Sino-Soviet Relations—The Question of Authority

Sino-Soviet relations are enormously complex. Many explanations have been attempted—in terms of "hard" factors of national interest as well as in terms of "deep" an thropological, sociological, historical, and economic theories. Regardless of the part these explanations play in appreciating Sino-Soviet relations, no real understanding is possible without reference to Marxism-Leninism. Although much of ideology is now verbal ballast, there still remains a point at which ideol ogy becomes directly related to power—becomes in itself a fac tor of power. This is in the myth of the Communist party, the assumptions in terms of which the authority of the organi zation is legitimized. Essentially, the myth involves the as cription to the Communist party—conceived as the total world Communist movement—of all the transcendental and messianic qualities attributed by conventional Marxism to the world pro letariat. The infallibility and monolithic unity presupposed in the myth can be maintained only so long as the party speaks with one voice, so long as there is an unquestioned ultimate in stance of authority. Both the Chinese and the Soviets have claimed for themselves the full authority conferred by the myth of the Communist party. The re-establishment of precarious solidarity on the basis of some kind of Communist parliamen tarianism is not impossible, although it would have to be achieved at the expense of the myth by recognizing that the world proletariat can speak with many voices on the same issue. In the meantime, the "toughness" of China and the "modera tion" of the Soviet Union, both subject to change, are less fun damental to the crisis in the Communist world than the ques tion of whether the myth of the Communist party is any longer viable.—Ed.