MOSCOW v. PEKING: OFFENSIVE DIPLOMACY

IT was an extraordinary scene. There, in Chancellor Kurt Kiesinger's antique-filled office in Bonn, sat Soviet Ambassador Semyon ("Scratchy") Tsarapkin. Painstakingly, the Russian explained Moscow's grave concern over the first China border clash early this month to the head of a government long reviled by the Soviets as the chief villain and menace in Europe. Patiently, the German listened as Tsarapkin charged that the "chauvinist foreign policy of Peking" threatened the cause of peace and stability in the world.

It was probably the first time that any Soviet envoy had so formally attacked the policies of the other Communist giant. Behind Tsarapkin's words was a warning: any further tightening of the profitable West German-Chinese trade links would be most unwelcome to the Russians. In Paris, Rome and Tokyo, Tsarapkin's colleagues were giving the French, Italian and Japanese Foreign Ministers roughly the same message. In Ottawa, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau also got the word. The intent was clear: China, no longer a brotherly socialist nation but instead a dangerous foe, should be expelled from the ranks of civilized nations.

Blood on the Border. Within the Communist world, the Soviet campaign was even more aggressive. A joint Soviet-Czech communique "emphatically condemned the recent provocative actions of the Chinese splitters, which inflict serious damage on the forces of socialism." Pravda, organ of the Soviet Communist Party, noted that Mao Tse-tung and his clique had revealed "once more the extent of their political degradation," and the Soviet press continued to bare details of the bloody Ussuri River border clash in the Far East, which, the Russians claim, cost the lives of 31 Russian frontier guards.

Far more serious were charges in the authoritative magazine Kommunist to the effect that today the military controls China and excludes the "broad masses of the working people" from any effective role. "The group of Mao Tse-tung," said Kommunist, "has deserted Marxist-Leninist principles." Translated from the jargon, that means that Moscow has read Peking out of the Communist movement. The Soviets are working manfully to persuade other Communist parties to agree to ratify that decision at the forthcoming international party conference in May, and the Chinese are sure to be discussed at this week's Warsaw Pact summit meeting.

Iron Fists in Action. Communist China's ideological warriors responded to the Soviet attacks in kind. On four successive days, formal Chinese statements and protest notes whistled out of Peking, and the angry mass demonstrations against the "new czars" resumed across the China mainland. Peking's most serious protest charged that there had been six other Soviet border transgressions on Chen Pao Island, site of the Ussuri fighting. At least two of these, China asserted, involved trucks and armored vehicles. The New China News Agency warned Moscow that "hundreds of millions of army men and civilians are on the alert. If you have the audacity to continue attacking China, you will be crushed to pieces by the iron fists of the 700 million Chinese people."

Those vaunted "iron fists" were in action as the week ended, and blood once again stained the snows of Chen Pao Island, or Damansky, as the Russians call it. According to Moscow, Chinese troops moved onto the island by night, and next morning another large detachment attacked, supported by mortar and artillery fire. "There were killed and wounded as a result," the Russians reported, though no specific casualty figures were given. The Chinese, in their turn, accused Soviet troops of provoking the battle. Chinese frontier guards, a Peking radio broadcast said, were "compelled to shoot back in self-defense."

Moscow said the fire fight lasted more than four hours. Peking reported it "was continuing and expanding," an indication that the incident may have been even larger in scale than the first encounter. Each side warned that the foe would be crushed should such provocations continue, and the Soviets rattled their rockets as well. A Red Army newspaper suggested that "any provocateurs" keep in mind the combat readiness of Russia's rocket forces. In the past several years, a series of Soviet missile installations have been set up in areas within easy range of Chinese military and industrial concentrations in the troubled borderlands.

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