DIVIDED COMRADES AT THE SUMMIT

IN some 70 countries around the world, Communist Party leaders last week brushed up on their Lenin, packed their suitcases, and prepared to be fellow travelers with a single destination: Moscow. The capital's hotels, including the new 3,000-room Rossia, just off Red Square, braced for the greatest onslaught of comradely dignitaries in nearly a decade. Barring a last-minute snag, the oft-postponed world summit meeting of Communist parties will convene this week in the Soviet capital, the first such international gathering of top party brass since 1960.

What will happen? If the Soviets could have their way, they would excommunicate the Chinese from international Communism, get a resounding endorsement for the invasion of Czechoslovakia, and re-establish Moscow as the undisputed leader of the world movement. But the hosts are certain to have to settle for much less than that.

Banging Plates. If the conference posed problems for the Soviet leaders, they were certainly putting up a breezy and self-confident front. Attired in a natty gray single-breasted suit and a red tie, Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev led a covey of Politburo members on a four-hour tour of Automation 69, an international exhibit of new electronic equipment that is being held in Moscow's Sokolniki Park. In a jovial mood, Brezhnev singled out pretty girls for handshakes, embraced Communist exhibitors with Russian bear hugs, and chatted amiably at Western stands. Eying the new equipment at the French pavilion, Brezhnev asked, "Who is cheating whom--we you or you us?" As the French tittered nervously, he added: "That was only a joke, of course." At the West German exhibition, he and Politburo Ideologue Mikhail Suslov were shown a set of unbreakable dishes. Handing a plate to Suslov, Brezhnev said, "Let's see if they are telling the truth." Both men banged the plates hard against the exhibition table, but they did not break.

Being able to hold the summit meeting at all represents a victory of sorts for the Russians. From 1962 onward, Nikita Khrushchev tried to convene a world conference to deal with the Chinese. After the ouster of Khrushchev in 1964, the summit plan was shelved until three years ago, when the collective Kremlin leadership of Brezhnev and Premier Aleksei Kosygin began to push for a meeting where the Soviets could try to reassert their old primacy within international Communism. Twice a date was set only to be scrubbed --first by the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Soviets and then by the continuing ire of foreign Communists at Moscow's post-invasion ideological posturing. The Soviets persisted, and finally some 70 parties accepted the invitation to Moscow.

At the 1960 meeting, 81 parties appeared; the drop of ten or so for the new meeting mainly reflects the Sino-Soviet schism. The Soviets reportedly sent the Chinese an invitation, but the Chinese have not responded. Instead, in the wake of the border shoot-outs last winter on the frozen Ussuri River, they have stepped up anti-Soviet propaganda to an alltime high. "The Soviet revisionist clique," cried Peking, "is like a notorious prostitute who insists on having a monument erected to her chastity." Several Peking allies will be absent also, notably Albania and the small Communist parties of New Zealand, Burma and Thailand. North Viet Nam and North Korea, both of whom are trying to remain noncommittal in the Sino-Soviet split, will probably not attend either. The Yugoslavs, who are Communism's original heretics, will also stay away. Reflecting Fidel Castro's disenchantment with the Soviets, Cuba will probably send only a small and undistinguished "observer" delegation to Moscow.

Foreign Defiance. Even though their main antagonists will not be present at the summit, the Soviets still will face considerable opposition from foreign Communists who are dead set against expelling the Chinese from the Communist movement or approving the action against Czechoslovakia. The depth of the opposition has already been shown in the preparatory meetings, in which a 60-page document on Communist principles and priorities has been laboriously stitched together.

In order to hold the summit at all, the Soviets had to accept considerable softening and deletions in the sections that applied to China and the so-called Brezhnev doctrine of limited sovereignty for other socialist states, which is the Soviet justification for the invasion of Czechoslovakia. Even so, the Italians, the largest party outside the East bloc, are still opposed to parts of the document. They threaten to take the fight right onto the floor of the summit meeting. The Italians can most likely reckon on support from the independent-minded Rumanians and on at least ten nonruling parties, including the Australian Communists, the Austrians and the Finns.

Such defiance is an unsettling experience for the Soviets, who until after the death of Stalin were accustomed to unquestioning obedience from foreign Communists. It could produce some very unfraternal fireworks in Moscow in the days and weeks ahead.

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