Communists: Search for Lebensraum?

Marxist ideology is widely advertised as the root cause of the current struggle between Russia and Red China. But beneath all the high-flown jargon lies a more concrete basis for conflict. It is the 4,000-mile border the two nations share.

To Moscow, Communist China's Mao Tse-tung is nothing more than a Red Hitler in search of Lebensraum. In a blistering editorial, Pravda pointed out that Peking had published a history textbook containing a map that showed China's frontiers as including parts of the Soviet far east—the Maritime Krai, Vladivostok and Sakhalin; a...