Professors Fear Sino-Soviet Rift Could Generate Radical Policies

The Sino-Soviet split is not necessarily in the best interests of the United States Melvin Croan '53, assistant professor of Government and research fellow in the Russian Research Center, said last night.

Croan, along with three other Harvard professors interviewed by the CRIMSON last night, stressed the difficulty of assessing the impact of the split on the international Communist movement and the U.S.

Recent events intensifying the conflict between the Communist giants may lead to the adoption of more radical Communist policies all over the world, Croan said. If the Soviet Union had control of a monolithic Communist bloc, it might be able to keep policies of national Communist parties relatively moderate.

But today the Communist bloc is not monolithic. The split appears in both diplomatic relationships (the Chinese closed all Soviet Consulates as early as 1961) and along organizational lines (the Communist International is now hopelessly divided.

The Vietnam war has intensified the split and given the Chinese a freer hand in pursuing her own ideological aims. In 1964 and last summer, the Soviets announced that the Chinese could not depend on Soviet military support. These pronouncements, Croan believes, might be read in Washington as an invitation to the U.S. to risk war with China without fear of Soviet intervention.

Benjamin I. Schwartz '38, professor of History and Government, emphasized that in the long run, a monolithic world would be more dangerous than one split between separate powers. Furthermore, if the split persists with both sides denying the credentials of the other, "it may undermine the fundamental mystique of Communist doctrine."

Although the ideology may be underminded added Samuel P. Huntington, professor of Government, the split will increase the appeal of communism through out the world. The development of splinter parties will appeal to a broader political base, and attract both radical and moderate elements to the Communist banner.

Diplomatic Gains

The advantages the United States might derive are primarily diplomatic ones, Huntington said. We might exploit the split by pressuring the more moderate Soviet Union, but this approach has its limits because the U.S. cannot negotiate with China. If the USSR ignores U.S. demands, "we cannot very well threaten to make a deal with the Chinese," Huntington said.

Clearly, the U.S. will have to adapt to the polarization of Communist politics if, as Adam B. Ulam, professor of Government, has suggested, the Chinese eventually organize another Communist International, the breach will not be mended for a long time to come.