NEW RUSSIAN ATTITUDE?

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29989, 26 November 1962, Page 13

NEW RUSSIAN ATTITUDE?

Better Relations With West (N Z.PA.-Reuter—Copynffht) MOSCOW, November 24. The settlement of the Cuban crisis and the repercussions of the Chinese-Indian border conflict may prove to be a turning-point in relations between the Soviet Union and the West, some diplomatic observers in Moscow believe. Mr Khrushchev has long been an apostle of peaceful coexistence and the creed that Communism does not need a big war in order to spread through the world. His handling of the Cuban issue in the face of the determined United States military stand has proved in practice that he and his associates are prepared to accept a compromise in certain circumstances to avoid nuclear war, the observers believe.

Some diplomats think Mr Khrushchev’s position may have strengthened internally by President Kennedy’s tough reaction over Cuba. The Soviet Prime Minister was certainly able to present any of his doubting colleagues with the stark choice of peace or thermonuclear war when the decision came on whether to withdraw Soviet missiles and bombers in exchange for the American guarantee against invasion of Cuba. Since Cuba, the Soviet line has been to urge compromises on other issues as well —“on the basis of mutual concessions.” as Mr Khrushchev put it. Already diplomatic sources in Moscow and elsewhere have reported signs of

Soviet readiness to put these words into effect, first of all in attaining a nuclear test ban. The Soviet Union, according to these sources, has indicated readiness to allow some form of human checks to be made on its own territory of sealed seismic stations placed at various points to detect underground nuclear explosions. The Geneva test ban talks, resuming on Monday, may show whether the Soviet Union is at last prepared to agree to some verification. In Western diplomatic circles in Moscow, the new Soviet line is seen by many as more than a tactical move designed to give the Soviet Union a breathing space to increase its long-range missile power after losing the "cheap base” for its shorterrange rockets on Cuba. Mr Khrushchev is thought to be interested in reducing

the defence burden on the hard-pressed Soviet economy. New evidence of the economic difficulties being faced in Russia has come in recent month*, with sharp price rises for butter, meat, and milk, and a halt for an indefinite period in earlier promised moves to abolish in. come tax. Before the Cuban crisis, the Soviet leader put increasing emphasis on the supreme role of economic development in proving Communist "superiority.” Previously unpublished sections of an article by Lenin, said to have been recently deciphered from a shorthand transcript, have been used to support this stand. This emphasis has been crowned for the time being by the r-volutionary reforms of the Communist Party decided upon this week, splitting it in all but the top levels into two production-minded sections specialising in industry and agriculture. The highly cautious Soviet treatment of the ChineseIridian border conflict is because Moscow does not wish to give the impression to the neutralist countries, which it believes are moving towards communism, that it approves the Chinese action in India, observers believe. Western diplomats do not rule out an eventual full breach between the Soviet Union and China if the Chinese persist in their bitter and ..larcely-veiled attacks on current Soviet politics, which they usually ascribe to the Jugoslavs. At the same time diplomats do not exclude a future swing back in Soviet policies to a “harder” line with consequent narrowing of the Soviet-Chinese differences.