The latest charges and countercharges exchanged between - Peking and Moscow revolve around this question of Soviet relations with the United States. China has accused the Soviet leaders of collaborating with Washington in its encirclement policy. They are also indicted for following "a. policy of appeasement in. Europe" by refusing to open a second front in Berlin, thus allowing American troops to be released for duty ‘in Vietnam.
The Kremlin in turn has accused Peking of trying to push the Soviet Union into reckless military confrontations which would threaten world peace, of provoking more than 150. border incidents in.1965, and of holding up shipments of Russian military equipment to north Vietnam. The Chinese have officially denied the latter charge. )
The erucial point at issue in these mutual recriminations . is whether, and to what extent and.with what ends in view, Moscow is in collusion with Washington against China. Such an alignment of one workers state against another alongside the mightiest and most aggressive imperialist power would be a most reprehensible and perfidious breach of solidarity. : ‘The Chinese Communist leaders have ample grounds for suspecting and distrusting the direction of Soviet foreign policy. The withdrawal of.:Soviet technical aid and curtailment of trade after the 1960 split was followed by the supplying of Russian military equipment to India ‘during the India-~China border dispute. Then Moscow signed the nuclear test-ban treaty with Washington which was implicitly designed to slow down China's acquisition of nuclear arms.
- Washington and Moscow worked along parallel diplomatic lines to halt the India-Pakistan war and Premier Kosygin's efforts to settle that conflict at Tashkent met with U.S. approval. As The. Economist commented on January 15, 1966: "However embarrassing - it may be for Moscow to admit it, the new extent of Russian involvement Lin south Asia through the Tashkent agreement| also implies a greater degree of co-operation with the United States. Not that the Russians would not like to replace western influence with their own. But the subcontinent has not been summarily removed by Tashkent from what the Americans regard as their sphere of concern. The point is that the two super-powers both want peace there, they both want economic progress, they both want stability. And they both dislike China. Common interests like these do not exclude competition, but they do as & minimum imply that it will not be destructive compet ition. Ws
The Economist also points out that the conclusion of a nonproliferation treaty would involve a joint Russian-American guarantee to protect India which would imply a joint foreign policy in Asia directed against China and its nuclear capability.
This series of moves gives. substance to Peking's claims that Moscow is seeking to create a cordon sanitaire of India, Pakistan and Japan around China.
This opinion is not limited to Peking. It is confirmed from the. opposite side of the three-power triangle. When U.S. Vice- President Humphrey returned from attending Shastri's funeral in New Delhi, where he talked with Premier Kosygin, he stated flatly in a television interview that the Soviet government was intent upon encircling China. Similar views have been voiced by such wellinformed U.S. statesmen as Ambassador Harriman.
Buffeted between Washington and Peking and-between the pressures of. imperialism and the world revolution, the Soviet leaders have beén compelled to steer a devious course on the international political arena. On the one hand, they must formally, and sometimes even truculently, oppose and try to block the most insolent and perilous of Washington's aggressions while maintaining lines of communication, conducting parallel actions, and taking small specific steps toward agreement with the U. S.
‘on the ‘other hand, they cannot too! ‘openly consort with Washington before they have secured the basic conditions for a general agreement satisfactory to themselves. That would risk damaging their prestige and: losing their influence in the world Communist movement and. among the unaligned colonial nations and handing over leadership of the international anti-imperialist struggle to Peking. These considerations oblige the Kremlin to tread cautiously between the contending forces and occasionally jut its chin to the left in an anti-American stance.
Thus, many months after a shameful lack of response to Johnson's bombings of north Vietnam, Premier Kosygin took a tough
tone toward Washington in his December 6 interview with New York Times correspondent James Reston, .as did Foreign Minister Gromyko . in a follow-up speech to the Supreme Soviet in connection with the five-per-cent increase in the military budget. Similar motives may well have induced the Soviet representatives to set aside -their..previous conciliatory policy and ‘formally accede to the ‘perspective of armed guerrilla struggle as the. main line for the Latin-American-revolution: voted by the Tricontinental Conference at Havana. :
From the time of his meeting at Camp David with Eisenhower in 1959, Khrushchev strove to arrive at an understanding with the U.S. even at the cost of a rupture with China. After his downfall, the Kosygin-Brezhnev team hoped for a time to-assume a more neutral stance and remain on good terms with both antagonists. Khrushchev's successors refrained from public polemics with Peking and sought to moderate and muffle. the points of conflict between ‘them.
Now the. sharpening of tensions generated. by the. ‘expansion of the war in Southeast Asia has made it increasingly difficult to find and hold a middle ground against both of the contending sides, -Vietnam has become the focal point and testing ground of world politics today. And the relations between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of CHina are being strained to the breaking point by the year-long escalation of U.S. intervention there.
The two strongest noncapitalist governments had the elementary duty to have closed ranks instantly in reply to the. stepped-up imperialist aggression. Such coordination of aid and action was dictated by the need to back up the national liberation struggle in south Vietnam, defend the independence of north Vietnam brutally. assaulted by U. S. air raids, and to ward off. the. threat. of war against China and’a possible nuclear. -conflict.
Instead, just as Johnson proceeds to send in more U.S. troops, Moscow and Peking present the spectacle of open disunity and mutual recriminations. Let us. assume that ‘the worst is true and the Kremlin is in league with Washington against Moscow, as Peking charges. What more effective means could Peking have used to block that policy and expose the hidden aims of the Soviet leaders than to have grasped with both hands Shelepin's call for "all socialist countries. ‘to pool their efforts to aid Vietnam by all means."
However, Mao and his associates have assumed the attitude of refusing to accept Moscow's proposal for joint action on the factional pretext that it is impossible to work together with "renegades" and "revisionists."
‘For example, the February 10 Hung Chi, organ of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist party, declared: "We will never take any united action with the new leaders of the Soviet party so long as they do not abandon the Khrushchev revisionist line, do not change their line of Soviet-U.S.-Indian-Japanese alliance."
This sectarianism has not only weakened the anti-imperialist front to the benefit of the enemy but has laid Peking open to the
Soviet charges of interfering with military shipments to north Vietnam and contributing nothing "positive" to the struggle.
Meanwhile the Soviet and Chinese representatives are each seeking to attain predominant influence in Hanoi, which would prefer to remain equidistant from the quarreling powers. Washington is counting on the Soviet leaders to cast their weight into the balance at the proper juncture to bring the Vietnamese to the conference table. There are signs that Moscow would not be unwilling to perform the seme mediating role in Southeast Asia as it has on the Indian subcontinent.
This is hinted at by a February 7 New York Times editorial speculating on a "Sino-Soviet Showdown" when the twenty-third congress of the Soviet Communist party meets next month. It concludes: "Should such a formal schism take place, it might increase Moscow's freedom of action in exerting pressure for reason in Vietnam, assuming -- as appears probable -- that the Chinese are correct in charging that Moscow agrees with. Washington that the time has come for negotiations to end the savage struggle in Vietnam."
The added supplies pledged to Hanoi by Soviet leader Shelepin on his recent visit to Hanoi does not necessarily contradict this possibility; it can serve as a means for strengthening Moscow's. position for such a purpose.
However, great obstacles stand in the way of the would-be "peacemakers." The Pentagon's decision to crush the national liberation movements and contain the People's Republic of China, the firmness of Peking, and, not least; the determination of the Vietnamese, north and south, not to be again cheated by diplomacy of what they have won through years of costly struggle.
BELGIAN UNIONS BACK VIETNAM DAY COMMITTEE
At a recent meeting of the national committee of the Confederation Generale des Services Publics, which is affiliated to the Federation Generale des Travailleurs de Belgique, a motion to support the Berkeley Vietnam Day Committee and its political opposition to U.S. involvement in the civil war in Vietnam was adopted by a very large majority.
The chairman was instructed to place the same motion before the national congress of the FGTB, but failed to do so. Thus it has not been possible as yet to determine the extent of the support which the Vietnam Day Committee has received in the Belgian tradeunion movement.
However, the two erade-aiton oPgani sata one that have already
gone on record -- the Liege Region of the FGTB and the CGSP -represent almost 250,000 workers. |
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