First Published: Canadian Worker.
Reprinted: Progressive Labor, Vol. 3, No. 8, November 1971.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
Copyright: This work is in the Public Domain under the Creative Commons Common Deed. You can freely copy, distribute and display this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line as your source, include the url to this work, and note any of the transcribers, editors & proofreaders above.
Nixon hasn’t yet gone to Peking but already the imperialist’s propaganda machine is talking about a reasonable settlement in Vietnam (that is, a “neutral” non-communist government) and a “generation of peace.” When the top-guns of history’s most lethal and aggressive capitalist power say through thin smiles that we’re entering an epoch of “peace” it’s time to put on your helmet.
Things happen fast. The breakdown of the world capitalist system is accelerating. Such matters as the monetary crisis, Britain’s rush to enter the Common Market, the Biafran war directed by oil merchants, imperialist-backed coups and counter-coups in the Mid-East, the return of Japan as a world power beating the U.S. in several areas of trade – all testify to the quickening rivalry among the capitalist powers.
Then it would not be long, before a counterrevolutionary restoration on a national scale would inevitably occur, the Marxist-Leninist party would undoubtedly become a revisionist party, a fascist party, and the whole of China would change its color. – Mao Tse-tung
You can’t say we weren’t warned!
Kissinger’s secret trip to China is part of this hurry-up atmosphere of rough competition. Why the get-together? The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution that once almost had Chou En-lai in its grip, has been crushed. The revisionists now ruling China are breathlessly anxious to be with their own kind. So Kissinger and Chou made haste to take up matters that couldn’t be trusted to lesser lights.
Nixon in Peking will round out a veritable murderers row of reactionary politicians who in recent months have been filing in to eat at Chou’s. Those responsible for slogans must feel a little betwixt-and-between. While we don’t sympathize with their problem, we suggest that there are some obvious things to chant during this interim period on the road from revolution to counter-revolution. How about the following?
“U.S. Imperialists get out of Asia, Africa, Latin America ... And Welcome to China!”
“Fascist Nixon, how are you?”
“A nation, whether it be large or small, provided its cause is just, can be sold down the river.”
“U.S. Imperialism is the number one enemy of the world’s peoples, but a deal is a deal.”
“People of the world, unite still more closely, and go to hell.”
Of course, they could always stick with the old ones, but then they run the risk of choking.
The Chinese bosses have already indicated they’d go for another Geneva Conference to play the old game of “neutralizing” Indo-China. At the last one in 1954 the Vietnamese parted with half of their country at the urging of the Russians and Chinese. Newsweek magazine says the U.S. has leap-frogged the Paris negotiations by going to China. They quote one of the South Vietnamese puppets to show their renewed optimism. “I don’t see how it can be anything but favorable to us” crowed an aide to President Thieu.
Not to appear an utter renegade Chou En-lai has reminded everyone that China remains a firm supporter of revolution around the world. A look at the Chinese “support” for the Palestinian struggle against Israeli Zionism, shows them to be hypocrites. All of China’s nationalist pals in the Mid-East, from Sadat to Selassie, work overtime at setting the guerillas up to be slaughtered by Hussein’s army. At the moment, the Palestinians are being hunted down and killed like rabbits. But they still get their worthless declaration from Chou saying: “You’re doing fine. We resolutely support you.”
The Chinese revisionists have gone the way of Khrushchev. This year they’ll make the U.N; next year it’ll be Disneyland. Along with the Russians they will join the imperialist battle for control of markets and material. Division, redivision and collision is the name of the game.
It is in the inevitable wars and revolutions that the best laid plans of these “diplomats” and “statesmen” will be shattered. Workers around the world are fighting for their lives against the jet set dictators who seek to put out the fires of class struggle with conferences. The long, rugged path of class war can only result in socialism, a working class dictatorship. The manipulators who go to Geneva to cast their lots over the world’s fate are living on borrowed time. “The earth is strewn with the burst bladders of the puffed-up,” as the saying goes.