Eureka! That Sino-Soviet Split

Having been applied with a singular lack of success to the Soviet Union, the “science” of Kremlinology is now being used on China. The results are similar. Evidently neither group—Kremlinologist or Sino-Kremlinologist—has ever heard of the “best evidence rule.” The votaries gather thousands of little pieces of pseudo-evidence which they fit to a Procrustean model. Then when the book is too heavy to lift and too dull to read, they shout “Eureka!”

Our current eureka-shouters have discovered a conflict (also termed a “titanic battle”) between the USSR and Communist China. Now let it be said at once that there is some evidence of an old-fashioned factional dispute within international Communism. The question, “When is a dispute a conflict or a split or a battle?” is not answered on the evidence being presented by the Sino-Kremlinologists. They may assert that a dispute is a conflict—and this may be enough for the Harrison Salisbury claque which has the Chinese invasion of Siberia coming any day now. It can hardly satisfy the serious observer.

WJ

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Walter Darnell Jacobs

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Having been applied with a singular lack of success to the Soviet Union, the “science” of Kremlinology is now being used on China. The results are similar. Evidently neither group—Kremlinologist or Sino-Kremlinologist—has ever heard of the “best evidence rule.” The votaries gather thousands of little pieces of pseudo-evidence which they fit to a Procrustean model. Then when the book is too heavy to lift and too dull to read, they shout “Eureka!”

Our current eureka-shouters have discovered a conflict (also termed a “titanic battle”) between the USSR and Communist China. Now let it be said at once that there is some evidence of an old-fashioned factional dispute within international Communism. The question, “When is a dispute a conflict or a split or a battle?” is not answered on the evidence being presented by the Sino-Kremlinologists. They may assert that a dispute is a conflict—and this may be enough for the Harrison Salisbury claque which has the Chinese invasion of Siberia coming any day now. It can hardly satisfy the serious observer.