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FOURTH INTERNATIONAL
ENGLISH - LANGUAGE EDITION OF THE THEORETICAL ORGAN OF THE
INTERNATIONAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL
REASONS AND OUTLOOK
FOR THE NEW "EASEMENT"
Number 7
Editorial
For the first time since the October Revolution, a Soviet premier is going to the United States, the citadel of imperialism, officially invited for a "friendly" visit. This is unquestionably a signisuccess for Soviet diplomacy and for Khrushchev personally.
This fact stands out all the more if it is taken into account that it is occurring after the failure of the Geneva Conference on Germany, and that on several occasions the American leaders were still recently excluding such a possibility, conceiving of a "summit" meeting only on the basis of tangible and substantial progress previously attained at Geneva. It was Khrushchev, on the contrary, who obstinately sought a dialogue with Eisenhower, much preferring it to a four-cornered "summit" conference.
From the diplomatic point of view, Khrushche's trip to the United States, to discuss privately with Eisenhower, establishes, in the eyes of the masses of the world, the status of the US SR as one of the two "super-great" powers of the present world, for it led its principal adversary to give striking recognition to this status.
What are the reasons that explain this important event in US SR - US A relations? The main reason lies in an evolution of the correlation of forces (including military forces) unfavorable to the United States, as a result of the present superiority won by the USSR in the fields of intercontinental missiles, submarines, and anti-aircraft anti-missile defense. The historic moonlanding of Lunik II is, in this connection, significant of the degree of power and precision attained by Soviet interplanetary artillery.
If that military superiority had already been overwhelming and with no counter-blow possible, it would have brought about, not a discussion between the two with a view to a compromise, but
Autumn 1959 just plain capitulation by Washington, in such an attair, for example, as Berlin. But this superiority is in fact only relative, and, given the nature of nuclear weapons, subject to an always possible counter-blow by the United States, with incalculable devastating effects.
That is why the Kremlin's initial ultimatum bout Berlin quickly shitted to much more flex. ble forms of negotiations and possible compromises about the status of the city, once imperialism's will to resist was proved to be as firm as at the time of the Formosa crisis in 1958. Sure of its relative superiority (including military superiority) in the correlation of forces at the present stage, the Kremlin decided to try to legitimize the present division of Germany and to alter the Berlin status quo in favor of East Ger-
On their side, the imperialist powers, while finding themselves obliged to enter on the path toward a certain recognition of East Germany, have obstinately resisted the temptation to consider the present status of West Berlin to be in any way merely temporary. For such a recognition on their part would mean that they were conceding a revision of the status quo in Europe in favor of the Kremlin - and on the crucial question of a city like Berlin - at the risk of causing incalculable repercussions for the future of all Germany. Hence at Geneva, during a major trial of strength between the Kremlin and imperialism - a trial of strength, what is more, that is nowise finished — the correlation of forces in the Kremlin's favor obtained certain results, but without imperialism's agreeing as yet to the alteration of the existing status quo in Europe.
The flexible forms used in the talks are explained by the fact that, beyond these forms, the "abyss" of atomic war was clearly gaping
2 both. Imperialism did not yield to the Kremlin's attempt to change the status quo in Germany, but neither did the Kremlin abandon its pressure to obtain such a result, even it only in the form of the recognition of the temporary nature of the status of Berlin.
Meanwhile the Kremlin obtained the invitation for Khrushchev to go to the United States. What compromise might then be able to be sketched out between the two "super-greats"?
In the best of cases for the Kremlin, Khrushchev might be able to obtain an engagement by the United States in one form or another to recognize the "two" Germanies and the porary" status of Berlin; a concession to renew trade with the USSR on the basis of credits granted it; and an agreement about nuclear tests and possibly on arms reduction.
In exchange, the Kremlin would in practice offer relatively little apart from its agreement about and disarmament. To guarantee Washington "social peace" in the capitalist and dependent countries by the mediation of an ultraopportunist policy by, the new concession," for Communist Parties would be no "novelty, in practice this has been done for a very long time already. On the contrary, an agreement between Washington and Moscow about measures aiming to preserve the monopoly of atomic weapons and prevent other powers from possessing and developing them in the near future has obvious advantages for both the "super-greats" — all the more so in that the stock of nuclear weapons and the experiments needed to perfect them, in the case of both the US SR and the United States, are amply sufficient to ravage the planet.
À lowering of the ceiling on weapons might also be able to offer grounds for possible compromise between the two "super-great" powers, so that the financial resources that would thus become available might be devoted to the budget of civilian expenditures and aid to "underdeveloped countries." The frantic race in modern arms that become more and more fantastically costly has become, financially speaking, ruinous, even for the capacity of a country like the United States. By speeding up, it renders incompatible the parallel pursuit of a social policy and a policy aimed at influencing the so-called "non-committed" countries.
Now the fundamental trend in all developed countries is toward increase in public expenditures needed for the social and material functioning of modern society: school attendance, scientific research, public health, social security, transportation, public works, city improvements, etc. Requirements on these levels are becoming urgent everywhere, including in the United States and the US SR, and would not be able to be
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL ignored in the long run by any political power. In the United States the increase in the public debt, the state's difficulties in obtaining cheap credit, inflation, and the more and more visible weakening of the currency, are really in the last analysis manifestations of the unproductive waste of a growing part of the national income. In the USS R military expenditures also act as a considerable brake on the upsurge in consumption of all sorts of products which the Soviet masses are now demanding in a more and more pressing way.
The problems of the "underdeveloped" countries, furthermore, are becoming alarming. The gap between the developed and the underdereloped countries is widening both because the former are growing richer more rapidly than the latter and because in the latter increase in population is more rapid than corresponding increase in production, particularly agricultural production. The revolutionary explosion of this vast zone of countries is, under these conditions, evitable and relatively near. Imperialism is currently becoming conscious of this danger and seems decided to make an effort to enable the national bourgeoisies to survive, otherwise they may be driven to ally themselves with the Kremlin. But if aid to these countries is to be effective, it must be very considerable. Washingon and the Kremlin, in case they should engage in "peaceful competition" in aid to underdeveloped countries, would need enormous resources which inevitably would have to be provided by saving on arms. Hence on the plane of nuclear tests and a certain reduction in arms there is now quite logically a basis for a possible compromise between Washington and the Kremlin. Even admitting that such intentions may exist or arise between the two "super-greats," however, one would still be forced to wonder to what an extent they could be put into practice. Is the Kremlin in a position to prevent China from soon possessing the atomic weapon, or Washington to deprive of it the new power already in formation, the Europe of the Common Market? And what, furthermore, would happen to the American economy in case of a serious reduction in the military budget?
In reality, a directorship over the present world on any plane at all — military super-greats," economic, or social - assumed by the two would be inoperative, both because of the existence of China and the colonial revolution, and because of newly revived inter-imperialist contradictions.
Among the most important problems that the present period poses to imperialism is the "damming" of the Chinese revolution. The Soviet bureacracy itself would not be able to make major
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL decisions without wondering about Peking's possible reactions, without consequently consulting it and associating it in the decisions. It is seen even at this precise moment, where simple eddies on the borders of India and in Laos are making the West fear the outbreak of a new storm over Asia. Any international "easement," however relative it may be, cannot be conceived at present without the recognition of the People's Republic of China and its participation in negotiations on a basis of complete equality.
The colonial revolution — that is, the irreversible drive of the so-called underdeveloped countries toward their freedom from imperialism, the agrarian revolution, and industrialization — is another dynamic component of the period which in fact escapes from the control of a possible directorship of the two "super-greats." The example of the Algerian and Cuban revolutions, fighting practically alone and so far with striking success against far superior imperialist forces, is characteristic in this connection. And Bantu women in South Africa in their turn are entering the emancipating struggle, raising it right away to the most militant level ever reached in Negro Africa.
It might also be wondered whether the United States would agree to loosen up, if not indeed to bury, the Atlantic alliance in exchange for a few trifling advantages. Eisenhower's European trip seems to have had the purpose of reassuring the principal Atlantic allies about the real intentions of the United States. There are now cracks in the front of these alliances. To the extent that West Germany has brought off a spectacular economic revival, having become the second among world powers in the export of manufactured products, it is stirring up again the antagonism that formerly brought it into opposition to the other imperialist powers.
It suffices to cast a glance at the figures for the trend in world trade to understand with what concern a country like Great Britain, for example, observes the rise of German power. Britain is now resolutely hostile to the reunification of Germany, as is France also, to a certain degree. But France, on the other hand, has associated itself with Germany in the framework of the Common Market, which is emerging as a new economic (and soon political) power, taking a position in the ranks of the capitalist powers immediately after the United States. Britain, once more inevitably drawn up against Germany, stands up a tortiori against the Common Market which is already rivaling it as the "close second" in the capitalist world. The United States itself now has to take into account the economic (and soon political entity that the Common Market is becoming.
The capitalist world has been changed since
3 the liquidation of the Second World War, and the reciprocal relations among the United States, Britain, Western Europe, and to a lesser extent Japan as well, have been modified. The then unquestionable supremacy of the United States over the rest of the capitalist countries has evolved toward a multicentralism of powers, continental Europe's share in industrial production and world trade, followed by Japan's, having much increased. The international policy of the United States has to take into account these changes which Washington no longer controls as strictly as in the past.
It may also be wondered whether the United States, in the best of cases for itself, with every other obstacle overcome, would be able to settle passively into "peaceful economic competition" with the US SR, since the latter is currently developing at twice the rate of the United States.
It thus suffices to raise all these questions to counter the illusions of those who are already interpreting the Khrushchev-Eisenhower meeting as the prelude to the "reconciliation" of the two systems within a perspective of prolonged and quite idyllic "peaceful "coexistence.
In reality the meeting is the result of a certain new correlation of forces, and heralds either a just plain retreat by imperialism concerning Germany, or, in case that negotiations are again cold eat? Ime best cases the meer of thil lead to a whole period of discussions at the mit," either two-handed or four-handed, in order to camouflage the impasse and postpone the "agonizing" decisions that must some day be re-
Meanwhile Khrushchev's trip to the United States and the illusion thereby created that a relaxation of tension is beginning, a "thaw," if not an "end of the cold war, " is of admirable utility for the false apostles of "peace" in the style of Macmillan in Britain and Nixon in the United States. The Republican administration's probable candidate for the presidential elections next year is counting on being able to reverse the trend in favor of the Democrats through which the country is now passing, by polarizing around his own name the deep desire for peace felt by the American masses — one more reason why the discussions and "easement" may be prolonged until that date.
Revolutionary Marxists have the duty, at this moment of euphoria orchestrated by the spokesmen of imperialism and the Soviet bureaucracy, to put the masses on their guard against hopes that are illusions which will inevitably soon vanish again. At the risk of flaunting what ap-
4 pears to political charlatans and incurable centrists to be their "sectarianism,' " the revolutionary Marxists will make clear to the masses the real reasons that are motivating current developments and the lessons to be deduced therefrom.
In reality the military correlation of forces is not of itself sufficient to inflict a decisive defeat on imperialism. On the basis of the present status quo preached by the ultra-opportunist policy of the Kremlin and the Communist Parties, capitalism is still capable of accumulating serious economic and military forces, and preparing for war.
Only victorious socialist revolutions can reduce
Editorial Notes
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL this power of imperialism and aid its defeat.
Any policy of abandonment of the class strugle and of revolutionary and socialist prospects in reality contributes to strengthening imperialism.
It is more than ever necessary to distinguish between the "peace" diplomacy of the Soviet state and the autonomous policy of the workers' organizations that are carrying on the fight for the revolution and for socialism, the sole guarantees of peace. 20 September 1959