A Big-Brotherly Blast

No issue since Afghanistan has exacerbated differences in the Communist world as much as Poland. For months Enrico Berlinguer's inde pendent-minded Partita Comunista Italiano had become ever bolder in its sup port for Poland's independent unions. In a communique last December, it even warned the Kremlin of "extremely grave consequences" in the event of a Soviet invasion--meaning that the P.C.I, might break with Moscow altogether. Last week, in a rare public display of a Communist family quarrel, the Soviet Communist Party was revealed as having blasted Berlinguer in no uncertain terms. The Italian weekly Panorama published a confidential letter from the Soviet Cen tral Committee, obviously with the imprimatur of Leonid Brezhnev, rebuking the Italians for showing too much solidarity with Solidarity.

The letter, said to have been handed to Berlinguer by a Soviet embassy official in late December, begins "Dear Comrades" and signs off with "Fraternal Greetings"--but that is the extent of the cordiality. Taking a swipe at the inde pendent Polish unions, the message accuses Berlinguer's party of disloyalty for siding with them. The P.C.I. 's December communique, it noted, did not "support the socialism that actually exists in Poland but shows solidarity with those forces that have unleashed a real and serious offensive against Polish socialism." Sounding a familiar chord, the Soviet party leadership wondered if this was not "interference in the internal affairs of Poland."

Neither of the two parties challenged the document's authenticity; but each denied having leaked it. In Moscow, Party Spokesman Leonid Zamyatin told reporters that "your best sources would be in Rome." Ital ian Communist Party officials were equally evasive, hinting that the Kremlin might have leaked the letter to discredit Berlinguer in the eyes of hard-line party members. Panorama Journalist Carlo Rossella added to the mys tery, explaining that he had been given a translation of the letter at a surreptitious meeting in a Milan restaurant. But he refused to identify the informant.

With the Soviet Communist Party's 26th Congress set to open in Moscow this week, the public spat over Poland raised tensions between the Moscow and Rome Communists. Berlinguer made it clear that he would not bend before blunt Moscow messages. "We will stick to our road, whatever the initiatives or in comprehensions of other Communist parties might be," he told a crowd of Communist employees in Turin last week. Clearly that road would not lead to Mos cow. P.C.I, officials confirmed that Berlinguer, for the first time, would be absent from the Italian delegation at world Communism's quinquennial pageant.

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