And its right to nuclear weapons!
There is a world united front against North Korea at the moment. At the Security Council of the United Nations there was a unanimous resolution calling for North Korea to disarm and for sanctions if it doesn�t. But it is clear that the talk is for sanctions and not a total embargo. The North Koreans consider this to be an act of war.
The US is talking tough. Japan is scared. It fears that that country and not the United States will be the victory of any nuclear blast should the Koreans react to any pressure with nuclear force. There has been talk in Japan of that country developing nuclear weapons to counter the North Korean threat. Condoleessa Rice is touring Japan and Korea to negotiate. She has assured Japan. She has assured Japan that it will be safe under the US nuclear umbrella.
China and Russia oppose the North Koreans but propose negotiations. Also opposed to North Korea is the Castro regime in Cuba and Chavez in Venezuela..
Kim Jong-Il and the North Koreans have every right to scared. George bush declared them to be, along with Iraq and Iran to be part of the �Axis of Evil� . North Korea has absolutely nothing to do with Iran or Iraq. And in no way would there be any military bloc. In no way did North Korea pose any serious threat. But George Bush�s message came over loud and clear. The US claims the right to invade �evil� nations with impunity. North Korea had every right to feel threatened and it responded with the development of nuclear weapons.
As is well known, North Korea is one of the last of the hardline Stalinist states There has been no concessions from this regime to the bourgeois democratic movements present in other post-capitalist states. Most of these �democratic� revolutions were counter-revolutions, which successfully established capitalism throughout the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
The lesson of all this is that you cannot compete with capitalism by arming yourself to the teeth. This attempt to ghettoise socialism led to massive suffering. In North Korea the people are suffering also.
In North Korea there have been reports of mass starvation. Essentially the regime there prefers to arm itself rather than feed its population.
Socialism can be defended not with bombs but with dialectical materialism. This means the spreading of the revolution internationally through a new communist international � a fifth communist international.
Kim Jong-Il is a victim of the collapse of communism and the selling out of China to the west. Before, in the United Nations, China was there to cover for him. It is still prepared to do so to a degree. But China will only go so far and will not defend them all the way. This is shown by its vote for the UN resolution.
The lesson Kim appears to have learned from all this is to stop the western advance you must arm yourself even more heavily than the Eastern bloc did before. This he is doing at the expense of ordinary North Koreans.
The revolutionary lesson to be learned from the collapse of the post-capitalist states is that you cannot build socialism in one country or even a group of countries. Of course this lesson will not be learned by Kim Jong-Il. Why? Because he fears the revolutionary mobilisation of the working class. Such a mobilisation would also threaten the power of his ruling elite.
Revolutionary communists, Trotskyists are no friend of this reactionary bureaucratic clique which rules North Korea. We want the regime overthrown. But the point is to overthrow it by revolutionary means to establish a dictatorship of the proletariat. We oppose the restoration of capitalism!
For this reason we are opposed to the imperialist campaign against North Korea. We defend North Korea militarily. We oppose any sanctions. The US and allies are not opposed to nuclear weapons. They support them in the hands of the imperialists and in the hands of countries they trust (to support them).
Israel has just almost destroyed the state of Lebanon. It did so because Hezbollah took as prisoners a couple of Israeli soldiers. So Israel destroys a country. This is justified with the claim that Hezbollah are everywhere so to defeat them �regretfully� civilian areas must be attacked also. In no way was Beirut airport used by Hezbollah! But is Israel declared a �rogue state�? No it isn�t ! Nor is there any resolution calling for it to disarm! These resolutions are only there to condemn US imperialism�s enemies and not its friends!. The UN is a tool of US imperialism.
The only war north Korea should be disarmed is by proletarian revolution. Every attempt to oppose north Korea by military force or by economic sanctions must be actively opposed by working class action. We must oppose the US led war drive against North Korea. .
.