Friend in Need

THE KREMLIN Friend in Need One of the first acts of First Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev after Stalin's death was to fly to Red China. Hints dropped subsequently by Khrushchev indicated that Stalin's interference in China's affairs--particularly in the Korean war--had all but brought Sino-Soviet relations to the breaking point. With soft words and smooth promises Khrushchev soothed Chinese feelings. Last week the favor was returned. Red China's Premier Chou En-lai was in Moscow to repair with soft words and smooth threats the widening rifts in the Soviet Union's western empire and, incidentally, perhaps to save Khrushchev's neck.

From Warsaw last week came reports that the 133-man Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party., meeting in Moscow in December, came within an ace of firing Khrushchev in favor of ex-Premier Georgy Malenkov, who seems to be huffing and puffing up the ladder since his demotion two years ago. The report has a plausible sound: a prearranged close testing of strength would be a finely calculated hint to the ebullient Nikita to mend his ways, but fast. It would explain the recent reversal of the Khrushchev line, the rewarming of Stalinist slogans for the benefit of Old Guard Communists such as Molotov, and the coolness towards Tito. It would also account for Khrushchev's belated dash down to Budapest (in the pattern of his onetime troubleshooting swings through the Ukraine) and the great forgathering in Moscow last week of the ever-faithful East Germans.

At the conclave, those loyal East German boys, Premier Grotewohl and First Party Secretary Ulbricht, were rewarded with a treaty giving them the right to know how many Soviet divisions were stationed on their soil. The lesser fry--Bulgaria's Zhivkov, Rumania's Gheorghiu-Dej, Czechoslovakia's Novotny and even little Kadar from Hungary--got encouraging pats on the back. There were vast banquets at the Kremlin, a huge amount of congratulatory speechmaking and communiques galore.

All this was wonderful self-promotion for Nikita, but it did him no good where it really mattered: in Hungary and Poland. Khrushchev needed Chou's urbane voice, not only to show that he commanded the support of Red China--after the Soviet Union the most powerful of Communist countries--but also as a mediator. In Warsaw (see below) Chou obligingly gave out with Khrushchev's new hard line, but in private Chou was amiable and showed some of hrs earlier friendliness towards the Polish experiment. It was significant that the story about Khrushchev's slim margin in the Central Committee leaked from Warsaw while Chou was there.

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