Marx and Manners

Ever since Nikita Khrushchev introduced shoe banging to the United Nations, some Westerners have suspected that Moscow followed its own very different standards of diplomatic deportment. It may well have, but whatever the standards were, a new compendium has been issued for the use of the current crop of Soviet diplomats.

The 247-page volume, titled Diplomatic Protocol and Practice, is available at Moscow bookstores (price: 78-c-). Author F.F. Molochkov does not slight the basics. "Don't forget that by your appearance and your manners you attract the attention of those around you," he advises. Among other things, he instructs his readers on how to move: "Watch your stride. Don't waddle. Walk firmly, erect and with dignity." Style at the dinner table is also important. "Don't crumble your bread into the soup." Molochkov says. "Don't spit bones and so forth onto the plate." Nor should well-mannered diplomats slurp from the tip of their soup spoons, or ask for second helpings.

Moving on to the main course, Molochkov warns: "Do not eat with your knife. Never put the knife into your mouth." It is not done, he emphasizes, to "stare intently at those around you," and in polite gatherings, "don't fidget, don't whisper, don't stare intently at furniture, pictures and other objects." For the loquacious, he counsels "don't tell old stories, jokes and anecdotes"--and for the insecure, "don't be disappointed if you think you are being ignored." One dictum might be intended for KGB operatives doing cover duty in the diplomatic corps: On visits to others' homes, the diplomat "should not enter the room without knocking."

As Diplomatic Protocol shows, Soviet officialdom is showing increasing interest in manners. A recent article in the Moscow Literary Gazette called for wide distribution of books on etiquette. It observed that in the U.S. and other countries, young members of "bourgeois" society "polish their manners carefully in the family and at elite universities," but in the Soviet Union, the traditional Russian concern for good form "was broken after the Revolution. Polite conventions were disdained as pretentious when vests, hats and ties became petit bourgeois. " Result: "Abroad, some of us are grossly ignorant of internationally accepted standards of etiquette."

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