The Consequences of Peaceful Co-existence

[p038] The consequences of peacetul co-existence (Translated from ‘La Verité’ October[November 1963) by Michel Varga From peaceful co-existence to alliance against the Chinese revolution THE FOREIGN POLICY of a country, as was shown long ago by Marxism, reflects fundamentally the same social content and the same interests as its home policy. The present crisis of the bureaucratic regime in the USSR cannot fail to have effects on the Kremlin’s foreign policy just as heavy in conse- quences as on its domestic policy. It is the evolution of this foreign policy that will now be examined, beginning with some historical and_ theoretical reminders. 1. Stalinism and Marxism ' (a) From the ‘tragi-comic misunderstanding’ . . . At the end of 1934, Trotsky, drawing up the balance-sheet of eleven years of Stalinist leadership of the Communist International, was able to write: ‘With regard to the USSR, the role of the bureau- cracy, as we have said, is dual; on the one hand, it protects, with its own particular methods, the wor- kers’ state, and on the other it disorganises and slows down the development of the economy and of culture, repressing the creative activity of the masses. But in contrast to this, in the field of the international labour movement, not a trace of this duality remains; here, the Stalinist bureaucracy plays, from start to finish, a role of disorganisation and demoralisation, a disastrous role.’ And in The Revolution Betrayed he showed how ‘from the policy of socialism in a single country, the transition to the theory of revolution in a single country is quite natural’. Moreover, on March 1, 1935, Stalin had given a rightly famous interview to the American journalist Roy Howard: © _ Howard: What about your plans and intentions for world revolution? Stalin: We have never had any such designs. Howard: But yet... Stalin: It springs from a misunderstanding. Howard: A tragic misunderstanding? Stalin: No, comic, or rather tragi-comic. As we see, the policy of Khrushchev is based on an already old tradition. The bureaucracy, which was only able to come to power thanks to an historically transitory equilibrium between the fundamental class forces inside the USSR as well as on a world scale, can imagine nothing beyond the status quo in all fields, in relations between states as well as in relations between classes. And, in 1938, Trotsky was able to write that “The Communist International has definitely gone over to the side of the bourgeois order’, while Soviet diplomacy, through Stalin’s mouth, had proclaimed the dearest dream of the bureaucracy: ‘We don’t want an inch of foreign territory, but we won't yield an inch of ours.’ Thus, for the bureaucracy, the line of demarcation between the USSR and imperialism no longer coincided with the front line of the international class struggle of the proletariat, but indeed with the geographical frontier of the Soviet state. Such a conception, implied by the theory of ‘socialism in a single country’, constituted a deep revision of the FOURTH INTERNATIONAL SPRING 1964

[p039] STALINISM AND MARXISM x Leninist theory of imperialism. Lenin showed that imperialism constitutes a world social system, the highest stage of capitalism; on the other hand, for the bureaucracy, imperialism was henceforth essenti- ally a policy of expansion, particularly at the expense of the USSR, practiced by the capitalist states, or by some of them (even by ‘certain groups of capitalists’). This policy could therefore be modified without changing the social regime. However, the utopian dreams about the status quo in all fields, for all their fostering by the Kremlin, have not become an historical reality. In fact, the status quo has not ceased to be placed in question by the workers and the exploited of the whole world who are continually driven afresh by the develop- ment of capitalism’s objective contradictions to mobilise themselves against imperialism, despite the desperate efforts of their reformist, nationalist, or Stalinist leaderships. Nor has the status quo ceased to be placed in question by imperialism which, suffocating in the ever more restricted limits of the world market, cannot fail to work, directly or indirectly, for the reintegration under its control of the economy of the ‘socialist’ countries. ... to the partition of the world The Second World War thus had to overturn the status quo in many fields. Confronted by what was, for both of them, the principal danger, the threat of a European socialist revolution, in 1943 Stalin and Roosevelt concluded the Yalta agreement. In exchange for military occupation of the Eastern half of Europe, where the army of the USSR undertook to canalise the mass movements, and to brutally stamp out any attempt at autonomous action on their part, Stalin placed the CPs of Western Europe at the service of the faltering capitalist system to put it back into the saddle. On this point, at least, the agreements were loyally respected. And imperialism naturally took advantage of the repulse of the revolution in Europe to increase its pressure on the USSR (Marshall Plan and policy of air bases), thus taking the initiative in the cold war. _ The Kremlin bureaucracy, which had thought it possible to assure its control over the ‘popular demo- cracies’ while allowing the basis of capitalist pro- ductive relations to continue there, had therefore to determine to what extent such a policy, although conforming to the conception of substituting the struggle between states for that of the class struggle, made its situation precarious in an Eastern Europe subjected to the powerful attraction of the capitalist market. It then had hastily to remedy this state of affairs, completely nationalize the industry of the FOURTH INTERNATIONAL SPRING 1964 33 ‘popular democracies’, undertake a bureaucratic coilectivisation of agriculture, and begin the ‘con- struction of socialism’ under the shield of the state plan. The ‘Prague coup’ will remain the symbol of this sharp turn imposed on the Kremlin by the active manifestations of the true nature of imperialism as a world social regime. . (b) ‘Co-existence’ after Stalin The unleashing of the cold war by imperialism and the counter-measures forced upon the Soviet bureau- cracy created a new situation, for which Zhdanov found the ‘theoretical’ definition: for the struggle of international classes was henceforth to be substituted the struggle of the ‘bloc of socialist states’ against the bloc of capitalist states. American imperialism having undertaken out-and- out rearmament, the USSR found itself obliged to imitate it. We have seen what a staggering burden this rearmament caused to weigh on the economy of the USSR,! whose productivity is still far inferior to that of the United States, and how, under these conditions, rearmament managed to accelerate and intensify the crisis of bureaucratic planning. The situation was further worsened by virtue of the almost complete break-off of trade between the two blocs under the banner of the ‘theory’ of two independent world markets. Stalin’s foreign policy, like his home policy, thus ended in an impasse or, more precisely, his foreign policy contributed to the further worsening of the consequences of his home policy. ‘Cleverly’ practising the ostrich policy, in December 1952 Stalin announced that henceforth wars between the im- perialist states were more probable than a conflict between the two blocs! For his successors, at grips with the threat of a revolutionary rising of the masses, ‘co-existence’ was to become no longer a desire, but a necessity which they were to elevate to the rank of a theory. It was necessary to develop commerce with imperialism in order to obtain on the world market the commodi- ties vital for the satisfaction, even if very relative, of the needs of the Russian masses; from a more long-term view, it was necessary to aim at lightening the intolerable burden of the armaments race. It was under these conditions that Khrushchev and Co. made the ‘fight for peace’ the principal objective of the world Stalinist movement; they had therefore to ‘demonstrate’ that this object was accessible. From the moment that the struggle between ‘systems’ replaces the class struggle, to state that war can be 1. In an earlier part of the study not printed here.

[p040] 34 indefinitely avoided is to state that the two systems can become compatible—and therefore that they are not, by nature, incompatible. To be more precise: if the Stalinists mobilise their forces to preserve peace on an international scale, they are mobilising them in order to preserve the international status quo. This status quo is dominated by imperiakism; the essential objective of the Stalinists then becomes the preservation of imperialism. It is here that the paths of the conservative and liberal Stalinists diverge. The former have remained faithful to the Stalinist ‘class struggle’ viewed in the form of military ‘bloc politics. The latter found the way out of this contradiction in a new ‘theoretical develop- ment’. According to them, today, it is necessary to achieve ‘peaceful co-existence’ between different regimes and systems, a co-existence at the same time both necessary and possible. The development of nuclear weapons arrived just in time to demon- strate the necessity of ‘co-existence’. This is where Stalinist logic leads. Obviously, there are only very few people who actually want a nuclear war or, for that matter, any other war. But in vain do the Stalinists, the petty-bourgeois of all countries, and other ‘left-intellectuals’ repeat in every key that the only alternative to nuclear war is peaceful co-existence, because that is not enough to make it really so. For the international working class the daily struggle against capitalist exploitation is the very substance of its existence, whether the war must be waged with nuclear weapons or with arrows. Lenin wrote in 1915: ‘Dreams of peace without the propaganda of revolutionary action only express the horror of war and have nothing to do with socialism.”2 ‘Nothing to do with . . ., that is to say that this argument is no more than a pretext for completely abandoning the class struggle. (c) Stalinist pacifism For a long time now the Stalinists have put an immense amount of energy into the international organisation of ‘the peace movement’. They began to do so during the reign of Stalin, and the liberals only developed this policy, giving it a new impulse. First of all there is the international movements and ‘bureaux. The Stalinists suppressed the Third Inter- national; but they have built up the international organisation of the ‘peace movement’. But the betrayal of the class struggle by Stalinism does not stop with this change of form, which covers up a 2. ‘Bourgeois Philanthropists and Revolutionary Social- Democracy’, in Collected Works, Vol. XVIII (Lawrence & Wishart edition), p. 180. CONSEQUENCES OF PEACEFUL CO-EXISTENCE deep meaning: the international Stalinist movement, in its most varied forms—parties, unions; youth and women’s organisations, etc.—has been subordinated to the ‘peace movement’. Of course, the ‘pacifism of the oppressed’ has a ‘progressive character’, as Trotsky wrote in the Transitional Programme. Our hatred of imperialism is all the greater since it threatens humanity and, in the first instance, the oppressed masses, with all the suffering of war, nuclear or ‘conventional’, even to the extent of total elimination. But the Stalinist policy of the preservation of peace under the slogan of ‘peaceful co-existence’ leads, inside the imperialist countries, to the abandonment of the class struggle. The Stalinist movements, fighting for peace, collaborate with the bourgeoisie in order to maintain the existing social order. In order to unmask the true nature of this policy, it might well be useful to quote from some texts, little known today, by Lenin who, at the time of the First World War, said everything essential on this subject: ‘The war is not an accident, not a ‘sin’, as is the idea of the Christian ministers (who preach patriot- ism, humanitarianism and peace no less eloquently than the opportunists); it is an inevitable stage of capitalism, it is a form of capitalist life as natural as peace.’3 And in the conference of Foreign Sections of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (1915): ‘Some of the means employed to fool the working class are pacifism and the abstract preachment of peace. ‘Under capitalism, particularly in its imperialist phase, wars are unavoidable. .. . A propaganda of peace at the present time, if not accompanied by a call to revolutionary mass actions, is only capable of spreading illusions, of demoralising the proletariat by imbuing it with confidence in the humanitarianism of the bourgeoisie, and of making it a plaything of secret diplomacy. . . . In particular, the idea of the possibility of a so-called democratic peace without a series of revolutions is deeply erroneous.’4 Here once again is what he wrote in 1915 in his article, quoted above, on “bourgeois philanthropists’: ‘The Messrs. Bourgeois know ... that phrases of a democratic peace are an idle, foolish utopia as Jong as the old forces “actually direct diplomacy’’, i.c., as long as the class of capitalists has not been expropriated,’5 As if he had known in advance the arguments of the Stalinists Lenin wrote, still in the same article: ‘The enlightened advance-guard of the proletariat, 3. ‘Position and Tasks of the Socialist International, 1914’, Collected Works, p. 88. 4. Ibid., p. 149. 5. Ibid., p. 180. FOURTH INTERNATIONAL SPRING 1964

[p041] STALINISM AND MARXISM the revolutionary Social-Democrats, attentively watch the sentiments of the masses, utilising their growing tendency towards peace, not in order to support the vulgar utopias of a “democratic” peace under capitalism, not in order to encourage hopes for the intervention of the philanthropists, the authorities, the bourgeoisie, but in order to make the vague revolutionary sentiments clear.’6 In 1915, in his article “The Peace Question’, Lenin is even more clear, if that is possible. ‘The peace slogan can be advanced tither in con- nection with definite peace conditions, or without any conditions at all, as a desire for an indefinite peace, for peace in general. It is obvious that in the latter case we have a slogan that is not only not socialist, but that is entirely devoid of meaning. . .. Slogans must be advanced in order to make clear to the masses, by means of propaganda and agitation, the irreconcilable difference between socialism and capitalism (imperialism); they must not be advanced in order to reconcile two hostile classes and two hostile lines by means of a little word which ‘unites’ the most divergent things.’ (Lenin’s emphasis)? And, further on: ‘We are not for the status quo, nor for the philistine utopia of shrinking away from great wars. We are in favour of a revolutionary struggle against imperialism, i.e., capitalism.’ ‘...a more or less democratic peace [is impossible] outside of a number of revolutions and revolutionary struggle in every country against their respective government,’9 And he finishes: ‘Here is a choice for a revolutionary struggle or for servility to the bourgeoisie. There is no middle course.”10 So Lenin was not against the peace slogan in an abstract manner; rather he clearly defined that the struggle for peace must be accompanied by a revolutionary struggle to overthrow the bourgeoisie and precisely in that way to emsure peace. Now, there is added to the peace policy of the Stalinists on an international scale a peace movement inside each country, inside the imperialist countries. The Stalinists state that the class struggle is going on between the two systems; they state, moreover, that, given the existence of atomic weapons, this struggle must become ‘peaceful’. The policy of co-existence is thus applied internally to the imperialist countries, which ultimately leads to the abandonment of the 6. Collected Works, p. 181. 7. Ibid., p. 264. 9. Ibid., p. 268. 8. Ibid., 10. Ibid. p. 266-7. FOURTH INTERNATIONAL SPRING 1964 35 class-struggle. This is shown in two basic forms in the present policy of the Stalinists. First of all by an unprincipled alliance with the petty-bourgeoisie and even the bourgeoisie under the aegis of the ‘peace movement’; secondly, by parliamentary cretinism which reduces the workers’ movement to be a loyal opposition within the existing bourgeois order. We could be countered here once again with the Stalinist argument according to which the existence of nuclear weapons qualitatively changes the nature of imperialism. This ‘argument’ is nothing but blackmail. Between the two paths, nuclear war and peace at any price, which in reality lead to the same impasse, there lies the path of revolutionary struggle; it is only along this path that it is possible to finish once and for all with nuclear terror and with terror plain and simple. A second objection might take on the following form: could not a policy of ‘peaceful co-existence’ manage to prevent an attack on the USSR for at least long enough for her to build up sufficient strength and for capitalism, torn by internal contradictions, to collapse? There are two dangerous illusions here: that the USSR can ‘fool’ imperialism and thus escape its attacks; and that imperialism can collapse without workers’ revolu- tions. Through the present practice of ‘peaceful co-existence’ we shall see exactly just to what degree these claims are false, anti-Marxist and _petty- bourgeois. .-. and the nature of imperialism The Stalinists have launched their slogan of general and complete disarmament. They are inviting the imperialists to conclude an agreement with the USSR and, since 1955, have begun nego- tiations on the technicalities of disarmament. Let us pose the question: is such disarmament possible? And, once again, let us listen to Lenin. In his article “The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution’ he wrote: ‘The arming of the bourgeoisie against the pro- letariat is the most significant, the most fundamental, and the most important fact of modern capitalist sociey. And yet, despite this fact, it is being pro- posed that social-democrats should put forward the “demand” on “disarmament”. That is the equivalent of the complete abandonment of the class struggle, of the complete negation of the revolution. Our slogan is the arming of the proletariat, for the conquest, the expropriation and the disarmament of the bourgeoisie—this is the only possible tactic for the revolutionary class which flows from the whole objective development of capitalist militarism and which is motivated and prescribed by that develop- ment.’ (Lenin’s emphasis)

[p042] 36 And Lenin goes on: ‘The fundamental character of the prevalent opportunism is that it passes over in silence and ignores the concrete question of the relationship . . . between the war and revolution as well as the other concrete problems of the latter. . . .The principal deficiency of the disarmament demand is exactly the fact that it avoids every concrete question of the revolution, Or perhaps the trusty followers of dis- armament stand for some kind of unarmed revolu- tion, of a new type?’ The Stalinists in fact establish a close relationship. between their policy on ‘peace’ and the ‘parliamen- tary roads to socialism’ ‘developed’ by Khrushchev. ‘Peaceful co-existence’ is a ‘theory’ and a practice, not only on the international scale, but also inside each country. This inevitable relationship was already perfectly well known to Lenin who dis- covered it among the opportunists of the Second International. He addressed these admirable lines to the workers in ‘The Collapse of the Second International’ (1915): ‘ . . . today you are given an election ballot—take it. Understand how to organise for it, to hit your enemies with it, and not to place men in soft parlia- mentary berths who cling to their seat in fear of prison. Tomorrow you are deprived of the election ballot, you are given a rifle and a splendid machine- gun equipped according to the last word of machine technique—take this weapon of death and destruction, do not listen to the sentimental whiners who are afraid of war. Much has been left in the world that must be destroyed by fire and iron for the liberation of the working class.’ (Lenin’s emphasis) And in his article ‘On the Slogan of Disarmament’ he wrote: ‘He is no socialist who expects the realisation of socialism without the social revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat... . To adopt “dis- armament” into the programme is equivalent to say: We are opposed to the use of arms. The Kautskyan preaching of “disarmament” in reality serves only to divert the workers from the revolutionary struggle.’ (Lenin’s emphasis)!1 It is a very widespread commonplace among economists, and even among non-specialists, that the imperialist economy is incapable of managing without an armaments programme. One does not have to be a Marxist to realise that, if armament orders were suddenly cut off, the imperialist economy would, practically overnight, be plunged into chaos. Leaving aside the general militarisation of life, let us simply take the economic aspect of the problem. 11. The New International, August 1934. CONSEQUENCES OF PEACEFUL CO-EXISTENCE The industrial capacity of the imperialist world, as a whole, just as for each country taken separately, stays in a chronic state of partial disuse. It is solely the armaments programme which permits the use of ‘optimum’ capacity and still ensures a semblance of life for the economy. In a survey by the official Disarmament Agency, the American capitalists estimate ‘ . that a tenth of the nation’s total resources, and a practically indentical percentage of manual labour, are at present devoted to national defence.” (Le Monde, May 11, 1962). We can be sure that in reality this proportion is far greater. All of this is reflected in the budgets of each imperialist State, in a discreet but visible manner. On January 17, 1963, President Kennedy presented the budget for the year 1963 to the US Congress. The defence budget amounted to $2,400 million more than that of the previous year and to $10,000 million (!) more than that of the last year of the Eisenhower admini- stration. Let us not forget to add the separately presented space budget which, with $2,400 million, increased by 75 per cent relative to the previous year. The military provisions of the French budget are also climbing to dizzy heights. England is an equally typical example by which to appreciate the privileged position occupied by armaments in the imperialist economy. Under these conditions the disarmament policy extolled by the Stalinists is the equivalent of invidiously fooling the working class, by sowing the illusion that imperialism might be able to abandon its armaments policy, as if ‘this policy did not constitute an integral part of the imperialist system. The Stalinists sow the illusion that it is possible to disarm imperialism without overthrowing it. In reality, the Stalinist disarmament policy says that imperialism has ceased to be imperialist, and that it is no more than a question of men of good or bad faith. So the Stalinists denounce the ‘fomenters of war’, Adenauer and the German revanchists, or the ‘militarist circles (!) of the Pentagon’. Against these wicked men they contrast the ‘wise and uwunder- standing’ policy of other politicians like, circum- Stances permitting, Stevenson, Thant, Kennedy and others. So, in the international arena, there are good and bad capitalists, and the latter wreck the attempts of the USSR, supported by the former, to achieve an agreement on disarmament. This ‘reasoning’ obviously has nothing in common with a Marxist analysis of the character of imperialism. The imperialist system is one and indivisible. Imperial- ism is still the same capitalist system of exploitation and oppression, independently of the technical standard of military equipment. In the face of this FOURTH INTERNATIONAL SPRING 1964

[p043] DIPLOMACY OF ‘CO-EXISTENCE’ reality, which weighs down on every worker in Detroit, Birmingham, Algiers or anywhere else, Khrushchev states to the American ambassador: ‘We can like each other or dislike each other. But for the sake of maintaining peace, we have to embrace or, at least, shake hands.’ (Le Monde, November 9, 1962). And these words were spoken at the reception organised for the anniversary of the October Revolution. 2. The diplomacy of ‘Co-existence’ We will now examine how the new foreign policy of the ‘liberals’ in power in Moscow has worked out in the evolution of the international situation. (a) ‘The spirit of Camp David’ First of all a few words on the negotiations which took place at Camp David, at the time of the meeting between Khrushchev and Eisenhower, in September 1959. In this way we shall see just what this ‘spirit of Camp David’, which Khrushchev was so happy to invoke months later, really was. These negotia- tions were and have remained secret, except for certain occasional hints. It is therefore difficult to examine them deeply. This underlines for us how wrong are those who hold that the slogan of the Transitional Programme: ‘Down with secret diplo- macy’, is no longer applicable. We know that in particular the question of trade between the USSR and the United States was tackled at Camp David. The history of this trade shows that it had already reached some importance in 1930, with a value of $240 million, a record figure if we exclude the war years (in 1944, for example, it amounted to over $4,000 million). Since then, mutual trade decreased, until, parallel with the beginning of the ‘cold war’, it reached almost com- plete stagnation. The USSR tried to substitute exchange with Europe for trade with the United States, who set up a rigorous control over exchanges with the USSR. It was 1956 before there were any signs of change in this position. It is no accident that this came about after the first meeting between heads of state, at the time of the transition and re-orientation of the Soviet economy, and in the full heat of the struggle between the Soviet ‘conserva- tives’ and the ‘liberals’. The Americans began by lifting restrictions on several articles, and the Soviet bureaucrats in turn launched a campaign of Russian offers to American ‘businessmen’, The American bourgeoisie harboured no illusions about trade with the USSR, but wished to obtain from the American government the lifting of restrictions and the same FOURTH INTERNATIONAL SPRING 1964 37 possibilities as the European bourgeoisie. The balance of payments deficit was a weighty considera- tion in this attitude. The political representative of the ‘enlightened’ bourgeois, Senator Fulbright, clearly demonstrated these intentions in his letter of July 1959 to the State Department, in which he demanded that the latter should define its position vis-a-vis the Soviet offers. The reply pointed out that enlarged exchanges between the United States and the USSR, like a loan to the latter, would be of considerable assistance to a country opposed to the western system. In other words, a fair number of American capitalists, faced with the threat of a crisis, wanted to be sure of Soviet outlets. But the political repre- sentatives of American capitalism placed against the short-term interests of these capitalists the general interest of their class: to exert growing pressure on the USSR to bring about its transformation into a ‘friendly’ country. During this time, the Soviet bureaucrats harrassed both the American government and the private capi- talists, going so far as to state in one of Kozlov’s speeches in 1959 that mutual exchanges could rise to the level of several thousands of millions of dollars per year. Certain American capitalists were ready to under- take such trade with the USSR, but they came into collision with the American government, which kept up its political conditions with the aim of inciting the bureaucrats to abandon the conquests of October. Despite its difficulties, the leading group in the USSR was not ready to give in. Hence its attempts to call upon private capitalists, and to try to get them to put pressure on their own government. It is in this soil that there blooms the touching friendship of Khrushchev and Cyrus Eaton. In these conditions Khrushchev showed himself at Camp David to be hostile to the discussion of full agreements, hoping perhaps that the affair could be settled by the intervention of his new friends. At the same time he opened the door for further negotiations. For example, as far as the Soviet debt was concerned he at first rejected the American demands, but afterwards had to back down in face of the insistence of his interlocutors, who considered payment of this debt to be a preliminary condition for any trade. An agreement was reached on the resumption of the negotiations about payment of the debt which had been broken off at the beginning of the ‘cold war’. It was nevertheless specified—a strange way of setting one’s mind at rest—that the settle- ments would include neither the old debt of the Czar nor that of the Kerensky government! Khrush- chev likewise rejected a general agreement on patent

[p044] 38 rights and licenses stating that such agreements could be settled directly with the enterprises con- cerned. It was in this way that the Soviet govern- ment paid the Du Pont de Nemours company the sum of $1.5 million for outstanding royalties. The Americans, for their part, accepted all this in the hope of a favourable outcome of the negotiations and in order to facilitate the successive lifting of restrictions. Although deep down there was no general agree- ment and although the bureaucracy was very careful not to make any basic concessions, these negotiations did mark a stage in its evolution. As a bourgeois observer put it: ‘Khrushchev appears to have agreed to “pay” through a settlement of the Lease Lend account for the normalisation of economic relations with the United States, while in 1958 Mikoyan refused any negotiation on this point, believing that it was possible to arrive at commercial results without altering the general political climate.’ (Politique Etrangére, 1959, No. 5) (b) The test-ban treaty Through all the negotiatiors which have been going on for years about a disarmament agreement, we can diagnose several important phenomena. First of all they allow us to evaluate the true nature of imperialism. Then, they show us the real content of the disarmament policy and, at the same time, the ‘value’ of the Stalinist illusion on the possibility of fooling imperialism. Finally they unmask the Soviet leaders. We realise that, for many readers, an examination of negotiations dealing with the disarmament prob- lem and with a connected problem, an agreement on the prohibition of nuclear tests, might seem some- what boring. However, in our contemporary history there is no more interesting or dramatic subject. This time, we shall only deal with its history, in 1962, and that only in broad outline. Nevertheless, it is necessary to return to the Kennedy-Khrushchev meeting in Vienna (June 1961) to introduce the subject. According to various sources the problem of nuclear tests was not directly touched on there. But immediately afterwards, on June 17, 1961, the United States and England sent a joint note to the USSR concerning their proposals for a nuclear agreement, summed up in six points: 1. The number of inspections annually on the territory of the three countries concerned must be fixed at between 12 and 20. 2. The number of control posts in the USSR must be reduced. CONSEQUENCES OF PEACEFUL CO-EXISTENCE tnd A control commission must be set up. 4. Means of controlling tests in space must be set up. The moratorium to be sustained for three years. Nuclear documents which are used for research ‘on the detection of tests, or for peaceful technical use’ to be opened for internal and external imspection. Nn In their note they point out that the USSR, at the time of the resumption of the negotiations about the prohibition of tests, on March 21, 1961, changed its mind on the already accepted principle of a single impartial administrator of the control system. They said that ‘she now maintains that the conclusion of an agreement on the banning of tests must be subordinate to the solution of the other problems posed by disarmament, despite the fact that it was the Soviet Union which, from the start, had insisted that the two questions should be separate’. Now we are at the heart of the matter, The bureaucracy, faced with the imperialists’ insistence on the necessity for effective control of disarmament, had opted for the separation of the problem of nuclear tests, hoping thus to avoid its central dilemma, on-the-spot control. In fact, it was on-the- spot control that was really at stake in the nego- tiations. The bureaucrats well know that acceptance of an armaments control on USSR territory would represent the opening of a breach which would allow imperialism to infiltrate into the planned economy, threatening to dismantle the monopoly of foreign trade. The intermediate stages could be dressed up in various and multiple forms, beginning, for example, with control over the arms industry and, consequently, over the state budget. This is the projected route for the re-establishment of capitalism in the USSR, which would thus become a special colony of imperialism. Obviously the imperialists, too, are well aware of what is at stake in the problem, and they do not yield an inch on the question of the demand for on-the-spot control. We have seen what economic and political realities have led the Soviet bureaucracy to adopt a diplo- matic orientation likely to result in the reduction of military expenditure. For them, faced with the threat of revolution at home, agreement with the imperialists on disarmament has become a life and death question. But the imperialists do not grant their agreement for nothing. They have fixed its price: capitulation. It is this that explains the efforts of Soviet diplomacy to escape from the dilemma. The imperialists make on-the-spot control of general disarmament a condition for an agreement. The Soviet diplomats then drop their proposals and pose FOURTH INTERNATIONAL SPRING 1964

[p045] DIPLOMACY OF ‘CO-EXISTENCE’ the question of an agreement ‘solely’ on the banning of nuclear tests. The imperialists persist, and then put forward their condition: on-the-spot control of nuclear tests. The bureaucrats are in a dilemma; they once again pose the problem of disarmament in general. Here we arrive at the situation where the Anglo-Americans want to continue the dis- cussion: their note of June 17 insists on the necessity of on-the-spot control. The bureaucrats then put forward their proposal for self-inspection by each of the countries concerned. Naturally, the imperial- ists reject it. During the subsequent months American diplo- macy accepted the principle of discussions dealing with ‘general and complete’ disarmament. In the month of September 1961 an agreement on this point was reached between the USSR and the United States. In the Autumn of 1961, however, to impress the other negotiators, Khrushchev broke the mora- torium by letting off a super-bomb. In December a special UNO resolution welcomed the USA-USSR agreement and also the new composition of the disarmament committee. The changes in the com- position of the committee had been demanded by the USSR. It is possible that the bureaucracy, frightened by the flexibility of American diplomacy, wanted to introduce possible partners. Moreover, the explosion of the Soviet bomb showed that the USSR was proposing to launch a diplomatic offen- sive to oblige the Americans to accept its proposals. The latter in turn tried to ward off this offer of participation by ‘neutrals’, ‘but without success. UNO set up the ‘Committee of 18’ which incor- porated eight ‘neutral’ states: India, Burma, UAR, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Brazil, Mexico and Sweden. France refused to participate and so on March 14, 1962, it was 17 states which opened discussions. But even before the opening of the conference the preparation for it had clearly shown the attitudes of the two camps. On February 7, 1962, Kennedy and Macmillan stated in a letter to Khrushchev that it should be the Ministers for Foreign Affairs of the 18 countries who should participate in the prepara- tion of the conference. In his reply on February 10, Khrushchev insisted that the conference should be held ‘at the summit’ between heads of state. On February 14, Kennedy and Macmillan replied that they would only accept ‘summit’ talks if there was any ‘real progress’ in the negotiations. Meanwhile, on February 8, to emphasise their firmness, the United States and England had decided to resume their nuclear tests. So the bureaucrats’ offensive was checked. The imperialists let it be understood that they would FOURTH INTERNATIONAL SPRING 1964 39 stick to their essential conditions and, that, until these were accepted by the USSR, they considered the conference as secondary. By ‘real progress’ they understood acceptance, at least partial, of on-the- spot inspection. Soviet diplomacy tried to break the ‘unity’ of the imperialists: on February 10 Khrush- chev sent a message on disarmament to de Gaulle. In his reply on the 17th the latter declined these advances saying that ‘it is necessary for negotiations to take place between the powers which possess nuclear weapons. In a speech on March 3 Kennedy showed his determination not to give way: he announced the resumption of nuclear tests in the atmosphere, underlined the firmness of the West and stated that it was up to the Soviets to alter their position. Were we witnessing a hardening of this position? Apparently yes. The rumpus around Berlin was at its highest point; the world waited agonised. And yet... as ever, the bureaucracy’s sabre-rattling was in reality a cover for its readiness to yield. The sign of this came on February 9 with the exchange of the spies Powers and Abel. And then, what else was there to do? On March 5 Khrushchev replied nicely to Kennedy and Macmillan and accepted that the conference should be held at ministers’ level. As the conference opened the Soviet delegate pro- posed ‘general and complete’ disarmament and a moratorium on nuclear tests. The reply was obviously that, without effective control, disarmament is impossible. The United Nations, too, insisted on the necessity of control equally with that of dis- armament. As far as the imperialists were concerned there was no doubt that it was the USSR which must yield. The Daily Telegraph (March 16, 1962) wrote: ‘If only one could pierce this mutual barrier of mistrust in one place, an important agreement could follow on. . . . Such is the possibility that certain new elements in the American plan are trying to sound out. ... It is possible that a solution for controlled disarmament could be found which the Russians could be led to accept without having the feeling that they are sacrificing their principal secret weapon: the secret itself.’ The imperialists laid down the order of the problems: first of all a nuclear agreement. On April 9 Kennedy and Macmillan placed before Khrushchev an agreement on the cessation of nuclear tests with international control. On April 12, Khrushchev rejected the very idea of control. In turn, on the same day, Kennedy and Macmillan rejected the moratorium on tests proposed at the conference. This dramatic contest, in which the

[p046] 40 existence of the USSR itself was at stake, ended once again in an impasse. Nevertheless, we can see that, despite their somersaults, their twists and turns and their refusals, the bureaucrats continued the dis- cussion and let it be seen that they were to some degree prepared to give way. The imperialists were implacable: control, control yet again, and always control. They left the bureaucrats no hope of escaping from this demand. Why then did the latter continue to negotiate? They continued because they were looking for less brutal, more subtle, ways of capitulation. The deep meaning of their obstinacy in continuing these negotiations was the search for a comfortable and reassuring outcome for the regime of the bureaucracy, the search for a not too glaring capitulation. In order to lead the conference out of the impasse the eight neutral countries put forward on April 16 a compromise on the international verification of tests. They set aside the problem of on-the-spot inspectiohs and proposed the immediate prohibition of tests in the atmosphere and under water. Two days later Dean, the American delegate, registered a project for gneral and complete disarmament in three stages. The next day the USSR accepted the neutrals’ proposal. On April 25 the United States resumed their nuclear tests in the atmosphere. A conversation between deaf men? No. We see that the USSR immediately accepts any proposal which does not include on-the-spot control. Moreover, if the Americans employ as brutal a reply as the resumption of tests, it is to underline their deter- mination to stick to their essential condition. A new impasse. Macmillan showed some inclination towards having recourse to a summit meeting as a way out. The Americans opposed this energetically. On April 28 Kennedy and Macmillan met in Washing- ton, where the latter stated that an East-West summit meeting was no longer really urgent. On June 15 the disarmament conference was adjourned until July 16. The resumption of negotiations showed no promise of progress. Already the preliminary signs were unfavourable. On July 9 the Americans exploded an H-bomb in the Pacific and on July 10 at the world congress for peace and disarmament Khrush- chev pushed forward the solution of the Berlin problem. The conference dealt mainly with the problem of Laos and an agreement was reached on the neutralisation of that country. On July 22 the Soviet government announced that it was obliged to resume its nuclear tests. In these conditions the continuation of negotiations was fraught with diffi- CONSEQUENCES OF PEACEFUL CO-EXISTENCE culty. Right up to the end of August there was only one noteworthy event: on August 15, Italy accepted the proposals of the neutrals. This provoked a veritable storm. The New York Times wrote: “The solidarity of the Western powers, already com- promised by the French boycott, has been further weakened.’ The imperialist machinery was rapidly set in motion and on August 17 the Italian delegate, such a sensible child, took the side of the West. Before going on to the new stage of the nego- tiations which ‘began after the ‘Cuba affair’, let us examine the respective positions of the USSR and the imperialists at the end of August 1962. On August 27 the American and English delegates made their position more flextble. They proposed to the USSR a limited agreement on the ending of high-altitude nuclear tests without breathing a word about inspection. Next day the Times stated that this agreement ‘would not be useless, even if it only served to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, especially when we know of the progress China is making in this field’. We can see to what kind of solution the problem was evolving. We shall return to an analysis of the role played by China in Russian-American relations later. Suffice it to say for now that, if the imperialists were displaying a greater flexibility, it was in the hope of arriving at a partial agreement aimed directly against China. Pravda of August 27 summed up the position of the Soviet bureaucracy. It condemned the previous American project and said: “The aim of this docu- ment is to impose on the Soviet Union “on-the-spot” inspections and consequently it could not serve as a basis for an agreement.’ As for the second project which aimed to prohibit high-altitude explosions, it pointed out that this led to the pursuit of under- ground tests. Nevertheless, it added that the USSR ‘,.. is ready to discuss questions of control, although it is convinced that national means of detection are quite sufficient for revealing tests.’ Here is the reflection of the disarray and the perplexity experi- enced by the bureaucracy in face of the imperialists’ intransigeance and their attempts to bring China into question. Nonetheless it seemed disposed to con- clude an agreement at China’s expense. Despite this greater flexibility in the respective positions the impasse was obvious. It was not until after the ‘Cuba affair’ that the question of a test ban was once again posed, and this was no accident. Further on we shall return to this affair and also to its relationship to the Chinese problem; for the moment let us simply take note that it was settled by a capitulation to imperialism by the bureaucracy. The imperialists were then able to hope that this FOURTH INTERNATIONAL SPRING 1964

[p047] DIPLOMACY OF ‘CO-EXISTENCE’ would have repercussions in ‘nuclear affairs’. It did indeed. The tone of the new Soviet attitude was set by Khrushchev himself at the time of the reception held on the anniversary of the October Revolution. Questioned on the problem of banning nuclear tests, the head of the Soviet bureaucracy unmasked ‘peaceful co-existence’ better than any critic. He declared: - ‘How can humanity be rid of this kind of suffer- ing? If you are Marxists you say: by liquidating capitalism, by giving power to the workers, in this way there will obviously be no more fighting. But if we demanded that other countries change their social system and adopt ours, we would find ourselves in contradiction with peaceful co-existence. The act of imposing a system on another country would lead to war. ... We live on a basis of mutual concessions. If we want peace, we have to build up peaceful relations on the basis of acceptable mutual con- cessions.’ (Le Monde, November 9, 1962) These lines need no comment. Parallel to this the Soviet press set out to present the concessions which the USSR had in mind on control over the banning of nuclear tests. The principal point of disagreement was the control of underground tests for which, according to the Americans, on-the-spot inspection was vital. Then, at the beginning of November 1962, the Soviet press began a publicity campaign in favour of seismo- graphic equipment invented by Soviet scientists which would be capable of automatically recording underground explosions. The ‘bureaucrats, in order to avoid the basic problem of on-the-spot inspection, carried on a campaign stating that this automatic equipment (the famous ‘Black Boxes’) could be installed on the territory of the countries concerned and would record explosions automatically and without inspection. It would be sufficient to place them in the responsibility of the governments of the said territories. The New York Times immediately replied that ground inspection would still be national, and therefore ineffective and that it would in no way replace international on-the-spot inspection. Did the bureaucracy really imagine it could fool the imperialists by avoiding the basic political problem through this technical trifle? Of course not, but it knew that this proposal would bring a settlement nearer. The game warmed up. On November 23, 1962, Macmillan indulged in a highly scientific explanation to prove that the ‘black boxes’ were not sufficient for detecting nuclear explosions. He maintained that the only effective method was on-territory inspection. Khrushchev said to the English ambassador who was just leaving FOURTH INTERNATIONAL SPRING 1964 41 the USSR: ‘. . . that he understood very well that the “black box’ system did not entirely satisfy Great Britain and the United States . . . (that he) would show that he was prepared to open serious negotia- tions on this subject.” (Le Monde, November 24, 1962). Every bourgeois observer pointed out that the ‘softening’ in the Soviet attitude with regard to the test ban was a result of the Cuba crisis. Before the resumption of negotiations by the con- ference of the 17, the English and American delegates made their proposals known: yielding nothing on the necessity for on-the-spot inspection, they thought it would be useful to hold a meeting of scientists, alongside the conference, to discuss the real worth of the ‘black boxes’. On the resumption of the. negotiations on November 26 every speaker evoked ‘the memory of the recent Caribbean crisis’ which dominated the negotiators. Dean, the American delegate, made this more specific by saying that the first session of the conference ‘. . . had revealed the existence of a good spirit and of a sure desire for co-operation.’ In contempt of this ‘good spirit’ the Swedish delegate presented a project, a revised form of the previous proposal of the neutrals, which the Soviet delegate Tsarapkin considered to be reason- able. The English and Americans rejected it, insisting on the necessity for on-the-spot inspection. Tsarapkin retorted: ‘. . . there is only one issue in question: forgetting inspections on Soviet territory.’ Despite the attempts at a compromise put forward by Sweden, then by Mexico and India, on December 3, Tsarapkin refused any agreement, emphasising that every one of these projects held out at the minimum for on-the-spot inspection. It was true. The ‘neutrals’, including the ‘friendly nation’, India, firmly supported, although in a more flexible manner, the Anglo-American position. On December 7 discussions continued on the ‘black boxes’ which Dean described as an ‘obscure system’, A new impasse? It seemed so. But to everybody’s surprise on December 11 Tsarapkin, the same Tsarapkin who wanted on-the- spot inspection forgotten about, solemnly announced that the USSR would accept the control of an inter- national commission in specified places, well-defined and very limited in number, where automatic record- ing stations sealed by this commission would be placed. For the first time the Soviet bureaucracy had been induced to make an important concession. It had accepted the installation of ‘black boxes’ in three places on Soviet territory by an international commission. The specifications regarding this in- spection were prudent and, in this respect, revealing: ‘If it were necessary to employ foreign personnel

[p048] 42 to plant the boxes, and then to transport them to the international control centre, the USSR would consent to this, provided that it could take the appropriate security measures.” (Le Monde, December 12, 1962) But the imperialists refused to budge. Tsarapkin could only just cover up his deceit behind sharp words, when he saw that the English and American delegates were continuing their attacks. Godber, the English delegate, stated: ‘It is interesting that the Soviets have made a specific offer. It is a ray of hope, but we are thinking of a more realistic number of “black boxes”. This number must be of at least three figures, and moreover there must be on-the-spot inspection.” (Le Monde, December 13, 1962). No, one really cannot fool imperialism. What is more, in the meanwhile an expert had stated that there was no difference between automatic recordings of underground nuclear explosions and those of earth tremors. These imperialists were indeed tough. Against this redoubtable enemy should one then choose the class struggle? The conclusion of the Soviet bureaucrats was, of course, different. Despite the categorical rejection of this ‘Christmas present’, as Dean described the Soviet proposal on the installation of black boxes, the USSR wanted to continue the discussion. However, on December 20 the conference was adjourned for three weeks and, on January 5, 1963, Dean, the American delegate, resigned. Five days later, on the joint initiative of the Soviet ambassador in Washington and Foster, the director of the American disarmament agency, the conference decided to adjourn until February 12. In reality this adjournment corresponded to the exclusion of the undesirables. Some months before, the USSR had still been insisting on the importance of the presence of neutral countries. Now the Americans and the Soviet bureaucrats had concluded an agreement, behind the scenes, to continue two- sided negotiations in Washington without even an English delegate. The discussions were resumed at a higher level on January 14, 1963, between Foster, the American delegate, Fedorenko, permanent Soviet delegate at the United Nations, and Tsarapkin. The following day, in his ‘State of the Union’ message, Kennedy sounded a siren call: ‘.. . If all the present tendencies can persuade the Soviet Union to take the path of peace, then let her know that all the free nations will accompany her.’ (Le Monde, January 16, 1963) Khrushchev heard it. On January 22, the press announced that the USSR had definitely accepted the installation of three seismic stations on its territory, and two or three annual inspections in the CONSEQUENCES OF PEACEFUL CO-EXISTENCE areas where suspect oscillations took place. Le Monde went into this important concession: ‘It is permissible to think that the crisis which occurred in the Caribbean and even more the redoubled attacks against him for some time now by the Chinese communists who condemn his prudent policy .. . have definitely convinced Mr. Khrushchev of the urgency of an agreement. The head of the Soviet government has thus taken a step forward.’ (January 22, 1963) If we review this fast-moving history of the Soviet- American confrontation, we must say that the impasse is only an apparent one. In reality one can distinguish a retreat on the part of the USSR in face of the intransigence of the imperialists and their desire to penetrate ultimately into Soviet territory. They want to obtain this basic concession in order, when all is said and done, to destroy the conquests of October. They do not draw back in face of platonic peace slogans. The nature of imperialism is just that. It does not want disarmament, it wants to penetrate into the USSR. If that is done under the cover of the slogan of disarmament, so much the better. If the bureaucrats want to fool the world, that is their business. The imperialists themselves are more realistic: they use atomic blackmail, resume or suspend nuclear tests, reject a summit meeting in the absence of ‘real progress’, demand on-the-spot inspection but, presented with a limited concession, they start all over again .. . that is imperialism. It is not hard to understand that the Soviet bueaucrats are lying when they say that disarmament is possible. They know full well that the condition for such ‘disarmament’ would be capitulation on their part: handing over the USSR to the imperial- ists. In reality they are moving along this path, but each time they take a few steps, they get frightened and turn half-circle. But slowly and surely the imperialists are putting on the pressure and it is a constant withdrawal by the bureaucracy which is brought out ‘by the history of the negotiations. The refusal of the Soviet leaders to break off the talks and, at the same time, their successive concessions, show very well that under the cover of their deceitful disarmament policy they are ready to trade the socialist heritage of the October revolution. For the moment they are still maintaining a hesitant attitude, but at the cost of an ignoble betrayal of the Chinese revolution. We shall return to this problem in greater detail. But we must take note here of this other central point in the present negotiations on the banning of nuclear tests. Under the considerable pressure of imperialism, the Soviet leaders are trying to sacrifice China. FOURTH INTERNATIONAL SPRING 1964

[p049] IMPERIALISM AND THE BUREAUCRACY AGAINST CHINA We have already observed how, especially in the last couple of years, there has been more and more talk about the ‘danger of a spread of nuclear weapons’. Hypocritical journalists prefer to mention, very virtuous, the terrible danger which might result for humanity if, for example, Egypt and Israel possessed such weapons. These bourgeois hypo- crites are, however, well aware that in fact it is a question of China. Indeed, behind the Soviet- American search for a compromise, and the ‘soften- ing’ of their respective positions, there lay one clear aim: to disarm China. It was characteristic of the Soviet bureaucracy to show itself completely ready to sign an agreement on the banning of high-altitude and underwater tests (the ‘neutrals’ proposal). Such a ban would remove all possibility of armament by China in face of the imperialists equipped with nuclear weapons. Moreover, it would serve as a pretext for taking discriminatory measures against China, for isolating her and, ultimately, for surren- dering her. The hope of the bureaucrats is to reach a nuclear agreement and thus to bring about ‘peaceful co-existence’. They have already betrayed socialist China under the banner of this ‘co-existence’, But even that has not saved them: imperialism took this gift, but without thanks. It still holds to its con- ditions, which aim at the complete capitulation of the USSR itself. There is no way out for the bureaucracy. 3. The colonial movements and Cuba Having regard to all we have just said, we will make do here with a brief résumé. The day-to-day events provide a documentation which will excuse us from putting forward various items of supple- mentary proof. The ‘theory’ of socialism in a single country distorted the Marxist analysis of imperialism by reducing this to being, we have seen, no more than a particular policy of oppressing nations, above all the colonies, practised by the advanced capitalist coun- tries; it is this conception which lies at the root of the Stalinist practice of hailing every step forward by any national liberation movement against imperialist oppression as a victory for socialism. It is obvious that these movements weaken imperialism and that consequently a revolutionary policy must support them. But that is not the problem. It lies in the fact that for the Stalinists national movements replace the class struggle; so much so that for them the birth of a new politically independent state in Africa, for example, is the equivalent of a victorious FOURTH INTERNATIONAL SPRING 1964 43 socialist revolution in that country. Now these states are still wholly bound to imperialism and are part of its world system. These movements and the birth of these states cannot be understood outside of the context in which they were born. The existence and the strengthening of a workers’ state, the example of the October revolution, aroused the colonial masses. After 1917 the colonial move- ments became stronger. But the strengthening of these struggles was accompanied by the degeneration of the workers’ state in the USSR. Today in the international relationship of forces, the colonial bourgeoisie has had to yield the political foreground to the petty-bourgeois revolutionaries. The latter put forward socialist slogans, but the content of these movements is still bourgeois. The objective sought by the bourgeoisie of the colonial countries is to force imperialism to yield to it its share of the proceeds of the exploitation of the workers; but, without the aid of the masses, it would never manage to achieve this objective. And, in order to mobilise the masses, it has to leave the leadership of the movements to the petty-bourgeois revolutionaries with their socialist slogans. The ‘revolutionary’ phrase, coupled with submission in face of force, is the very essence of the attitude of the petty- bourgeoisie. It was the degeneration of the USSR, leading the bureaucracy to present the class struggle as a struggle between two ‘systems’, which caused the colonial movements to appear as a ‘third force’. A policy of oscillation between the two world systems, always giving way to the stronger one, admirably suited their petty-bourgeois political nature. And the ‘third force’ mirage only reflected the relationship of forces between the USSR and imperialism. In the conditions of ‘peaceful co-existence’ the role of these new states is multiple. First of all they serve as an argument for the Soviet bureaucracy to prove that it is struggling against imperialism, since it helps and supports these national movements. At the same time, they allow it to keep on good terms with imperialism because the political independence of these countries does not basically alter the relation- ship of forces. Finally, these bourgeois nationalist movements can distract attention from the struggle of the international working class, while the socialist revolution is presented as having fallen into disuse in the industrialised countries. Moreover, the colonial petty-bourgeoisie, pro- moted to this elevated rank both by the Stalinists and the imperialists, becomes at the same time their principal connecting link. It plays the role of the vanguard of ‘peaceful co-existence’; which is as good

[p050] 44 as saying that the colonial movements and the new ‘independent’ states serve as an accurate barometer for the relationship of forces between the USSR and imperialism. And it is precisely when national colonial move- ments are capable of going as far as expropriation of imperialism without indemnities that the inter- national status quo and ‘peaceful co-existence’ are immediately placed in question. Since 1945 in the backward countries there have only been two revolu- tionary movements which have decisively broken into imperialism’s positions: the Chinese revolution and the Cuban revolution. Everywhere else, without exception, the movements, however ‘revolutionary’ they might be in words, have stopped on the threshold of a real overturn in property relations, or have returned to ‘reason’. This is a fact which can be checked and verified in the case of each state which has gained ‘independence’ since 1945, from India to Egypt, from Indonesia to Ghana, and from Guinea to Algeria. The only exceptions, and we leave aside here the profound differences which exist between them, are China and Cuba. But precisely these two revolutions, which shook imperialism, dealing it serious blows, provoked the hatred of the imperialists and the distrust of the bureaucrats. We will not deal here with the history of these revolutions nor with an analysis of their character. We simply affirm that they showed them- selves capable of overthrowing capitalism. And we also affirm that the attacks made on them were made under the banner precisely of ‘co-existence’. Let us recall here some aspects of what is called the ‘Cuban affair’. First of all, the destiny of this revolution was artificially linked to the USSR and separated from the class struggle in America. Ever. since, the perspectives, and consequently the tasks, of that revolution have suffered serious damage and distortion. Face to face with the citadel of imperialism, the Cuban revolution should have immediately established a concrete link with the class struggle in America. It should have established itself as the nucleus of revolution in North and South America. Forgetful of this revolutionary duty, the Cuban leaders could only link their fate with the Soviet bureaucracy. This narrow alliance in turn came into greater and greater contradiction with their initial duty: the extension of the revolu- tion. Why? Because Soviet policy had as its basis ‘peaceful co-existence’ and as its aim the preservation of ‘peace’. Cuba, allied to the USSR, was not able or allowed to shake up the ‘peaceful’ situation in America in any way. But from the moment that this revolution became contained in the mutilating framework of ‘co-existence’, its own fate depended CONSEQUENCES OF PEACEFUL CO-EXISTENCE on the evolution of the latter. In proportion as revolution ascended in Latin America, North American capitalism had to finish off the Cuban example. From that moment on, the revolution was dependent on a bargaining deal. The contradiction between the socialist revolution and ‘co-existence’ is shown here in a concrete manner. The more the revolution in America is on the ascent, the greater is American pressure on Cuba, and the stronger are the Soviet attempts to ‘keep the peace’. There can be no doubt that the sending of nuclear weapons to Cuba by the USSR was nothing more than a provocation. The Chinese have emphasised strongly the role of agent provocateur played by the Soviet bureaucrats. After that came the handing over of Cuba to imperialist infiltration, in the shape of disarmament with on-the-spot inspection by the United Nations; this betrayal was displayed as ‘saving peace’. It was solely thanks to the resistance of the Cuban revolutionaries that this manoeuvre was unsuccessful. The mission of ‘convincing’ them was entrusted to Mikoyan himself who, not having completely succeeded, felt able to come to an agree- ment with Kennedy. Then Khrushchev brandished the American ‘guarantee’ not to invade Cuba, the word of Kennedy! This betrayal of the Cuban revolution displayed the real nature of ‘peaceful co-existence’ and the actual relationship of forces between the USSR and imperialism. Since then, an international process has developed. On the one hand imperialism has built up its strength and, casting off its negotiator’s mask, puts its ‘recommen- dations’ more and more in the form of dictates. On the other hand, the international petty-bourgeoisie is developing towards the right and aligning itself more and more with the Western position. In various countries the petty-bourgeois political formations are bowing before capitalist power, while the ‘neutral’ countries are becoming orientated towards imperial- ism. Wherever reticence is shown imperialism has no qualms about the direct overthrow of the regime in question, under the benevolent gaze of the Stalinists. But ‘peaceful co-existence’, that is to say ‘servility in face of imperialism’, has brought about another phenomenon, doubtless the most important of our time: the split in the international Stalinist movement. 4. Imperialism and the bureaucracy against China (a) The second betrayal of the Chinese revolution The history of the fatal policy of the Communist International with regard to the Chinese revolution FOURTH INTERNATIONAL SPRING 1964

[p051] IMPERIALISM AND THE BUREAUCRACY AGAINST CHINA during the decisive years 1925-27 and afterwards is well known. The basic feature of the Stalin- Bukharin policy was to subordinate the revolutionary .movement to the leadership of the bourgeois party, the Kuo-min-tang. When the time came, the Kuo-min-tang, enjoying the support of the Communist Party which followed the directives of the Comintern, did not hesitate to massacre thousands of revolutionary workers and peasants. It was in this way that the Chinese revolution was betrayed, surrendered to the enemy. Nevertheless we would like to emphasise strongly that the attitude of the Comintern led by Stalin and Bukharin was not the product of a deliberate betrayal. Neither Bukharin, nor Stalin, nor in general the bureaucracy wished for the defeat of the revolution, but the internal logic, the objective content of their politics led them to it. So the Chinese revolution was set back for many years and China was weakened in face of the Japanese attack. We believe that the Chinese revolutionaries, at the cost of enormous sacrifices, learnt a lot about the bureaucratic politics of the Russian Stalinists. The writing of a complete history of the relationship between the Chinese revolution and the Soviet bureaucracy, from Trotsky’s last analyses up to our times, would be of the greatest importance. In this study we take it up only from the years 1961-62. While relations between the USSR and the victorious Chinese revolution had known many a difficulty, it cannot be denied that their mutual relations, under the banner of friendship, were close and multiple. Every study, article, or document dealing, for instance, with economic relations, under- lined the importance attached to them by both sides. Of course, an examinaion of the facts would reveal that the USSR was providing more important material aid to India than to China. But at the same time, among the peoples’ democracies, China occupied second place in the volume of commercial exchanges with the USSR. Such was the situation in the years 1958-59, a very difficult period for China, which was going through the anxious decline of the ‘great leap forward’, the threat of famine, and, in short, an economic catastrophe. It was because of China’s incapacity to supply them that the USSR in 1960 had to search elsewhere for lard, groundnuts and soya, for instance. In spring 1961, apart from these difficulties, bourgeois observers still could not discern anything abnormal in Sino-Soviet economic relations. Without exception every piece of news or analysis of the economic situation in China, however, emphasised its catastrophic character in 1960 and 1961: severe rationing, famine, and a drop in production. FOURTH INTERNATIONAL SPRING 1964 45 It was precisely in this difficult situation that China found itself deprived of Soviet aid. The GATT report on international trade in 1961 published some surprising figures. We quote a section of this report from Le Monde (October 7-8, 1962): ‘Sino-Soviet trade . . . diminished by 55 per cent between 1959 and 1961, ending below the 1950 level. So much so that the share of these exchanges in the total foreign trade of the Soviet Union has fallen from 20 to 8 per cent, while, in the same period, USSR trade with the rest of the world increased by 30 per cent.’ Of course, everybody might say that as soon as China could no longer fulfil her commercial obligations, a decrease in trade was a normal thing. We reject this objection: precisely because China was in an extremely difficult situation, the socialist duty of the USSR should have been to provide it with greater assistance than before. Even the capitalist system practises ‘aid’ to a country struck ‘by a natural calamity. On June 4, 1961, the new head of American politics had a meeting with Khrushchev in Vienna. Many articles were published about this meeting, ‘but the main points were kept secret. We have therefore to extract what we can from what has been published, and that, of course, hinders our analysis. Immediately after the announcement of the meet- ing, the international bourgeois press began to create a lot of noise about the German problem and Berlin, One gained the impression that these two gentlemen had just deeply discussed the Berlin affair and the German question. The German press, still very susceptible on this subject, thought just after the meeting that Khrushchev would refrain from pro- voking a German crisis. The Frankfiirter Allgemeine Zeitung, the important German newspaper, wrote on June 5: *... While the Soviets would doubtless have preferred to put the accent on these problems... .’ they did not discuss them ‘. . . until the end of the talks.’ The international press acknowledged unani- mously that it knew little of what had gone on, but that this talk had been very useful, despite the fact that nothing had changed ... (?) We rubbed our eyes: the public was meant to believe that the purpose of this meeting was nothing more than to let Kennedy and Khrushchev look each other straight in the eyes. The Italian and Spanish papers were more accurate . . . asserting that what Vienna meant was an understanding by the super-powers reached over the heads of the others. An understanding? ... Yes! But what about? - On what subject? La Stampa (June 6) spoke of a ‘Soviet manoeuvre’. There is something to think about. The same

[p052] 46 Kennedy who had rejected any summit meeting on the subject of disarmament, until the time when ‘real progress’ had been made, quickly rushed over and arrived at Vienna in order to talk about... nothing, or better still in order to be of service to a Soviet manocuvre. Come now! If we examine the brief joint communique issued after the negotiations our eyes begin to open. It announced that both parties realised that neither of them could win a war and that, consequently, they must try to jointly organise the world. In this way one arrives at a perfected peace through mutual com- promises. The aim of this meeting was none other than the joint organisation of the world. Both ‘parties’ were not content with an agreement in principle. They passed on to put it into practice. Practically the whole communiqué was devoted to the problem of Laos. In it it said that both parties ‘, . . reaffirmed their support for a neutral and independent Laos under a government chosen by the Laotians themselves, and for international agree- ments aimed at assuring this neutrality and inde- pendence. In this respect, they bore in mind the importance of an effective cease-fire.’ This then is the basic feature of what went on at the time of this meeting: they began to ‘organise the world’ right on China’s doorstep. That is the content of ‘peaceful co-existence’. The New York Times of June 6 was concerned chiefly with the Laotian problem. It said that there was nothing really to hope for, since perhaps Khrushchev must first of all reach some understanding with the Chinese, the Vietnamese and the Laotians, but that, despite everything, there was a beginning there. The Stalinists were preparing the ground. In his report of the Vienna meeting Khrushchev did not even mention Laos, but devoted most of his speech to... the German problem! Neues Deutschland was more explicit, for the East Berlin paper accused the partisans of the cold war ... in West Germany (!) of wanting to continue it by bombing Cuba and Laos (!) instead of seeking a settlement. “These ultras are dangerous!’ it exclaimed on June 5. Kennedy’s speech broadcast on June 6 was more interesting. The American President only mentioned the problem of nuclear tests and Berlin in passing, ‘but spoke at length about Laos: ‘. . . The only field offering any immediate prospects for agreement was Laos. Both parties realised the necessity of reducing the dangers held out by the situation. Both parties subscribed to the conception of a neutral and inde- pendent Laos in something like the same way as Burma and Cambodia.’ Something like, yes. How- ever, in Laos the Pathet Lao had been conducting a civil war against the imperialists and their Laotian CONSEQUENCES OF PEACEFUL CO-EXISTENCE lackeys. This is how Kennedy’s speech went on: ‘Mr. Khrushchev emphasised a point that I would like to recall. He said that numerous disorders are happening in the world and that not all of them should be attributed to him. He is quite right (our emphasis—Editors) ‘But, of course, Mr. Kennedy, I, wise old Khrush- chev, I am not capable of this folly . . . it’s the Chinese to whom the disorder must be attributed. See how they liquidated the poor old Kuo-min-tang, despite our warnings. They are capable of anything; the devil only knows what they think and want.’ Thus spoke the ‘clever pupil’ in the classroom at Vienna to the strict schoolteacher. But in politics things happen otherwise and are called by different names. We would be fascinated to know the undivulged details of this meeting. ‘The organisation of the world’ inside ‘co-existence’ or, if you prefer, ‘co-existence’ inside ‘organisation of the world’ had to begin ‘by checking and liquid ating the revolutionary movements in the neighbour- hood of China. The Chinese example threatened imperialism’s position in Asia. It was absolutely necessary to put an end to these ‘disorders’ which were in no way attributable’ to the peaceful Khrushchev. Through this pact the bureaucracy gave an unresricted passage to manoeuvres aimed at the encircling of China and to preparation for an armed attack. The negotiations on the technicalities of this agree- ment were entrusted to a commission which, in the framework of the disarmament conference, was to discuss the accomplishment of peace in Laos. We should take note that when this conference opened on March 14, 1962, that country still constituted a serious problem, and the obstacles seemed insur- mountable. From this we may deduce that since June 1961 Khrushchev had not managed to com- pletely impose his point of view on the Chinese. A deep and detailed study of these negotiations would be able to enlighten us on this subject. We think, however, that theré were differences which certainly contributed to making the Soviet bureaucracy re- consider its aid to China. Finally, on July 9, 1962, the Laotian declaration of neutrality ended in com- plete agreement. Laos declared itself ready to observe rigorously the conditions of neutrality: adherence to the five principles of Bandung, rejection of any military alliance, rejection of installation of any military base, rejection of any interference in its internal affairs. Two facts emphasised the real nature of this agreement. Under the attacks of his extremists, Kennedy had to acknowledge that the Laotian agreement was a withdrawal, while at the FOURTH INTERNATIONAL SPRING 19564

[p053] IMPERIALISM AND THE BUREAUCRACY AGAINST CHINA same time emphasising that it opened up further ‘possibilities. Without such an agreement the Laotian situation threatened to deteriorate definitely in favour of the communists. According to Kennedy this agreement served on the one hand to check the development of the revolution and on the other hand to open up ‘possibilities’. What these meant was the encircling of China. The comment of the Christian Science Monitor of July 24, 1962, un- masked the role of the Soviet bureaucracy in this affair: ‘If, after signing an agreement in these con- ditions, the Soviet Union allows its colleagues and its agents situated inside or in the neighbourhood of Laos to violate it, then the whole world will know why the agreement was not able to function.’ Why, one might then ask, did the Chinese sign the agreement? The concrete reasons could be very numerous and, amongst others, it is possible that the Chinese were fooled, despite their increased distrust towards their ‘Soviet brothers’. Now a general picture emerges. Beginning with the Laos agree- ment, the respective positions on nuclear tests softened up. The two ‘great powers’ made visible efforts to achieve a partial agreement in this field. A mere coincidence? In politics there are no coincidences like this. The vast ‘organisation of the world’ was beginning concretely with the encircling of China. The Laotian agreement, the unprincipled position on the nuclear test ban and the suppression of all economic aid to China illustrate the second great betrayal of the Chinese revolution by the bureaucracy of the USSR. But this time the nature of the betrayal is somewhat different from that of 1925-27. It is consciously and directly that Moscow is negotiating to hand over China to imperialism. (b) For the defence of China But the Chinese reaction had to come some day or other. It is quite possible that the attack of the Chinese army against India was China’s reply to the preparations for encircling her. It seems probable that the Chinese wanted, through the offensive launched on October 20, 1962, to unmask the real aim of Khrushchev’s manoeuvres, disrupt the process of encirclement and thus force both the imperialists and the Soviets to lay their cards on the table. In this sense the quesion of the responsibility for the unleashing of military operations, not decisive never- theless, had already been settled by the installation of the means of encirclement. Did not Nehru himself say on November 11 that he had ordered the liberation of Indian territory in the North-East frontier area? FOURTH INTERNATIONAL SPRING 1964 . 47 The Sino-Indian war cannot be separated from its international context and considered in isolation. It was an integral part of the whole of the imperialist plan for South-East Asia, of which the first stage was the ‘neutralisation’ of Laos. Seen in a wider frame- work, it showed that the pressure exerted by imperialism had, momentarily, shifted its point of application from the USSR to China. For the Stalinist bureaucracy, panic-stricken by the threat of a revolution, had allied itself with imperialism against China. In giving this concrete, and in no way peaceful, content to its policy of co-existence, the Soviet bureaucracy ratified in its actions the plans of imperialism. We have to take up the brief history of this short war in detail to shed some light on these various aspects. First, the interdependence which existed between the ‘Cuban affair’ and the Chinese question obliges us to point out certain facts concerning Cuba, closely linked with the Sino-Indian war. Thus it was three days after the start of the Chinese offensive, on October 23, that Kennedy ordered the blockade of Cuba. The determination of the imperialists to switch to a general offensive became very clear. On October 26 the Indian government proclaimed a state of emergency; two days later the USSR and the United States reached agreement over Cuba. This Soviet capitulation was made complete by the mission of Mikoyan who was ‘sent to ‘convince’ Castro on October 31. Reassured, the imperialists launched a very broad operation. On November 1, Krishna Menon left Nehru’s defence ministry. Later on, Averell Harriman, Kennedy’s special Far Eastern adviser, unveiled what lay behind this affair in these terms: K. Menon ‘. . . appeared to want to come to an agreement with the Chinese communists and to be convinced that he could manage to do this.’ That is to say that Menon preferred negotiations to war with the Chinese; for this he paid by having to resign. In other words imperialism would not tolerate anyone envisaging ‘peaceful co-existence’ . with China. American armaments were already expected in the Indian ports. ‘The English . are busy speeding up their deliveries of military equip- ment.’ (Le Monde, November 3, 1962). The Egyptian champion of ‘non-alignment’ also indicated his ardent desire to send arms, alongside the imperialists, to his ‘non-aligned’ Indian friend. The USSR *. . . stays silent, and in vain would one look in the Moscow papers for a hint of encouragement for the Chinese in their dispute with India.’ (Le Monde, November 3, 1962). This ‘neutrality’ in the struggle of a socialist country against imperialism, poorly hidden behind the figure of Nehru, constituted

[p054] 48 a betrayal without precedent even in the history of the bureaucracy. The Indian Communist Party, for the first time in history, adopted the attitude of the social-democratic parties during the First World War. After two days of discussion its national council passed a resolution for the ‘defence of the father- land’ against ‘Chinese aggression’. And this time, the ‘aggressor’ was a workers’ state and the ‘father- land’ the imperialists. Despite this, it must be said again, unprecedented betrayal, the imperialists were not impressed. On November 5 the arrest of 40 communists was announced. Did the party re- consider its resolution? It did not. In order to judge the Soviet attitude to the en- circling of and the attack on the Chinese, we should recall that in 1961 Nehru requested that the Americans should contribute to India’s armament. Later he renewed his demand, pressing Kennedy to send weapons. No reaction by the USSR was recorded. The protests came from Pakistan, Turkey, Thailand and Formosa, who for one reason or another created a big uproar over these projects for arming India. Already, the Soviet silence was an important sign. Now ‘... the announcement of the delivery of American weapons to India, and the articles describing the ‘aerial bridge’ designed to put these supplies rapidly on a working footing have not, even in appearance, provoked any reaction in Moscow.’ (Le Monde, November 10, 1962.—Our emphasis). On November 11, Nehru expressed the hope that the USSR would honour its undertakings to deliver MiG-21 fighters to India and to install an assembly line for these fighters. We know Nehru’s proverbial prudence. If Nehru allowed himself to proffer such insolence, it was only because he was absolutely certain about Soviet benevolence towards him. There were many signs of this in the USSR and the people’s democracies: Indian cultural shows, exhibitions dealing with various aspects of Indian life, etc. In November an Indian consulate was opened in Odessa. It was the ‘Cuban affair’ that unleashed the virulent attacks by the Chinese (and the Albanians) on the Soviet capitulators, but these attacks were spiced by the very recent experiences they had had in Chinese affairs. On November 15, the Peking People’s Daily denounced Khrushchev’s capitulation over Cuba. Two days later, Red Flag (the theore- tical organ of the Chinese Communist Party) first evoked the struggle of Lenin against the oppor- tunism of the Second International. The same day, the Chinese recommenced a widespread military offensive, and advanced rapidly into the interior of India. November 22 was the day of the agreement on the withdrawal of Soviet bombers from Cuba, CONSEQUENCES OF PEACEFUL CO-EXISTENCE and of the lifting of the American blockade: from then on the imperialists had their hands free. From the point of view of the Sino-Indian war and, in general, of the establishment and strengthen- ing of imperialism in Asia, the agreement on Cuba, apart from its general and ‘Cuban’ significance, possessed a special and well-defined character. This act of ‘peaceful co-existence’ released the means at imperialism’s disposal for use against China and immediately made possible the spread of an imperialist war against the Chinese revolution. Future historians will establish to what degree the Soviet leaders consciously sought to sell out China. The Chinese, at any rate, understood what was going on. With astonishing rapidity they reacted by ordering an immediate cease-fire, proclaimed a general fall-back to behind the previous demarcation line and proposed a meeting between Chou en-lai and Nehru. Stupefaction all round! No one could understand the Chinese: what was at the back of their minds? Obviously the leading actors under- stood. The first stage of the war was over; it was now necessary to move the pawns on the encircle- ment chess board and for this to be seen. The rapid advance of the Chinese had disclosed the bad state of the Indian army and the weak points of the encirclement preparations. The Indian troops were seriously threatened. The United States and England, without even worrying about appearances, had sent, each for their own part, a military mission. The importance of the problem was displayed by the fact that they were led by Duncan Sandys and Averell Harriman, two high officials in their respec- tive governments, Kennedy had already begun to study seriously the technicalities of massive military aid. In another quarter, the help given to India revealed the encirclement’s other great weakness: the system of alliance against China was by no means solidly constructed. Pakistan, in particular, was energetically opposed to the military aid provided for India. It was also necessary to make certain of the more active ‘neutrality’ of the USSR. Lord Home, the English Minister for Foreign Affairs, stated on November 23 that he foresaw ‘. . . the transformation of the sterile and negative doctrine of co-existence into an active co-operation with all European countries at present communist and amongst them the USSR .. . (for) one day, and perhaps sooner than you think, the leaders of the Soviet Union will realise that their country belongs to the West .. .. (Le Monde, November 23, 1962.— Our emphasis). The worthy Lord was urging the bureaucracy, ‘at present’? communist, to break with ‘Asia’, and to practise ‘active co-operation’ in this quarter, for co-existence was no longer enough. FOURTH INTERNATIONAL SPRING 1564

[p055] IMPERIALISM AND THE BUREAUCRACY AGAINST CHINA The Indian efforts had the same purpose, serving, in this way, too, the aims of the English and Americans, The English and American missions arrived at New Delhi but, on November 28, Duncan Sandys was in Pakistan where he met Ayub Khan and the Pakistan National Assembly. The aim of these talks was to calm down opposition to the military aid supplied to India, and to press the Pakistanis to settle their dispute with India over Kashmir. While these negotiations were being carried on openly, ‘left wingers’ in Europe were shamefully flocking to condemn ‘Chinese aggression’. The overflowing activity of the military and diplomatic missions was, in itself, a symptom of great interest. Sandys, nego- tiating with the Pakistanis on the 28th, reurned to New Delhi on the 29th but was back in Pakistan that same evening. While he was away in New Delhi Harriman continued the discussion with the Pakistanis. . . . One might have thought that these missions had lost their way and that it was Pakistan which they were patronising against the ‘aggressor’. Play in the diplomatic game became sharper. The Chinese understood the situation very well and were masters of it, not only by virtue of their own diplomatic activity but also through this magnificent setting where every actor has to play his part openly. This deserves our detailed attention, for the masks were being torn away on every side. Events of different kinds rushed forth requiring us to employ a telegraphic style. It is from these mosaics, from this kaleidoscope of events, that the real physiognomy of each of the actors emerges. On November 28, Chou en-lai stated to the Indian chargé d’affairés : “We want to stay friends.’ Obviously Nehru had to reflect somewhat, as the newspapers point out, on what his reply to the Chinese proposals for a friendly settlement should be. An Afro-Asian ‘summit’, called by Mrs. Bandaranaike to serve as an intermediary in the conflict, was being prepared in Colombo. Harriman arrived back in Washington and on December 1 he gave his report. He found the condition of the Indian army alarming. How- ever, as Le Monde pointed out: ‘. . . it was first of all politically that the Harriman mission sought to straighten out the situation in the Asian sub- continent.” The English and Americans wanted, in the first instance, to settle the Kashmir problem. Nehru had already indicated his willingness to discuss, But there were difficulties. It was reported from Pakistan that opposition there to negotiations on Kashmir was extremely strong. At precisely the same moment the friendly talks between Mikoyan and Kennedy were continuing in Washington Nehru was still wondering about his reply, which had to be FOURTH INTERNATIONAL SPRING 1964 49 ‘ ‘non-aligned’, despite the fact that . military preparations are going ahead just as actively as at the height of the crisis.” (Le Monde, December 4, 1962). In the end the reply, worthy of a policy of ‘non-alignment’, was a note to China, on December 3, announcing the closing of the Indian consulates in Shanghai and Lhasa. It politely invited the Chinese to do likewise with their consulates in Bombay and Calcutta. One important fact: while, on June 22, the USSR, for the hundredth time, had used her veto in the security council against the settlement of the Kashmir problem, now she was briskly dispensed with. Nor did she do anything against the Anglo- American manoeuvres in Pakistan. On the contrary; at the Congress of the Italian CP, Kozlov stated: ‘This conflict is doing serious harm to the interests of the fraternal Chinese people as well as of friendly India.” (Le Monde, December 5, 1962). Naturally a war harms the interests of the belligerents. On December 4, Dange, the nationalist leader of the Indian CP, left for Moscow. Harriman revealed the objectives of American policy to a television audience: *. . . It is in the interest of the United States that India maintains friendly relations with the USSR.’ (Le Monde, December 11, 1962). But Kozlov had already given an affirmative reply to this recommendation. ‘My brother’s enemy is my friend’; is that one of those Russian proverbs that Khrushchev likes to quote so much? The Americans acted accordingly. On December 5, the Agency France Presse announced that a Japanese commercial delegation in Washington ‘. . . would undergo political pressure from President Kennedy, who is demanding that Japan give definite co-operation in the struggle against People’s China.’ A Japanese newspaper replied: ‘If people try to make us adopt a position of inflexible hostility towards China, they will set off a storm not only in Japan but throughout Asia.” (Le Monde, December 6, 1962). The encirclement of China was not easy. The Americans realised this. Far more costly was friendly ‘neutrality’, the peaceful co-existence so dear to the Soviet bureaucracy. In his article in Le Monde on December 11, entitled ‘Americans seduced by “realpolitik” ’, André Fontaine summed up the situation in this way: ‘In South Vietnam . . American troops are actively engaged against Com- munist guerillas, and the Federal treasury is devoting a million dollars a day to this struggle . . . (In India) they lost no time in sending planes with American crews ... they are beginning to receive the profits of this investment at the disarmament conference where the Indian delegate, Mr. Lall, has sensibly

[p056] 50 become reconciled to their point of view on the necessity for on-the-spot inspections.’ As we see, Mr. Fontaine knows how to connect causes and effects. The uproar surrounding the ‘Chinese aggres- sion’ must not make us forget that at the self-same moment the American army was fighting against the Vietnamese revolution and was engaged in severe battles. It was in fact a question of one single large problem: the extension of the revolution in Asia or the stabilisation of imperialism which was preparing, by isolating it, for aggression against China. The meaning of the Indian attitude of ‘non-alignment’ is clarified by the ‘reconciliation’ referred to by the Le Monde journalist. However, diplomatic activity was intensifying. A Chinese personality visited the countries of the Colombo conference one after the other. The Indians did likewise with two delegations. The presence of the Yugoslays was noted: Popovitch, Minister for Foreign Affairs, was in Cairo, and Kardelj was in Indonesia, from where he was pre- paring to leave for New Delhi. What were they’ up to in this affair? We were to find out on December 19 when Kardelj arrived in the Indian capital. On December 21 the Le Monde correspondent cabled: ‘_ . . there is hardly any doubt that, in this affair, the Belgrade government is doing its best to promote New Delhi’s theses.’ A significant term: now one could better understand what Kardelj’s wish to see the conflict resolved under ‘honourable conditions’ meant. Moreover, there was talk about attempts by the Yugoslav leader to broaden the Colombo conference which, according to him, was too much influenced by the presence of countries bordering on China. He feared that ‘pro-Chinese’ sentiments would dominate the conference. So we find Nehru, Kardelj, the prudent Khrushchev and the western intellectuals, all indignant at the ‘Chinese aggression’. The tragedy was that Sandys and Harriman were indignant too and that, behind this noble sentiment, there still lay the reality of the American intervention in India, Vietnam and elsewhere. These ‘revolu- tionaries’ were serious; they protested; they were anxious; all this was harmful ‘to friends and brothers’. But they remained blind—or at any rate, dumb—in face of what even a Fontaine could see. They protested against the presence of Chinese troops in India, but did not protest against that of American forces in Vietnam, which, it is true, would have been difficult because it would have been a bad policy of co-existence to protest against Harriman who ‘understood’ so well their indignation at the ‘Chinese aggression’. _The six ‘Colombo’ countries reached agreement CONSEQUENCES OF PEACEFUL CO-EXISTENCE and entrusted Mrs. Bandaranaike with a conciliation mission to Peking and New Delhi. On the same day Khrushchev received Dange, head of the Indian CP. We do not know anything about their con- versation but in the USSR Soviet-Indian friendship was raised to an exalted level. Now, the Indian ‘friends’ no longer wished for peace. Distrust of any idea of conciliation and of the ‘good offices’ of Colombo was widespread. Naturally, Khrushchev kept Soviet diplomacy out of the way. The dirty work was left to Kardelj. For their part the Soviet bureaucrats contented themselves renewing the violence of their attack on the Chinese. That the Soviet trade mission in Shanghai returned to Moscow and that Chinese consulates in the USSR had already been closed was ‘nothing’. On December 17 the AFP reported a message from Khrushchev to Nehru which, it was said, assured the latter of the USSR’s sympathy and informed him that the USSR had tried without success to hold the Chinese back. It was stated that the message included a promise by Khrushchev to support the Indians all the way. Did such a message exist? That is not important, for in any case, it would have been in full conformity with Soviet policy; moreover, no denial of the AFP despatch came from any Soviet quarter. However, one can see that it was not really India that was in question here. Even if one artificially separates that country from the context of world imperialism, not one minute’s hesitation is possible for a Marxist when a workers’ state is in danger. In any case, it is impossible to consider India, or any other capitalist country, in isolation. The events and facts of this war, one after another, furnish us with an impressive documentation on the nature of imperialism, one and indivisible, under the direction of American capital. The secret content of the policy of imperialism is precisely to organise the encirclement of the Chinese revolution and to prepare to attack it. On December 15 there opened in Washington a series of talks between Harriman and the American ambassadors to Pakistan and India. The aim of these discussions was to find the best and quickest methods of supplying India with modern military equipment and of facilitating Indo-Pakistan recon- ciliation. Three days later the Le Monde corres- pondent reported from New Delhi that the Americans were threatening to cut off India’s arms supply, if no agreement between her and Pakistan were forthcoming; he pointed out that the Americans ‘.. . would like to drown all the petty national and local rivalries in a great wave of resistance to Chinese imperialism.’ The so-called ‘non-alignment’ FOURTH INTERNATIONAL SPRING 1964

[p057] SPLIT INSIDE STALINISM and neutrality of India had already collapsed. On December 19, India voted for the American project for Korea at the UNO political commission. But the diplomatic battle was not easy. On December 21 China returned military material she had captured to India. Five days later came the signing of a frontier agreement between China and Outer Mongolia. The next day an India delegation at last left for Pakistan. But hardly had it arrived when it learnt the result of the Sino-Pakistani negotiations: an agreement in principle on common frontiers. On the same day, December 28, came the signing of an agreement between a Japanese trade delegation and China. The Indo-Pakistani negotia- tions began in a very bad atmosphere. On December 31 Mrs. Bandaranaike arrived in Peking, and let us at once point out that on January 22 the Chinese government was to accept the Colombo proposals as a basis for negotiations. On January 3 a Chinese trade delegation arrived in Pakistan and two days later a trade agreement was concluded. Meanwhile great displays of Sino-Ceylonese friendship were under way in Peking. The Chinese were conducting their foreign affairs devilishly well. Faced with this aptitude and success, the prospect of an encirclement receded into the distance and ‘necessitated’ brutal intervention by the Americans. They now threatened Ceylon with suspension of economic aid. At the beginning of January 1963 big battles between the Viet Cong and the Americans were announced: heavy losses by the latter. According to an American enquiry, it was possible that Peking was actively supporting the Viet Cong. On January 9, the commander in chief of American forces in the Pacific, Admiral Felt, arrived in Saigon in person to organise and strengthen the intervention. On the 12th there was a meeting between Kuznetsov and Harriman in Washington; Harriman demanded that the USSR should accelerate the departure of Viet- namese soldiers from Laos. On the same day the American ambassador in Vientiane offered transport planes to the Laotian government, thus violating the neutrality agreement. And, while Chiang kai-shek was sinking a warship belonging to People’s China, Gromyko was drinking a toast to Soviet-Indian friendship in the course of a luncheon at the Indian embassy in the presence of Malinovsky. We will halt here. The hands have been suffi- ciently revealed. Everyone has shown his true face. But this struggle has not yet finished. Within the framework of ‘peaceful co-existence’ the preparations against China continue. Our voice must be raised: against the betrayal of the Stalinists, committed in the name of ‘co-existence’, and for the defence of the Chinese revolution! FOURTH INTERNATIONAL SPRING 1964 5. Split inside Stalinism Faced with the threat of revolution, and, by way of consequence, with serious world problems, inter- national Stalinism is going through a deep crisis. The component elements of Stalinism have begun a struggle which is leading them to break apart. The most noticeable sign of this breach is the attitude of the Indian party which has openly taken sides both with its own bourgeois government and with imperialism against China. Immediately after- wards comes the Yugoslav party, the promoter, on the theoretical and practical plane, of ‘co-existence’ and what is more the eminence grise of the policy of encouragement to the Indian bourgeoisie. It is difficult to imagine a reconciliation between these parties and the Chinese party. Revisionism characterises the Stalinist parties. The majority of them, including that of the USSR, have not yet reached the stage of openly sharing the attitude of the Indian party. This revisionism plays a centrist role between the two present poles of international Stalinism: Chinese and Indian. In reality, it fights the revolutionary position of the Chinese party and protects and encourages the open ‘betrayal of the Indian party. The whole of inter- national Stalinism is involved in the debate which is developing and which, by our own choice, we are omitting to analyse in detatil. The discussion is developing between the capitulatory position of ‘peaceful co-existence’ and the revolutionary position of the class struggle. At the present stage, the decomposition of Stalinism has only just begun, and it is crystallised in the fact that the vast majority of parties have taken an unprincipled centrist position which expresses itself in attempts to ‘over- come’ discussions by compromises and mutual concessions. In reality, this equivocal situation disguises the fact that the discussion is developing around a false alternative. The bases for the Chinese criticism are confused. The Chinese communists have let it be understood that they support a return to the policy of Stalin in contrast to the ‘liberal’ course of Khrushchev. The principal question is to realise how the revolutionary alternative to ‘peaceful co- existence’ is presented and understood by the Chinese. It seems to us that, so long as they main- tain their unprincipled alliance with the murderer Enver Hoxha, and so long as they hail the bourgeois regime of Ben Bella as authentically revolutionary and so on, their criticism of Khrushchev remains within the framework of Stalinist conceptions. This is also expressed in the fact that they address them- selves to the leaderships of the other parties, in

[p058] 52 visible anticipation of bringing them round to accept their position. That is a serious illusion. In the field of Stalinism the Russians are the strongest, not because they discuss more intelligently, but ‘because Stalinism is the policy of the petty-bourgeois bureaucracy of the USSR. Now, the Stalinist parties, throughout the world, are organised in such a way that their leadership expresses the interests of this social layer. Hence, a debate undertaken on Stalinist bases can only lead either to a reconciliation on an unprincipled compromise or, of course, to the isolation of the Chinese party. Today the Chinese party is addressing itself to the leaderships which unite Stalinism’s petty-bourgeois components. Now, the Stalinist parties, even today, harbour a revolutionary potentiality; not in them- selves but by virtue of the fact that they incorporate and influence the working class, directly or indirectly. The fundamental condition for the development of this potentiality is, for the Chinese, to turn their back on these leaderships and to address themselves directly to the workers and revolutionaries, that is, to adopt Marxist revolutionary theory and practice. This presupposes the complete abandonment and criticism of the Stalinist position of socialism in a single country in favour of revolution by the international working class. The principal elements of such a policy are, firstly, a consistent and resolute struggle against the bureaucracy which is, at the same time, a struggle for the achievement of workers’ democracy; then, in the international field, a complete break, not only with imperialism (which is already a fact where the Chinese communists are concerned), but also with the pseudo-revolutionary Stalinist petty-bourgeoisie. Workers’ democracy at home, a break with petty-bourgeois tendencies of all kinds abroad, and a policy of alliance with the international working class, only this kind of orienta- tion could provide a really revolutionary bas‘s for the discussion carried on against Stalinist revisionism. Only with this attitude could the Chinese CP be capable of separating the working class from the CONSEQUENCES OF PEACEFUL CO-EXISTENCE corrupted leadership of the Stalinists. Is it possible for the Chinese CP to manage to adopt such a position? That is a question to which we cannot give a categorical reply. The internal situation in China leads us to fear a bureaucratisation going against workers’ democracy. Such a tendency asserted itself with th brushing aside of the revolu- tionary wing in 1957-58. But, on the other hand, the Chinese communists brought about their own revolution precisely in opposition to Stalinist policy, and this not so long ago. We cannot then, a priori, dismiss the possibility of a recovery by this party. The international context plays the role of a catalyst. The policy of ‘peaceful co-existence’ is imposed on the Soviet bureaucracy. But the Chinese communists have to fight this policy, which means the encircle- ment of China and the preparation of an attack against her. Here is the choice: capitulation or alliance with the international working class. This international pressure will sooner or later bring the Chinese party and communists face to face with th-s fundamental choice. But independently of their choice, between the roads of capitulation and that of revolution, ‘peaceful co-existence’ is introducing, and has already intro- duced, the elements of a split inside Stalinism. That is obvious, but this split will not be automatic. Even a discussion around a false alternative has shaken the unity of these parties. It is even more important to realise that this split and the decom- position of Stalinism are inconczivable unless the real revolutionary position is put forward. Stalinism must be unmasked before the working masses and the revolutionaries. This is the only way to trans- form the possibility of a ‘break into a real fact, and this real fact into a truly important process. The Chinese have already begun this development. In order for it to continue, hard and persevering work is necessary in an international scale and in each country. The aim is a new revolutionary leadership for the international working class, an indispensable condition for tomorrow’s revolutionary victories. FOURTH INTERNATIONAL SPRING 1964

[p059] LIMITED NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS Clapham 186A 7029 MACaulay §.W.4 London, Street, High Write Free for Book List The New Course By Leon Trotsky A collection of articles written in 1923 during the lull before the great storm of persecution which was later to overwhelm Russian Bolshevism. Here Trotsky, analyses the incipient stages of the degeneration of the Communist Party, uncovers its causes and proposes measures for combating its further decline. He here analyses the party in a historical, that is dialectical way, the relationships between generations, social strata, groups, factional forma- tions, tradition and the multitude of factors that go to make a revolutionary party. 111 pages, 3'6 This document is a landmark in the development of 20th — century Marxism. It sums up the experience of an entire The period of struggle against the Soviet bureaucracy. This Platform also represents the highest point in the fortunes of Platform the Joint Opposition (Trotskyist-Zinovievite) to Stalin. It is af Ssar. : the programme of the jast of the Bolshevik-Leninists who ‘= insisted that they remained communists despite all the per- the pam a secution. jailings, violence and slander inflicted on them. left 0 ae But this document also represents a watershed—the end of £ pposit ON One phase and the beginning of another—in the evolution of ” ’ Trotskyist politics. 112 pages, 5/- The Draft Programme of the Communist International by Leon Trotsky This is part of the author’s criticism of the draft programme submitted by the Executive Committee of the Third (Communist) International to the 6th Congress of the Comintern which was held in July 1928. The manuscript of that criticism was written by Trotsky during his exile in Alma-Ata (Central Asia). It was sent to the Congress in Moscow together with an appeal for reinstatement into the party from which he had been expelled a few months before by the Stalinist faction in 1927. Stalin and his supporters had invented the theory of ‘Socialism in one country’, which was made party policy in 1925 and converted into an article of faith to be defended by the world institutions of Stalinism. It is this theory which Trotsky criticises in these pages. 64 pages, 1/- This is a polemic against Radek in 1928. Trotsky examines the arguments against his pre-war theory of the permanent revolution (as expounded in Results and Prospects) and takes up the history of his differences with Lenin before 1917, of which Stalin and his henchmen made so much. Trotsky shows that it was Lenin’s criticisms of his attitude to the centralised Marxist party, which he afterwards understood and accepted, that kept them apart, and not their differences on the permanent revolution. 254 pages, 15/- soft cover, 25/- hard cover This is the basic programmatic document of the world The death agony of movement founded by Leon Trotsky and his comrades. By a Me 1938 the revolutionary Marxists had found it necessary to capitalism imum lay the foundations of the Fourth International in order to Programme mired ty ato restore working-class leadership after the defeats prepared by and the the Stalinist bureaucracy in control of the Third (Communist) International. The defeat of the German Revolution in tasks of the 1923, of the British General Strike in 1926, and of the . Chinese Revolution in 1927, followed by Hitler's victory over 4th Intergational Geairereere working class in 1933, finally ruled out the weremermnemem § perspective of transforming the Communist International by internal opposition. 60 pages, 1/- Printed by Plough Press Ltd. (T.U.), r/o 180 Clapham High Street. London, S.W.4

[p060] FOURTH INTERNATIONAL is the theoretical journal of the International Committee of the Fourth Inter- national. FourTH INTERNATIONAL continues the work of Lasour REviEWw which concluded its 12th year of publication with its last issue, the fifth number of volume 7. FourTH INTERNATIONAL continues the work and traditions of Revolutionary Communism since the death of Lenin. FOURTH INTERNATIONAL represents the unbroken chain of theoretical journals in the Bolshevik tradition, whose continuators were the Left Opposition led and inspired by Leon Trotsky. FourRTH INTERNATIONAL follows in the traditions of that Opposition and in the traditions of the Fourth International of Leon Trotsky. FoURTH INTERNATIONAL continues the decades of work by Trotskyists in the International Labour movement and here in Britain. FourRTH INTERNATIONAL is now the product of a continuous struggle of the Marxists in the International and _ British Labour movement against Stalinism and Reformism. FoURTH INTERNATIONAL represents the successful fusion of Marxist trends in the International and British Labour movement, from the Trotskyist, to Communist, Social-Democratic and Trade Union movements. FOURTH INTERNATIONAL, With this issue commences a new period of activity in the international and British Labour movements and simultaneously prepares and equips the Marxist movement for its future intervention in the battles of the working class which promise to eclipse and transcend all previous struggles both in their depth and scope. To: New Park Publications Ltd., 186A Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4 I enclose cheque/postal order/money order/draft for £ S. d. to pay for issues of FOURTH INTERNATIONAL. Price 2/6 (postage 6d. per issue)