The Sino-Soviet Balance Sheet in the Underdeveloped Areas

In the underdeveloped areas of the world, Russia and China are in competition not only with the West but also with each other. Russia stresses the solidarity of the system of Socialist states. China preaches revolutionary war. China accepts the risk of escalation into a general war but in practice moves carefully where this risk might be real. The Chinese believe that time is on their side. Russian hopes are limited principally by the fact that the masses in the underdeveloped countries are unlikely to wait passively for communism to tri umph through economic victory in the advanced countries. The Chinese contradict orthodox Marxism by using a racist appeal in their propaganda in Africa and Asia. The Russians repudiate racist distinctions but find it hard to deny that the working classes of the advanced countries evince little enthu siasm for revolution in the underdeveloped countries. These factors, along with Chinese national qualities of drive, ability, patience, and resilience, give China an ideological advantage in the struggle, even though her material resources and capacity for rendering direct military assistance to revolutions are not great.