REVOLUTION!
[The following appeal was issued by the United Secretariat of the Fourth International March 11. ]
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e The Vietnamese Revolution Needs Help -- Now! Stop the Criminal Aggression of -American Imperialism!
Each day the aims of the criminal aggression of American imperialism against the Vietnamese revolution and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam become clearer,
For a time it was claimed that "reprisals" were being carried out against raids of the South Vietnamese freedom fighters on American military bases implanted in their country. This pretext has now been abandoned. American planes are continuing to bomb towns, villages and ports in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. American marines have now been committed for the first time as ground troops against the South Vietnam freedom fighters. The Seventh Fleet is being readied for deployment against the shores of North Vietnam in order. to blockade its ports and cut off its coastal shipping.
Thus the Pentagon's blueprint for extending the conflict is being methodically carried out, as is openly proclaimed in the American press, The aim is to progressively throw the full weight of | American imperialism into the balance in hope of halting the develop~ ment of the Vietnamese revolution,
It is of little moment whether the State Department is simultaneously pursuing a "secret" design to compel the Democratic Republic of Vietnam to "negotiate"; for Washington refuses to recognize the South Vietnamese Front of National Liberation as the legitimate representative of the South Vietnamese people; Washington is brandishing over both the freedom fighters of South Vietnam and the government of North Vietnam its crushing military superiority and the threat of plunging the world into a nuclear conflict; and it has repeatedly made clear that the only basis it considers "acceptable" for negotiation is the "withdrawal" of the freedom fighters from the ter-
ritory of their own country.
It is bare-faced imperialist propaganda worthy of a Goebbels to maintain that the partisans of the Front of National Liberation are "foreign troops" and not. genuine revolutionists nurtured by the South Vietnamese people themselves, the best representatives of the peasants and workers who rose in revolt against the landlords and comprador bourgeoisie and their policy of supporting -- with the aid of the money and guns of a foreign power -- the bloody dictatorship of the Diems and the not less bloody dictatorship of the generals © who succeeded them! As if a revolution mounted by the broad mass of the people, which has torn nine-tenths of its arms from the hands of the foe, could be told to "olay dead" or “give up™® at a signal from Hanoi, Peking, Moscow or anywhere else!
Most serious of all in this increasingly dangerous situation is the apathy which the leaderships of the principal workers states display in face of the step-by-step "escalation" of U.S. military intervention in Southeast Asia... Up to now the Kremlin officials and the Communist party leaderships largely under their influence or con-= trol have deplored the American aggressions as a "serious threat to the consolidation of peace." What "consolidation"? What "peace"? The only peace to be found through consolidation of the military aggression and counterrevolutionary actions of imperialism is the peace of the grave and slavery. The peoples of the world of today will never acquiesce, no matter what the refusal costs them, This is a great new fact in world reality which everyone who wants peace must take as basic in working out an international policy aimed at averting World War III and a nuclear holocaust.
The government of the People's Republic of China appears at the moment to be most concerned about pinning on Moscow the blame for a possible defeat of the revolution in Vietnam. But unless Peking itself acts, its course can be interpreted as "keeping hands off" while the Pentagon moves ahead. The shouting at Moscow would then look like nothing but phrasemongering designed to cover up a betrayal. No matter how correct Peking's criticisms of Moscow may be, it has its own responsibilities in the situation, including the defense of the new China. The government of the People's Republic of China would do better to offer to Khrushchev's heirs a joint public commitment to protect the common interests of the two workers states, and those of the socialist revolution, in Southeast Asia. Then let the workers of the world judge the response!
There are some who have been taken in by the propaganda of American imperialism which aims at convincing its current and prospective victims that unless the Pentagon militarists are meekly granted what they want, then you can expect them to start a nuclear war, even if it means the utter destruction of the United States. How little these easily impressed “experts” understand the real nature of the Washington "hawks"; or more properly "vultures." One of the reasons their "escalation" is proceeding step by step is to care-
fully test the resistance so as to be able to stop or even retreat in case it proves tougher than expected. Instead of being "provoked" into a nuclear answer if they receive an effective reply to their provocations, the American militarists will at. onee reassess the situation. But if the resistance proves softer than expected, then these same militarists will proceed more brazenly than before. Precisely in this lies one of the gravest dangers. The emboldened White House and Pentagon can become caught up in a course in which their deepening commitment makes retreat increasingly difficult. This could be the "oversight," the "accident, " that takes them over the brink into World War TIt.
The only language that imperialism understands and respects is action sufficient for it to sense the real forces it is up against, Wrathful or tearful verbal protests only arouse contempt among these rulers of the capitalist world. They take mere shouts and polite or nasty letters as signs that it is safe to proceed according to plan. They become more and more aggressive since their aggression has cost them nothing; in fact, “paying off" from their limited point of view. The only way to block the "escalation" and to cut it short before it is too late, is to show the imperialists on the scene itself that their course is much more dangerous than they had believed,. that. their calculations are wrong, and that their military aggression did not pay off and promises still worse if continued.
Yankee imperialism is not in a desperate impasse at the moment. It is not caught up in a situation in which it feels there is no way out, even temporarily, except to risk suicide. Its military and economic strength stand at the greatest height in history. Prosperity reigns in the United States. Even if the capitalists are willing to risk from 70,000,000 to 140,000,000 Americans in a nuclear conflict, why should they risk their present profits, their present comforts and the pleasure of their latest gadgets? Their course.in Vietnam is not the product of hopeless despair, but the consequence of cold and deliberate calculation in which they evaluate the risks as being low and in any case ascertainable as they proceed. They are banking on the weakness of the leadership of the workers states, particularly the leadership of the Soviet Union. They are counting on the divisions, especially the division on the governmental level between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. They expect all this to hinder and block the response that should have normally been expected to their monstrous decision to widen their intervention in the civil war in South Vietnam into a war against North Vietnam, and -- if this proves workable -- into a crippling military thrust against the People's Republic of China. If they should run into a vigorous reaction at the very beginning, then the results of their test probe would be read in Washington as a signal to reconsider, The elementary needs of self-defense would call. for retreat from a palpably suicidal adventure.
This is what Fidel Castro obviously referred to in his speech of March 3 when he said: 'We must show'the imperialists that we are
not afraid of them. When you don't resist them, they continue further; but when you resist them, they stop."
This is what the Afro-Asian students and the handful of Moscow students who joined them meant in their demonstration before the American: embassy in Moscow, protesting against the aggression in North Vietnam, when they shouted at the Kremlin authorities who used violence on them: "Traitors! You've sold out to the imperialists!"
This is what the vanguard of the masses-in many countries ine dicated they wanted as they joined in demonstrations of solidarity with the Vietnamese revolution.
It is not only the fate of this revolution that is involved but the fate of the whole colonial revolution. One of the things which Yankee imperialism is seeking to establish in Vietnam is a precedent for something new -- its "right" to intervene with bombs, naplam and-ground troops whenever it pleases anywhere in the world, It is seeking to establish American imperialism as the final law, the ultimate disposer of the destinies of all countries and all mankind, It proposes to nail down its "supreme right" to suppress revolutions by all means wherever they flare up or wherever they are incipient on the globe, from Brazil to the Congo to Vietnam!
If suppression of the colonial revolution is the immediate aim of this Johnson "doctrine," the workers states are the ultimate tar~ get -- and this includes. the Soviet Union. Should American imperialism get away with wiping out villages and towns of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam with bombs and jellied gasoline, its appetite will increase ravenously for a similar test of the People's Republic of China. This can be seen from certain propaganda themes already appearing in the big daily newspapers of the United States, such as the advisability of striking “before China gets a nuclear arsenal,” and the “common interests" of the United States and the Soviet Union in "containing" revolutionary China. The final target is the Soviet Union. Let it be recalled that Hitler had "common interests" with Stalin in the period when he was preparing his invasion of the Soviet Union.
To block the dangerous "escalation™ initiated by Johnson in Southeast Asia, all possible steps must be taken at once to strengthen the revolution in South Vietnam and to build up the defenses of North Vietnam. This requires immediate material aid on a large scale and the opening of a campaign of effective revolutionary socialist propaganda directed at the American forces, Let the example of the early days of the first workers state be recalled when Lenin and Trotsky appealed directly to the troops sent against them. The Bolshevik leaflets calling for fraternization with the revolution did as much to weaken the invading imperialist forces as the brilliant military defense put up by the newly formed Red Army. Let the American imperialists today learn the true danger they are running in advancing on the mainland of Asia. On the other hand, to take the course of. capitulating to blackmail only encourages the warmongers, invites
further extension of the military adventure and increases the danger of a nuclear holocaust. .
It is particularly urgent that the governments of the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China close ranks before the com-= mon danger. This does not mean giving up the ideological and politi+cal differences; these can be continued and threshed out on a party level. But let the governments close ranks!- A joint statement should be issued clearly and solemnly warning imperialism of the fundamental solidarity of the two countries and their common interest in defend-~ ing their planned economies and other revolutionary gains against the threat that has now been raised against-.them in the clearest form through the bombing of North Vietnam and the deepening military involvement of American imperialism on the mainland of Asia,
It is equally urgent for both governments to join in a clear declaration of intention to protect both North Vietnam and the revolution in South Vietnam and to show by action in the most concrete way that this defense has begun, will be improved as rapidly as pos= sible and will be carried through to the end with genuinely Leninist determination.
And in every country it is urgent that the workers, the youth, the students, the women should show by the thousands and the millions their concern about the criminal aggression of American imperialism, Let them call "Halt!" to Johnson through demonstrations of solidarity with the heroic Vietnamese people and their revolution,
Down with imperialism and its policy of blood and lies!
Long live the international solidarity of the working class with the beleaguered Vietnamese revolution and the Democratic Repub= lic of Vietnam! a ,
Long live the world socialist revolution, the only means of definitively freeing humanity from the nightmare of a nuclear holocaust
Directeur=Gérant: Pierre FRANK. ‘l'éditeur),