¡The following appeal was issued March 9 by the United Secretariat of the Fourth International, the World Party of Socialist Revolution founded by Leon Trotsky.]
It has been five years since U.S. imperialism massively escalated its military intervention in Vietnam to save its tottering client regime in Saigon from the revolutionary wave about to engulf it. The purpose of Washington's aggression has been and remains to crush the national liberation struggle in South Vietnam and Southeast Asia as a whole, preserving an enclave there for world imperialism; to weaken the workers state in North Vietnam in preparation for roll- April 6, 1970
ing back the revolution there if possible; to contain and threaten the Chinese revolution; and to set an "example" to demoralize revolutionary forces everywhere. The war is part and parcel of imperialism's overall counterrevolutionary drive to contain the world revolution and reverse it if that should appear feasible.
But imperialism didn't reckon with the power of resistance of the Vietnamese people, who have prevented the victory of the most powerful military machine on earth through tremendous sacrifice and heroic effort. The revelations concerning the massacre at Songmy only lifted the corner on the horror of the war that Washington has unleashed on the Vietnamese. Only the rich and corrupt support and are supported by the imperialists, with the result that the war is necessarily aimed at the vast majority of Vietnamese - the workers, peasants, and the poor. It is a war against a whole people, with women and babies being machine-gunned, old men being thrown into wells with grenades tossed in after them - not to mention the regular, mechanized terror of the systematic bombings, the uprooting of hundreds of thousands of people, the mass destruction of crops and forests to such an extent that scientists speculate that the very ecology of Vietnam has been seriously damaged for a long time to come. The resistance of the Vietnamese people can only be called heroic. Their struggle has provided a revolutionary counterthrust against imperialism's offensive on an international scale, giving inspiration to a new generation of revolutionary youth throughout the world andmost important-for the development of a massive antiwar movement inside the USA itself.
The power of the resistance put up by the Vietnamese, coupled with the development of a growing antiwar movement in the United States, forced Washington to make a tactical shift. Johnson abdicated, the bombing of North Vietnam was halted, the Paris talks began, and token withdrawals of U. S. forces were made. Nixon made hints that he had a "plan" to end the war. All this was intended to lull antiwar forces inside the United States and around the world with the idea that the war was soon coming to an end, while Washington used the time so gained to continue and even escalate the war.
the war.
The planes formerly used in the bombing of North Vietnam are now used in stepped-up bombing of the South. Nixon revealed that his "plan" was for the "Vietnamization" of the war, a semantic hoax designed to cover up his real strategy of a prolonged war. Washington hopes this will eventually force the Vietnamese to accept a Korean-type "settlement." And, far from beginning the process of withdrawal, U.S. imperialism has widened the scope of the war internationally, first to Thailand and Laos, and possibly soon to Cambodia.
The level of bombing in Laos, now admittedly much more extensive than bombing of supply lines, has reached 20,000 sorties a month, the level of the previous bombing of North Vietnam. The U.S. has trained a "loyal" army in Laos under General Vang Pao, which early this year forcibly evacuated most of the 150,000 civilians living on the Plaine des Jarres. When revolutionary forces smashed these puppet troops and drove them off the Plaine on February 21, the U.S. sent in all seventy-five of the B-52 bombers belonging to the Strategic Air Command in a futile attempt to aid the Vang Pao forces.
The American antiwar movement has been in the forefront in exposing Nixon's phony "peace" maneuvers and in remobilizing masses in action against the war. Last October 15 saw demonstrations in every city and many towns across the United States. And on November 15 there was a militant demonstration of 800,000 in Washing- 312
ton and 250,000 in San Francisco, the greatest demonstration in the history of the United States. The Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam and other antiwar groups have called for new actions against the war April 15-18 in the United States.
The Fourth International appeals to all revolutionary working-class and youth militants not to be taken in by the imperialists' smoke screen, to understand that the counterrevolutionary
Documents aggression continues and that the Vietnam war remains a key pivot of the international class struggle. The Fourth International calls on all workers organizations, the students and youth, all who support the right of Vietnamese self-determination and all who are fighting for the victory of the Vietnamese revolution to demonstrate their solidarity with the Vietnamese people and with the antiwar movement in the U.S. in massive struggles this spring.