The Australian Council of Trade Unions federal executive has condemned the "war between two communist states in Asia" and attacked the states involved for "acting without true adherence to the principles of socialism and the welfare of mankind". On the issue of the war in East Asia the trade union bureaucrats have been forced to say aloud what every Australian worker knows: that a war between two - actually three - allegedly socialist countries is a crime against the principles of socialism. The A.C.T U. executive demands that "all the socialist countries conduct affairs with their neighbours in accordance with the true principles of socialism", Again, every worker understands that the principles of socialism, as Marx, Lenin and Trotsky stated them, mean that the workers of different countries should not fight each other, but rather their imperialist enemy. Not even the rotten Hawke leadership of the A.C.T.U. can hide these facts from the workers.
What the A.C.T.U. executive dare not say is that the bureaucrat: in China, Vietnam and Kampuchea, who from the security of their plush office send workers to kill their class brothers and sisters resemble in one vital respect the trade union bureaucrats who try to stop Australian workers winning higher wages. Neither the Stalinist bureaucrats of China and IndoChina nor the trade union bureaucrats of Australia are capable of adhering to socialist principle. The Australian unions will have socialist leadership only when Hawke is dumped: China, Vietnam and Kampuchea will only be run by the workers when Deng Xiao-ping, Pham Van Dong; Poi Pot, Heng Samrin and all the bureaucrats who support them are dumped. All bureaucrats in the workers' movement use the small amount of knowledge and book learning which sets them above the ordinary worker to line their pockets at the workers' expense, while pretending to lead the workers forward. In Kampuchea the workers are forced out of the cities at bayonet point; in China, they are shot for striking for higher wages; in Vietnam, they shot Saigon workers who wanted to fight the French occupation forces in 1946 and dispatch today's Saigon workers to the country for re-education. The Stalinist bureaucrats always claim they are shooting the workers in the workers' interests, just as Hawke claims he keeps wages down in the workers' own interests. What the Stalinist officials fear most are elected workers' councils - soviets -- challenging the bureaucratic caste's right to rule. The bureaucratic castes begin by shooting the workers of their "own" country and end by forcing the workers of different "socialist" countries to fight each other for the conflicting national interests of "their" bureaucracies. Without soviet power in China, Vietnam and Kampuchea, the betrayal of socialism is inevitable
The fake left newspaper Socialist accuses the A C T.U. executive of sharing Fraser's position on Indo-China. Certainly the A.C.T.U, has illusions about Indo-China - and about Fraser - but unlike both Fraser and the Socialist the A.C.T.U. executive has condemned the war in Asia on the basis of socialist principle. Hawke and company are bureaucrats who have not forgotten what principles they are selling out. The publishers of the Socialist, the pro-Russian Stalinist "Socialist" party, led by the union official Clancy, have sold out socialism so often they have forgotten to even pay even lip-service to socialist principle. The Socialist cannot follow the A.C.T.U, in calling on "socialist countries" to adhere to "socialist principles" because for the Socialist no country remains socialist once it disagrees with the Socialist's editorial policy. A "socialist" country one day becomes "fascist" the next if it disagrees with Pat Clancy and his Moscow mentors -- the question of "principled" relations between the USSR and its neighbours can never arise since any country disagreeing with the USSR is automatically run by "Hitlers". The Socialist, describing China fascist follows the precedent set by Vanguard who long ago characterised the U.S.S.R. as "social fascist", while the real fascists of the Australian National Alliance - turn up at Socialist Party "peace" rallies to urge a white crusade against the "yellow peril", where their attendance is passively tolerated by leadinq figures in the S.P.A.
Instead of the fake Trotskyist parties -- the "Socialist Workers" Party, the "Socialist Labor" League, the "Spartacist" League - condemning this third period Stalinist fantasy, they line up behind the "Socialist" Party to chant "China out now" and so stir up war hysteria. Such hysteria could have led a month ago and may still lead in the future to an invasion of China by the U.S.S.R. The fake Trotskyists deny they consider China "fascist" but their political practice differs in no major respect from the "Socialist" Party which does take this view except that where the "Socialist" Party, using traditional popular front tactics, camouflages propaganda for war behind a "peace" campaign, the Socialist Labor and Spartacist Leagues go one step further to directly advocate U.S.S.R. involvement in a general war, under slogans like "U.S.S.R., honour your treaty". Third period Stalinism led in Germany at the time of Hitler's rise to power to working class disunity in the face of the fascist threat as a result of the Communist Party, under Stalinist leadership, refusing any united front with the Social Democrats, which it branded "social fascist". Now, faced with a lesser but still significant threat from United States imperialism, the different Stalinist powers brand their opponents within the workers' and peasants' bloc as "fascist", opening the way for United States imperialism, overwhelmingly defeated in war only years ago, to organise for the disintegration of the Sino-Soviet bloc. The situation might be better described by saying the Stalinist bureaucracies, witnessing American imperialism's slide into decline, have decided it is safe to fight one another without an uninvited guest coming to the party. But the conflict between the Stalinist powers has arrested an otherwise inevitable American decline; the Stalinists have underestimated the United States as before they underestimated Hitler. In 1933, Trotsky called for the formation of a new international communist party, the Fourth International, after Stalinist third period tactics permitted Hitler to take over the German state without a shot being fired in opposition. Today, the same third period tactics, this time on an international scale, are being repeated, leading inevitably - unless there is political revolution in the Sino-Soviet bloc - to the destruction of the entire grouping of anti-capitalist states. The four or five claimants to the title of "Fourth International" either regard this process with folded arms or - in Australia - urge it on. It is necessary, in such circumstances, any more just to talk of the collapse of the Fourth International? It is decomposing before our eyes. The politics of the old Fourth International are not dead, but a new world party must be built around the 1938 program of Leon Trotsky.
Neither China nor Kampuchea nor Vietnam is fascist. These countries have all overthrown their former capitalist governments and nationalised the means of production. They are however all ruled by parasitic castes which embezzle the wealth the workers and peasants create. These aristocratic castes try to divert the workers from the bureaucratic deformation of the planned economy - the plunder of the workers by their bureaucratic misleaders - by stirring up the dregs of national chauvinism to prepare for wars against transitional sister states. In this way nations which should be advancing to socialism are pushed back toward capitalism, in the most catastrophic way.
American imperialism is not responsible for the ChineseVietnamese-Kampuchean conflict. The way was opened for American imperialist intervention by the split in the Sino-Soviet bloc created by contending Stalinist nationalisms. Imperialism cannot intervene at will among the anti-capitalist states, especially after its military defeat in the IndoChina war. It requires allies. These allies are to be found among the different Stalinist bureaucracies. It is these bureaucracies which lay the basis for American imperialism's manipulation of the transitional states. It is these bureaucracies which must first and foremost be attacked and overthrown if imperialism's-plans are to be thwarted and the war danger ended. The Chinese bureaucracy is now the bureaucracy most closely linked to United States imperialism. What created this link? Stalinism - in particular "peaceful co-existence" and "socialism in one country" as the basis for the liquidation of working class internationalism into social patriotism. And are not the U.S.S,R, and Vietnam also Stalinist? Of course. All the Stalinist regimes are prepared to go cap in hand to American imperialism for aid against the "fascists" - that is the workers of other transitional states. Some regimes succeed, others fail. No Stalinist regime is on principle now opposed to seek support from Carter in military clashes with other transitional states. No Stalinist regime therefore is supportable by revolutionaries - most especially when a general war between transitional states is possible. Any support now for any Stalinist regime is support for American imperialist intervention against the Asian revolution.
If we were facing now - as the "Socialist Workers" Party claims - nothing more than a second episode of the American attack on Indo-China, how simple things would be: But 1979 is different from 1973. Imperialism's proxies are the Stalinist bureaucracies. The aim of the "Socialist Workers" Party, ably seconded by the "Spartacist" League, is to get Stalinism off the hook. The Communist Left has been attacked for considering the danger of a general war between transitional states more serious than the threats to the "independence" of Vietnam (or, depending on one's secondhand patriotism, China). To such charges, we are proud to plead guilty. On the left, we alone, the Trotskyists, fight for the interests of the entire bloc of anti-capitalist states by telling the workers to turn national war into political revolution against the rival gangs of Cain-Stalin.
The last two months of war have now receded to the level of border clashes and guerilla ambushes. The conflict could have, but did not, escalate into a general war, because neither side was certain of victory. The two sides, China and the U.S.S.R.-Vietnam were too equally matched. The possibility of a general war of transitional states therefore remains. This general war has been postponed until such time as one of the two conflicting bureaucracies can win firm support from Carter and Brzezinski. In the coming period of armed peace between the transitional states, American imperialism can make more far-reaching gains than it secured through its services as "honest broker" while the bullets were flying. The State Department does not want a general war of wealth the workers and peasants create. These aristocratic castes try to divert the workers from the bureaucratic deformation of the planned economy - the plunder of the workers by their bureaucratic misleaders - by stirring up the dregs of national chauvinism to prepare for wars against transitional sister states. In this way nations which should be advancing to socialism are pushed back toward capitalism, in the most catastrophic way.
American imperialism is not responsible for the ChineseVietnamese-Kampuchean conflict. The way was opened for American imperialist intervention by the split in the Sino-Soviet bloc created by contending Stalinist nationalisms. Imperialism cannot intervene at will among the anti-capitalist states, especially after its military defeat in the IndoChina war. It requires allies. These allies are to be found among the different Stalinist bureaucracies. It is these bureaucracies which lay the basis for American imperialism's manipulation of the transitional states. It is these bureaucracies which must first and foremost be attacked and overthrown if imperialism's-plans are to be thwarted and the war danger ended. The Chinese bureaucracy is now the bureaucracy most closely linked to United States imperialism. What created this link? Stalinism - in particular "peaceful co-existence" and "socialism in one country" as the basis for the liquidation of working class internationalism into social patriotism. And are not the U.S.S,R, and Vietnam also Stalinist? Of course. All the Stalinist regimes are prepared to go cap in hand to American imperialism for aid against the "fascists" - that is the workers of other transitional states. Some regimes succeed, others fail. No Stalinist regime is on principle now opposed to seek support from Carter in military clashes with other transitional states. No Stalinist regime therefore is supportable by revolutionaries - most especially when a general war between transitional states is possible. Any support now for any Stalinist regime is support for American imperialist intervention against the Asian revolution.
If we were facing now - as the "Socialist Workers" Party claims - nothing more than a second episode of the American attack on Indo-China, how simple things would be: But 1979 is different from 1973. Imperialism's proxies are the Stalinist bureaucracies. The aim of the "Socialist Workers" Party, ably seconded by the "Spartacist" League, is to get Stalinism off the hook. The Communist Left has been attacked for considering the danger of a general war between transitional states more serious than the threats to the "independence" of Vietnam (or, depending on one's secondhand patriotism, China). To such charges, we are proud to plead guilty. On the left, we alone, the Trotskyists, fight for the interests of the entire bloc of anti-capitalist states by telling the workers to turn national war into political revolution against the rival gangs of Cain-Stalin.
The last two months of war have now receded to the level of border clashes and guerilla ambushes. The conflict could have, but did not, escalate into a general war, because neither side was certain of victory. The two sides, China and the U.S.S.R.-Vietnam were too equally matched. The possibility of a general war of transitional states therefore remains. This general war has been postponed until such time as one of the two conflicting bureaucracies can win firm support from Carter and Brzezinski. In the coming period of armed peace between the transitional states, American imperialism can make more far-reaching gains than it secured through its services as "honest broker" while the bullets were flying. The State Department does not want a general war of the state department�s choice. The war preparations of the Stalinist bureaucracies are regulated by Brezinski�s timetable That timetable, in turn, is determined by the speed at which the United States can induce the most willing bureaucracy to restore capitalism. In the new period of peace, that is, preparation for new war, Vietnam and the U.S.S.R. will find "leaders" as eager as the shameless Deng Xiao-ping to auction the gains of the revolution for American dollars and guns. Tom Uren has already started advertising that Vietnam's "neutrality" means it is open to bids from the World Bank for an American takeover of its economy. Uren, naturally, does not blame Vietnam for its subservience to imperialism but the United States for refusing to take over the Vietnamese economy, Vietnam's leaders, far from being the "underdogs" in the war, have secured a puppet government in Kampuchea. They will not flinch, in the future, from further military action which will embroil the Sino-Soviet bloc in mutual slaughter. Neither China nor Vietnam nor the U.S.S.R. has any program but the mass murder of workers in wars for "national honour" and old colonial borders.
The Stalinists' warmongering has been a grave blow to socialism. In Australia, the fascist National Alliance has vastly increased its activities. Its literature argues that the Chinese-Vietnamese war means the end of Marxism and the victory of the "national principle". The Communist Left alone has warned that the National Alliance is utilising the split in the Australian "left" between Chinese and Vietnamese social patriotism to increase its influence and manipulate the various groupings in the same way as American imperialism utilises the national wars between the Asian transitional states. Where the United
States favours China, the National Alliance hails the U.S.S.R. and Vietnam as the opponents of the "yellow peril" in Peking. For those who have located "fascism" in either Moscow or Peking the activities of the real fascists will have long ago ceased to matter. But, for communists, the intensification of the fascist threat, along with the danger to the very existence of the Sino-Soviet bloc, mean that the need to smash Stalinism before it destroys every victory of workers' revolution has never been greater. To this struggle, the Communist Left dedicates itself. The unconditional obligation to defend the entire workers' and peasants' bloc requires political revolution against all the national Stalinist bureaucracies preparing war.
FOR A NEW INTERNATIONAL!
FOR POLITICAL REVOLUTION TO END NATIONAL WARS!
DEFEND THE WORKERS' AND PEASANTS' BLOC!
Issued by the Communist Left, Box M217, Sydney Mail Exchange, N.S.W. 2016.