What is at stake in
Reagan's trip to Europe nated by-U.S. imperialism, the West Eu- goes even beyond Vietnam war levels. It by Garret RUSH
The visit to the West European capitals in early June by U.S. president Ronald Reagan will be far more than a ceremonial tour. It will be a historic test of strength.
Reagan's problem is that he has to reorganize the imperialist alliance for a counteroffensive against the colonial revolution in the face of growing mass discontent in the imperialist countries themselves, including the U.S
Malvinas Islands crisis illustrates the difficulty of the problem. The only reliable allies that the U.S. has against the rise of revolutionary forces are the other imperialist countries. they were all decisively weakened by the the second world The space no longer exists for the West European imperialist fight a war against the workers states in Europe itself. They are too vulnerable, and the overturn of capitalism in Eastern Europe deprived them of their historic
Furthermore, the West European imperialist powers, and to an even greater extent, Japan no longer have military and political control of the raw materials and energy sources needed to operate advanced capitalist economies. militarily, politically, and economically controls access to such resources, in par-
So, no single imperialist power or group of imperialist powers can achieve real independence from the U.S. But at the same time, they are unwilling to subordinate their specific interests to those of the dominant imperialist which the survival of the entire world imperialist system depends. On the other hand, however uncongenial the lesser imperialist powers may be as bed partners, the U.S. has no choice but to stick with
There is no other strong conservative force in the world with which to ally. Neocolonial regimes, however reactionary, are a slender reed. Deals with various bureaucracies in countries where capitalism has been abolished are temporary, and contradictory by nature.
That is why the U.S. is committed to Israel despite the price it pays for that in the Arab world.
It is why Washington was obliged to come out openly in support of Britain in the Malvinas Islands crisis, despite the 4 tremendous price it will have to pay for this in terms of its own political needs and maneuvers in Latin America, a price endangers its own vital interests. that
Under the pressure of the world economic crisis, the smaller imperialist guarantor of the world imperialist system.
THE INSTABILITY OF WORLD IMPERIALISM It was because of the weakness of British capitalism, essentially, that the Thatcher government decided to launch a military adventure in the south Atlantic. The structural crisis of the British economy, the continued disastrous decline in the standard of living of the workers, and the growth of discontent have produced a situation in which the bourgeoisie needs a government that can look tough, that can seem ready and able to do what is necesrestore social This state of affairs led the Thatcher government to create a threat to international stability and peace and to drag Washington along behind it.
Moreover, both West Germany and France have developed economic relalations with East Europe to an extent that conflicts with the political needs of the anti-Communist alliance. nored Washington's appeals for an economic boycott against the USSR as a means of exerting pressure and demonstrating the political unity of the "West" after the bureaucracy's crackdown in Po-
Significantly, both made huge deals with the USSR for ener-
U.S. IMPERIALISM TURNS CANNIBALISTIC The 1973 oil price rise in fact meant that, with some help from OPEC, the U.S. oil companies used their control of the industry to extract a subsidy for the American economy from West Eu-
The U.S. capitalist economy began to feed on the West European one at the time of the Vietnam war. The war-caused inflation created a financial inflow from Europe to the U.S. that meant the West Europeans in effect paid for the war.
In the context of a world domiropean imperialisms have continued to gain economically relative to their big brother. In 1965, the U.S. economy was still nearly 25 percent larger than the economies of Japan and the four largest West European states combined. By 1979, the U.S. economy was nearly 35 percent smaller than its five largest rivals together.
In export markets, notably the Arab East, East Asia, and for the first time in Latin America, the U.S. faces serious export competition.
first time since World War I, the U.S. has begun to experience competition in its own markets. The weight of imported manufactured goods in the U.S. rose from 1.9 percent of the market in 1960 to 6.6 percent in 1979. In certain key sectors, foreign penetration was much greater. By the middle of 1980, Japanese automobiles accounted for 22% of sales in the U.S., and imported machine tools had captured 25% of the
Nonetheless, the Vietnam war period marked a historic turning point in the relations between U.S. imperialism and the West European imperialists.
Previously, it pushed them succesout of their established positions but shored up the general stability of the international capitalist economy by major aid plans, such as the Dawes plan after the first world war and the Marshall plan
Now, U.S. imperialism began to be back itself economically and started to bleed the West European economies in order to shore up its own economy. That is, it became a force destabilizing the world capitalist economy rather than underpinning it.
With the deepening of the general capitalist economic crisis, this destabilizing role becomes more and more pro-
The high U.S. interest rates, needed to counteract the inflationary effects of massive military spending, are more and more draining West Europe of
Moreover, the inflation that has been eating more and more deeply into buying power of West European workers began during the Vietnam war period and was fueled by the inflationary effects of U.S. military spending.
Now Reagan's answer both to the declining power of U.S. imperialism in the world and to the economic crisis is a massive increase in military spending that
ented toward goods for richer sections of stration of the political weakness of the means increasing inflation and increasing austerity for the West European working people, as well as the American.
Another effect of Reagan's imperial counteroffensive is the attempt to increase nuclear blackmail of the Soviet Union in the only area where it is possible for him to do this-in Western Europe.
The stationing of new U.S. intermediate range nuclear missiles in West Europe and the public discussion by U.S. and NATO experts of the possibilities for "limited nuclear wars" in designed to frighten the Soviet Union and keep the Kremlin from any temptation to aggravate the increasing problems of imperialism in the neocolonial world. The effect was to terrify the population of
In fact, regardless of the ultimate intentions of the U.S. decision-makers, the stationing of more intermediate-range nuclear missiles in West Europe objectively increased the danger of a nuclear war involving Europe.
So, Reagan's counteroffensive has already resulted in posing a threat of total destruction of West European society, which is what any kind of nuclear war would mean in such a densely populated,
WAR AGAINST THE PEOPLES OF CENTRAL AMERICA The threat of U.S. intervention against the peoples of Central America is the most obvious and immediate war danger represented by Reagan's attempt to mount an imperialist counteroffensive against the colonial revolution. the biggest threat to world peace and humanity at the moment. The U.S. is already supporting and becoming more and more directly involved in a war against a whole people in El Salvador and in Guate-
And it is preparing war against The U.S. intervention in Central America is the most acute expression of the war threat created by Reagan's imperialist counteroffensive against the peoples of the neocolonial countries. this threat is very much broader, and can break out in unexpected ways, as the Malvinas Islands crisis illustrates.
What Reagan's imperialist counter-offensive represents is the inability of the imperialist system in general, including the U.S., to offer any improvements for the neocolonial peoples. This also represents a historic turn.
In response to the Cuban revolution, the U.S. tried to build up stronger national ruling classes more closely tied
The result was initiatives such as the formation of the Central American Common Market and the Brazilian, Chilean, and Argentinian dictator-
With the help of foreign loans that totalled 110 billion dollars by the end of 1981, significant industrialization was achieved in certain of these countries, ori-
PETER GRAHAM, MEMORIAL LIBRARY the population and increasingly toward
By the beginning of the 1980s, however, the economic needs of U.S. imperialism were striking not only the weaker semicolonial economies but also some of the United States' most important allies in the semicolonial world.
In particular, the industrialization programs of the dictatorships funded by international imperialist loans had been based on the perspective of an expansion of world capitalist trade in which they would export.
NOTHING BUT THE STICK
FOR THE NEOCOLONIAL WORLD
Today, however, world trade is stagnant. There was zero growth in 1980, and probably a small decline in 1981. The gigantic economic problems this reflects and also creates are intensified by the extreme deflationary policies forced on the U.S. ruling class in its attempt to carry out its current military and economic policies. The result is that, since even the most industrialized neocolonial states are unable to compete with the imperialist centers in the current world situation, the growth of Latin America has come to
Indeed, on the average, the Latin American economies shrank 1981, with the fall in manufacturing in the major states being much greater. The hardest hit country in Latin America was
Ironically, the two countries in both the imperialist and neocolonial world that have been hardest hit by the economic crisis that reflects the weakening of U.S. imperialism and centers around it have been driven into a sharp and unexpected collision in the south At-
The fact is that the weakness of U.S. imperialism, which Reagan's aggressive policy reflects, means weak regimes in the neocolonial world that have to rule more and more by means of terror, massive repression, and more and more unbridled demagogy.
Thus, the Argentine regime, tinding itself rapidly losing its grip on the coun try, tried a demagogic nationalist stunt. It landed troops on the Malvinas to eliminate a vestige of British colonialism and a long-standing affront to the Argentine
But this question was neither at the center of attention of the Argentine masses, nor was there any fundamental conflict between the Argentine and
In fact, both had lar more to lose than to gain from a head-
But the move that the generals in Buenos Aires resorted to out of weakness made contact with the weakness of the British capitalist regime. touched off a major crisis, which has further undermined the imperialist system in and U.S. imperialism in Latin America in particular.
It is also ironic that such a demonworld imperialist system preceded by only a few weeks Reagan's planned series of visits with his West European partners in crime. It highlights problems they will find it difficult to solve. honor among thieves, or at least much, especially when they find themselves in a tight corner.
Much more serious conflicts among imperialists could arise, for example, in the Pacific, where the economic structures built up in the 1950s and 1960s in response to the Chinese and Vietnamese revolutions are larger and have weaker foundations. The Japanese economy, for example, represents a tremendously excontradiction in today's world. The world's second biggest industrial producer has neither raw materials nor a strong home market of its own. world trade is contracting. Furthermore, in a series of strategic East Asian coun tries-South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore-substantial manufacturing industries were built up in the past period, based on the expansion of the world capitalist economy and the strength of U.S. imperialism in the 1960s.
THE CAPITALIST CRISIS UNDERMINES DETENTE The bases of detente, one of the key strategies to which the U.S. imperialists turned after their defeat in Vietnam in order to try to restabilize their world system, has also been undermined by the capitalist world economic crisis and the weakening of U.S. imperialism. course, all sorts of pressures created by the capitalist economic decline have this effect in general, such as the development of sharper contradictions and social struggles in the neocolonial world.
But detente has been undermined in a much more immediate and direct say by the contraction of trade.
The perspective of detente involved the importation of Western technology into the workers states so that they could develop a modern industry ori ented to the world market. This brought economic advantages for capitalists, in some cases, mainly access to East European and Soviet raw materials for the West European imperialist countries. But for the world imperialist system in general, the advantage was essentially political. It was a way of shoring up stability in the
For the bureaucracies of the workers states, an important advantage was that they could offer the masses a of increasing through a peaceful economic process that did not challenge bureaucratic control of the economy or the society.
In Poland, where the ruling bureaucracy faced the most militant and politically experienced working class in Eastern Europe, it put a decisive bet on the for economic development offered by detente. It lost. The contraction of world trade meant that there was no market for the goods produced by the sector built up on the basis of Western technology. But to keep this sector