DOMINICAN COMMUNIST PARTY DENOUNCES KREMLIN'S FOREIGN POLICY
(The enormous default of the Soviet leadership in the Middle East crisis, coming on top of a series of imperialist victories in the past few years and the ominous escalation in Vietnam, has caused considerable discussion about the nature of Kremlin tactics.
[Below we reprint an editorial that appeared in the June 28 issue of El Popular, organ of the Dominican Communist party (PCD). To our knowledge, it is the first case of a pro-Moscow party in Latin America criticizing the Soviet stand in the Middle East.
{The PCD itself has no great record to point to. It did not distinguish itself in exposing the misleadership of Caamafio in the armed struggle in Santo Domingo in 1965. It gave uncritical support to the liberal candidacy of Juan Bosch in the elections staged by the occupying imperialist forces in 1966. As recently as January of this year, it still called for class collaboration in restoring a constitutionalist, i.e., liberal bourgeois, government.
{The significance of this editorial is that it is a symptom of the crisis of the Soviet "peaceful coexistence" policy, even within the ranks of pro-Moscow parties.
{In the text that follows, the subheads are reprinted as in the original.
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Stop the Imperialist Offensive!
"When we analyze the isolation of the Vietnamese, we feel anguish over the illogicality of this moment for humanity.
",..the Middle East is boiling, and no one can forecast what the cold war will lead to between the progressive countries of this zone and Israel, which is backed by the imperialists. It is one more rumbling volcano in the world today." -- Che Guevara.
Imperialism has succeeded in striking another blow against progressive humanity.
In recent times the forces of world reaction, in spite of the historical decadence of their social and economic relations, have gained important victories. This is the result of the lack of an internationalist attitude on the part of the socialist camp, which everywhere faces the armed might of counterrevolutionary imperialism, intervening in every country where its domination is threatened by the peoples in struggle. And it is the result of the ideological, political,
economic, and military fragmentation of
the world communist movement. ,
World imperialism, headed by North
America, has achieved a number of gains:
@ The gathering together of all
the dispersed economic forces of old Eu-
rope in the Common Market, which by its
potential for development, has opened up
perspectives of continued existence for
economies fenced in by their saturated
consumer markets.
@ Open and increasing military in-
tervention in Vietnam; systematic bombard-
ment of North Vietnam, a socialist country.
@ A military coup and the mass
murder of a million Communists in Indo-
nesia.
@ Five coups d'état in Africa.
The mercenary invasion in the
Congo.
@ The strengthening of the racist
states of South Africa and Rhodesia.
@ The coup d'état in Greece.
@ The shooting down of the Pana-
manian population.
@ The crushing of the Dominican
revolution through the intervention of
North American imperialist troops.
@ The resounding defeat of Arab
forces by the troops of Israel, supported
directly by the imperialist naval forces
of the U.S. and England, in a war that was
expected for a long time.
The Middle East War
The events that have taken place in
the Middle East have preoccupied all rev-
olutionary sectors in our country and
around the world. Comments on this theme
are welling up out of the ranks of the
revolutionaries, and large sections of
the public display their anxiety over the
significance of this problen.
In the interest of ideological
clarification of the working class and of
the laboring masses, our central commit-
tee considers it necessary to establish
its position with clarity.
1. Yankee Imperialism --
the Main Aggressor Against Peoples
North American imperialism, through
Israel, which it has strengthened militar-
ily, unleashed an offensive against the
Arab peoples, destined to preserve or con-
quer important economic and military positions in the Middle East. The military superiority of Israel, built up by the British and North Americans, has made important gains for world reaction.
2. A Disorienting Cease-Fire
These events have unfolded without any decisive action on the part of the socialist camp, particularly the Soviet Union, which has been strongly criticized by a world which had previously applauded its radical declarations of support to the Arab peoples and the movement of its naval units toward the Mediterranean.
Upon the unleashing of the Israeli aggression, the USSR chose the path of calling for a cease-fire, at first with the demand for the return of all troops to their original positions, and then an unconditional cease-fire.
At the same time that Egypt, Syria, Algeria, and other countries were opposing the cease-fire, the Soviets in the UN Security Council signed the unanimous declaration calling for the unconditional suspension of hostilities, which favored only the aggressors who had already conquered vast and important territories.
It is not an internationalist position to call for a cease-fire when peoples who total a hundred million have suffered an initial defeat at the hands of those who number less than three million. The correct stand was to give more material aid to continue the war and defeat the aggressors.
What would have been the reply of the Soviet people if in the face of Nazi troops at Stalingrad there had been a call for a cease-fire and acceptance of the German conquests? NEVER! And thus it was; only after the taking of Berlin was a cease-fire called.
The aggressors always make the first gains in war. The Arab peoples at that moment needed more planes, more arms of all types, more food, better military strategists, but not a disorienting ceasefire.
3. Fulfill Internationalist Tasks
The reality of today's world, tragically verified by events, is that while the imperialists render all-out aid to the various bourgeoisies and reactionary governments of the world, the- progressive forces, the Soviet Union in particular, follow a very particular interpretation of the Leninist thesis, namely that peaceful coexistence means to avoid combat or confrontation with imperialism, which each day occupies more and more positions in the world.
In Santo Domingo the puppet army of Wessin could not stand up against the assault of the masses; before it could be smashed for good, the imperialist troops made their appearance to fulfill their international duty of oppressing the peoples, their duty as head of world reaction.
In Vietnam the number of North American troops will soon reach a million; war spending is already at the level of billions each year.
Simply to call for peace without adequate responses to the escalating attacks of imperialist aggression will not avoid war, but will encourage and confirm Yankee imperialism in its plans to reconquer what it has lost.
Our party is far from proposing that the socialist camp unleash thermonuclear war. But we understand that the road which has been taken to avoid it, besides being ineffective, actually facilitates the aims of imperialist domination. The only way to impose peace is to answer the warmongers with force, stopping their aggression, defeating then.
Our party considers proletarian internationalism to be more than just a slogan; we consider it above all a materialist conception of the relations between the proletariat of all countries, of the common struggle that links all peoples, which forces the countries of the socialist camp and principally the most developed state of that camp to stop imperialism from cracking its whip over all seas and frontiers.
The insolence of the imperialists requires that its fingers be burned in its every attempt to unleash aggression. THIS IS THE ONLY WAY TO AVOID WORLD WAR. Along the road of escalation, failing an adequate response, in the course of aggression imperialism will come to the Soviet Union itself. This is precisely what is happening.
The application of the thesis on peaceful coexistence approved at the conference of Communist parties in 1960, which in itself constituted a revision of what is most essential in the lIeninist position on this very question, is today producing practical results that are extremely negative for the world revolutionary movement.
The attitude assumed by the socialist camp, primarily by the country which has the major economic and military power, in the face of the interventionist and warlike policy of imperialism (which is expressed most dramatically today in Vietnam and the Middle East) does not correspond to the principle of proletarian internationalism, clearly laid down in the tra-
dition of Marxism-Leninisn.
4. Great Confusion
The question being asked by the peoples in struggle is the following: WHO WILL HELP US? WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO CUBA? This is at a time when imperialism is proclaiming and exercising its right to intervene wherever it wishes.
The ideological crisis, the lack of coordination of the efforts of the socialist countries, and the lack of solidarity have been blatantly manifested.
We speak of the Soviet Union at length because it is the major power and the one which for years committed itself to act in support of the Arab countries, but we cannot remain silent about the others.
People's China, the second military power of the socialist camp, has limited itself to simple declarations of solidarity with the Arab peoples and strident condemnations of the Soviet position, without giving concrete aid, without pointing out what is the only internationalist attitude demanded by the situation.
All the European socialist countries limited themselves to making declarations of solidarity.
Rumania, at the extreme of conciliation, assumed a position in the diplomatic field identical to that of Israel, which calls for direct negotiations with the Arab countries as a way of winning recognition and acceptance.
Cuba and Vietnam provide a welcome contrast within this panorama of insufficient solidarity.
Vietnam makes its great contribution to the world revolution from its heroic trenches.
Cuba does not fear risking its revolution for international solidarity, but Cuba does not have enough military force to stop imperialist aggression outside its borders. But despite its limitations, it stands out as an example of solidarity, placing its men and arms in the mountains of America in order to undermine the imperialist aggressor's bases of support.
5. What Has Been Lost in War
annot on ck in Peace
"The truth is always revolutionary." -- Lenin.
Our central committee considers it necessary for all revolutionaries and communists of the world to criticize the inadequate solidarity displayed by the great majority of the socialist-camp countries and to place the responsibility where it belongs for the criminal advances made by world counterrevolution, headed by North American imperialism.
This is not a time for meetings and declarations, for verbal support and demands for withdrawal, for condemnations. In Vietnam and the Middle East the cause of the oppressed peoples is at stake and words are not enough for their defense.
It is necessary to respond to inperialism with the same coin. It is necessary to cut off its claws before it has become so powerful, fattened by its plundering of the whole world, that it may strike the first blow in a war which because of its technological features may well be the last.
The Arab peoples, who today have acquired a greater anti-imperialist consciousness, who have come to know the oppressive and criminal policies of world capitalism through their own experience, have not been definitively defeated.
The Arab countries, if rearmed and aided, are in a position to recuperate what they have lost. But to believe that: the territory lost in the Sinai Desert can be regained at the United Nations is nothing but an illusion that has nothing in common with Marxism-Leninism. By being idealist it denies the objectivity of material facts; by being romantic it provokes scorn from the more ferocious agents of imperialisn.
Those who consummate aggression under the very noses of Soviet naval units will with much greater facility bring to-~ gether a mechanical majority of votes in the face of the weak words of Kosygin.
If those ships were only diplomatic pressure, the presence in the UN is noth~ ing but a confused attempt to repair the damage by the very same erroneous procedure.