Page "editorial" Paragraph 922

The effect of Chou En-lai's clash with Khrushchev, together with the everlasting attacks on Molotov & Co., has shifted the whole attention of the world, including that of the Soviet people, from the `` epoch-making '' twenty-year program to the present Soviet-Chinese conflict.

Not only, as we know, did Chou En-lai publicly treat Khrushchev's attack on Albania as `` something that we cannot consider as a serious Marxist-Leninist approach '' to the problem ( i.e., as something thoroughly dictatorial and `` undemocratic '' ), but the Albanian leaders went out of their way to be openly abusive to Khrushchev, calling him a liar, a bully, and so on.

It is extremely doubtful that the handful of Albanians who call themselves Communists could have done this without the direct approval of their Chinese friends.

The big question is whether, in the name of a restored Chinese-Soviet solidarity, the Chinese will choose to persuade the Albanians to present their humble apologies to Khrushchev -- or get rid of Enver Hoxa.

These seem about the only two ways in which the `` unhappy incident '' can now be closed.