[The following article appeared in the March 30 issue of Combate Socialista, the organ of the Partido Socialista Revolucionario (Revolutionary Socialist Party), a sympathizing organization of the Fourth International in Colombia. The translation and footnotes are by Intercontinental Press/Inprecor.]
Three things must be clearly grasped if the present events in Indochina are to be understood;
1. With the overturn of capitalism in southern Vietnam in April 1978, U.S. imperialism revised its policy toward Indochina as a whole. Its hostility toward the Vietnamese revolution-which had never ceased since its expulsion from there in April 1975—was intensified. For its part, the Stalinist bureaucracy in Beijing (Peking), almost simultaneously with Washington's "turn," began to openly harass the Hanoi regime for its own reasons.
2. The imperialists and the
Chinese bureaucrats feared that the triumph of the rebel Kampuchean forces supported by Vietnamese troops might deepen the social revolution taking place in southern Vietnam and extend it to Kampuchea and other parts of southeast Asia, such as Thailand. This was what brought about the reactionary alliance of the United States and China against Vietnam.
3. The conflict between the opposed social systems of Kampuchea and Vietnamtheir differing nature and prospects-was a central factor in the lineup of forces in the war that defeated the Kampuchean regime of Pol Pot with Vietnamese aid.
Let us look at some details of this panorama.
Kampuchea and Vietnam- Both Workers States?
The Vietnamese-who expelled the U.S. imperialists and overthrew the Thieu regime in April 1975—initiated in July 1976 a process of anticapitalist measures. This culminated in April 1978 in the liquidation of capitalism in southern Vietnam. At that time it became possible to integrate the southern economy into the bureaucratized workers state in the north. Under the regime's control, mobilizations of the workers and the youth unfolded in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), the principal industrial and commercial center of southern Vietnam. Thirty thousand enterprises were nationalized, surplus goods were expropriated, and a nationalization of the agricultural industry was carried through. Land was distributed and the Vietnamese monetary system was unified.
From this process in the south, a workers state arose throughout the length and breadth of Vietnam, based on the expropriation of the capitalists and the nationalization and planning of the economy.
A Different Road in Kampuchea
The Lon Nol dictatorship, supported by U.S. imperialism, was overthrown in April 1975. The regime that came out of this did not push forward the mobilization of the toiling masses to build a more advanced social system. Quite the contrary: The Pol Pot regime, considering the urban working masses its enemy, evacuated and dispersed the working class into the countryside and liquidated the process of agrarian reform that had been under way through the initiative of the peasants.
A deep recession struck the economy. The most vile repression imaginable be came generalized throughout the towns and countryside. Child labor was made universal. Education and all cultural activity was done away with. The working day was lengthened, while consumption was held to a minimum in order to maximize accumulation of a surplus that served only to fatten the purses of the petty bourgeoisie ensconced in the state apparatus. The most intimate aspects of citizens' lives came under the regime's supervision.
Rather than bring about the appearance of a workers state, such measures closed off all possibilities of progress for Kampuchean society.
The Imperialist Response
Among the first signs of a change in Washington's attitude toward Vietnam because of the qualitative change in the south was its new opinion regarding the Pol Pot dictatorship. Before, Carter had called that regime "the worst violator of human rights." But now it came to be viewed as a possible buffer against the expansion of the Vietnarese social revolution. In turn, the Pol Pot regime faced growing economic and political difficulties internally, the armed response of the Vietnamese to its border provocations, and the growth of rebel forces. It thus began to turn toward imperialism and its neocolonial clients.
The Chinese leaders, who were quite closely linked to Pol Pot and company, of course had no objection to such a turn on
1978. For them the elimination of capitalism in the south was a destabilizing factor in Indochina and an obstacle to their alliance with U.S. imperialism.
The Beijing leaders wasted no time in opening hostilities against Vietnam. Denouncing the expropriations in the south as racist measures, they fostered discontent in order to get the Hoa-people of Chinese origin who had lived in Vietnam for five or more generations—to abandon their homes for fear of terror. Beijing then began threatening to invade Vietnam.
For its part, the Pol Pot regime—once so outspokenly antiforeign-now sought to ingratiate itself with the imperialists. In October it opened its doors to the imperialist press; established trade relations with Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia; extended an invitation to UN Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim; and redoubled its anti-Vietnam propaganda and its border attacks on Laos and Vietnam.
The Thai regime, facing growing internal opposition, looked favorably on Pol Pot's changes and began making eyes toward Beijing. Chinese planes were granted permission to fly over Thai territory in order to supply the Kampucheans.
Imperialist powers such as Japan and Australia watched Pol Pot's moves and began to move toward establishing commercial relations with Kampuchea. The changes in Vietnam were causing them concern as well. In the judgment of the Australian government, it was essential "to preserve [Kampuchea] as an independent buffer between non-communist Thailand and communist Vietnam."
It was clear that a new military encirclement of Vietnam was in preparation.
In those circumstances-mounting Chinese threats, border attacks from Kampuchea, and so on—the Vietnamese leadership had to make a sharp turn toward the Soviet Union. Vietnam joined the Comecon, the Soviet economic bloc, and in November signed a twenty-five-year defense and aid pact with Moscow.
That was too much for U.S. imperialism. The reprisal was not long in coming. Diplomatic relations with the United States, which had been going forward, were frozen indefinitely by Washington. The neocolonial regimes in the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore refused to establish trade relations with Vietnam, despite Hanoi's efforts to make it clear that it would oppose any revolution. ary struggle in those countries in exchange for such relations. Pham Van Dong offered guarantees during a tour of those coun tries, but to no avail. In December the Vietnamese foreign minister announced in Tokyo that the United States was raising three new issues before allowing normalization-Vietnam's ties with the Soviet Union, its dispute with Cambodia, and the Vietnamese refugees.
There was no little alarm in Washington over the pact between Vietnam and the Soviet Union. The full reestablishment of relations with China was one of Carter's moves to counter that blow. "If the Soviet Union tries to expand its naval and air capabilities with a base in Cam Ranh Bay [in southern Vietnam], the United States should consider a move to set up some kind of security relationship with China," an "authoritative source" in Washington was quoted as saying in the February 25 New York Times.
The Chinese aggression against Vietnam and Carter's attitude toward it were perhaps the first fruits of that "security relationship."
Fighting for Its Life
In light of these developments, it is possible to evaluate correctly the present conflicts in Indochina, and, in particular, Vietnam's participation in the overthrow of Pol Pot. Two things must be noted regarding the latter. With the hostile moves by the United States and China under way—for various reasons—the improvement in diplomatic relations between those two countries convinced the Vietnamese leaders that they had to try to break through the diplomatic and military encirclement at its most vulnerable point— the Pol Pot regime.
The Vietnamese leadership's fear was not groundless; what they faced was quite a sophisticated reinforcement of the military noose and economic and diplomatic blockade against their country. They faced the strengthening on the Indochinese peninsula of an increasingly anti- Vietnamese regime in Kampuchea that was becoming more and more closely linked, even militarily, to China and the United States.
In bringing down Pol Pot, the Vietnamese leaders acted in a defensive and bureaucratic way. They were not seeking to extend the revolution beyond their borders, nor did they defend their state by calling for mobilizations of the working class around the world in their support. Their actual objective was to defend the Vietnamese workers state militarily from the encirclement that was arising around it, and in this way defend their interests as a privileged caste, through joint military action between the Vietnamese forces and the Kampuchean rebels.
For the same reasons, Vietnam has a treaty with Laos that permits the stationing of 25,000 Vietnamese troops there. The Laotian government, formed in 1975 by the Pathet Lao rebels, is fighting against right-wing guerrillas trained and provisioned by the CIA and the Thai regime.
In helping to overthrow Pol Pot, Vietnam was fighting for its life, just as it is doing today against the Chinese invasion. Washington's demand that in exchange for the withdrawal of Chinese troops Vietnam must withdraw its own from Kampuchea is designed to transform the victim into the criminal in the eyes of world public opinion. The calculated and halfhearted request for a cease-fire made by Blumenthal in Beijing fools no one about the fact that in practice Carter viewed China's aggression favorably during Deng's stay in the United States.
The real source of the war is Washington. China-and in this it coincides with Carter-seeks to pressure Vietnam to withdraw from Kampuchea. But China differs with Carter inasmuch as it does not seek to conquer the Indochina peninsula or reintroduce capitalism into Vietnam. That would directly affect its own survival. Of course, China is seeking terrain in order to negotiate with Vietnam the fate of Kampuchea and hold back anticapitalist advances there. In that way, China seeks to improve its relations with imperialism.
At the same time, Beijing's criminal actions against Vietnam not only affect the immediate victim but also constitute an attack by the Stalinist bureaucracy against the Chinese workers state itself. This is because the attack on Vietnam isolates China from its only true defenders-the exploited and oppressed around the world.
It is U.S. imperialism that seeks to dismantle the social conquests of the Vietnamese revolution and prevent their extension to Kampuchea. The first step toward achieving the latter goal must be to get the Vietnamese troops out. The imperialists cannot do this themselves because of the political limitations they face, so they have encouraged an ally to do it.
The imperialists seek to cover up their responsibility in the conflict by launching an ideological offensive. This has succeeded in confusing the main forces on the left around the world; the Colombian left has been no exception.
Confusion on the Left
For example, the weekly Alternativa in its March 5 edition absolved U.S. imperialism of any blame and presented the conflict as a struggle involving "Russians against Chinese, Chinese against Vietnamese, Vietnamese against the other inhabitants of Indochina." The most this magazine dared to do was recognize that imperialism "continues to make its influence felt" throughout Asia. So unfortuinternational bourgeoisie's nately, the rabid campaign to smear socialism by presenting the Stalinist bureaucracies and their actions as examples of socialism has found fertile soil in Enrique Santos Calderón's weekly. For Alternativa the imperialist offensive against the working class worldwide and especially against the Vietnamese revolution does not exist. According to them it is only a matter of a "war between socialisms."
Nor has such confusion failed to affect certain Trotskyists. The March 1 issue of El Socialista, the organ of the PST, carries an article signed by that organization's political secretary that also exonerates the imperialists. The article declares peremptorily that it is not a question of "a confrontation between nations as a result of the contradictions of capitalism, but a major war between workers rather states."
For the PST political secretary, all that the imperialists are doing is "taking advantage of the situation"; they are not the ones directly responsible. What's more, for Camilo González the Chinese attack on Vietnam only provides "openings" for the "imperialist counteroffensive."
Poor imperialism-according to this journalist it is relegated today to a secondary role, now that humanity has entered a new era: "military confrontations between proletarian states."
The position of the Communist Party is erroneous and reactionary. The February 22 issue of Voz Proletaria carries an article by Alvaro Vásquez, who launches an hysterical attack on China as the "number one enemy of world peace." He portrays Beijing as seeking to "throw the world into a new conflagration." The immediate source of this idea is to be found in the CP's February 19 declaration, which points to the Chinese attack on Vietnam as a "new colonialist aggression by Beijing," thus confusing the aims of the imperialists with those of the Stalinist Chinese bureaucrats.
In centering their fire on China, all these leftist critics fall into Carter's trap (and that of El Tiempo and El Siglo).2 Carter tries to portray the conflict as a struggle among "Asian communists" so that Washington's campaign against Vietnam and the workers of the world can continue to unfold without obstacles.
Our slogan is not "Vietnam out of Kampuchea." In the last analysis it is the Kampuchean masses who must decide on that question. (It was they who welcomed with open arms the Vietnamese troops that were fighting Lon Nol in 1970.)
Our slogans are: U.S. out of Indochina campaign now! Stop the imperialist against the Vietnamese revolution! In that framework, we demand: Chinese troops out of Vietnam now! Let the Soviet Union provide whatever the Vietnamese need, without conditions!
Notes
1. Partido Socialista de los Trabajadores (Socialist Workers Party), also a sympathizing organization of the Fourth International in Colombia. For a translation of the article by Camilo González that Medrano refers to, see page 352.
2. Two Colombian bourgeois dailies.