On the Right

What Are the Russians Up To?

New York, Nov. 8—Suddenly we find out that Liu Shao-ch’i is dead. When did he die? We don’t know. How did he die? We don’t know. Where did he die? We don’t know. You see, we don’t really know anything about what is going on inside Chinese politics. Is that because, as Harriet Van Horne might put it, we went for twenty years trying to pretend that 700 million people didn’t exist? No. Because even if you use that silly phrase, we haven’t been ignoring the 250 million people in the Soviet Union, not since 1933 when we recognized the regime. And what do we know about the inside of Russian politics? Nothing. I mean, not one blessed thing. What we have is a profession called Kremlinology, which, so far as one can tell from the record, has advanced our knowledge of what is going on inside the Kremlin with about the same statistical accuracy you could have got from consulting the local tea leaf reader. When Khrushchev was ousted, our Kremlinologists learned about it from the AP. When the last ping-pong player has visited China, we will still know nothing more about Chinese politics than we do now.

What Are the Russians Up To?

New York, Nov. 8—Suddenly we find out that Liu Shao-ch’i is dead. When did he die? We don’t know. How did he die? We don’t know. Where did he die? We don’t know. You see, we don’t really know anything about what is going on inside Chinese politics. Is that because, as Harriet Van Horne might put it, we went for twenty years trying to pretend that 700 million people didn’t exist? No. Because even if you use that silly phrase, we haven’t been ignoring the 250 million people in the Soviet Union, not since 1933 when we recognized the regime. And what do we know about the inside of Russian politics? Nothing. I mean, not one blessed thing. What we have is a profession called Kremlinology, which, so far as one can tell from the record, has advanced our knowledge of what is going on inside the Kremlin with about the same statistical accuracy you could have got from consulting the local tea leaf reader. When Khrushchev was ousted, our Kremlinologists learned about it from the AP. When the last ping-pong player has visited China, we will still know nothing more about Chinese politics than we do now.