20 MARCH 1964, Page 10

The Winds of Change in Eastern Europe

By WILLIAM DEAN

IF the dispatch of Ion Gheorghe Maurer, the J Rumanian Prime Minister, to Peking had been Mr. Gheorghiu-Dej's first independent move inside the Communist camp, the suggestion that he was going to 'mediate' between Moscow and Peking might have had a faint ring of truth. But it wasn't; the Rumanian leader has been demon- strating his impatience with Russian controls for the last three or four years. He has long been ready to turn to anyone—France, Britain, America, the United Nations, China or even Yugoslavia—who will help him in any way to assert his independence of Moscow. And in the unlikely event that either Khrushchev or Mao Tse-tung might need him as an intermediary, it is difficult to see what advantage the Rumanians would derive from bringing the Russians and Chinese together. It is their quarrel which has brought Moscow's authority into question and given people like Ghcorghiu-Dej the room they need for manoeuvre.

Nor is it likely that Mr. Dej has been drawn to Peking by ideological forces. Though he is as 'Stalinist' as any of the East European leaders and has not permitted the slightest suspicion of Khrushchevian revisionism to penetrate into Rumania, he has never shown much interest in the exchanges between Moscow and Peking. Moreover, if the Maurer mission had been interested only in mediation, it would not have gone on to Pyongyang. The Sino-Soviet conflict is real enough; but the North Korea-Soviet con- flict is scarcely a major problem in the Com- munist world.

Mr. Dej's real aims become reasonably clear from a review of the development of Rumania's relations with her Communist allies since 1959. In that year the Rumanians drew up a six-year plan aimed at expanding the economy at a rate far in excess of anything the Russians had ever permitted. It was the first truly Rumanian plan. In 1960, however, they found that their allies, notably the Russians, Czechs and East Germans, were letting them down badly on deliveries of goods essential to the plan. Even when delivered, goods were of poor quality and lacked spare parts and service. So the Rumanians decided to turn to Western Europe for supplies, which they found both better and cheaper, and they diverted their own precious oil, meat and grain from Eastern Europe to the West.

When Comecon, the East European 'Common Market' organisation, met in June, 1962, the Czechs, East Germans and Poles accused the Rumanians of letting the side down by diverting to the West goods and currency %% hich were much needed in the Communist world. The Rumanians hit back. Among other things, they accused the Poles of selling their coal to their allies at prices well above the world level. And they pointed out that the grain they sold to Poland for Polish currency enabled the Poles to sell bacon to the West for good, hard Western cur- rency. The result of this encounter was that the Rumanians ignored their allies' strictures and continued to buy and sell in whatever seemed to be the best market. So much for Comecon.

Gheorghiu-Dej had already made a discovery of considerable importance to the whole Eastern bloc: that if he did not choose to obey what the Chinese call Khrushchev's 'baton,' there was, in 1962, very little that Khrushchev could, or would, do about it. He had already convinced himself of this on the domestic front: ignoring Khrushchev's advice, he had quickly completed the 'collectivisation' of Rumanian agriculture in 1962. And he made no effort at all to 'de- Stalinise' his administration: quite the reverse. There was nothing the Russians could do, so long as Dej remained firmly in control of his country and did not allow things to get out of hand as Rakosi had done in Hungary in 1956. His formula for doing this contains three main elements: unrelenting dictatorship, vigorous eco- nomic advance and the evocation of nationalist, mainly anti-Russian, sentiments.

Even before the crucial Comecon meeting in Moscow last July, from which Gheorghiu-Dej emerged victorious, he had been edging away from the Russians. In March he sent his am- bassador back to Tirana and stepped up trade with Albanian heretics. In April he sent a letter round to all members of his party putting the Rumanian case and depicting the Communists as the true defenders of Rumania's national in- terests. Then the party press took up a carefully neutral position in the Sino-Soviet quarrel and Dej refused to join Khrushchev and the others at an anti-Chinese gathering in Berlin. At the same time the number of exchanges between Bucharest and Peking showed a marked increase.

But it is not just a movement towards Peking. Dej is seeking friends everywhere. He has made his peace with Marshal Tito, China's bite noire; he has made Rumania active in the United Nations; he is developing contacts with Latin America. And even his 'anti-Russian' moves, such as cutting down Russian propaganda in Bucharest, have been relatively minor gestures, asserting Rumanian independence of the Kremlin rather than out-and-out hostility. As the party press said, commenting on this year's anniversary of the Soviet-Rumanian Treaty, the Rumanians

want 'relations of a new type, stabilised in the spirit of socialist internationalism,' between them- selves and the Russians.

It is in the light of these developments that Maurer's trip to Peking must be viewed. The Rumanians consider that the 'relations of a new type' in the Communist world permit them to have at least as good relations with China as they have with Russia. Dej is glad to have a powerful friend and trading partner to offset Russia. The Chinese are glad to encourage any Communist leader to move away from Moscow, especially if be is in power and commands useful economic resources. But the Rumanians will not move right over into the Chinese camp unless the Russians force them to. The fact that Maurer stopped to see Khrushchev in Gagra on his way back from the Far East is evidence both of the Rumanians' desire to have a foot in both camps, and of the Russians' acceptance of their new role.

Gheorghiu-Dej is only doing in his Rumanian way and circumstances what Tito and Hoxha —and Mao Tse-tung, for that matter—did in their different ways before him. He is, in fact, doing no more than Imre Nagy tried and failed to do in much less auspicious circumstances in Hungary in 1956. Others will doubtless follow the same path, since the yearning to be rid of Russian tutelage is common to all the peoples of Eastern Europe, and Russian interest in the area—economic, strategic and even political— seems to be dwindling.

Who will be next? Perhaps not the Bulgars, who have just been sweetened with a Russian loan (but then, so had the Rumanians!). Not the East Germans, whose fate is too closely tied up with the great East-West issues. Not, pre- sumably, the Poles, who are locked in by the Germans. But it could be the Czechs, whose eco- nomic problems are beyond the power of Russia or Comecon to solve. Or even the Hungarians, who have also shown some signs of independent thought lately.

The Rumanian example is certainly inspiring. For the first time Dej's regime appears to have acquired a measure of popularity, and the Com- munist Party has had an accession of new blood. Rumania has the highest economic growth-rate of any country in the world and a bearable standard of living. The country has a chance of becoming an economically successful Fascist-type dictatorship.

This is the real tragedy of the countries of Eastern Europe. They were 'liberated' by the Russians in the name of freedom and democracy. But what they received from their liberators was a new form of dictatorship and economic ex- ploitation. Now that the Russian grip is loosen- ing, the regimes that are emerging are petty dic- tatorships whose people, never much experienced in democratic ways, have had no chance to make political progress in the last twenty years. So it is left to the dictators themselves to lead them out or bondage.

Czechoslovakia, for example, is a far less democratic country today than it was in 1947. The Poles enjoy less political freedom than they did before the war. The leaders of these countries can break away from Russian control in the name, not of democracy, but only of their own dictatorship. .And, as was the case with Tito, the Western powers help to prop them up.

Nevertheless, we must presumably welcome the gradual erosion of Russia's empire in Europe. It looks as though, long before the new Comecon skyscraper in Moscow is completed. the need for it will have passed. But there are, no doubt, other uses to which it may be put.