliatti wrote:
"'The unity of all socialist (i.e. Communist) forces in a common action, going also beyond ideological differences, against the most reactionary imperialist groups, is an indispensable necessity. One cannot imagine that China or the Chinese Communists could be excluded from this unity.'
"If the December meeting in Moscow turned out to be—as Togliatti forecast—a rump conference, or if the Soviet line there was rejected by those attending, it would indeed be a major defeat for the Soviet leadership. Could it be that Khrushchev was replaced in that leadership to make possible a radical and face-saving change in tactics, if not of basic policy, toward the men in Peiping?"
Harmony With Allies?
The South China Morning Post in Hongkong said October 22: "The dense smoke-screen surrounding Khrushchev's abrupt dismissal last Friday makes it difficult to understand what it was that a group of powerful but unknown figures in the Soviet hierarchy took exception to.
"Last Friday we pointed to the apparent contradiction in sacking Khrushchev on the one hand and appointing two of his proteges to continue his policies on the other. The new arrangement would only make sense if there were some obvious personal failing on Khrushchev's part. In other words, it was not what he did so much as the way that he did it that earned the opprobrium of his colleagues. This is one theory that has to be examined. The other, and, we suspect, more likely theory is that changes in policy are in the offing though they will be introduced gradually.
"First Khrushchev the man: he was personally well-liked in the West and personally hated in the East. His realism which was praised as his strong point in the West was condemned as weakness in the East. He seemed increasingly to be heading for improved relations with the West and increasingly for a complete and total rupture with the East. Even East Berlin began to be worried by his flirtations with Bonn. And it is possible that the new leaders of Russia believed that if they removed the man who had been responsible for making a number of unwelcome personal initiatives (and who had also blundered over agriculture and seemed to be getting his civilian and defence priorities confused) they could have the best of both worlds—improved relations with East and West, instead of being uncomfortably jammed in the middle.
"There were also fears in the Kremlin that Khrushchev might have miscalulated on a Johnson landslide in the American presidential election next month and that if Moscow were suddenly to be confronted with Goldwater in the White House they would need all the friends they could find. There were also hints from East, Europe that at least some of Red China's leaders were privy to the Moscow secret and that a bargain was struck to remove Mao simultaneously or later. At present both these reports seem to be no more than far-fetched camouflage.
"It is difficult to believe the Red Chinese would ever repudiate Mao. Thus Khrushchev has possibly been sacrificed to enable Moscow in time to swing back into a position more in harmony with its allies—even if it means ensuing disharmony with the West."
Patch Job Unlikely
The Philadelphia Inquirer, in an editorial entitled "Red World—Still Split", said October 19: "Although the downfall of Nikita Khrushchev in the Soviet Union evoked unrestrained pleasure in Red China, Albania and other pseudo-Stalinist Red countries, it is at least to be doubted that a durable patching-up job can be done between Moscow and Peiping.
"We do not think the ideological differences—coexistence or no coexistence—could not be compromised, if both Soviets and Red Chinese were willing. But, for other reasons, we doubt that they will be.
"Red China's first primitive nuclear blast—and immediate cheeky invitation to all the old hands for a 'summit' conference about it—may have helped to unseat Khrushchev, but it did not qualify Red China as a big power or one with more than regional strength. And even that strength is not atomic in nature, but based still on a 3,000,000-man army. Its economy remains a pathetic mess.
"Mao Tze-tung's long contention that he is the real Big Pumpkin of the Communist world has, perhaps, been enhanced in Southeast Asia and Korea—but it can hardly be 'selling' in Moscow, whose pre-eminence in Communism is directly challenged. Nor can any Russians, new or old, be unmindful of the strictly nationalistic territorial claims of Peiping.
"We cannot pretend to know how long it will take Red China to develop a nuclear weapon from this first explosion—or how long after that until it has a dependable delivery system. That will be the day it becomes dangerous on the world scene—and, if it maintains its belligerence and truculence toward the Soviets, it may be most lethally inclined toward its neighbor.
"For these reasons, we suspect that any Moscow-Peiping 'papering over' that is done cannot last for long. For centuries these two empires have been hostile and the hostility remains. It is not necessarily reassuring to other nations—for either can turn on a dime and go after some other victim.
"But Red China's blast and Khrushchev's fall do not a strong alliance make, nor prosperity for either. 'Communism's inherent disabilities, both agricultural and industrial, continue.
"The Reds have been 'shaking' the world for 50 years but they haven't knocked it over yet. Divided as they are and seem fated to remain, they have little chance of doing it now."
Use of Brains
Commenting on Peiping's nuclear explosion, Ed Meagher wrote for the Los Angeles Times October 18: "Military and diplomatic analysis here (Hongkong) called Red China's nuclear explosion a loud political bark without much scientific bite, but it does underline the Peiping regime's more efficient use of its scientific brains since 1961.
"Propaganda reverberations from the explosion are already sounding in Southeast Asia. As propaganda, it will have significant impact in some newly emergent nations In Asia and Africa.
"The Mao regime will pull all stops to make the event seem to be a tremendous scientific breakthrough by the Peiping Communists. It will be hailed as a testament to the correctness and progressiveness of the Red Chinese system.
"But the true state of science in Red China is probably something else again. Measured against world standards, Red China is utterly outclassed and years behind in time.
"Experts here say Red China has given top priority to the development of a nuclear device for some nine years, and has only now succeeded in detonating a primitive atomic gadget.
"There is not the slightest evidence that Red China has even attempted to develop nuclear weapons or a weapons guidance and delivery system—complex enterprises that seem far out of reach of Peiping capabilities right now.
"The scientific time lag in Red China can be blamed in large part on the ill-advised 'great leap forward' policy of 1956-59, when the scientific community was hounded and harassed for impossibly accelerated results, although they were given neither tools nor money to meet the demands of the ideologists.
"Scientific failures of that time were crudely propagandized as successes. Projects were set up and launched in a dizzying rush, with little evaluation or correlation....
"In sum, it seems to careful analysts here that the nine years it took the Red China regime to develop a workable nuclear device constitutes a derogatory comment on the state of Communist China's science. Red China is now technically a member of the 'nuclear club,' but by any measure, their nuclear hardware is comparatively 'medieval.'"
Sobering Effect
The Japan Times said October 18:
"Communist China's announcement that it had exploded a nuclear device last Friday is no surprise for it had been widely known for many months past that the Red Chinese efforts in nuclear research were reaching" a culminating point.
"The over-all character of the explosion has not been divulged so we cannot judge of the degree of success now attained by the Red Chinese nuclear scientists, but it may be regarded as reasonably certain that Red China will become nuclearly armed in the foreseeable future. It is true that Peiping will have to work out the nature of the nuclear weapons it may propose to adopt and also perfect methods of delivery that would, be effective for their military use in an emergency. But that is sure to come.
"The statement made by the Red Chinese on the explosion said the Peiping regime took the occasion to declare solemnly that Red China would never at any time, and under any circumstances, be the first to use nuclear weapons, and it called for a summit meeting of all nations to discuss banning and destroying all nuclear weapons. It is doubtful, however, if the other nuclear powers will be in any hurry to agree to the holding of such a conference. Their policy will probably be to 'wait and see.'
"We have repeatedly pointed out in this column that nuclear disarmament, as well as conventional disarmament, must be preceded by a settlement of international tensions, including the abandonment of the so-called 'cold war,' and that in view of the constant forward march of physical science, it is inevitable that more and more nations will discover the means of building a nuclear bomb. In other words, we hold to the view that it is unsound to adhere to the idea that nuclear weapons differ from conventional ones in anything but their terrible destructiveness.
"Our most immediate interest in Red China's announcement centers around the question of the effect the possession of the bomb will have on the Peiping influence in the world. This influence has been growing of late, especially in Africa....
"What we hope is that the possession of the nuclear bomb and the possibility of arming their forces with operational nuclear weapons will have a sobering effect upon the Red Chinese leaders and cause them to be cooperative with other peoples who follow different ideological paths. Should this happen, there will be no reason to regret Red Chinese progress in nuclear science."
Time To Hurry
Under the headline "Chinese Firecracker", the Christian Science Monitor said October 19: "What will the world do with its last breathing spell before Peiping becomes a nuclear power? It has such a period—a kind of last chance—between the first explosion and the building of a workable Chinese nuclear arsenal.
"The first necessity is for the West to disabuse itself of the comforting illusion that there is still time to drift. There isn't. The gap between a test explosion and weapons that can be delivered is short—by comparison with the time it takes for the international world to act. Now is the latest, not the earliest time to hurry.
"The first step is to test the new Soviet Government as soon as practical. Unless the shift in Moscow swings way over toward genuine reconciliation with Communist China, which seems unlikely, the Kremlin has an interest similar to that of the United States. It does not want to see the nuclear club enlarged, and particularly by the one government most openly dedicated to violence.
"The second step is to see if the new Soviet regime would join in a safeguard arms limitation agreement and test ban with the West. The third step would be to bring all possible pressure from the non-aligned world to bear on Peiping to join.
"No one could say if this would work. But it might. The chance is big enough to try. The alternative is two great Communist regimes, both with the big weapons of destruction. If anyone thinks this is more desirable let him step forward. He might have arguments that we haven't heard. But we doubt it."