COMMON MARKET—A MATTER OF GUNS AS WELL AS B

War, as the German writer Clausewitz pointed out over 100 years ago, is the continuation of politics by other means. And, as Lenin once remarked, politics is 'concentrated economics.

If you understand the meaning of these aphorisms, then you can understand an important aspect of the European Economic Community, which seems to have been deliberately ignored by many of its advocates.

This aspect was hinted at the other day by NATO Secretary General Joseph Luns, in a speech in which he referred to relations between the EEC countries and the USA, and 'warned' the European states against thinking that economic strength was a substitute for 'security'. It was not the first time that Luns had spoken on this matter.

For most people in Britain, the most serious aspect of the EEC is the effect which British entry has on our living standards--dear food, VAT, factory closures, and so on.

But a more long-term aspect of the Market, at least as serious if not more so, is its potentiality as a new political and military alliance. The Common Market is a matter of guns, as well as butter.

While this issue has been studiously avoided by those in the Labour Party and the trade union leaderships who support the EEC, it is the topic of keen discussion among the political and military strategists of NATO and the EEC countries. What is more, it is precisely British entry which is seen as bringing the military issue forward on the agenda.

As a consequence, the last few months have seen the military journals of western capitalism full of discussion on the prospects for the new alliance. In December 1972, the 'Royal United Services' Institute's Quarterly' (RUSI) featured an article, 'NATO and the EEC'. • In the same issue, the question of changed relations between the European capitalist powers and the United States is dealt with in a contribution from NATO secretary General Luns.

The same question is dealt with in the January issue of the magazine 'Defence', in the editorial column.

In the journal 'Survival, published by the International Institute of Strategic Studies, in the January-February issue, an article by Francois Duchene deals with The Strategic Consequences of the Enlarged European Community'.

In the background of all this thinking on the part of western strategists is the supreme significant fact of world politics today - the international crisis of capitalism. It is because the economic bankruptcy of the capitalist system is matched by the political bankruptcy of the social-democratic (Labour) and Communist Party (Stalinist) leaders and their intellectual hangers-on, all of whom have based themselves on capitalism's supposed strength, that these leaders and their revisionist hangers-on refuse to acknowledge the reality of this crisis. For the same reason that they have refused to face the real significance of the European Common Market.

The capitalist economic crisis has led to two developments in government policies. One, is the onset of a vicious trade war between the United States and its rivals. The other, linked to the first, is the urgency for all these governments of an offensive against their own working classes, aimed at destroying all the gains in living standards and rights achieved by organized labour over many years of Nixon in the USA, and Heath in Britain, and their counterparts in other countries, want to put the clock back to the days when a mass of unorganized, weak and poor workers were open to be freely exploited by the power of But they realize that to 'go back' in this way requires new measures, such as state control of wages, abolition of democratic rights and a powerful executive state to impose the wishes of the big monopolies. To return to the days of unrestricted exploitation, yet in a period of modern powerful monopoly capitalism, the ruling classes need to go forward to the corporate state.

However accommodating the leaders of the trade union and labour movement may be in their efforts to avoid a struggle, the politicians and military leaders of the ruling class know that a struggle has got to come. 'COUNTERINSURGENCY That is why Heath could tell the United Nations General Assembly in 1970 that this was going to be an era of civil war. It is also why the Tory government has aimed to strengthen itself with new legislation and with the development of armed police, a big increase in the Territorial Army and new weapons.

'Counter-insurgency' has been the topic of a number of articles in the same magazines that have been discussing the 'strategic consequences of the enlarged EEC'. There have been features on internal secutactics, and on new weapons, like the armoured cars designed for such warfare, which are now being supplied to the British army.

The September issue of the 'RUSI Quarterly' carried an article by Brigadier Michael Calvert, currently a Research Fellow of the University of Manchester, entitled 'Some Aspects of Guerrilla Warfare'.

Brigadier Calvert, an army engineer and a member of the Monday Club is particularly interested in the topic that he calls Town Planning and Counter-Insurgency'.

Unlike the Labour leaders, he seems to have made his acquaintance with the writings of Marx and Engels, judgeing by his reference to the way European cities such as Paris were replanned and rebuilt in the late 19th century, so as to counter the barricades and street-fighting which had become traditional tactics of proletarian revolutionaries, and to facilitate easier repression by the forces of order. The brigadier believes that similar considerations should enter the planning of cities today.

He makes it quite clear in his article that he is not just talking about some remote colonial context, but thinking of Britain today, as he coolly discourses on the way city streets, working-class housing estates and university campuses ought to be laid out with their strategic aspect, in the event of civil war, in mind.

As might be expected, he is full of admiration for the work of another military writer, Brigadier Frank Kitson (formerly of army intelligence, now head of the Infantry Training School) whose book, 'Low Intensity Operations'-an

PAGE 6 Workers 1, Wednesday April 4, 1973 EEC and NATO strategists:

rch me re. my rly he ind ers, ngs ing vay Iris in ind beroby gaonin ust ote ing illy ity ing Jut in nd.

ary ion ce, try ok, -an . AS BUTTER 'admirable book', says Calvert -discusses the situation that could arise in Britain as a result of a drop in the standard of living, with the army being called in to assist the police against strikers.

Calvert is particularly taken with the idea of co-ordination, of the police, armed forces, etc., to deal with an 'emergency' • He thinks it particularly important to have 'one man' to be in charge.

As Workers Press readers will know, the Tories have meet under Lord pelice, mo co-ordinate police and military in an 'emergency'.

In the December issue of the 'RUSI Quarterly', yet another Brigadier, R. G. S. Bidwell, also comes out in support of Kitson, and says that fears expressed . by some MPs about his ideas are not really justified.

The European Common Market is an alliance of the monopoly capitalists of Europe. Capitalist powers, whose normal relations are those of competition and rivalry, can only form an alliance if they have a common enemy. The bickering, haggling and jockeying for positions that have gone on among the national governments of the EEC countries reflect the fact that despite the tendency towards an international economy contained in the development of the productive forces, the capitalist economic system cannot overcome the limitaLeft: Sir Alex Douglas Home and Geoffrey •Rippon seated beside Tory Prime Minister, Edward Heath as he signs the treaty of accession of Britain into the Common Market—a new political and military alliance. tions of nation-states.

What has brought the EEC powers together today is not the strength of capitalism, but its worsening crisis, and the consequences this produces.

The EEC's member-states are brought together only by their desire to form an effective common strategy against their rival capitalist powers— the USA and Japan- -and their need to deal with their own working classes.

Only two weeks ago Field the newly Armedappointed Chief of Marshal Sir Michael Carver, the Armed Services, visited ing not FINABEL the military Bonn to participate in a meetunion between the service chiefs of EEC countries.

The body was set up in the early 1950s as prelude to the founding of the Common Market in 1956. Carver was the man who wrote the highlyflattering introduction to KitBemy. The Cabinet appointed son's book on counter-insurto the top military job because of the civil war views that he shares with premier Edward Heath.

For a man like NATO boss Joseph Luns, it is a matter of open concern now that built North Atlantic alliance, up under US leadership from he late 1940s on, may come apart under the strains of trade war and deteriorating relations between European and US capitalism.

His recent speech calling on the EEC powers not to neglect 'security' reflected this concern. And it is not the first time he expressed it.

In his lecture, printed in the December issue of the 'RUSI Statement by Nixon edt to Luns referred to assist the United States overcome its economic difficulties, European nations must be prepared to shoulder their own arms burden.

Luns went on to comment:

'Whilst NATO is nOT directly responsible for economic matters and is not the forum in which difficult technical, economic or financial negotiations take place, it is, nevertheless, vitally concerned with their outcome. If these problems are not promptly solved Americans and Europeans alike, the tensions which may develop between the two sides of the Atlantic would undermine the Alliance's solidarity and, furthermore, effect the availability of resources needed for a sustained defence effort.' The date of publication of this lecture is interesting. It was actually given to a semi nar held in March last year. Yet it is published in a magazine in December. Was this just an incidental matter of delay, or was 1t felt by the editors of 'RUSI Quarterly' that Luns" views had become particular topical interest with the looming of trade wai and the entry of Britain to the enlarged EEC?

Certainly its publication coincided with a spate of articles on the same theme.

Taken together, these would suggest that British entry is seen as a significant factor in the EEC emerging as a new power bloc.

Although Luns may be worried about the effect of the new economic and political situation on NATO military strength, his views in no way justify the claims by the bureaucracy in Moscow or Peking that independent French foreign policy, or a new European alignment, may somehow mark a 'progressive' break with US imperialism, or a step to 'world peace'.

Asked a question at the NATO seminar about the attitude of France, Luns hastened to reassure his brass-hat audience that the French president had gone firmly on record that, in the event of conflict, France would be on the side of her NATO allies. The NATO boss would seem to be worried about effectiveness; but he has no worries about 'independent Europe' being any kind of move to the left.

A more positive approach than that of Luns to the rise is taken in 1973 In his editorial, Denis Archer also makes clear reactionary attitude from he and On the and South Atrica, for instance:

the sake things that said about The minority in with the On the of the coming to of military Greek coup, Archer when has established, the other nations to pursue is to determine their future relationships with the new regime solely on the basis of strategic considerations (military and economic) and without reference to the acceptability of the new system in terms of morality or of political ideology.

Of course, how relationships are determined! Massacres in Indonesia? Repression in Turkey? Mass imprisonment and torture in Greece? A small price to pay for having regimes that can look after capitalist economic and military interests!

And of course, it is sheer hypocrisy for western politicians to pretend horror at the actions of the Greek colonels. They took power by putting into effect a contingency plan and it is known that a similar plan exists for Italy, and further plans have undoubtedly been drawn up for other European countries.

Reviewing the changing relations between the western powers, Archer says that when NATO was established, it re. flected the United States' 'crusading spirit against comunism'. However, in his view, 1972 saw the USA changing its attitude somewhat towards He goes on to say: 'Situasome other NATO nations will find it difficult to support the policy line taken the Americans.

'oming closer to the poin Archer moves NATO Secretary General, Joseph Luns. Right: Brigadier Frank Kitson-support for his counterinsurgency ideas now appears in the 'RUS| Quarterly.' the European powers to develop their own. military and strategic programme to go with their economic align'It would not be at all surprising if, within the next decade or so, there were several changes in the membership of the western alliance... Within the same period there are also likely to be major changes of alignment and alliance in Africa and the Far East. Since in terms of military preparedness ten years is not a long time, those responsible for national planning ought to have contingency plans for all possible realignments. We think it quite possible that some such range of plans exist in Paris...

Indeed, it would seem that some such plans do exist in Paris and that they are not just at the level of contingency plans. The strategists of French imperialism want to see their policies writ large as the programme of a new European power bloc based on the EEC.

POTENTIAL In the January-February issue of 'Survival', François Duchene of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, writing on "The Strategic Consequences of the Enlarged European Community', says that to be realistic such a programme could only be undertaken if the new alignment included the major military powers in western Europe.

Accordingly, he writes, *British entry has lifted the most obvious constraint on its progress from an economic to a "political" stage.' Enthusiastically, he says of the EEC's military potential: 'In military terms, its general purpose forces, it they were ever organized as a single entity, would be considerable even by American or Soviet standards.' Then, taking it further: "a nuclear European Community could have a degree of sellreliance in all its policies and, by definition, a unity of political organization and purpose, which would turn its potential assets into achieved weight at many levels of world politics.' Duchene acknowledges that nuclear strategy is not yet the main thing on the agenda and that there are other political questions to be settled first. But among these, he sees relations with the United States as the most important-and as determining the need for a European nuclear force.

Against this background of military preparations for class war in the EEC the Dick Tavernes and Roy Jenkins and their fellow Marketeers have a lot to answer for.

And we should remember that it is not only the obvious right-wingers in the labour movement who have supported BEC entry. There are a number of so-called 'lefts' in the Parliamentary Labour Party, characters like Paul Rose, the MP Blackley, Manchester, for instance, who have put forward the idea that fednesday 1973 PAGE socialists ought to welcome the Common Market out of some sort of 'internationalism', and that 'European unity' was somehow a step towards "peace'-as though you can abolish gangsterism by getting a group of the most notorious imperialist gangsters together to form a bigger and stronger gang!

The parliamentary "lefts' who put forward this sort of internationalism' have been echoed outside parliament among certain revisionists and also the drawing-room 'revolutionaries' and academic ›seudo-Marxists of the 'New Left Review', who have at tacked the Socialist Labour League as 'chauvinist', because of our principled opposition to the Common Market.

Presumably these gentlemen will also have to decide now, in retrospect, that socialists who opposed NATO were also chauvinist, for opposing international capitalist agreeAs for the Labour leaders, they never declared opposition to the EEC on principle; they only argued for better terms for British capitalism. They sheltered the pro-Marketeers in the Parliamentary Labour Party and succeeded in preventing the Labour Party conference from committing the next Labour government to withdrawal.

Now we see the consequence, as TUC general secretary Victor Feather and others, abandoning any pretences, rush to collaborate with the EEC and to take highly-paid jobs in its institutions-just as their political forbears rallied to take posts with capitalist governments on the eve of World War I.

The SLL and Workers Press will continue to fight for a Labour government to take power mandated to carry out socialist policies, which must include withdrawal from both NATO and the EEC.

The history of the last two centuries shows that the rise of monopolies, the erection of tariff-barriers and the launching of trade wars between rival imperialist power blocs are the prelude to real, shooting wars.

It was so before World War I and World War II. Imperialism has not changed-it has only acquired more deadly The depth of capitalist crisis today, and the formation of new power blocs, only brings nearer the danger that capitalism could take us into World War I.

Those who oppose us must be made to face their responsibility for what they are helping the imperialists prepare.

The Greek regime. Jack Gale investigates the tortures and the police state. 4, 1973' Part 2 US President Johnson supported the establishment of a Greek dictatorship in 1967. Left top: Agnew and Papadopoulos. Left below: Rumanian foreign minister, Cornelo Manescu with Papadopoulos.

(A full account of all the connections between Stalinism and the Greek colonels was published in Workers Press or Tanuary 31, 1973.

The Stalinists bear the major responsibility for the defeat of the Greek revolution after the end of World War II.

Stalin collaborated openly with British and American imperialism to crush the Greek workers and peasants.

The Greek Stalinists betrayed the revolution and subsequently collaborated with the Centre Union of Andreas Papandreouthe right to plan allowing the their coup behind the scenes in collaboration with the CIA.

(For a full account of the role of Stalinism in Greece, see Workers Press of January support for the Greek regime in this country and it is not confined to Tory circles.

A few years ago it was revealed that Sunderland Labour MP Gordon Bagier, who had just returned from a junket in Greece and denied stories of torture, was on the payroll of public-relations firm Maurice Fraser and Associates of London. Fraser had been hired by the Greek rulers to build up their image in Britain.

Another organization which does not come out well from the Greek situation is the International Red Cross.

On February 10, 1970, the political prisoners ot Korydallos prison denounced the International Red Cross Commission in Greece for refusing to show any interest in the fate of Communist Party member Argiris Baras-desperately ill after torture and refused any medical treat iet.