The aims and contradictions of
Gorbachev's foreign policy determination to base its military doctrines
WITH THE elimination of intermediate-range nuclear missiles, Soviet diplomacy achieved and practice on the pretence of "nuclear an unquestionable success at the Moscow dissuasion". It was more of a public relations summit. The consequences should not be success for Mikhail Gorbachev than a real exaggerated. The number of nuclear step towards nuclear disarmament, to say warheads that will actually be dismantled only nothing of total disarmament.
represents a minuscule part (2%-3%) of all We are more than ever convinced that such those accumulated on our planet, which disarmament is unrealizable in the framework threaten the physical survival of the human of capitalist rule in the imperialist epoch, and above all unrealizable in collaboration with
The possibilities of a radical reduction in the main imperialist governments.
long-range strategic nuclear weapons remain very small in light of imperialism's ERNEST MANDEL
USSR
H AVING said that, the "public re-
lations" dimension of the operation should not be considered as insignificant. For a number of years, the imperialists had succeeded in getting working-class and petty-bourgeois public opinion in the main imperialist countries (the USA, West Germany and Japan) to accept the idea that there was a threat of Soviet aggression in Europe and Asia, and that in these conditions the arms race they themselves began was justified.
In Britain, France and Italy this myth had less impact. But even in these countries, there was at least a section of workers that accepted the argument. For decades, the legitimacy of defending the USSR — the basic creed of the communist parties and their allies — was largely demolished. The effects of Stalinism, the military interventions in Hungary and Czechoslovakia and the Kremlin's adventurist course in Africa and Afghanistan were all grist to the mill of anti-Soviet and anti-communist
Through an adept reorientation of Soviet diplomacy and propaganda, Gorbachev and his team have succeeded in totally changing this ideological/political situation. By taking the imperialists at their word on the "dual-track solution" for medium-range missiles', for the first time since the Vietnam war, if not since the Nazi aggression against the USSR, they have begun to base themselves on appealing to Western public opinion from a strong political position, rather than starting from the need to defend initiatives and doctrines unpopular with the masses.
Because of this, the political climate has begun to change in a whole series of con20 mese wakes mo cament, including ile tries, in a way that can only benefit the International Viewpoint #145 • July 11, 1988 race. revolutionary wing. The demolition of the "evil empire" ideology and rabid anti-communism has undermined the bourgeoisie's ideological operation, put a brake on the conservative neo-liberal offensive and widened the space for a common anticapitalist front. In the USA, this means more opportunities for an initial breakthrough for political class independence inside the broader masses. Imperialism on defensive diplomatically
Of course, nothing should be taken for granted in this respect. In the last analysis, everything depends on the capacity for political initiatives of revolutionary and anticapitalist forces, on their increasing their weight within the organized movement and the whole working class, and on the successive stages of the recomposition inside the workers' movement.
But you would have to be blind not to notice that, for the first time in many years, imperialism is seriously worried and on the defensive diplomatically. The fact that the West German social-democratic party, the SPD — for 30 years the main pillar of anti-communism and NATO in the European workers' movement — has made a spectacular turn towards systematic if not institutionalized dialogue with the East German Communist Party (SED), symbolizes this change in the political/ideological climate.
Gorbachev is now doing his best to extend the success of the Moscow summit by putting Washington on the spot again in the area of conventional disarmament. Imperialist propaganda's main argument against the Soviet follow-up proposals on nuclear disarmament is that they objectively go in the direction of "disarming Europe", making it "indefensible", given the supposed "overwhelming superiority" of the Warsaw Pact's conventional forces Gorbachev and Shevardnadze reply: If that's what you're afraid of, let's agree to reduce conventional arms on the basis of a strictly controlled parity. Once again they have turned the tables back on the imperialists. So much the
However, reducing Gorbachev's turn in international relations just to disarmament initiatives would be a serious error. By the same token, a parallel mistake would be to judge the changes taking place in the relations of forces on a world scale solely by the political/ideological climate prevailing in West Germany, the USA, Japan and the other imperialist countries.
In reality, the disarmament offensive and charm aimed at Western public opinion by the Kremlin is only one piece in a puzzle that is beginning to take shape. The Kremlin is engaged in negotiating a broad agreement with imperialism. Its objective is to establish a pattern of "advanced peaceful coexistence," which involves its making manifold political concessions in exchange for economic advantages. The "third world" liberation movements and the unfolding revolutions in many key areas of Latin America, Africa and Asia risk being 1. On the various aspects of this problem, see the articles by David Seppo in /V 128, October 26, 1988. 2. This article obviously also reflects, at least partially, the interest that the West German, or even European, bourgeoisie have in considerably expanding its exports to the USSR and West Europe. 3. This "superiority" is a blatant obfuscation. The best
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book on this question, Jacques Sapir's Le Systéme Mil- itaire Soviétique (Paris, La Découverte, 1988), con- cludes that the NATO forces are superior, if the quality of weapons and concomitant factors other than purely quantitative ones are taken into consideration.
left to pay the bill for this search for a glo-
To understand the reasons for this project, the starting point cannot be an idea that Gorbachev is taking his inspiration from a "revisionist" ideology, or the ridiculous theory that the Soviet leader is trying to reintroduce capitalism into the USSR. As under Stalin, Kruschev and Brezhnev, the bureaucracy is operating essentially pragmatically, trying to resolve immediate problems in accordance with its own material and social interests. Doctrine and ideology are adapted to suit the needs of realpolitik, rather than the realpolitik flowing from "revisions" of
Gorbachev's fundamental motivation, which is shared by most of the other "tendencies" or "currents of opinion" in the imperialism imposed on the USSR after its intervention into Afghanistan - if not since the beginning of the "cold war" and to obtain large-scale credits from the imperialist countries for the modernization of the USSR. Stalin sought in vain to get such credits at the end of the second world war. The fact that Washington refused them at a time when the Soviet economy was very weak was undoubtedly one of the main reasons for the "structural assimilation" of Eastern Europe by the Soviet bureaucracy, and the division of Europe into "two camps." This was scarcely something that Stalin decided after the victory of Sta-
THE
USSR territories occupied by the Israeli state, Lebanon, the Iran/Iraq war and its repercussions in the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan and Kampuchea.
The concept of "regional conflicts" is ambiguous, if not obfuscating. It haphazardly throws together phenomena as different as genuine people's revolutions with a permanent revolution dynamic (Central America); independent, stormy mass movements against national and social oppression (South Africa, Palestine); civil wars between petty-bourgeois nationalist governments and pro-imperialist reactionary forces (Angola, Mozambique); resis-
Stance to national oppression led by progressive petty-bourgeois forces (Eritrea) or politically retrograde forces (Afghanistan); wars between bourgeois states (Iran/Iraq), top echelons of every section
EVI of Soviet bureaucracy, is that it is urgent to overcome the stagnation and dysfunctioning of the Soviet economy. It is urgent to radically reduce the senseless waste of material and so on. Moreover, this is not an exhaustive list of all the different phenomena in question.
So it is not possible either to make a peremptory and sweeping judgement about the Kremlin's gradual disengage-
EMP
Gorbachev, his main economic advisor, Aganbegyan, and his main ideologues never stop repeating that if perestroika — understood in this way — is not put into practice, the USSR will become little more than a second-rate power, and will fall technologically and militarily so far behind the im-
E ment from these "regional
conflicts", nor to approve or disapprove of it en bloc without making any distinctions.
We support the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan and the withdrawal of Vietnamese troops from Kampuchea, for reasons that we have explained for a long time. We do not challenge the perialists that it will not be
BRING THE KIDS
GOR able to catch up. Therefore, the "detente" policy followed by Gorbachev has a twofold objective corresponding to negative consequences of this withdrawal from the point of view of the working class, but we are convinced that prolonging the presence of these this motivation.
The first aim is to reduce the DANIZIOR costs of the arms race, which have become unbearable for the USSR.4 Parity in military spending between the USSR and the USA means a double burden for the USSR as compared with that of the USA. Because its national income is only half that of the United States, an equivalent military expenditure would represent 14%-15% of Soviet national income compared to 7.5% for the United States. Above all, the USSR wants to avoid the financial costs of a further militarization of space (Reagan's "star wars"
This means neither "disarming" the USSR in the face of imperialism, nor dismantling Soviet armed forces. Rather, the goal is to modernize as cheaply as possible by gradually de-emphasising nuclear spending, and maintaining technological parity with imperialism in the area of conventional arms (or, rather, regaining parity, because the USSR seems to be already seriously behind in this area.
The second aim is to dismantle the trade and technological blockade that American lingrad, as apologists for the cold war
The amount of credit sought is very considerable, in line with the needs of over-
USSR's present technological backwardness. Stalin hoped for $5 billion from Roosevelt-Truman. Gorbachev is probably looking for ten times that from Reagan's successors, even if this is spread out over a number of years (obviously the 1989 dollar is worth much less than the 1944-45 one). We should remember that West Germany just granted $2 billion worth of credit to the USSR. So, the objective cited above does not seem entirely
The search for an overall accord with imperialism inevitably involves close collaboration between Washington and Moscow to settle what are commonly called "regional conflicts". Today, this concerns above all Central America, southern Africa (Namibia, Angola, South Africa), north-west Africa (Ethiopia/Eritrea), the Middle East (the troops would have even more negative effects than the withXience Monito drawal itself.
Gorbachev has decided on this solution for Afghanistan not only to reduce the costs of a military operation that has no hope of success, not only to make negotiations with Washington and Peking easier, but above all undoubtedly because the Afghanistan war had become increasingly unpopular in the USSR. A recent opinion poll there showed that 57% of the population supported the withdrawal of the troops.
The same applies to the occupation of Kampuchea by Vietnamese troops, which represents an unbearable political and economic burden for a society on the verge of famine and a government facing a growing crisis of authority among the masses. It seems certain that Moscow is exercising increasingly open pressure on Hanoi from 4. J. Primakov recognized this openly in Pravda on January 8, 1988. 5. See in particular the Statement of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International on Afghanistan in /V 21 138, April 4. 6. See Le Monde Diplomatique, June 1988 July 11, 1988 • #145 International Viewpoint
USSR this point of view.
Moscow's change in attitude toward the civil war tearing north-east Africa apart is of a similar scope, even if it does not concem a conflict identical to those in Afghanistan and Kampuchea. The behaviour of the Mengistu regime in relation to opnationalities, above all the Eritreans, is indefensible from any point of view, whether from Leninist principles or
Mengistu - a narrowminded nationalist
Advancing the idea that safeguarding Ethiopian "national unity" takes priority over the fight against famine, bloodedly running the risk of millions of people dying rather than allowing supplies to get through to the rebels, means acting like a bloodthirsty despot, not like proletarian revolutionary or an anti-imperialist. If you compare this attitude with the one that Lenin took at the height of the civil war in
"Nansen mission's" fight against famine, it becomes clear what a vast distance there is between a real communist and a narrow-minded nationalist
Again in this case, the Kremlin's "disengagement" seems necessary and justified even from the standpoint of proletarian internationalism, if the aim is not simply to reduce the USSR's unproductive military
The Iran/Iraq war and the Gulf conflict is even more complicated. The immediate and unconditional ending of this senseless, fratricidal war is manifestly in the interests of both the Iraqi and the Iranian masses, and in the interest of both the Arab revolution and Iranian revolution. If the USSR throws its weight into the ring with this aim, in particular by stopping its supplies of arms to the two belligerents and putting pressure on the countries of oriental Europe to do the same, we could only approve of such a "turn". (For the time being, the USSR is directly or indirectly the main source of arms for Iraq.)
However, a blockade of Iran alone, imposed in agreement with Washington and under the aegis of the United Nations, would be seen by the Iranian masses, who in fact are becoming more and more war weary, as the USSR directly aiding an imperialist aggression against the Iranian revolution. It would further discredit the Iranian non-Islamic left. It would reinforce the hold of Khomeniite fundamentalism on the masses. The reactions of the popular masses in Pakistan be similar. This is what is making the Kremlin hesitate.
The case of the territories occupied by Israel is clearer still. For a long time, the Kremlin's aim has been to get the Zionist state to make some minor concessions to Syria and the PLO in exchange for a defini22 tive recognition of Israel by the Arab world, including the PLO.? To achieve this International Viewpoint #145 • July 11, 1988 end - which for the moment is unrealizable, in view of the Zionist establishment's resistance to making the slightest concession of this sort - Moscow has been putting forward the idea of an international conference including the Soviet Union. In this way, it hopes for nothing more than to recover some political influence in the
However, the insurrection of the Palestinian masses is giving this policy of open collaboration with the imperialists in the Middle East a severe buffeting. Gorbachev, who is even more pragmatic than Khrushchev or Brezhnev, will therefore hesitate before committing himself fully to this course. He will wait to see how the events
On the other hand, "peaceful solution" of the conflicts in southern African and Central American has unquestionable counterrevolutionary implications. Through their merciless economic blockade and the military aggression they support, the imperialists have the Nicaraguan revolution by the throat. The Salvadoran and Guatemalan revolutions are facing massacres perpetrated by the local agents of imperialism.
The internationalist duty to aid this developing revolution is clear. The argument that this is too expensive for the USS is hypocritical and dishonest, if you compare the amount of the aid given to Nicaragua with what the Soviet Union gives to bourgeois governments in the "third world."
So the mounting pressure on the Sandinistas today — which will be put on Cuba in the future - to seek an accommodation with Washington reflects a definite political choice. It means that Gorbachev is giving priority to an overall "detente" agreement, rather than to the strategic advances that the bureaucracy could gain from an alliance with revolutions that are already victorious or that could be in the not-too-distant future.
Washington's condition for detente
The clear signal that Washington is sending is: Drop any idea of extending the revolution in Latin America, or there is not going to be any lasting detente. If Dukakis becomes Reagan's successor, this is not going to change much. In response, Gorbachev has been sending more and more sig nals to the effect of "Message received and understood."
In Angola, the original scheme for a compromise agreement that would couple withdrawal of Cuban and South African troops has been seriously put in question again by the fact that Pretoria seems to be moving toward an additional demand — inclusion of its stooges in the counterrevolutionary tribalist organization UNITA in the Luanda government. The Kremlin's attitude to this seems at least hesitant.
"In an interview, the Soviet deputy foreign minister, Anatoli Adamishin made it plain to The New York Times that Moscow favored a 'political solution' to cut the Angolan-Namibian knot. If invited to participate directly in these negotiations, the Soviet Union would 'consider it very attentively,' he asserted, which says to me that Moscow is eager to cut costs. is a will, there is a way,' said the up-andcoming Mr. Adamishin, adding wryly, 'including economic considerations of such concern to you'."
The southern African affair is the most serious. The Nicaraguan and Salvadoran revolutions are besieged fortresses. But in Nicaragua, as weakened and small as it is facing the imperialist giant, the revolution is armed and holds power. These are not inconsiderable advantages. In El Salvador, facing a blood-thirsty and merciless enemy, while the revolutionists do not hold power they are at least armed. So, they cannot be liquidated en masse as ARENA's fascist co-thinkers did in Europe.
Outcome of "global deal" will depend on other forces
The oppressed Black masses of South Africa do not have these advantages. They are not armed. They do not have a scrap of political power. But the impressive trade-union self-organization that led to the success of the general strike of June 6-8, 1988, shows a very promising potential for struggle. Pressure from the Kremlin for a deal with the "liberal" wing of the South African bourgeoisie, the agent of imperialism in the country, could be a real stab in the back to a young and enthusiastic workers' movement if it won the trade-union leaderships, in return for political concessions, to accepting the maintainance of capitalist super-exploitation through imposing self-limitation on workers' struggle.
However, in both cases — Central America and southern Africa - Washington and Moscow are not the only players. They cannot impose a counter-revolutionary "normalization" that would maintain imperialist domination of these two regions through local agents. The autonomy from Washing ton of the local possessing classes in Central America is very marginal. The relative autonomy of the supporters of apartheid is much greater, but it still has its limits.
On the other hand, the real autonomy from the Kremlin of the Nicaraguan and Salvadoran revolutionists, to say nothing of the South African mass organizations, would make it much harder for Gorbachev to carry through a capitulationist turn. The situation of the Central Americans is grave, but not desperate. The situation of the South Africans is much stronger. The out7. "In return, but behind the scenes, Moscow, which has not given up hope of reestablishing its relations with the Jewish state, is reportedly calling on the PLO to 'recognize Israel and take into consideration its security needs.' Mr. Gorbachev told Mr. Arafat that openly in Moscow at the beginning of April." (Les
SPENT THE LAST FIFTEEN come of a "global deal" will depend in the last analysis on the capacity of these organizations to maintain and increase their autonomy from all those social
USSR forces (including the internation- YEARS DESIGNING INTERal social democracy) that advise MEDIATE RANGE MISSILES. them to make rotten compromises and put pressure on them for that.
The difficulties Washington is encountering in its attempts to achieve the "regional settlement" that it wants in Central America have been quite adequately summed up in the Washington
"Few parts of the world are in America, and no part of US foreign policy is in a greater mess. It is a region the Reagan administration had rightly seen as crucial. There it hoped Marxist revolution was to be tamed, reform advanced, and the whole region secured within an expanding
"But the struggle has gone poorly. Marxists appear today closer to consolidating power in Nicaragua. Guerillas and death squads eat away at the center in ElSalvador. Armies shrivel the realm of elected government in Honduras and Guatemala. Democratic Costa Rica trembles. A drug lord in Panama scoffs at Washington"s ef-
"What went wrong? Each country is different, but the common aggravation of their difficulties can be traced to the onset of leftist revolutions....In Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua...Inevitably the revolutions evoked a US response, which itself became part of the problem....
"The upshot is that neither a conservative nor a liberal US administration has a workable security policy beyond improving local containment and hoping that Mikhail Gorbachev will somehow help out." (My emphasis, International Herald Tribune (IHT), June 21, 1988.)
Gorbachev holds two trump cards
In order to improve the relationship of forces for his negotiations with the imperialists, Gorbachev holds two trump cards that he can play in succession. The first is normalizing relations with China, or even reestablishing a de facto alliance with Peking (a military alliance like that of the 1950s is unlikely). It is known that Deng Ziao-Ping posed three conditions for such normalization - withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan; withdrawal of Vietnamese troops from Kampuchea; and withdrawal of the Soviet missiles aimed at Chinese cities from Siberia and of the Soviet troops concentrated along the Amur river.
The first of these conditions is being met. The third may rapidly be so. As for the withdrawal of Vietnamese troops from Kampuchea, the Kremlin seems to be actively working on that.
Perspective of German reunification
A rapprochement between Moscow and Peking is therefore possible in the near future. A Gorbachev/Deng Diao-Ping summit seems to be in preparation, although the Chinese are still dragging their feet, in particular because they wonder how long Gorbachev will remain in power in Moscow. But their fear of a gradual remilitarization of Japan nonetheless prods them in the direction of such a rapprochement. They know that US imperialism can hardly opt for protecting China against Japan. But the USSR could do it.
The second trump is a more radical one than the first with respect to the changes that it could touch off on the international scale. It is giving the green light to West Germany for qualitatively more advanced economic integration with East Germany. Moscow can hold out such a perspective -along with that of a spectacular expansion of the Ostgeschäft, West German exports to the USSR — in exchange for big German credits, especially if US credits are not
Such proposals would not fall on deaf ears in the event of a grave economic recession in the West and serious long-lasting threats to the prosperity of the West German economy and therefore to the relative stability of bourgeois rule in West
It has already been noted with disquiet in Washington that the West German foreign
AUTH minister, Genscher, took a different position from that of Reagan and Thatcher, or even from Mitterrand, toward Soviet proposals in the area of conventional disarmament. The temptation to go it alone will be all the greater for the German bourgeoisie if Gorbachev were also to dangle a longer-term perspective of German reunification.
However, such a turn in the bureaucracy's foreign policy obviously has extremely grave implications for the ruling SED in East Germany. It has an interest, like all the East European burcaucracies, in greater access to the West European economies. The Hungarian government has hailed the fact that it has managed to conclude a deal with the EEC that virtually eliminates duties on Hungarian goods exported te Common Market countries as a diplomatic triumph. East Germany has achieved de facto but not de jure a similar status, through re-exporting from West Germany the goods that it exports to that country.
Pressure on Gorbachev not to go too far
However, seeking such trade advances and increasing the imports of advanced Western technology that goes along with them is one thing; losing political power is something else again. German reunification cannot come about without the SED leadership losing that immediately or in the long run. Hence, it may find itself confronted with some painful choices, if Gorbachev's course in this regard were to take a more definite form and accelerate. Hence its growing internal divisions, which can produce some surprises. Hence the pressures on Gorbachev not to go too far down this road. In fact, what is at stake, behind all these 23 July 11, 1988 • #145 International Viewpoint
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POOR FINSTER. HES
USSR still "piecemeal" changes in the relations between the
USSR and the "people's democracies," in the context of changing East-West relapeaceful coexistence," is whether or not the system of domination of East Europe by the Kremlin established at the end of the second world war is going
This system was, after a fashion, codified by the
Brezhnev doctrine of "limited sovereignty." By inter-
Hungary and Czechoslovakia (after doing so in East
Germany in 1953), the Soviet leaders showed in a brutal and cynical way that they were definitely the real rulers of these countries.
The "theoretical formula"
of an "internationalist duty to preserve socialism" was only window-dressing for the naive or the ignorant.
Who has given Kremlin masters a monopoly of knowledge and truth that would enable them to decide independently of, and in opposition to, the inajority of the working class — or even independently of the
Communist Party of the countries in question and their leaderships — that "socialism" would be threatened unless there were a foreign military intervention?
However, the skeletons are coming out of the cupboards to haunt Gorbachev and his associates. On a recent visit to Yugoslavia, he was induced to sign a communiqué that included the following statement. (No doubt this was due to pressure from the leaders of the League of Yugoslav Communists rather than from his own bad conscience — he is an old associate of
Andropov, who was marked forever by the treacherous role he played in the Soviet military intervention against the Hungarian
Hungarian opposition calls for rehabilitations
"The two parties accord special attention to strict respect for the obligatory universal principles of the UN Charter, the Helsinki
Final Act and other documents of international law that ban aggression, violation of frontiers, conquest of the territories of others, all forms of threatening and using force, interference in the internal affairs of other countries, regardless of the pretext."
(Pravda, March 19, 1988.)
How could anyone fail to see in these last lines an allusion to the military intervention in Czechoslovakia and Hungary? The
24
Hungarian opposition, moreover, did not
' miss this. It immediately called for the re-
International Viewpoint #145 • July 11, 1988 habilitation of Imre Nagy, Pal Maleter, Geza Loczonzy and other Communist leaders who were treacherously arrested and killed by representatives of the Kremlin.
Centrifugal tendencies in the "socialist camp"
The reaction in Czechoslovakia was still stronger. Alexander Dubcek, leader of the CP at the time of the Prague Spring, has just called for rehabilitation and the reintroduction of internal democracy in a Communist Party with its doors 500,000 members who were expelled during the "normalization."
However, all these movements in different directions, all these centrifugal tenden-
"socialist camp," present Gorbachev with insoluble dilemmas. He cannot consolidate, or even maintain his position in the apparatus if he sits back and watches the breakup of the "camp." He cannot intervene using force without dealing a fatal blow to the credibility of glasnost both internationally and in the USSR itself. He cannot resign himself to the presence at the top of the "people's democracies" of conservative ruling teams allying semiopenly with his own opponents with the CPSU apparatus. He knows quite well that opening up a crack for democratization, even a small one such as he has opened up in the USSR, means opening the way for a
Moreover, unlike what is happening in the USSR and in China, any deepgoing reform in the direction of broadening the market mechanisms in Eastern Europe comes in a context where there is direct imperialist economic pressure.
Underlying the question of the Soviet bureaucracy's overall relationship with Eastern Europe is the probBy COMAA In lem of its relations with the Rose El Yousef imperialist bourgeoisies of
¡Cairo) Western Europe as a C&W Syndicate whole. While for the moment Gorbachev is giving priority to an overall accord with Washington, he is not unaware of the growing tensions in the Atlantic Alliance, which arise, in the final analysis, from the relative decline of US hegemony over the capitalist world. As a result, any prolonged delay in the economic aid it expects from Washington will increase play the "Europe vs. America" card. This would mean a fundamental revision of its attitude to the EEC, involving its approval of the even its expansion, notably to include Austria (for the moment this has not
The implications would be far-reaching, again for the SED and its appendage, the West German CP), but also for a whole series of communist parties in West Europe, which have been, and continue to be, deeply committed to an anti-EEC course, as well as for social-democratic left wings that have become accustomed to following a similar option.
More broadly, no one should close their eyes to the fact that Gorbachev's foreign policy involves a general alignment with social-democratic strategy in West Europe, whose negative effects on the ongoing class struggles will soon manifest themselves. By the same token, this will widen the political space for the revolutionary forces involved to give consistent support to these struggles, and will bring about new differentiations within the traditional workers'
One of the peculiarities of the Soviet bureaucracy and its clones in Western Europe is that they find themselves forced to combine extreme pragmatism in political options with an ex-post facto rationalization of these options at an ideological level. As Karl Marx already explained, "the bureaucrats are the Jesuits of the state, the theolo8. Thus, Neues Deutschland, the central organ of the SED, was quick to reprint the famous letter by Nina Andreeva [to Sovietskaya Rossiya], which Gorbachev and his team consider an out and out anti-perestroika and anti-glasnost program. (See IV 143, June 13, 1988.) 9. It has to be pointed out that the international bourgeoisie is very worried about this, and fears its "destabilizing" implications for the whole of Europe. West is likewise reluctant to act as the orchestral conductor of the political reforms in East Europe." (The Guardian, weekly edition, May 29, 1988.)
BRAS in Tachydromos (Athens) C&W Sundicate gians of the state. The bureaucracy is the priesthood of the republic." 10
Without in the least sharing the illusions of historical idealism - that is, without beLieving that the origins or the cause of Gorbachev's new foreign policy lie in the realm of ideology — it is necessary to follow the transformations of the official doctrine very attentively. They offer a rather faithful reflection of the initiatives that are underway or projected. This makes it easier to place such moves in a broader framework. There is not the slightest doubt that the official doctrine implies a fundamental change in this area. In Pravda on January 8, J. Primakov refers to a "new philosophy of foreign
The point of departure for the new conceptualization of international policy by Gorbachev's ideologues is the notion of a growing globalization of the foremost contradictions and crises of our time, a globalization that puts the entire world in the same boat, without any class distinctions. This notion was already present in Gorbachev's report to the last congress of the CPSU. It was further developed in the last part of his book, Perestroika. It is being carried to its ultimate conclusions in a series of positions adopted by some of his ideologues, in connection with the Moscow summit and its
It is not only the problem of nuclear disarmament, but also those of the threats to the ecosphere (biosphere) of the human race, the problem of the rational exploitation of energy and mineral resources, the demilitarization of the international economy — or even overcoming the underdevelopment of the third world, or at least the problem of hunger - that are presented as difficulties that can be solved by an accord between the USSR, the main imperialist powers and the largest third world states. (The bourgeois nature of the latter is no longer disputed.)
Underlying this revision of the Marxist theory of imperialism is the idea that the imperialist bourgeoisie, or at least major factions in it, have a common interest with the working class, the "socialist camp" and the third-world peoples in finding a "global" solution to these problems.
Let us leave aside the question of the suicidal nafor the imperialist bourgeoisie) and the conclusions that could be drawn from that about the behavior of certain factions of the bourgeoisie - rational, semi-rational, irrational, or even suicidal.' Leaving aside this very important problem, which is more complex than the Gorbachevites make it, the only "rational kernel" in all this verbiage about "common interests" above class differences and class interests is the common interest in expanding East-West trade.
But here precisely there is nothing new. Already at the time of Reagan's hysteria over the "evil empire," far from trying to starve the "enemy," the Republican administration was forced by the United States' agricultural crisis to expand its exports of maize and soya beans to the USSR. The fact that the European and Japanese imperialists have captured a larger slice of the Ostgeschäft pie has made Washington (and Wall Street) more attentive to the siren
Political blackmail and ideological revisionism
At the same time, the temptation to engage in political blackmail has scarcely been abandoned. President Carter's foreign security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, estimates: "It follows that any major extension of credits and any major Western investments in perestroika should await truly significant cuts in military spending....The progressive elimination of the Soviet military threat, pointing toward the gradual and peaceful [sic] dismantling of the Soviet empire, could then justify some of today's hopeful conclusions." (Los Angeles Times/ IHT, June 7, 1988.)
The least that can be said is that "common interests" are hardly evident in such commentary, or in the thinking that inspires it or the class objectives that underlie it.
In order to justify the bold concept of "globalization" of interests and political
USSR and other projects, the Gorbachevite ideologues have been led to formulate a series of still more audacious
"revisionist"
"Advanced coexistence"
and "peaceful monopolies"
Thus, the Gorbachevite ideologues seem to have come out in favor of US troops remaining in Europe, at least if we can believe a story by American journalist Flora
Lewis: "At the [annual] conference [of the
New York-based Institute for East-West
Security Studies held in Potsdam, West
Germany], the Soviet delegate spoke firmly of the need for 'special measures' to keep the Americans in Europe; of the importance of 'anchoring' the United States in the old continent, so that it would remain responsible for keeping the peace [sic] here....
" 'I always supposed,' said an influential
West German, 'that Moscow believed the best thing was to have Soviet troops in
Western Europe, but the next best thing was to keep Americans here.' "The next best thing is also the best thing,' answered the Russian." (New York Times/IHT, June
Aleksandr Bovin, an Izvestia editorial writer has declared:
"The new Kremlin team has essentially [sic] altered the Soviet attitude toward international affairs.... We have stopped looking at world events exclusively through the prism of the East-
West conflict. We put to the fore human values in general, human interests in general."12 (Die Zeit, June 3, 1988.)
In the Soviet magazine Mirovaia Ekonomika i Mezhdunarodnye Otnoshenia (No.
8, 1987), I. Ivan wrote that a reconversion of arms production to civilian production would increase the growth rate of the US economy and the bourgeoisie's profits. He does not seem to have heard about the crisis of overproduction (excess capacity) in civilian industry. Neither does he seem to have considered for what mysterious reasons US big capital deliberately preferred to have less profits rather than more. The idea that Gorbachev's advisers know better than the US monopolists themselves how to maxi-
10. Karl Marx, Kritik des Hegelschen Staatsrecht in Marx-Engels-
Werke (MEW), vol.2, p.248.
11. See my article in Quatrième Internationale, July 1987.
BДS.
12. See also Boris Kourachvili in
Les Nouvelles de Moscou, June 5,
1988. He pleads in favor of "replacing the age of inevitable strug gle, which has held the stage in the first half of the twentieth century, with that of social and class concil-
25 iation that will probably hold the stage in the twenty-first."
USSR mize the latter's profits is a bit grotesque.
Underlying this conception of advanced coexistence" is a whole "soporific" view of the internal contradictions of capitalism that excludes the possibility of depressions and revolutionary crises. It projects onto the world scale the forecasts that Bernstein made for Germany (and for Europe) in the famous "revisionist" debate of 1898-1904:
"Although the deepening general crisis of capitalism is becoming permanent, the conflict between the productive forces and production relations has assumed a chronic character, and does not threaten to let off a revolutionary explosion in the foreseeable
"Since the beginning of this century, the capitalist socio-economic formation has undoubtedly and largely owed its stability [sic — two world wars, the 1929 slump, jected for the main countries of the third world, the Gorbachevites write openly that, with a few minor exceptions (Angola, Mozambique, South Yemen and Ethiopia; Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala are absent from this list) the development of the third world is, and will remain, capitalist for a long period, and that the USSR and the national liberation movement have to work within this framework. (G. Mirski: "On the road to be chosen for the developing countries," in Mirovaia Ekonomika i Mezhudunarodnye Otnoshenia 5, 1987.) The hint is clear.
On the basis of all these data, can we conclude that Gorbachev's foreign policy represents fundamentally a "right turn" in comparison with previous Soviet foreign policy? Should we carry such a judgement further, saying that logically, since foreign
To this can be added the no less contradictory evolution in the third world, where the liberation movement overall is on the defensive but retains a capacity for fighting back and above all an autonomy that are still remarkable.
The dangers of over-simplification
In these conditions, condemning everything that is taking place in the USSR as "rightist," or even counter-revolutionary, is indefensible. If Gorbachev is "on the right," were Brezhnev, or even Stalin "on the left""? If everything that Gorbachev is doing has to be seen as consistent "treachery," are the rehabilitation of the Moscow trials defendants, or the de facto toleration policy is the extension of domestic policy, of strikes then "rightist," in comparison fascism] to the system's capacity for a revolutionary transformation of the means of production." (Ivan Antonovich: "Dialectics of an Integral World," in International
Affairs 5, May 1988. Antonovich is vice-rector of the Academy of
Social Sciences under the CC of
Often more Catholic than the
Pope, some SED theoreticians are going still further than their Soviet colleagues. They are now talking about "peaceful monopolies" [sic] or the possibility of making these
"peaceful." For example, Rolf Reissig, director of the Institute for Scientific Communism under the CC of the SED has written that "it is possible to have a capitalism oriented toward peaceful coexistence and competition between systems." He has
"While the militaryalso written, industrial complex is in conformity with monopoly capitalism, it is not under all circumstances necessary to this system." (Tages -Anzeiger-
Magazin 10, Zurich, 1988.)
Pressure from imperialism and the Soviet masses
In the SED's official theoretical magazine, Einheit (No. 2, 1988), the same Rolf
Reissig wrote unabashedly that broad (!)
strata of monopoly capital are interested in advancing the "technical-scientific revolution" outside of the military sphere and avoiding "the waste of enormous resources for arms. "13 Because of East Germany's position as a "border guard of the camp,
" a whole generation of cadres has been educated in the idea of "the revanchist aggressiveness of monopoly capital." We can bet that there these ideas will provoke a general turmoil and deepgoing political and ideological disarray.
This picture should be completed by indicating that in place of the "non-capitalist
26 road of development" that Khruschev pro-
International Viewpoint #145 • July 11, 1988
PERESTRO,
glasnost and perestroika should be condemned en bloc, in the same way as "advanced peaceful coexistence""? That would be hasty. A warning has to be issued against such oversimplifications, which are similar to the "yes,yes" or "no, no" that Leon Trotsky already condemned in the final part of Revolution Betrayed.
Like his domestic and economic policy, the course that Gorbachev is following in the international arena is made up of a body of contradictory elements. To understand the reasons for these contradictions, it is sufficient to remember that Gorbachev is operating from a position of weakness on two fronts. He is coming under growing pressure at once from imperialism and from the Soviet masses (or, if you prefer, from the mounting social crisis in the USSR, which is being at least partially aggravated by the beginnings of independent activity and consciousness among the workers).
Once you understand that, the elements of the puzzle that emerge successively and in a disparate way become comprehensible.
with the repression of Stalin and
But on the other hand, an overall
"yes, yes," or even a "yes, but,"
are likewise inadmissible from the standpoint of the interests of the
Soviet and world working class.
We cannot approve of economic measures that lead to the reemergence of unemployment and a decline in real wages, or of rotten compromises at the expense of the Central American and South
African revolutions.
The only valid judgment then is a nuanced one, case by case, problem by problem, as I have formulated it throughout this article. Too bad for the over-simplifiers. They will be proven wrong by the events, as they were in the past and as they are being today by what is happening ir. the USSR.
The judgment should not remain an academic, platonic one. It leads to a definite conclusion - defend the Central American revolution, broaden, internationalize and generalize the movement of mass solidarity against apartheid'4; encourage, stimulate and reinforce throughout the world the class autonomy and independence of the workers' movement from all states and all governments. And at the same time it is necessary to seize every opportunity to promote a wide-ranging debate and wide-ranging unity in action with all anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist forces. For a variety of reasons, the Gorbachev experience facilitates
13. The small rational kemel in this thesis is that US imperialism, stretched by its enormous and persistent trade deficit and a new less serious public spending deficit, has an interest in keeping the arms race within certain limits. But it has scarcely any interest in radically cutting its military spending, to say nothing of eliminating it.
14. This movement's possibilities were strikingly confirmed by the impressive united anti-apartheid demonstration of 50,000 people in Amsterdam on June 12,
1988.