World: COMMUNISM: A WORLD DIVIDED

The leaders of the Soviet Union undoubtedly knew that their invasion of Czechoslovakia would anger and dismay not only Moscow’s enemies, but many of its friends around the world. The Russians doubtlessly also calculated that the storm of protest by other Communist parties would soon subside, just as it did after Hungary in 1956. After all, the tradition of loyalty to the “Motherland of the Revolution” is long, emotional and prudent. As the world’s second greatest power, Russia can provide better than anyone else the money, arms and technical aid that struggling Communists in other countries need.

But nine weeks after the tanks rolled into Prague, the controversy within the Communist world over the Soviet action shows almost no sign of diminishing. Of the world’s 89 Communist parties, less than a fourth have sided with the So viet Union—and most of those that have are small and relatively insignificant. There have been few changes of heart in Moscow’s favor as the weeks have progressed. The dissenters protesting the invasion include the most important European Communist parties; they continue not only to criticize the Soviet Union but also to stake out in dependent positions. The situation is without precedent in Communist history, and contrasts sharply with the post-Hungary period when the parties loyally supported Moscow, even though many members quit. Unless the Soviets can somehow reverse the trend, Czechoslovakia may mark a major and historic acceleration in Moscow’s inability to control Communism. “In the past, individuals were driven by their conscience to question Soviet actions,” says British Sovietologist Victor Zorza. “Now whole parties are questioning.”

Soviet Imperialism. Despite concerted efforts at persuasion and propaganda, the Soviets so far have only made mat ters worse. The act of invasion was bad enough, but the subsequent rationale for it that the Soviets have evolved is equally alarming to many Communists. Enunciated first by Pravda, the official party newspaper, and later by Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko in a speech at the United Nations, the Soviet Union claims the right to intervene in any Socialist country where the practice and purity of Soviet-style Communism is threatened. Popularly called “the Brezhnev Doctrine,” after Soviet Party Boss Leonid Brezhnev, the new Soviet policy poses a threat to the sovereignty of any Communist country. No matter what doubletalk Moscow ideologues may use to disguise it, the new policy is nothing less than a doctrine of Russian imperialism—and other Communists recognize it as such and deeply resent it.

Refused to Sign. Not all of them live beyond the Soviet orbit, either. Last week three well-known authors, including the editor and the former editor of Novy Mir, the Soviet Union’s bravely liberal literary journal, refused in Moscow to sign a statement supporting the Soviet stand in Czechoslovakia. East Germany opened trials in East Berlin of some 100 people who protested against the Warsaw Pact invasion. Ironically, among those sentenced to a two-year prison term was a woman named Sandra Weigl. She is related to Playwright Bertolt Brecht, whose works reflected his hope that Communism would end man’s inhumanity to man and usher in a new age of justice.

Despite the obvious risks, the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences defiantly challenged the Brezhnev Doctrine in a reply to Soviet allegations that the country had been in the grip of a counterrevolution. The Soviets made the charge in a pamphlet now being distributed in Czechoslovakia. Dismissing the Soviet arguments as “inventions” and “schoolboy sins against logic,” the academy, which is composed of the country’s leading intellectual figures, warned against the Soviet Union’s unwillingness to allow Communism to accommodate to change. Said the academy: “The metaphysical conception of Socialism as a perfect system leads logically to the conclusion that any criticism of deficiencies and contradictions [in the system] is considered indiscriminately as revisionist and anti-Socialist and is identified with counterrevolution and reaction.”

Splits Within Splits. In the free world, Communist anger at Moscow is greatest in Western Europe, where Communist parties are strongest. Since these parties seek to gain power by votes, and not by revolution, a liberalizing Czechoslovakia was an excellent advertisement for the image of Communism that they wished to project. Now that the Soviets have shattered that benign image, these parties are understandably anxious to dissociate themselves from this aspect of Moscow’s policy. Italian Communist Chief Luigi Longo. whose party is Europe’s largest, flatly declared that the Communist movement no longer has “centralized direction.” In his new action program, Longo proposed an aperturaa destra—an opening to the right—in which the Italian Communists would join with other dissident groups in Italy to form a sort of united protest front.

Similarly, the French party, which is the Continent’s second largest Communist group, has split with Moscow for the first time in its history. One result is that the party, which has a strong Stalinist tradition, has itself split into pro-Moscow and pro-Czechoslovak factions. After bitter quarrels over policy, the symbolic leader of the hard-line faction last week quit the party. She is Madame Jeannette Thorez-Vermeersch, the 58-year-old widow of the party’s longtime leader, Maurice Thorez, sometimes known in party circles as “the Hag” because of her terrible temper. At the same time, the party, which is led by Secretary General Waldeck Rochet, who in recent years has become a moderate, both reaffirmed its censure of Soviet action in Czechoslovakia and asserted its new-found critical attitude toward Mos cow. Wrote L’Humanite, the French Communist newspaper: “No party is perfect and no party can avoid making mistakes in method and analysis.”

The British party remains alienated from Moscow; so do nearly all the other West European and Scandinavian parties, except the tiny hard-line groups in Portugal, Luxembourg, West Germany and West Berlin. Whether the voters will understand these new distinctions is another matter. The Finnish and Swedish parties both suffered severe losses in recent elections, even though their leaders had denounced the Soviets at the time of the invasion.

The Soviets retain considerable power among parties that are less important and geographically farther removed from Czechoslovakia. In the Arab world, where the Soviets are considered the protectors against the Israelis, all the Communist groups, except those in Tunisia and Morocco, remained true to Moscow. In Asia, where the majority of the parties are pro-Chinese, the entire affair had little impact beyond giving Peking a fresh club with which to beat the Russians. Says a Peking pronouncement: “The Soviet revisionist-renegade clique is the biggest colonial ruler and the exploiter of the people of the Eastern European countries.” Japan’s 170,000-member party broke with Peking two years ago, and until the Czechoslovak invasion, the Japanese had been flirting with the Soviets. Now the Japanese are trying to establish relations with the European Communists.

In the Western Hemisphere, Moscow’s standing is also largely unchanged. The U.S. Communist party remains slavishly tied to Moscow, though its Canadian counterpart has spoken out against the Czechoslovak intervention. Fidel Castro cannot afford to make any remarks that might jeopardize the lifeline of supplies that he receives from the Soviet Union.

In most of the other” countries, the party hierarchy remains loyal. The only exception is the Mexican party, which has some 5,000 members and is Central America’s most influential Communist organization. Breaking with Moscow, it declared: “No international statutes oblige the Communists to march in the same file in their struggle against imperialism.”

Lebanese Line. Despite the disarray, the Soviets remain compulsively determined to hold that oft-delayed world party summit at which they intend to expel the Chinese from the Communist movement. The Soviets are counting on their remaining allies for help. Last week, for example, Pravda ran a story under the byline of the Lebanese Communist Party boss. It propounded the latest Soviet rationalization, proclaiming that the troop treaty with the Prague leaders, and the subsequent troop withdrawals, have removed the Czechoslovak issue as a barrier to Communist unity.

This new twist has made scant impression on the West European Communist leaders. When the presummit planning committee reconvenes in Budapest on Nov. 17, they will again insist on total troop withdrawals from Czechoslovakia. So far, the West Europeans have avoided a complete rupture with Moscow in the hopes that they can exercise a moderating influence on behalf of Prague with the Soviet leaders. However, if the Soviets rebuff their demands, as now seems likely, the Europeans are contemplating retaliatory action, such as continuing to delay the summit. Also, under a plan that is quietly being pushed by Austrian Party Chief Franz Muhri, the West Europeans could convene a minisummit of their own that would, in effect, formalize their independence from Moscow, thus creating yet another breakaway faction in world Communism.