in the anti-missiles movement going ahead as change in Washington's "tone', and the
1983 is the year in which the deployment of United States Pershing II and Cruise Missiles is to start in Europe. It could be expected, therefore, that it would be preceded by a barrage of imperialist operations aimed at demobilising the powerful West European anti-missiles movement.
These manoeuvres were duly commenced with Reagan's November 1982 television broadcast and a series of declarations on nuclear policy by Kissinger, Mondale, and other spokespersons of the U.S.
The message of all of them was that the anti-missiles movement can now demobilise, since 'negotiations' are under way with the Soviet Union.
Reagan in his broadcast placed special stress on the opening of new talks with the Soviet Union over avoiding 'accidenannounced that the administration tended to continue its policy of complying with certain aspects of the unratified Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty with the USSR (SALT II). the deployment of 50 Minuteman-3 Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, whose multiple warheads would have breached the treaty limit. The U.S. stated it would fit identifying devices on the B-52 bombers that will carry Cruise Missiles —again a specification demanded by SALT II.
decisions overturned previous announcements of the Reagan admin-
The U.S. government also declared itself satisfied with Soviet compliance with the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty at the five-year review of this.
But the real content of NATO policy was shown by the two fundamental decisions that were taken in the same month. Reagan announced his advocacy of deploying the MX missiles. Research on this was then ratified by the Congress and simply the production delayed.
The Reagan proposals are an open vio-. lation of SALT II and are denounced by the Soviet bureaucracy as such. The NATO Defence Ministers at their meeting. in November also reaffirmed their decision to go head with the plan to deploy Pershing II and Cruise Missiles in Europe.
In short, on a secondary question, around a treaty which in any case allows a gigantic military buildup, the United States administration was making minor concessions and manoeuvres to gain the maximum propaganda value. The Congress in reality participated in this.
The stakes
Around the fundamental parts of its nuclear programme rapidly as previously.
The reason for the manoeuvring is
The U.S. ruling class and allies have no intention whatever of
Many limit to the military If they make any concessions at all it will be because this is forced on
Furthermore the negotiations that are taking place are not to limit imperialism's military buildup but to allow it to deal new blows against the working class of Central America, Western Europe, and all other parts of the world. Their aim is to gain a greater complicity of the Soviet bureaucracy in this process of an international imperialist counter-offen-
As the anti-missiles movement enters this crucial year, therefore, it should have a very clear attitude towards the *negotiations' that the imperialists putting forward.
THE GROWTH OF THE ANTI-MISSILES MOVEMENT
The reason why NATO is forced to engage in its new round of manoeuvres is very clear. The opposition to the deployment of the missiles in Western Europe, and to current U.S. nuclear policy in general, is vastly greater than had been forseen by imperialism when it started its current military buildup. The initial rhetoric used by the Reagan administration during 1981 - the talk of *theatre nuclear weapons'
Directive no59 on the possibility of lim-
ited nuclear war' in Europe, the threat of * warning nuclear explosions' - can only have been based on an assumption that the missiles in Western Europe could be installed without problems and that the only important task was to exert the maximum pressure on the USSR.
Even ultra pro-NATO European spokespersons such as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party Dennis Healey were forced to call for a halt to such rhetoric, Healey warned Reagan that he had misjudged the relationship of forces in Europe and stated in November 1981 that, *You must speak softly when you carry a big stick. We have unfortunately during the last twelve months had (from the U.S.) all too often a combination of belligerence and rhetoric with carelessness and confusion in defining the purposes and goals of these nuclear weapons? (1)
subsequent substantial manoeuvres the 'zero option' proposals and the campaign over Poland (see boxes and articles in this issue), struggles against the Cruise and Pershing II missiles have creased during 1982. Over three million people participated in demonstrations nuclear weapons during the summer in Western Europe, Japan, Australia, and North America. the largest international demonstrations on any issue since the second world war.
At the beginning of 1982, opinion polls showed 58 per cent of the population of Britain opposing the introduc tion of Cruise Missiles and 56 per cent opposing the Trident nuclear submarine
The decision in the Norwegian Parliament to allocate funds to carry out the NATO decision to install Cruise Missiles was carried only on a 77-76 vote. In a related movement, eight out of nine U.S. states holding referenda in the November 1982 elections voted 'Yes' to a nuclear freeze.
The anti-missiles and anti-nuclear weapons movement, many countries first among professional and white-collar workers. has penetrated rapidly and deeply into the workers movement as a whole. It now provides one of the biggest points of polarisation in the labour organisations since the
In West Germany, even before the fall of the Social Democratic/Liberal (SPD/ FDP) government, around the SPD organisations opposed deployment of the missiles. Together with austerity, the missiles will be the central issue in the March 1983 elections.
In Britain the Labour Party conferences since 1979 have consistently voted against the missiles programme and in favour of British unilateral nuclear dis armament. In 1982 this increased to a two-thirds majority. The British Trades Union Congress for the first time in its history has come out in favour of unilateral nuclear disarmament.
But despite the enormous size of the opposition there should be no illusion as to how important it is to NATO to put these nuclear weapons in place in Western
They are a central part of imperialism's entire military buildup, and, as 1. Time, 16 November 1982.
such, crucially affect not only the workers of Western Europe and the United States but also the colonial revolution and the Soviet Union.
In order to understand how the anti-missiles movement should confront the crucial year of 1983 and the new imperialist manoeuvres we should therefore start by recalling what role the nuclear buildup in Western Europe plays in the overall international counter-offensive of imperialism. This also shows their role in the present stage of the international class struggle.
THE MEANING OF PERSHING II
AND THE CRUISE MISSILES
The aim of the current imperialist buildup has right from the beginning been oriented primarily toconfronting the colonial revolution and not at war with the Soviet
In that aspect it differed fundamentally from the imperialist military buildup of the late 1940s and early 1950s, which was indeed aimed at gaining the momentum for direct military conflict with the USSR.
In the real world however imperialism cannot engage in a military buildup against the colonial revolution without being forced to try also to neutralise the Soviet Union either by threats or deals. At each step in colonial revolution economic and military aid from the USSR has
It was the Soviet Union that supplied which the NLF defeated the Americans and their puppets in Vietnam, that keeps the Cuban workers state alive, and which made possible the Cuban intervention in Angola. Any new workers state formed in Central America would necessarily seek support from the USSR and agreement to, or refusal of, this aid would in considerable measure determine its chance of
The imperialist ruling classes do not at all fear the Soviet bureaucracy itself. As Henry Kissinger put it in a recent series of articles, "There are some American conservatives in both parties who luxuriate in the myth of diabolic Soviet planners implementing a master plan for world revo-
No one who has actually dealt with the top Soviet leadership has encountered such types. If they exist, they are well hidden from foreign visitors. The leaders one in fact encounters are tough, ruthless and persistent. But they have originated no profound initiatives; they have usually avoided great risks. They have expanded into vacuums created by irresolution or weakness.' (2)
However, if U.S. imperialism does not fear 'world revolution' led by the Kremlin, it takes very seriously indeed the military potential of the Soviet Union. The U.S. also knows that in cases of imperialist irresolution or weakness' - by which it means successful revolutionary struggle led by others - the Soviet Union can sup ply major material aid to consolidate the situation. This was the case, in different 8 ways, with Cuba, Ethiopia, Angola, anc exists as an objective potential for Nicaragua and Central America. This possibility flows from the nature of the USSR itself, and is not wholly neutralised by the policies of Brezhnev, Andropov
The result of this international reality is that each imperialist military buildup against the colonial revolution has also involved an armaments programme directed against the Soviet Union. (3) The current U.S. military buildup in this follows essentially the same pattern as its previous ones. It involves directly the Force', the '600-ship-strong navy', the massive reinforcement of the U.S. chain of military bases, constant military pressure on the Kampuchean border, and the opening of the undeclared war in Central America — all of which are directly aimed against the colonial revolution. (See box) In this framework, however, the United States has also aimed to exert maximum pressure on the Soviet Union to prevent it from militarily or economically aiding the revolutions in Central America or any other struggle taking place against imperi-
By these means U.S. imperialism seeks to cut off the colonial revolution from its major sources of military and
The overall international policy of the Kremlin is class collaboration. Its policy
Poland and the other countries of Eastern Europe is counter-revolutionary
The use and structure of a part of the Soviet conventional armed forces is for repressing its own working class and other states under its domination. Revolutionaries fight against all these policies and the actions of Mos-
Warsaw and wherever they are used and exist.
But on the field of nuclear weapons there should be no illusions whatever. The Soviet bureaucracy considers its nuclear arms policy in its relations with imperialism — not for repression of the working class in Eastern Europe and the USSR. On this domain the responses of the Soviet bureaucracy are simply a response to an atomic buildup wholly and solely commenced by imperialism. Every single proposal to abolish nuclear weapons has been and continues to be opposed by the imperialist states. It is the U.S. ruling class and its allies, no one else 2. Newsweek, 29 November 1982.
Thus for example the massive American milwhich took place in the late 1950s and early 1960s under Eisenhower and Kennedy/McNamara was accompanied by a simultaneous one
Decisions of December 1957 and May 1958 of the NATO council led to the deployment of American Jupiter and Thor immissiles in England, Italy, were established at Holy-Loch Scotland and Rota in Spain. The construction
Minuteman nuclear Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, and of the Polaris submarine These remained the backbone of American nuclear strength into the 1970s.
This nuclear buildup against the USSR took that threatens the working class with nuclear distruction.
THE ROLE OF MISSILES
It is in this framework of policy that a major role is assigned by U.S. imperialism to the intermediate-range Pershing II and Cruise Missiles to be sited in Western Europe. These allow the United States to utilise to the utmost its strategic military and geographical advantages in relation to the Soviet Union and provide an ultra-effective and cheap military means of putting tremendous pressure on the Soviet Union in the field of armaments and also
The United States has bases all around the borders of the USSR and Eastern Eu-
It can hit any target in the Soviet Union from these with relatively inexpensive intermediate-range nuclear missiles. The Pershing II system for example costs less than 3 billion dollars, and the ground launched Cruise Missiles less than 4billion dollars, compared to the 35 billion dollars plus for the MX ICBM system, or the 32 billion dollars plus for the Trident submarine missile programme. Furthermore, the Pershing II can hit targets in the USSR only 4-5 minutes after launching -which is six times more rapidly than missiles launched from the United States.
The Soviet Union in contrast has no bases from which intermediate-range missiles can hit the United States. The U.S. made it quite clear during the Cuban missile crisis that it was prepared to wage a world war to prevent the Soviet Union from gaining such bases. The intermediate-range missiles also have the advantage for the U.S. that because they are sited outside the borders of the United States they avoid the intense domestic political opposition that has for example confronted the MX programme.
Therefore, in addition to the effects of the superior size of the US economy -nearly two and a half times that of the Soviet Union - the intermediate-range missiles programme places even greater proportional military and economic presthe possibility of a U.S. 'first strike, the Soviet Union has to spend gigantic sums on defensive measures such as multiplication of launchers, ensuring their manoeuvreability etc. This economic and military pressure on the USSR is in turn deplace alongside the huge conventional military escalation that culminated in the Vietnam
All attempts by the Soviet bureaucracy to negotiate a halt to the arms buildup, for example through the unilateral Soviet troop reduc tions ordered by Khrushchev in 1959, were ignored. Kennedy and his Secretary of Defence McNamara calculated on the economic superiority of the United States to outproduce the Soviet Union and crush all obstacles in their path. It was only the strength of the Vietnamese revolution, and the crisis that the effects of the war produced inside the imperialist coun tries, that led the U.S. ruling class to reverse its position and embark on the policy of 'detente' followed in the early 1970s.
As is discussed below, this 'detente' policy, however, was in no sense considered as a move towards liberalism' or 'peace' by the U.S. ruling class
The MX missile is one of the two prongs of the United States attempt to get a 'first strike' capacity against the Soviet Union. The other is Pershing It.
MX has a range of 13,000 kilometres and an accuracy with each of foreseen by imperialism. than the imperialist ruling classes antisigned to force it to cut off its aid to the colonial revolution either through blackmail, through a 'deal', or simply through depriving the Soviet Union of the physical capacity to give it.
Together with the United States direct conventional weapons buildup against the
This makes quite clear that it is not a weapon aimed against cities, for which no such accuracy is needed, but is for attacks colonial revolution, and the massive problems facing the Soviet bureaucracy in Polwith the Pershing II, is therefore a qualitative escalation of the
The Mo.with its existing submarine-lauched and and Afghanistan, there is no doubt that the U.S. ruling class considers that the United States has a nuclear strike force which cannot
It can, therefore, launch a nuclear counter-attack.
it has already gained significant advantages through this missile 'pressure' polsystem. So, the United States cannot launch a nuclear war without the certainty
The US ruling class noted with icy.
that it will be also hit by Soviet nuclear weapons.
is create a capacity for missiles so accurate that they can satisfaction the extreme Soviet passivity
The United States will, during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, which helped to give a free hand to imperecipe for a nuclear war launched by imperialism.
Similarly the Soviet rialism's moves.
thus, one of the most important partial demands which must be
Union, in contrast to earlier massive arms fought for by the anti-nuclear and anti-missiles movement.
supplies to Ethiopia and Angola, turned down reported Nicaraguan requests for
MIG aircraft.
While of course the missile buildup in
Western Europe and the United States is not the only factor in these decisions of the Soviet bureaucracy - it would for example be a much more decisive conits 10 warheads of 150 metres.
on the Soviet missile system.
ge destroyed by the USSR.
knock out the Soviet weapons.
This is probably the and the 'Minuteman to knock out the Soviet missile
This is of course the weapon in the entire United States the MX it is a 'first strike' weapon accurate
But its flight time to hit targets in the Soviet Union frontation with the United States for the
Soviet Union to arm Nicaragua than it compared to almost 30 was to arm Ethiopia — nevertheless there
Pershing II is also extremely cheap is no doubt that the American military
4 bn dollars for the system as compared to 35 billion for the MX
States has already indicated it intends to build up the Pershing II system in buildup is not merely hitting directly at the colonial revolution but also affecting
Europe far beyond even its original proposals.
Kohl is reported to have turned down a proposal by the United all parts of the world revolution through double the number of Pershing II missiles to be placed in West its pressure on the USSR.
This shows the huge stakes in the anti-missiles and anti-nuclear weapons movement not only for the workers of the imperialist coun tries but also for the USSR and the colonial revolution.
THE MOVEMENT IN WESTERN
Outside Central America, the United
States has been able to carry out successfully large parts of its buildup against the colonial revolution and has achieved a major victory in the Middle East.
has encountered tremendous direct and indirect pressure in Europe in its attempt to carry the military buildup against the
USSR. On conventional weapons spending, not one single West European government, with the exception of a promise from Thatcher's Britain, has so far been able to meet the 3 per cent a year growth in military spending decided upon by
NATO. The decision to deploy the nuclear weapons has rightly been seen by the workers movement as bringing nuclear war significantly closer.
Imperialism, of course, expected protest actions against its policies.
would not have been deterred by 'routine' protests of a few tens of thousands countries and in the various European
100,000 or so in the United States. U.S.
imperialism carried on the Vietnam war for years against the opposition of a of its population, routine round of protest on the nuclear weapons would have been brushed aside.
It was the truly colossal scale of the opposition actions to the missiles that military buildup.
to within 150 metres.
it is a superb weapon for a surprise attack These are not on the level of 'protest' demonstrations but on a scale could deflect government policies and provoke political crises. This effect has now become intensified as the nuclear and military buildup has become directly entwined with the economic crisis wracking the capitalist system in general and the US economy in particular. It is this directly lies that behind the latest round of imperialism's manoeuvres.
THE U.S.MILITARY BUILDUP
Under any circumstances, the military buildup plans announced by the Reagan administration would have placed great strains on the U.S. economy. States military expenditure is projected as 183 bn dollars in 1982, 240 bn dollars in 1983, 286 bn dollars in 1984, 386 bn dollars in 1986, and 401 bn dollars in
This is projected spending in excess of 1.5 trillion dollars years and approaching 2 trillion dollars over six. It is an annual increase of 7 per cent a year in real terms, ignoring inflation, and an increase of military spending from 25 per cent to 33 per cent of the Federal budget.
At the same time as these plans for increased military expenditure are being made, however, the actual growth forecasts for the U.S. economy are being constantly revised downwards. This means that increased U.S. military spending must be financed from a much lower base minutes for the MX. This means
Even new Christian Democratic cipated. The effects of this work themselves through the entire economic sys-
Economic stagnation means that U.S. state tax receipts are 80 bn dollars down from the 1981 projections. Govenment expenditure deriving from employment is enormously up. A relentless pressure, therefore, exists for the Federal Budget Deficit to increase - this is now projected at over 200 n dollars. (4). If an attempt is made to finance this budget deficit through borrowing, inevitably means a new increase in U.S. interest rates after their falls since the summer and a further prolongation of the recession.
The effects of such a step, furthermore, could not be confined to the U.S. A new rise in interest rates would risk placing so much strain on the world debt system that a weak link of this might collapse and set off a catastrophic chain reaction. It was to avoid this, and specifically a default on debts by Mexico or the collapse of a major U.S. company such as International Harvester, that U.S. interest rates were brought down sharply
Any new restrictive measures could ignite a series of massive convulsions in semi-colonial countries exactly what the U.S. is seeking to avoid through its military policies. 4. Business Week, 22 November 1982
If on the other hand interest rates are not put up again, and the same level of Federal Expenditure is maintained, then inflation in the U.S. is going to rise again rapidly. An extremely sharp increase in U.S. money supply already took place following the lowering of interest rates in August. Inflation also started to increase - it rose 0.5 percent in October, after only rising 0.2 percent in September, and 0.3 per cent in August.
Finally, what is crucial for the United States is not simply the absolute figures but those relative to its rivals. *Reaganomics' has at long last begun to raise productivity in the U.S. economy after almost a decade of stagnation. But it is still rising at an extremely low rate, and capital spending, the necessary engine of long-term productivity growth, continues to decline. (5)
The result of this situation is that in the industrial sector U.S. goods are less and less competitive on the world market - a situation made worse by the high exchange rate of the dollar created by the high interest rates. The U.S. visible trade balance is deteriorating significantly and
It was becoming quite clear by the end of 1982 therefore that the United States economic position was becoming increasingly critical - the economy was in a "hell of a mess' as Reagan put it in his famous unscripted comment. ular the Federal Budget was increasingly unable to take the strain. Resources had to be released either by shifting more of the burden of the military buildup onto the United States' imperialist making even greater attacks against the U.S. working class, or cutting back on the military budget.
In this context, the struggle over the missiles in Europe plays a directly econas well as military, role. Pershing II and Cruise Missiles cannot be put into Europe then, as we have seen, this means the United States faces the necessity to spend 5-10 times the cost in order to build on U.S soil an equivalent system of ICBMs which would be less militarily effective and far less pressure on the Soviet economy. position already shown to the MX syste, in the United States, let alone to any extension of it, raises the gravest doubts as to whether this could actually
As regards other ways out of the situation, the United States imperialist rivals recently confirmed at the GATT conference that neither directly nor indirectly are they prepared to accept extra sacrifices for the U.S. economy - on the contrary they are working out how best to attack its position.
As for the possibility of resolving the situation through a further intensification of attacks on the U.S. working class this is determined crucially by the political situation in the United States. limited but definite upturn of struggle by the U.S. working class was taking place by the end of 1982. (7) While the November elections stayed firmly within the
Pershing II missile (DR) two capitalist party system, they however no encouragement to the ruling class to believe that it would have rapid victories with, example, sweeping moves to eliminate large parts of the Social Security system - the chief alternative way to a military cutback to reduce the Federal Budget Deficit.
Faced with this situation, naturally different sections of the U.S. ruling class seek different solutions corresponding to their different interests and political orientations - hence the manoeuvring being engaged in by the Reagan administration at the end of 1982 as well as the bout of pronouncements by Kissinger, McNamara and other spokespersons of U.S. military and foreign policy.
Behind all the manoeuvring, however, there is no doubt what the U.S. ruling class would like to achieve. It would like to be able to push through the whole of its present international and military policy - both to militarily attack the colonial revolution and to put 5. Productivity rose in the U.S. economy at a equivalent to 3.6 cent increase in 1981, and an actual U.S. productivity did not increase at all while that of its Japanese and West European
Furthermore, sustained productivity spending in the U.S. economy, however, fell by 4 to 5 per cent in real terms in 1982. tions are for a further 8.5 per cent fall in 1983. 17.4 bn dollars — a fall of 0.6 per cent decline in July. U.S. visible imports in September were in contrast 21.6 bn dollars. The trade balance has been deteriorating steadily since the end of the maximum pressure on the Soviet economy. No section of the U.S. ruling class favours another fully fledged period of 'detente' with the USSR for the simple reason that the Soviet bureaucracy does not control what takes place in world politics.
Every serious section of the U.S. ruling class is aware that it was not at the behest of the Kremlin that the Iranian masses overthrew the Shah, or the FSLN waged struggle to overthrow Somoza. But the Soviet bureaucracy was not able to prevent these advances. Furthermore the Soviet Union did supply the equipment, supplies and back up with which Cuban troops intervened in Angola, and with which the Ethiopian regime threw back the Somali invasion. It has the material resources, if it wished, to back up a new workers state in Nicaragua. These type of openings may produce pressure which the Soviet bureaucracy is not strong enough to withstand - as indeed happened from 1975-79. It is therefore, qualitatively preferable for imperialism if it can impose its decisions by military and economic diktat than if it has to do any type of deal with the Soviet bureaucracy.
This explains the meaning of the manoeuvring of the U.S. ruling class and its NATO allies at the beginning of 1983. It is only the resistance that the ruling classes face inside their own countries - the explosive growth of the anti-missiles and anti-nuclear movement-together with the austerity-that makes them consider giving up any part at all of their military buildup. same time, if the West European working class can prevent the deployment of the nuclear missiles it will have struck a major blow for the class struggle throughout the world. That must be one of its fundamental aims in the year 1983. But the outcome will be decided on the streets of Europe and the United States and not in the negotiations at Geneva
The British Labour Party and TUC has called for the largest demonstration in post-war British history to commemorate Hiroshima day in 1983 and oppose the
The Dutch anti-missiles movement is calling for action in 1983, even greater than that which created the largest demonstration in the history of the Netherlands last autumn. It is by these means, and everything that goes with them, that the missiles can be 1980, and since mid-1981 the trade sector has accounted for nearly one-third of the decline in U.S. real gross national production. manufactured goods from the United States fell nearly 10 per cent during the third quarter of while imports edged higher. cluded a 12 per cent decline in chemical exports, which accounted for about one fifth of the decline in the manufacturing sector; and a decline of 10 per cent in exports of machinery and transportation, which make up about two of visible exports. of Japanese cars accounted for 30 per cent of market. (Business Week, 15 November
See 'US/Canada Workers Prepare Fightback' by Will Reissner in International Viewpoint,
JALEN