They Are Talking

Somehow or other, Red Chinese Premier Chou En-lai could not bring himself to leave Moscow. Perhaps it was the tonic weather--snow flurries and freezing temperatures. Maybe it was the charm of his hosts, burr-browed

Leonid Brezhnev and cozy, cadaverous Aleksei Kosygin. More probably, Chou, who was closeted with B. & K. at least once a day for most of last week, felt he was getting somewhere with his Russian adversaries--not fast but fast enough. After all, Peking's great enemy, Nikita Khrushchev, had been sacrificed; now both sides could make at least limited concessions.

Token Aid. According to rumors filtering out of the Kremlin sessions, Chou had finally agreed to a conference of Communist parties. But the meeting, originally called by Khrushchev for Dec. 15, would now not take place until next spring, after a series of preliminary talks between Russian and Chinese ideologues. And instead of reading Peking out of the Communist movement, as Khrushchev had intended, the conclave will undoubtedly focus on restoring Red unity.

In return for the Chinese agreement to attend the meeting, however modified, there seemed to be at least token resumption of Russian aid to the Chinese. Tass reported that a 20,000-kw. turbine, built by the Russians for a Chinese hydroelectric project, would soon be delivered; Izvestia ran a photo of a Russian engineer supervising pro-Peking North Koreans building a technical school.

Russia and China evidently also agreed to stop calling each other dirty names. B. & K. even began patching up relations with Albania, Red China's vociferous ally in Europe, whose propagandists have called Khrushchev's followers "veritable criminals and sinister schemers." Radio Moscow beamed a message of good will to Tirana, praising Albania's "sovereignty and position in the world" and reiterating faith in the Soviet Union's "sublime internationalist duty" of aiding all fraternal parties. But the Albanians, cocky as always, refused to end their "open ideological war" on Khrushchevian revisionism.

Wary Hope. Western observers watched hawklike for signs of uncordiality between the Russians and their Chinese visitor; naturally there were some, and the conclusion was widespread that the talks had "tailed." Actually, after years of bitterness, they could hardly have "succeeded" in one week, and the significant fact remains that they took place at all.

The basic differences between Russia and Red China certainly could not be talked away, as a Pravda editorial on the day of Chou's departure indicated. Said Pravda: "The Soviet Union is firmly against all plans designed to heat up the international atmosphere." Clearly, Moscow was not ready to buy Peking's hard line--at least for the moment. But by the time Chou finished his long goodbye and flew home to Peking, a Sino-Soviet dialogue had been established for the first time in 16 months. The olive branch had been offered to all warring parties in the Communist movement, and the acute embarrassment brought about by Khrushchev's boorish intransigence had been transmuted into a glow of wary hope. How healing this might be for Communist prestige with the "nonaligned" was illustrated by the report that Algeria's

Ben Bella had been driven to the brink of a nervous breakdown by the necessity of choosing between Moscow and Peking. Such emotional disturbances should at least be eased by Chou's visit.

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