It is exhausting even to think of the millions of words that Western intelligence agencies are grinding out on the topic of the Sino-Soviet conference scheduled to meet this month in Moscow. Actually, nothing decisive will happen. It is one more episode of an intricate struggle that has been developing for a number of years and has many more still to run. Some of the differences between the Chinese Communists and the Russian Communists are ideological phantoms that could be dispelled overnight, but others are based on solid realities, including the realities of personal pretensions, that a week of talking is not going to change. Mao is not going to hail Khrushchev on August 1 as his leader; nor Khrushchev, Mao. Communist China has a backward and sluggish economy today and will have ten years hence.
Burnham
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