Pattern of Disintegration

Unabashedly chauvinistic, the peoples of Eastern Europe have always been bitterly quarrelsome. During more than 20 years in power, their Communist leaders have tried to make much of so cialist unity, but the effort created only a patina beneath which the old animosities still raged. Last week the patina visibly cracked. When the representatives of the Warsaw Pact countries met, they argued vociferously and unproductively. The fiasco proved with new force what has been clear for a long time: the Warsaw Pact, somewhat like its NATO equivalent, is now an artifact rather than a fact.

The backdrop for the meeting was Rumania's decision to break the Eastern European deepfreeze on diplomatic relations with Bonn, which is aggressively seeking new ties to the East (Time, Jan. 27). Alarmed by Rumanian recognition of the hated Bonn regime and fearful that the whole socialist camp might too quickly follow suit, East Germany's Walter Ulbricht demanded that the Eastern Europeans come to a conclave in East Berlin. The meeting had to be shifted to Warsaw when Rumania bridled at Ulbricht's criticism of its move and refused to come to his city. Rumanian Foreign Minister Corneliu Manescu sent an underling to Warsaw, went off for a leisurely week of discussions in Brussels, where he boldly proclaimed that a bloc like Eastern Europe has become an "anachronism left over from the time of the cold war."

According to leaks from the supposedly secret Warsaw meeting (among those present: Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, who decided not to accompany Premier Kosygin to Britain in order to attend), the Poles and East Germans urged their neighbors to stop an unseemly rush to Bonn. If they must establish relations, ran the advice, they at least ought to support East Germany in rejecting Bonn's claim to be the sole legitimate representative of the German people. The pleas did not have much effect, and the communiquee issued at the meeting's end was so bland that it did not even mention the central issue of Germany. The Warsaw meeting revealed an intriguing pattern of disintegration in what used to be the Communist bloc. >Russia, which is having enough troubles with Red China, is angry at the Ulbricht regime for its attack on Rumania, which forced the transfer of the meeting and embarrassed the Soviet leadership. > East Germany is furious at the Rumanians for 1) recognizing West Germany, 2) robbing Ulbricht of the prestige of an East Berlin meeting, and 3) making fun of his regime in its press. >Rumania is equally furious at the East Germans for 1) making a direct attack on its government, 2) washing the socialist camp's dirty linen in public, and 3) adopting the general attitude that all socialist foreign policy must be aimed at pleasing Ulbricht. >Hungary is chagrined at the East Germans and the Poles for creating a commotion over the issue and thus making it more difficult for Budapest to go ahead (as it wants to) and recognize West Germany.

> Czechoslovakia is alarmed at the signs of tension within the alliance, and irked that, to keep on good terms with East Germany, it now must re-examine its intention to open diplomatic relations with Bonn.

> Bulgaria, Rumania and Hungary resent the Soviet Union's pointed reminder last week that they were on the Nazi side during World War II and had only the Soviet Union to thank for escaping "harsh Allied treatment."

> Poland feels reduced and abandoned amid the general movement toward Bonn. Except for Ulbricht & Co., the Poles alone retain the East Bloc's old anti--West German spirit.

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