Communists: Barraged Balloon

One danger in launching a trial bal loon is that the balloonist may get caught up in the mooring cables and carried aloft. Just that sort of aerial accident befell Russia's Leonid Brezhnev and his Bulgarian allies last week.

Speaking before 80 Communist Party delegations in Sofia, Bulgarian Party Boss Todor Zhivkov declared that "conditions are ripening" for a conference ,of all loyal Leninists to read Red China out of Communist society. Added Brezhnev: "The leaders of China are more and more submitting their policy to narrow nationalist aims."

The idea of a formal excommunication ceremony to isolate Red China dates from the days of Khrushchev, but the new team of Brezhnev and Kosygin let the matter cool when they took power in 1964, hoping to close the rift. One good reason: the Kremlin knew it could not count on the support of its Communist allies, for party bosses had made clear their opposition to a Soviet blackball of any Red nation.

Sure enough, when Zhivkov and Brezhnev raised the hint of a conference again last week, they came under a barrage of counterfire. Snapped Rumania's Nicolae Ceausescu: "Nothing should be done to deepen the divergencies and increase the threat of a split." The Italian and North Korean delegations were equally outspoken in their opposition, while Yugoslavs, Poles, Cubans and North Vietnamese maintained a stony silence. The only big parties to endorse the idea were those of Czechoslovakia, Hungary and France.