SCEPTICAL OF COMMUNIST RIFT

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30576, 20 October 1964, Page 3

SCEPTICAL OF COMMUNIST RIFT

(N.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, October 19. Communism’s face might change a dozen times but its heart remained just as Marx and Lenin devised it, said Prince Hubertus Zu Lowenstein in an interview today. He warned against a puerile acceptance of the idea that a rift between Moscow and Peking would prove permanent and in some undefined way save the Western world from the threat of Communism. Prince Zu Lowenstein, German historian, political adviser, publicist and author, is paying his first visit to Australia and New Zealand. He said he was sceptical of two things that seemed to have become accepted almost with the status of “common knowledge” by the press in the Western world. One was that the change from Khrushchev to Kozygin as “front man" for Russia had any fundamental significance. “The central committee of the Communist Party in Russia still makes the decisions, not the man who does the talking," said Prince Zu Lowenstein. The other “co-existential

self delusion of the Western world” was that there ever was a real rift between Moscow and Peking—particularly one that could lead to armed conflict between Russia and China.

Prince Zu Lowenstein said apart from the ideological impossibility of such a cleavage, there were practical signs that typified the continued closeness of the two great Communist powers. Recently he had raised the question with the United States commander in South Korea (General H. Howze). The general’s reply had been, “So long as Moscow supplies China with tanks to attack our northern lines, I’m not convinced of any conflict between Moscow and Peking.” The prince said there was really only “a difference between passing leaders.” Khrushchev and Mao Tsetung had just not seen eye to eye. Moscow-trained though he was, Mao had all the complexes against the white West. In South-east Asia and the Far East, there was always a close co-operation between the allied forces of Moscow and Peking. China’s explosion of the atom bomb was the immediate reason why Khrushchev had to go, said Prince Zu Lowenstein. He said that at a press con-

ference in Melbourne the day the Russian leader was deposed he had prophesised that Communist China would explode a bomb before 24 hours had passed. “The world’s press has not noticed the timing of Khrushchev’s departure,” he said. “The Soviets knew the atom bomb was ready in Chin and Khrushchev had to go to clear the path for immediate reconciliation.” The visitor dismissed Russia’s talk, through Khrushchev, of peaceful co-existence as propaganda that had already proved capable of achieving its aims. “At the end of the third period, we were thrust off the mainland,” he said. What had been called “deStalinisation” was also a propaganda trick, said Prince Zu Lowenstein. “Everything Stalin conquered, the others have kept,” he said. “We have been thinking far too much in terms that simply do not apply to the Communist world. The Soviets have the power and enterprise to control countless millions of non-Russians. “Since 1948 they have incorporated 96,000,000 of nonRussian decent 24,000,000 of them annexed outright and the rest as satellites.” It was not the Russian people who were responsible. They were as helpless in their

political set-up as the German people had been under Hitler. Their leaders, however, applying the Marxist-Lenin-ist communism, still had world domination as their goal irrespective of passing personalities. “Now they’re going to abuse Khrushchev a little bit. They should build a big monument to him instead. He lulled the world into complacency with his propaganda trick of peaceful coexistence.” Mao Tse-tung had made no secret of his opinion three years ago that New Zealand and Australia were desirable countries for the expanding population of China. In the meantime, he had made our front line in Southeast Asia. South Vietnam was the most critical of all. Asked whether he could define the stage at which the struggle there could be regarded as won, Prince Zu Lowenstein said the sealing off of Vietnam from the borders of Laos and Cambodia would be the decisive step. Such complete sealing would deprive the Viet Cong of its military supplies and its neutral refugees. In Wellington Prince Zu Lowenstein will address a seminar at Victoria University and will meet the External Affairs committee of the House before making a brief sightseeing visit to Rotorua. He will leave on Saturday for Manila.