First Published: 1977.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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In the struggle against modern revisionism and the development of the world-wide anti-revisionist movement, the vanguard role has been played by the Chinese and Albanian parties. While, in the 1950’s and early 1960’s, genuine Marxists in various parties were struggling against their indigenous revisionists, it was the Chinese and Albanians who fully exposed the turn toward revisionism of the CPSU and its revisionist allies throughout the world, as well as the subsequent restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union.
Today, recognition of the fully imperialist character of the Soviet Union constitutes a clear line of demarcation separating genuine Marxists from revisionists and centrist[1] forces. Yet, within the anti-revisionist movement itself, there exists great disunity and unclarity concerning the specific danger posed to the world revolutionary forces by the Soviet Union.
Is the Soviet Union today the main enemy of the revolutionary proletariat and its allies, the national liberation movements? Or, is it the Soviet Union and the United States which together constitute the main bulwark of world reaction?
A clear resolution of this question is imperative as it has implications for virtually all aspects of the international situation. At stake here is the stand that revolutionaries must assume towards the various struggles, movements, and countries throughout the world; at stake is the meaning of proletarian internationalism in the present period. The question of the Soviet Union also has great implications for our relationship towards our own bourgeoisie. Wracked as the world is today with the contention and collusion of the two superpowers, it is impossible to deal with U.S. imperialism in isolation from its relationship to the Soviet Union.
In the United States, the debate over the Soviet Union assumed particular significance following the publication of an interview with William Hinton, then President of the U.S. China Friendship Association in the May 5, 1976 issue of the centrist Guardian.[2] In this interview, Hinton declared that the Chinese Communist Party had abandoned its earlier position on the nature of the contention and collusion between the two superpowers. Now, they regarded U.S. imperialism as a potential ally in the world-wide struggle against Soviet expansionism and conceived of U.S. military commitments, in certain cases, as having positive value. They believed that U.S. military defense, particularly in Europe, Japan, and the Philippines should be maintained until it was possible for these areas to develop an independent defense; alone, they were incapable of successfully resisting Soviet aggression. Thus, in Europe, wrote Hinton, it was necessary to maintain NATO and, “this will remain a necessity until their (the European countries) own forces have been developed at an adequate level.” The same was true of the Philippines: “The Philippines are demanding that the U.S. vacate its bases one by one. This is a prudent policy. Complete withdrawal would leave the islands vulnerable to Soviet incursion. The Philippines need time to develop an adequate defense.” And, Japan, similiarly, must continue to rely on its alliance with the United States: “Chinese leaders urge all people to be self-reliant and not to depend on anyone else for their basic defense, but the reality of the situation for Japan is that, as of now, its own armed forces are very weak. As long as that is so, it is necessary to maintain a military alliance with the United States.”
Present world leaders, wrote Hinton, were judged by the Chinese according to how well they understood this new alignment of forces in the world. The Chinese thus preferred “Heath to Wilson, Strauss to Brandt and Schlesinger to Kissinger.”
In conclusion, Hinton called upon the U.S. China Friendship Association to actively support the new Chinese international line or become increasingly irrelevant to the task of promoting friendship between the Chinese and American people. “New Munichs,” he said, were “already in the making.” It was necessary to encourage the U.S. to maintain its strength throughout the world rather than relinquishing its spheres of influence in the false hope of “appeasing” Soviet aggression. Hinton conceded that “America’s traditional leaders, even when confronted by this lethal threat, will find it very difficult to unite with the wide coalition of popular forces necessary to contain the Soviet threat.” The question at hand, therefore, was whether or not American leaders would choose “the broad highway of united resistance, of collective security.”
Hinton’s interview become a subject of great controversy for a number of reasons:
1. The implications of Hinton’s interpretation of the international line of the Chinese Communist Party are profound. If correct, it means that one of the two leading parties in the international communist movement are calling upon the world’s revolutionary forces to unite with U.S. imperialism as a bulwark against Soviet expansionism. For us, as Marxist-Leninists in the U.S., the implementation of such a line would constitute a position of class collaboration with our own bourgeoisie.
2. Although the October League[2a] has stated publicly that it rejects Hinton’s analysis, many articles which have appeared in the Call, in fact, tend in the direction of class collaboration. We cite here only two examples:
(1) The OL opposes the slogan “No Arms to the Shah” on the basis that arms from the U.S. are necessary for Iran to defend itself from the Soviet Union. To date, however, U.S. military aid has not been used against the Soviet Union but to repress the internal struggle in Iran, as well as the national liberation movement in Oman–a colony of Iran. The OL, nonetheless, continues to argue that the Shah, on balance, is progressive because of his anti-Soviet stand.
(2) The OL, like Hinton, regards those sections of the U.S. bourgeoisie who are most vocally anti-Soviet (and anti-communist) as being “realists” and “less dangerous” than such “appeasers” as Kissinger who speak in favor of detente.[3]
3. The Chinese line itself, in our view, is sufficiently ambiguous as to lend itself to a number of interpretations. This is in distinction to the Labor Party of Albania which has explicitly rejected the view that the Soviet Union poses a greater danger to the world revolutionary forces than the U.S. In the recently issued report of the Central Committee to the 7th Congress of the party, Enver Hoxha stated: “Concrete facts and objective reality, lead us to the conclusion that in the world today the two superpowers, the United States of America and the Soviet Union, are the biggest and most dangerous aggressive imperialist powers known in history. Separately or together, the superpowers represent, in the same degree and to the same extent, the main enemy of socialism and the freedom and independence of nations, the greatest force defending oppressive and exploiting systems, and the direct threat of mankind being hurled into a third world war.”[4] Hoxha, moreover, argued against the position of relying on one superpower to oppose the other: “There are states that, aware of a threat from either one or the other superpower, base their defense on the military protection of the United States of America or of the Soviet Union. But military protection by the superpowers is an illusory defense because its aim is to convert the ’defended’ country into a protectorate. Shelter under the ’defense umbrella’ of the superpowers is always accompanied with political and economic concession, with concessions in the realm of national sovereignty and restrictions in the field of decision making on internal and external issues.[5] A number of the analyses presented in Peking Review in the last two years, on the other hand, tend to support Hinton’s thesis about the change in the Chinese international line. Below is an example:
The December meetings of the NATO defence ministers and the NATO Council attended by foreign ministers of the member countries were particularly noteworthy...The meetings discussed in detail the situation caused by the accelerated Soviet arms expansion and war preparations. They stressed that ’NATO must maintain powerful deterrent and defensive forces’ and that the NATO members were determined to strengthen their unity and ’to maintain and improve the efficiency of their forces.’ One British political figure recently said: ’In face of the growing Soviet threat, it would be dangerous for the West to be indifferent or to have feelings of appeasement.’ With Soviet social-imperialism’s aggressive and expansionist features increasingly being exposed, more and more people are bound to understand the truth of these words. (“Growing Trend in Western Europe to Strengthen Unity and Defence,” Peking Review #1, January 2, 1976, pg. 22)[6]
How are we do deal with the possibility that Hinton’s interpretation of the Chinese line may, in fact, be correct? While we do not look forward to differing with the Chinese Communist Party on this most important of questions facing the world-wide anti-revisionist movement, we do not believe it is correct for Marxists-Leninists to bind themselves a priori to the analysis of any one single party. Anti-revisionist forces throughout the world must, of course, be guided by a single interpretation of the international situation: in the imperialist system, we all face a common enemy. In the absence, however, of an international organization under democratic centralism, such as the Comintern, it is necessary for Marxists in each country to find their own independent bearings. In dealing with Hinton’s position, therefore, we do not believe that it is correct to focus on the accuracy of his particular interpretation of the Chinese line. Instead, we must come to terms with Hinton’s explanation of the theoretical basis for the change in Chinese foreign policy. This explanation was contained in an article written by Hinton to respond to the criticism of his first interview.[7] The Chinese, stated Hinton, regard the Soviet Union as being analogous to Nazi Germany. It is for this reason that they believe it is necessary to ally with U.S. imperialism as a bulwark against Soviet expansionism: “Almost all comment from China draws parallels between the current situation and the eve of World War II. The Soviet Union is compared to fascist Germany, certain leaders such as Kissinger and Brandt are compared to appeasers like Chamberlain and Daladier. Other leaders are compared to such realists (however reactionary) as Churchill and Roosevelt.”
Is the danger posed to the world revolutionary forces today by the Soviet Union analogous to that posed by Nazi Germany? It is the intent of our paper to answer this question. We are not the first group in the anti-revisionist movement to undertake this task. While the Revolutionary Communist Party’s main criticism of Hinton’s views has been that they represent a distortion of the Chinese international line, the RCP has also attempted to challenge the analogy between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.[8]
The RCP maintains that Hinton’s views are based on a falsification of the character of World War II. According to the RCP, with the single exception of the policy adopted by the Comintern in 1941, no historical precedent exists for the international communist movement establishing an alliance with any one set of imperialist powers against the other.
The RCP, however, ignores the fact that the Comintern first instructed its national sections to enter into an alliance with the non-fascist imperialist powers against Nazi Germany as early as 1935, This alliance was maintained until 1939,[8a] regarded historically as a turning point in the war, when the policy of “appeasement” pursued by France and England collapsed with the signing of the Hitler-Stalin Pact. It is these four years, between 1935 and 1939, known as the Popular Front period which Hinton views as analogous to the current world situation. The RCP, in excluding this period from its analysis, does a disservice to the Hinton position and thereby fails to refute it on a satisfactory basis.
If we are to challenge effectively the Nazi Germany analogy, which is the basis of Hinton’s analysis, it is necessary for us to understand how the Comintern analyzed the contention of the various imperialist powers between 1935 and 1939. It is to this period that we must now turn our attention.
In 1933, the short-lived Weimar Republic collapsed; Hitler acceeded to power as the new Chancellor of Germany. This event was to have a massive impact on the course of the world revolutionary movement. Ten years before, fascism had liquidated the working class movement of Italy; now the German proletariat was to share the same fate.
Between 1923 and 1933, the Third Communist International or Comintern[9], had been in the forefront of the world-wide anti-fascist struggle, facing a phenomenon unique to the experience of the world communist movement. Why was 1933 such a decisive defeat for the Comintern? The German working class had been the strongest of all in Europe. Hitler’s victory meant that Nazi Germany would assume the role of spearhead of the international fascist movement. Additionally, German imperialist aggression had acquired a specific focus: the Soviet Union, the first socialist republic and the ideological and material center of the Comintern. While the victory of fascism in any country constituted a decisive setback for the working class, the defeat of the Soviet Union would mean the destruction of the international communist movement as it then existed. Faced with such a situation, the Comintern held that to regard Nazi Germany as simply “another imperialist power,” constituted an ultra-left error. At its 7th World Congress, held in 1935, the Comintern, therefore, instructed its national sections to enter into alliances with the non-fascist imperialist powers against Nazi Germany, thus abandoning proletarian revolution as the immediate aim of the communist parties. All specific revolutionary tasks were to be subordianted to the single task of securing the defeat of the main spearhead of fascism, Nazi Germany.
Chief menace to the security of the Soviet Union and spearhead of international fascism; such were the two unique features of Nazi Germany. Let us examine these features closely to determine if they are shared by the Soviet Union today.
1. Germany as the Chief Menace to the Soviet Union:
The most authoritative source on this point is the report, “Fight for Peace,” delivered to the 7th Congress. The report was given by Palmiro Togliatti,[10] head of the Italian Communist Party, under the pseudonym of Ercoli. Geergi Dimitrov’s report, “United Front Against Fascism,” and Ercoli’s, “Fight for Peace,” were the two main speeches delivered at this congress and represented official Comintern positions adopted on these questions in 1935.
In his report, Ercoli describes how it is German, as opposed to Japanese imperialism which poses an immediate threat to the security of the Soviet Union. Of the two fascist states, he defines Japan as the most aggressive. Since 1931, argues Ercoli, “...bellicose Japanese imperialism has set about changing the map of the world by armed force.” He cites the military seizure of Manchuria, the occupation of Northern China, and the Japanese advance towards the very center of China itself. The immediate aim of Japan is the “establishment of Japanese hegemony not merely in the Far East but in all Eastern Asia and along the western shores of the Pacific Ocean. For Japan, an attack on the Soviet Union is only a long range goal. Its present strategy is to prepare for such an attack. The conquest of Manchuria and Northern China were for the purpose of securing a “base for attacking the Soviet frontiers and to create a spacious hinterland for the armies which will conduct this attack.” Japan’s immediate aim was the destruction of Soviet China, which was viewed by the Japanese as a “mortal enemy that they want to annihilate at all costs.” And, herein, lay the distinction between Japanese and German imperialism. While more aggressive, Japan’s immediate focus of aggression was not the Soviet Union. For Germany, the opposite was true. German imperialism, wrote Ercoli, was aimed at establishing its hegemony in Europe and “counts on attaining this aim by leading a crusade against the Soviet Union.”
The triumph of German National Socialism, declared Ercoli, was not “merely the victory of a party based upon the most unbridled chauvinism” which had “the unleashing of war as its immediate goal.” The defeat of the German working class movement meant the “victory of a party which proclaims without any reticence that its immediate aim (our italics) is to undertake a counterrevolutionary war against the Soviet Union, the revolutionary movement of the working class, and the movement for the national liberation of the oppressed peoples of the whole world.” Bolshevism constituted the main target of German National Socialism. This fact was clearly expressed In the last foreign policy speech delivered by Hitler prior to the convening of the 7th World Congress of the Comintern. In this speech, Hitler declared: “Our moral conceptions are diametrically opposed to those of Soviet Russia...It is Germany that saved Europe from Communism...National-Socialism cannot call upon its German fellow countrymen, the adherents of National-Socialism, to support a system which we consider our most mortal enemy.” The Comintern, concludes Ercoli, must aim its main blow at Nazi Germany, as the main instigator of a counter-revolutionary war against the Soviet Union:
The fact that, in a country with a population numerically exceeding that of any other country in capitalist Europe, a party is in power which so sharply puts the problem of a war aiming at the destruction of the country of the victorious proletarian revolution–this fact must today occupy the center of our attention and work. (our italics)
2. Germany as the Spearhead of International fascist reaction:
The Comintern’s understanding of fascism developed in the course of its own experience in the anti-fascist struggle. It came to define fascism as a qualitatively different form of class rule than the concealed dictatorship of the bourgeoisie under conditions of bourgeois democracy. The main features of the fascist dictatorship, as elaborated by the Comintern from 1928 to 1935 were as follows:
a. The principle aim of fascism is the destruction of the “revolutionary labor vanguard, i.e. the Communist sections and leading units of the proletariat.”
b. The class essence of fascism is the “most reactionary, most chauvinist, and most imperialist elements of finance capital.”
c. The social roots of fascism are the impoverished and dissillusioned petit bourgeoisie, small peasantry, intellectuals, declassed strata, and backward sectors of the working class who were won over to fascism as a result of the failure of Social-Democratic reformism to meet their economic needs in a period of extreme crisis.
d. The fascist dictatorship rises to power and maintains its rule through a combination of social-demagogy (aimed at the classes and strata described above) with terror, in conjunction with extreme imperialist aggression.
e. The fascist dictatorship is based on the complete destruction of bourgeois democratic norms.
f. The fascist movement employs extra-State, extra-legal organizations to conduct warfare on working class organizations.
Of these various features of fascism, the Comintern originally regarded the principle aim of fascism, the destruction of the working class movement, as being decisive. Such was the view of fascism adopted by the 6th World Congress of the Comintern in 1928. In 1933, however, the 13th Executive Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Comintern came to define as the distinguishing feature of the fascist dictatorship, not its principle aim of liquidating the working class movement, but the mechanism by which it sought to achieve this aim: the mass reactionary movements of the impoverished and dissillusioned petit bourgeoisie, peasantry, intellectuals, declassed strata and backward sectors of the proletariat. Subsequent documents of the Comintern refer to this definition, elaborated at the 13th Plenum, as constituting the Comintern’s most complete and authoritative analysis of fascism.[11]
The particular significance of Nazi Germany as a fascist state, in distinction, for example, to Italian fascism was its character as the spearhead of the international fascist movement. Dimitrov, the principle theorist of the Popular Front strategy, declared in his report to the 7th Congress, “The most reactionary variety of fascism is the German type of fascism...German fascism is acting as the spearhead of international counter-revolution, as the chief incendiary of imperialist wars, as the initiator of a crusade against the Soviet Union, the great fatherland of the toilers of the world.[12]
A comparison of the features of Nazi Germany during the Popular Front period and that of the Soviet Union today leads us to conclude that Hinton’s analogy is an inappropriate one.
1. The Focus of Soviet Aggression Today is not China:
Hinton claims that the Soviet Union today is threatening China with an imminent military attack, thus fitting the role assumed by Nazi Germany towards the Soviet Union. Hinton’s assertion is based on two points:
(1) The large number of Soviet troops ammassed on the Chinese border and
(2) The character of detente as a form of appeasement. In our view, neither of these two points are in Hinton’s favor.
That over one million Soviet troops are stationed at Manchuria, on the border of the Soviet Union and China, is not, in of itself, proof that the Soviet Union intends to invade China in the near future. The defeat of the Soviet Union was viewed by Hitler as the key to his conquest of Europe. We do not see how Soviet destruction of China has a parallel significance in the struggle of the Soviet Union to achieved world domination. Soviet expansionism, since its rise as an imperialist power, has been directed at ousting the U.S. from its various spheres of influence. In particular, the Soviet Union has intervened in those parts of the world where anti-imperialist forces are directed against the U.S. or Western imperialist powers, stepping into the resulting power vacuum as the “natural ally” of the national liberation movements. Hinton fails to make a case for why an immediate attack on China would serve the imperialist interests of the Soviet bourgeoisie. The U.S., moreover, for its part, currently maintains over 208,500 troops in West Germany-almost one half of the total number of U.S. ground troops stationed throughout the world.[13] No one has yet to assert, on the basis of this fact, that the immediate aim of U.S. aggression is East Germany.
Equally unfounded, in our view, is Hinton’s position that detente is a form of appeasement: an attempt on the part of certain sectors of the U.S. bourgeoisie to grant concessions to the Soviet Union as a means of deflecting its expansionist aims away from Europe and towards China. He likens various agreements today between the Soviet Union and the United States to the famous Munich Pact[14] of 1939, and compares the anti-detente stands adopted by Heath and Schlesinger to the anti-appeasement position assumed by Churchill and Heath during the Popular Front period.
Hinton, however, offers no concrete proof for his view of detente. The October League, which shares Hinton’s characterization of detente as a form of appeasement,[15] has held up the Helsinki Accords, signed on August 1, 1975 between the United States and the Soviet Union, as constituting such proof. In our opinion, Helsinki provided yet another example of how the collusion of the U.S. and the Soviet Union serves only as a means for their further contention. The Accords relegated Western and Eastern Europe to the condition of permanent military spheres of the two superpowers. The U.S. pledged not to intervene militarily in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union pledged not to intervene militarily in Western Europe. In addition, the nations which comprise both the West and the East agreed not to use arms to challenge the status quo. Such use of force on the part of the European countries against the present order was condemned as responsible for the “insecurity” of Europe. Europe was, in effect, to place its destiny in the hands of the NATO and WARSAW Pact forces. Thus, Helsinki constituted a diplomatic maneuvor to seal the hegemony of both superpowers in Europe, whose economic and political contention has only increased since the signing of the Accords.
Did the U.S. make unilateral concessions at Helsinki, as the OL claims? (“The Bosses’s Boy Jimmy Carter, Call, August 16, 1976). The one concrete example of such a “concession” which the OL has, to date, been able to provide is that section of the Accords in which the U.S. formally recognized the permanent division of Europe. Such recognition, however, can only be regarded as a form of capitulation to Soviet social-imperialism if one ignores the fact that the U.S. has, for some time, been committed to a policy of military non-intervention in Eastern Europe. Helsinki only expressed this fact in formal terms. For this, the U.S. gained a significant point of leverage against the Soviet Union. The human rights machinery established by the Conference has proven to be a source of anxiety for the Soviet Union. It has been actively taken up, in particular, in Czeckoslovakia through the current Charter 77 campaign. After the signing of the Accords, requests for visitation to West Germany from the East increased enormously. The dissident movement throughout Eastern Europe has gained a great impetus and the Soviet Union has suffered accordingly.[16]
At the same time as the U.S. has utilized the Accords to increase political ferment in Eastern Europe and to undermine the stability of Soviet rule, it has not lapsed into a state of military unpreparedness. The Chinese themselves, in Peking Review, reported that, while the Conference was in session, both NATO and WARSAW Pact forces were stepping up their military exercises. Recently, the appropriate committees in the Senate have been preparing extensive reports on the type of invasion to expect from the Soviet Union in Western Europe. The reports discuss various means by which NATO forces can be both positioned and strengthened in order to maximize the defense of Europe in the advent of a Soviet invasion. And, recently, the OL itself reported that the U.S. had reinforced its air defense forces in Europe. No less significant was Carter’s pledge, in his recent visit to Europe, to strengthen West European defense. NATO, he stated, was “at the heart” of U.S. foreign policy in Europe. Are these the actions of an appeaser?
2. The Soviet Union is not the Spearhead of Fascist Reaction but of Modern Revisionism;
It is widely assumed among the forces in the anti-revisionist movement that there exist only two forms of bourgeois rule: (1) The concealed dictatorship of the bourgeoisie (bourgeois democracy), or (2) The open, terroristic dictatorship of the bourgeoisie (fascism). The absence of bourgeois democracy in the Soviet Union leads these forces to conclude that the Soviet bourgeoisie must be ruling by means of a fascist dictatorship.
Fascism, however, has a specific meaning which is entirely lost when it is equated with all forms of repression and dictatorial rule. Today, many countries of the world, such as Greece, Brazil, and South Korea, etc. are ruled by military dictatorships which are not fascist in the proper sense of the term.
In applying the Comintern’s definition of fascism to the Soviet Union, we must reject the view that the Soviet bourgeoisie exercises rule by means of a fascist dictatorship. For, while, in the Soviet Union, some of the features of the fascist dictatorship clearly do exist, what is absent is its most distinguishing characteristic. The open, terroristic dictatorship of the Soviet bourgeoisie is not maintained through mass reactionary movements of non-proletarian strata.[17]
What is the significance of the fact that the Soviet Union is not a fascist dictatorship? As the most powerful of the fascist states, Nazi Germany served as the spearhead of international fascist reaction. Today, the Soviet Union, with all its prestige and authority as the first socialist republic, has become the foremost representative of modern revisionism. In the danger it poses to the working class movement, revisionism differs from fascism in two fundamental respects:
(1) Revisionism has its class base in the working class; the social roots of fascism are to be found principally outside the proletariat, in the petit-bourgeoisie, peasantry, and lumpen.
(2) Under the guise of Marxism, revisionism liquidates the independent class interests of the proletariat, restricting the working class movement to reformist aims; fascism, through the mechanism of mass reactionary movements, achieves the actual liquidation of the working class movement itself through the physical extermination of leading cadres in the communist parties. Not only are the revisionist parties not fascist, but their deep roots in the European proletariat today are largely derived from their vanguard role in the anti-fascist struggle during World War II.
The fact that revisionism poses a different danger to the working class movement than fascism, calls for different tactics in relation to revisionism on the part of the communist movement. We will deal with this important question of how to defeat revisionism (as well as other forms of opportunism) within in the working class movement in an article on United Action to be published in the future.
The analogy between the Soviet Union today and Nazi Germany during the Popular Front period is inappropriate in two fundamental respects: (1) Unlike Nazi Germany, the main spearhead of Soviet aggression is not directed at a socialist state and (2) The role of the Soviet Union world-wide is not as the spearhead of international fascist reaction, but of modern revisionism.
At the beginning of this paper, we stated that a resolution of the present debate over the Soviet Union had implications for virtually all aspects of the international situation. Below are brief statements of positions on central issues facing the anti-revisionist movement today which we believe follow from our rejection of the view that the Soviet Union today is a fascist dictatorship of the Hitler type:
1. CLASS CONTENT OF A NEW WORLD WAR
Any war which breaks out between the U.S. and the Soviet Union will represent but the continuation of their present struggle for world domination. Both imperialist powers are squally predatory in their aims of achieving world domination. Any war between these powers will represent an inter-imperialist war. As Lenin said of World War I, such a war would be one between “slaveholders for the preservation of slavery.” The working class has no stake in the outcome of a new world war. In the event of its outbreak, our task will be to transform the imperialist war into a civil war against our own bourgeoisie.[18]
2. NATO
We reject the view that U.S. military commitments in Europe, such as NATO, must be supported as a bulwark against Soviet expansionism. Both NATO and WARSAW Pact forces in Europe must be opposed.
3. UNIFICATION OF EUROPE
Historically, political disunity has characterized the relationships between the various nations which comprise Europe. Recently, a number of moves have been made by the European bourgeoisie towards unification. The European Economic Community is one such example. In addition to the EEC, these nations are in the process of experimenting with the creation of a single, centralized European government. Towards this end, a “European Commission” has been established. A joint military force independent from NATO would accompany the creation of such a government.
European unification has been supported by some anti-revisionist forces in Europe as a protection against Soviet expansionism. We reject such an argument. The aim of European unification is but to strengthen the hand of the European bourgeoisies in relation to the two superpowers, as well as their own proletariat, in order that Europe may develop into a superpower in its own right. We oppose the unification of Europe on a bourgeois basis. As Lenin wrote during the first imperialist world war, a “United States of Europe,” even if it were achievable under capitalism, is a reactionary concept. This remains true today. We will only support the unification of Europe on a revolutionary basis, a unification which can only be achieved through the struggle of the European proletariat to overthrow its own reactionary bourgeoisies.
4. “NATIONAL DEFENSE” OF EUROPE
Certain forces in the anti-revisionist movement in Europe advocate a position of “national defense” in the advent of a Soviet invasion. In rejecting the view that the Soviet Union is analogous to Nazi Germany, we find no basis for the proletariat of Western Europe, should war break out, to abandon the classical Leninist position of revolutionary defeat of one’s bourgeoisie. Additionally, given the present military integration of Western Europe with the U.S. through NATO, it is inconceivable that national defense of Europe can be carried out without direct U.S. involvement. It is for this reason that the position of national defense, when advanced by Marxist-Leninists in the U.S., represents a class collaborationist position.
5. DETENTE AND THE NATURE OF SUPERPOWER CONTENTION
Detente, as we have stated earlier, represents a cover for the contention and collusion of both superpowers in their struggle for world domination. We do not regard detente as a form of appeasement on the part of the U.S. towards the Soviet Union, but as a mutually advantageous policy for both superpowers. Detente is based on the objective reality that neither superpower is capable, at present, of destroying the other. Both superpowers, moreover, must collude as well as contend in order to preserve various areas of the world as an arena for the imperialist aims. The Labor Party of Albania has summarized this fact in the expression: “Both when superpowers work together and when they quarrel, it is others who pay the bill.”[19]
Let us, from this general perspective, examine the role of the U.S. and the Soviet Union in the Angolan civil war. In our view, it was both superpowers which colluded to ensure the collapse of the Transitional Government, formed in January of 1976 as a coalition of all three liberation groups: the FNLA, UNITA, and the MPLA. In November of that same year, when the MPLA uniliaterally declared itself to be the only legitimate group and formed its own government, armed struggle broke out among all three groups. Unlike many of the forces in the anti-revisionist movement, we do not believe that the initial involvement of either the U.S. or the Soviet Union began with the collapse of the Transitional Government. We do believe, however, that the resulting civil war provided each superpower with a necessary cover for drastically escalating its own existing involvement: the U.S., in the name of preserving democracy and freedom, stepped up its supply of arms to the FNLA: the Soviet Union, posing as the “natural ally” of liberation movements, provided more equipment to the MPLA than in all of its previous years of aid.
All of Africa was soon embroiled in debating how to bring the civil war to a conclusion. With the invasion of Southern Angola by the detested apartheid regime of South Africa, this debate came to an abrubt halt. The Organization of African Unity (OAU), which had previously refused to support any one liberation group over the other, now voted to lend its name to the MPLA. The South African intervention, in its turn, provided the cover for Cuban involveŽment. There is a strong possibility that Cuban troops actually preceeded that of the South Africans. In any case, Cuban military operations were characterized by a marked inability to engaged in combat with the South African troops; instead, they were successfully directed against the UNITA sanctuaries. Today, not only do Cuban troops remain in Angola, but they are stationed in a number of neighboring African countries as well. Their continued presence in Angola is explained by the MPLA as being essential for the suppression of the counter-revolutionary war directed against the Angolan government by the FNLA and, particularly, UNITA.
The result of superpower rivalry in Angola is now a tragic chapter in African history. More Angolans have died in the civil war, which has yet to reach a conclusion, than in all the years of Angolan resistance to Portuguese colonialism. Angola provides us with one of the most complicated and graphic examples, in recent times, of the nature of the contention and collusion of the two superpowers. Unfortunately, the anti-revisionist movement, for the most part, has confined itself to explaining why the MPLA should not be supported over the FNLA and UNITA. What the movement failed to clearly expose, however, is how all three groups had become tainted with imperialism in their relationships to either the Soviet Union or the U.S. and South Africa. In particular, the connection of the U.S. to the FNLA was all but ignored, as if to bring out this fact would undermine the argument that the MPLA should not be recognized as the only legitimate group. In singling out the MPLA, the Soviet Union, and Cuba as the main culprits in the Angolan civil war, such groups as the October League, in particular, objectively sided with our own bourgeoisie in its rationalization that U.S. intervention served as a necessary bulwark against Soviet expansionism.[20]
6. OUR ROLE IN THE INTERNATIONALIST EDUCATION OF THE U.S. WORKING CLASS: THE SPECIAL TASK OF U.S. MARXIST-LENINISTS
While we must oppose all forms of both U.S. and Soviet military, political, and economic intervention throughout the world, we, in the United States, are faced with a special task: the internationalist education of the working class against our own bourgeoisie. Not to take up this special task while opposing both superpowers is to sink into national chauvinism.
In this regard, we are especially critical of the OL’s view that the “main blow” of our propaganda and agitation must be aimed at the Soviet Union. (“The Direction of the Main Blow,” Call, November 22, 1976). The OL’s position, however, is only an extreme version of an error which is widespread in the anti-revisionist movement. Many groups, in describing the nature of the contention between the two superpowers, focus on the imperialist character of the Soviet Union. While claiming to reject the main blow thesis, these groups, in fact, join the OL in assuming that U.S. imperialism has already been sufficiently exposed to large numbers of the U.S. working class and it is necessary, therefore, to concentrate on Soviet social-imperialism.
We reject such an assumption. It is true that the massive world-wide movement which arose spontaneously in the last decade in opposition to the role of the U.S. in Vietnam served to severely undermine U.S. credibility around the globe. The Soviet bourgeoisie, for its part, has yet to face such opposition to its imperialist activities.
Especially in its later stages, however, the organized anti-war movement was dominated by petit bourgeois elements who viewed U.S. involvement in Vietnam as the result of an erroneous policy, rather than a manifestation of U.S. imperialism as a system. The anti-war movement was anti-imperialist in the sense that it was objectively allied with the national liberation forces in Vietnam and contributed greatly to the unprecedented defeat of the U.S. But the anti-war movement, as a whole, was not subjectively anti-imperialist in the most limited sense of recognizing the overall world-wide role of the U.S., let alone in the ultimate sense of having revolutionary class consciousness: recognition of the need to overthrow capitalism in the U.S. and to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The groups which consider U.S. imperialism already sufficiently exposed fail to recognize this fact. Instead, they play on various loose definitions of anti-imperialism. These groups, moreover, have extended their error on the U.S. by establishing extremely broad criteria for anti-imperialist consciousness in relation to Soviet social-imperialism. Exposure of the Soviet Union, if it is to contribute to the internationalist education of the U.S. proletariat, must be placed in the context of the necessity to overthrow our own bourgeoisie. Opposition to various instances of Soviet social-imperialism which is not from a working class point of view will either be so superficial as to be meaningless, or worse, an expression of anti-communism, which plays into the hands of our own bourgeoisie.
Given the inevitability of a future war between the two superpowers, this point cannot be overemphasized. During World War I, large sections of the Russian proletariat initially rejected the Bolshevik position on the war. “Defense of the Fatherland” was, for some time, a popular slogan among the Russian masses. In the advent of a war with the Soviet Union, how immeasurably more difficult will be our task of turning the imperialist war into a civil war? It is inconceivable that the U.S. proletariat, deeply imbued as it is with national chauvinism, will be capable of carrying out its internationalist tasks if, in all the years preceeding the outbreak of the war, we, as communists, concentrated primarily on exposing the “rapaciousness” of the Soviet bourgeoisie.
The following is a review of the Comintern’s analysis of the major events which occured in late 1938 and 1939 and resulted in the outbreak of the second stage of World War II in September of 1939.
The most common understanding of the Munich Pact is that it represented a form of appeasement based on the naive hope that German aggression could be thwarted by the granting of certain territorial concessions in Europe. The policy of “appeasement,” however, like “detente” today, was but a cover for the alliance between the western bourgeois democratic governments and fascist Germany, an alliance which would have been exceedingly unpopular in the non-fascist states had it been put forth openly.[20a] The aim of the British and French in signing the Pact was not to “appease” Nazi Germany, but to whet its appetite-to encourage German aggression towards the Soviet Union. While Chamberlain’s official comment on signing the Pact as Prime Minister of England was that he had secured “peace in our time,” the essence of the Munich policy was a united front of the imperialist powers against the Soviet Union.
The Hitler-Stalin Pact broke up the united front of France, England, and Germany against the Soviet Union. The rupture of this united front was an absolute necessity for the survival of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union first tried to conclude a pact of mutual assistance with Britain and France. Failing in that attempt, the Soviet Union was able to achieve an agreement with Germany. While Stalin’s reasons for concluding a pact with Germany are clear, less understood are Hitler’s reason for abandoning the Soviet Union as his immediate focus of aggression.
In his article, “The War and the Working Class of the Capitalist Countries,” (Comintern Journal, Volume 16, Series 2, 1939), Dimitrov answers this crucial question: “When, in the opinion of the imperialists, a suitable moment had arrived for Germany to fulfill its role as shock troop against the U.S.S.R., Germany could not make up its mind to do so. It had first to reckon with the economic and military might of the Soviet Union and with the moral unity and solidarity of the Soviet people, ready to defend their socialist country to the last drop of blood and capable of crushing any enemy; second, the rulers of Germany were compelled to take account of the fact that they would fail to rally the majority of the German people to a war against the great land of socialism. In such a state of affairs, Germany was faced with the dilemma–either to fall into the position of underling of British and French imperialism, to go to war against the Soviet Union and risk its neck in this war; or to make a decisive turn in its foreign policy and to take the path of peaceful relations with the Soviet Union. As the facts show, the leaders of Germany selected the second path.”
Throughout the three years of civil war in Spain, France and Britain had maintained a strict policy of “neutrality,” thus giving free rein to the fascist Franco forces. Yet, when reactionary Poland was attacked in 1939, they rose to its “defense.” To disguise their imperialist interests, Britain and France claimed that their declaration of war on Germany was motivated solely by the necessity to defend Poland, defeat Hitlerism, and preserve democracy. The Comintern exposed the entry of Britain and France into the war as a response to the turn in the foreign policy of Nazi Germany which had been expressed in the Hitler-Stalin Pact, signed only a week before the invasion of Poland. The policy of non-intervention pursued by France and England until 1939 had been based on the assumption that Germany would launch an anti-Soviet war.
Bourgeois historians usually date the beginning of World War II in 1939 with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany. The Comintern, on the other hand, saw 1939 as merely a turning point, marking the beginning of the second stage of the war. The CI saw the war as having actually begun in 1931 with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, and military operations by Germany and Italy against Spain and Ethiopia. In the CI’s view, the anti-fascist stance adopted by the French and British in 1939, when they entered into military conflict with Germany, was merely rhetorical. The character and essence of the conflict between France, England, and Germany-despite the claims of the French and British-was not one between the forces of fascism and democracy. The war, on the part of both sides, was an imperialist one in which the working class had no stake.
This characterization of the war, however, was short-lived. It was changed in 1941, with the surprise invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany. At this point, the Comintern once again called upon its national sections to form an alliance with the non-fascist imperialist states against the Axis Powers of Germany, Italy, and Japan. The main aspect of World War II between 1941 and 1945 became one of the defense of the Soviet Union.
[1] A brief definition of centrism, in relation to the question of capitalist restoration in the Soviet Union is in order here. Centrism is perhaps the most widely misused term in the anti-revisionist movement. The lack of precision in its application has resulted in the term losing practically all of its concrete meaning. Contrary to a popular misconception, centrism does not represent indecision in a two-line struggle. Centrism, rather, is a definite political position which seeks to reconcile two mutually exclusive and irreconcilable differences in principle.
Kautsky, regarded as a classic example of centrism, sought to reoncile two opposite views regarding the tactics to be pursued by the proletarian parties of the Second International during the imperialist first world war:
(1) The social-chauvinist view which openly rejected the characterization of the war as an imperialist one and adopted an open class collaborationist position of “defense of the fatherland.”
(2) The Leninist view that the war was the product of inter-imperialist rivalry and that, having no stake in the outcome of the war, the parties of the proletariat must seek to transform the imperialist war into a civil war against their own bourgeoisie.
Unlike the overt social-chauvinists, Kautsky did not deny that the war was of an imperialist character. Yet, he refused to accept the political consequences of this fact: the Leninist view that the only means of securing a conclusion to the war and achieving a just, rather than an imperialist peace, was through the victory of the proletarian revolution. Lenin, for this reason, regarded centrism as more dangerous than overt social-chauvinism. It served as a bridge to the openly identifiable collaborationist policies of the Second International under the guise of opposing these policies. That centrism is untenable as a distinct political position was proven in practice by the failure of the centrist parties to maintain their own international. The majority of the parties which comprised the centrist Two-and-a-Half International soon rejoined the Second International.
Today, we have the example of the Guardian as a centrist trend within the anti-revisionist movement. The Guardian attempts to reconcile the following two irreconcilable views regarding the tactics to be pursued by the proletariat towards the two superpowers:
(1) That the Soviet Union, with the restoration of capitalism, has been transformed into a fully imperialist power subject to the same laws of imperialism as any other imperialist power and that its role world-wide is thus reactionary and counter-revolutionary.
(2) The view that capitalism has not been restored in the Soviet Union and it remains a socialist country, a bulwark of peace and support for the revolutionary struggles of the peoples of the world against U.S. imperialism.
The Guardian is unwilling to commit itself to the political consequences of the view that the Soviet Union remains a socialist country. To express such a view would place the Guardian clearly outside of the anti-revisionist movement which is, above all, defined by and owes its very existence to the world-wide split in the international communist movement between the CPSU and the Chinese and Albanian parties. Thus, the Guardian puts forward the position that the process of capitalist restoration in the Soviet Union has begun and describes the international role of the Soviet Union as ”social-imperialist.” At the same time, the Guardian is unwilling to accept the political consequences of the Chinese and Albanian view that the Soviet Union constitutes a fully imperialist power, subject to the same laws of imperialism as the United States. The Guardian’s criticisms of the role of the Soviet Union world-wide, therefore, remain in the realm of “policy,” detached from the character of the Soviet economy. For, were it to regard the Soviet Union as not only a fully imperialist power, but a superpower as well, the Guardian would have to reject its current position that the U.S. alone remains the main danger to the world revolutionary forces. Apparently unwilling to reject this position, it is compelled to justify the view that the U.S. remains the main danger by arguing that capitalism has not yet been fully restored in the Soviet Union. The Guardian thus denies the economic essence of social-imperialism as the economic-political expression of an imperialist economy. Like Kautsky, the Guardian detaches politics from economics. And, like Kautsky, the political centrism of the Guardian leads it to revise basic Marxist principles regarding the distinction between the socialist and capitalist modes of production, as well as the economic essence of imperialism itself.
[2] The Hinton interview–“The Soviet Union is the Main Danger,” was originally published in the March-April, 1976 issue of China and US, newsletter of the N.Y. Friendship Association chapter.
[2a] Since this paper was written, the Organizing Committee initiated by the OL announced the formation of its party, the Communist Party (M-L). The June 20, 1977 issue of the Call contains a political report from the founding Congress, held June 4-5. The international line of the new party is the same as that of the OL.
[3] See, for example, the following two Call articles: “Superpower Detente Oils Election Pot,” May 1, 1976 and “Sonnenfeldt Doctrine: Appeasers and the War Danger,” May 24, 1976.
[4] Report Submitted to the 7th Congress of the Party of Labour of Albania, p. 166. This report contains an extensive section on the international situation and is currently available from Albania Report (the main distribution center in the U.S. for Albanian literature): P.O. Box 912, New York, N.Y. 10008 for $1.50. A comparison of the report as well as additional Albanian material, such as “Albania Today,” with Peking Review reveal what appear to be a number of differences between the Albanian and Chinese parties over such important issues as: the First, Second and Third World concepts, the nature of the revisionist parties in Europe, the character of the 1975 Helsinki Accords and the general nature of detente; NATO, and the unification of Europe. We find ourselves to be in basic agreement with the Albanian analysis of the international situation. Not having a full understanding of what constitutes the Chinese line today, however, we do not feel capable of assessing the depth of the differences between the two parties. We are, of course, deeply disturbed by the existence of such differences.
[5] Ibid. p. 186
[6] Some other articles which have appeared in Peking Review and tend to support Hinton’s thesis are the following: “What Does the Situation Show One Year After the European Security Conference?” #’s 32 and 33, August 9, 1976, p. 11. This article should be contrasted with the analysis presented one year earlier in, “European Security Conference: “An Analysis of Its ’Final Act,’” #32, August 8, 1975, p. 5; “The Munich Approach Leads to a Blind Alley,” #34, August 20, 1976, p. 17; “Soviet Union Runs into Snags in Middle East,” #6, February 4, 1977, p. 23; “France’s Strategic Concept,” #9, February 15, 1977, p. 25; and “Sonnenfeldt Doctrine Evokes Strong Reaction,” #18, April 30, 1976, p. 27
[7] In this article, Hinton withdrew his previous formulation on the need to “neutralize the United States.” It is necessary, he wrote, to adopt a policy of both struggle and unity with our own bourgeoisie. At this time, the primary aspects of this two-sided policy must be struggle. In the event of an outbreak of World War III, this would change: “If world war comes in the form of a united front war, then for the duration of the conflict unity will become dominant over struggle. Once the war is over this will yield in turn to a situation of all-out struggle. Today, however, it is incorrect to adopt a policy of “all-out struggle.” Hinton described the necessity for adopting, at the present time, a policy of unity and struggle with our own bourgeoisie as follows: ”Because of the danger posed by the Soviet Union there are certain areas where the interests of the people and the ruling class coincide if not at home then in certain situations abroad.. Arms for the defense of nations and peoples threatened by Soviet aggression should be supported.”
[8] The RCP’s analysis is presented in the first volume of its theoretical journal, The Communist, Volume 1, Number 1, October 1976: “On the Character of World War II,” pgs. 76-109.
[8a] In order to place the Popular Front period in a historical context, we are including as an appendix a review of the Comintern’s analysis of the major events which occurred in late 1938 and 1939.
[9] The Communist International was founded by Lenin in 1919, following the collapse of the Second International in 1914 at the outbreak of World War I. With the single exception of the Bolshevik Party, all the Social Democratic parties of the Second International adopted a social-chauvinist position advocating defense of their own imperialist bourgeoisie.
[10] Togliatti, as was the case with many of the anti-fascist leaders of the communist parties in Europe, degenerated into a revisionist. Maurice Thorez of the French Communist Party and Santiago Carillo, the living secretary general of the Spanish Communist Party, were soon to adopt the same path.
The Soviet Union has appropriately honored Togliatti by naming after him a city on the Volga River which houses the largest Fiat plant in the world.
[11] It was this special feature of fascism which led the Comintern in 1935 to reject the classical Marxist position of “class against class” and to adopt in its place the strategy of the “Popular Front,” from which the period of 1935-1939 derives its name. The Popular Front was conceived of as a strategic alliance between the proletariat and various non-proletariat classes and strata which comprised the social roots of the fascist movement, as well as anti-fascist sectors of the imperialist bourgeoisie. The Comintern, moreover, instructed its national sections to struggle for the establishment of Popular Front governments with these forces, as a transition stage between the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Orthodox Marxism holds that the proletariat is the only thoroughly revolutionary class in bourgeois society whose own class interests are entirely bound up with the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of socialism. The proletariat may enter into alliances with other classes and strata, but these alliances can only be of a tactical nature. Only those sectors of these classes which have abandoned their own class standpoint and adopted that of the proletariat can assume a consistently revolutionary role in the struggle for socialism. This principle was set forth clearly by Marx and Engels in 1848 in the Communist Manifesto: “Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today, the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class. The other classes decay and finally disappear in the face of modern industry; the proletariat is its special and essential product. The lower middle class, the small manufacturer, the shopkeeper, the artisan, the peasant, all these fight against the bourgeoisie, to save from extinction their existence as fractions of the middle class. They are therefore not revolutionary, but conservative. Nay more, they are reactionary, for they try to roll back the wheel of history. If by chance they are revolutionary, they are so only in view of their impending transfer into the proletariat, they thus defend not their present, but their future interests, they desert their own standpoint to place themselves at that of the proletariat.” (Communist Manifesto, Peking Edition, p. 46).
Lenin underscored this principle in his criticism of Plekhanov’s draft program, written for the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic party. The party of the proletariat, argued Lenin, represents one class and one class alone: the proletariat.
The Popular Front represented a significant departure from orthodox Marxism as it conceived not merely of a tactical but of a strategic alliance between the proletariat and non-proletarian strata in the struggle against fascism. A thorough analysis of the whole period is a task which remains to be carried out by the anti-revisionist movement.
[12] The United Front Against War and Fascism, Gamma Publishers, p. 7.
[13] Chicago Tribune, Sunday, March 13, 1977, p. 5: “Bases’ Fate Hinges on Global Study.” The article includes a map showing U.S. military strength throughout the world.
[14] See Appendix for explanation of the significance of the Munich Pact.
[15] The October League, while sharing Hinton’s view that detente represents appeasement, refuses to acknowledge the logical consequences of its position on two counts: (1) In order that the analogy between the Munich Pact and detente fit, it is necessary to be able to explain why the U.S. is appeasing the Soviet Union. What does it stand to gain from such a policy? In Hinton’s view, the object of U.S. appeasement policies is to channel Soviet aggression towards China. The OL, however, rejects the view that China is the principle target of the Soviet Union. (2) The implicit assumption in a denunciation of U.S. appeasement towards the Soviet Union is that the Soviet Union is the main danger and U.S. imperialism a potential ally against Soviet expansionism. For what other reason would a group, which proclaims itself to be Marxist-Leninist, call upon its own bourgeoisie to stand up to its role as a bulwark of world reaction and not give up an inch of its vast influence to its foremost imperialist contender?
[16] The CPSU, for its part, has taken advantage of the fact that the dissident movement is led by anti-communist petit bourgeois intellectuals and scientists It has turned to orthodox Marxist principles regarding the nature of the state to justify its repressive actions. An article in the February 26-March 5 issue of the Moscow News, entitled, “There is No Middle Course: A Comment on Some Bourgeois Theories,” describes how real democracy cannot exist under capitalism. The author, Valentina Skarzhinskaya, declares: “Bourgeois democracy is only a fancy name for capitalist dictatorship. A plurality of bourgeois political power is as utterly impossible as plural economic power based upon bourgeois ownership of the means of production, or the ’equality’ of master and man. The bourgeoisie will not give up one jot of power-their two alternative parties are just two different lots of bourgeois, tweedledum and tweedledee...Bourgeois theorists invoke ’plural democracy’ as the only thing that can ensure equality and freedom. But we, as Marxists, ask: freedom for whom, for which class? And what, pray, is equality between exploiters and exploited?...” Rather than ignore the human rights issue, the Soviet newspapers Pravda and Isvestia have increasingly taken it up in their editorials and have warned President Carter that his strong advocacy of the rights of dissidents threatens detente – a sign of the concern of the Soviet bourgeoisie over the explosive nature of the whole question, even if it does make for good propaganda against the West.
[17] It was the Chinese Communist Party which first characterized the Soviet Union as a fascist dictatorship of “the Hitler type.” Many articles have appeared in Peking Review portraying various repressive measures of the Soviet state, such as confinement to psychiatric hospitals, as fascist. None, however, explain why the dictatorship in the Soviet Union today is necessarily a fascist dictatorship of “the Hitler type.” See, for example, “C.P.S.U.–A Fascist Party with the Signboard ’Party of the Whole People,” #10, March 5, 1976, p. 13 and “Intensified Fascist Dictatorship in the Soviet Union: Difficult Birth of the ’New Constitution,’” #’s 32 and 33, August 9, 1976, p. 15
[18] Aside from the Hinton position, an additional reason sometimes advanced within the U.S. anti-revisionist movement for regarding the Soviet Union as the main danger is that it is the rising imperialist power and, therefore, the more rapacious and dangerous of the two superpowers. We reject such an argument. As pointed out in the paper, the characteristic of Nazi Germany as a rising imperialist power was not the basis for it being considered the main danger. The position that the Soviet Union is a more dangerous imperialist power than the U.S. because it is a rising power is, in essence a Kautskyist argument. From the Marxist standpoint, which imperialist power constitutes the aggressor is immaterial. It is the politics of the war which must be examined. The politics of any war which breaks out between the U.S. and the Soviet Union will be but the continuation of the present imperialist contention between the two superpowers by other means. The description of the Soviet Union as the most rapacious, aggressive power etc. serves to obscure this fact.
[19] Report to the 7th World Congress of the Albanian Party of Labour, pgs. 185-186.
[20] See, for example, any number of the various articles which have appeared in the Call on the Angolan situation.
[20a] A poll of British public opinion conducted in April, 1939 showed that 87% of the English people favored an Anglo-Soviet alliance against Nazi Germany.