New Advances in the Indochinese Revolution and Imperialism's Response

I. The Class-Struggle Framework of World Politics

The toppling of the Pol Pot regime by rebel Kampuchean forces and Vietnamese troops in December 1978-January 1979, and the February-March 1979 invasion of Vietnam by Chinese troops, put the Indochinese revolution once again in the center of world politics.

The Vietnamese revolution, the weight ie st component of the Indochinese revolution, directly involves the destiny of 50 million people. It profoundly affects the fate of more than 300 million people in Southeast Asia, an area of vital shipping lan es and sources of tin, tungsten, oil, and rubber. Beyond that, Vietnam has for many years been a central battleground between imperialism and the world revolution.

The blow the imperialists suffered in 1975 marked a turning point in post-World War II world politics. It exposed the limitations on Washington's capacity to simultaneously maintain a preponderant military position in the world; use its own armed forces against any outbreak of the world revolution; compete effectively with its capitalist rivals; maintain a stable international monetary system; and preserve social peace at home. The defeat of the U.S. imperialists in Indochina, followed by the worldwide capitalist economic recession of 1974-1975, shifted the world relationship of class forces in favor of the working class.

Understanding the repercussions of this shift is essential to understanding the 1978-79 developments in Indochina. The following aspects of the new situation stand out.

The axis of world politics remains the class struggle between the capitalists, principally the imperialists, on the one hand, and the working class and its toiling allies on the other.

Although the imperialists were dealt a body blow in Indochina in 1975, they did not give up and walk away. They sought, under much more unfavorable conditions, to find the best way to assert their interests against the working masses of Indochina and all of Southeast Asia. Their goal remains that of weakening, and ultimately destroying, the workers state in Vietnam.

They intensified their campaign against the Vietnamese revolution in reaction to the final elimination of capitalist property relations in southern Vietnam in 1978, the toppling of the Pol Pot regime in Kampuchea, and the dangers that these developments posed to the maintenance of capitalism elsewhere in Southeast Asia. They initiated a drive to halt the new advances in the class struggle.

This stepped-up counterrevolutionary drive by the imperialists is the framework for understanding the civil war in Kampuchea and Beijing's invasion of Vietnam.

The weakened condition of American imperialism after 1975 made open military intervention too risky because of the antiwar attitudes of the American workers. Other direct counterrevolutionary measures (diplomatic isolation and economic boycott of Vietnam, military aid to the neighboring capitalist regimes and rightist guerrillas in Laos and Kampuchea) proved insufficient to turn the situation to imperialism's advantage. For this reason they needed Beijing's invasion of Vietnam.

The weakened condition of imperialism has forced the capitalist rulers into a policy of détente with both Moscow and Beijing. Although they have never given up their ultimate aim of destroying the two major workers states and restoring capitalism there, the imperialists have had to modify their immediate objectives. In place of the earlier strategy of containment and rollback, they have sought to reach political agreements with both Moscow and Beijing, based on mutual opposition to revolutionary change and collaboration to halt it. They have also sought to establish significant trading relationships.

The counterrevolutionary betrayals by Moscow and Beijing, which are the essence of these détente relationships, do not represent a change in policy on their part. On the contrary, they are a continuation of the policy of peaceful coexistence, which flows from the Stalinists' opposition—for reasons of their own self-preservation—to any advance of the world revolution. What is new over the past decade is Washington's decision to respond to the long-standing overtures of the bureaucratic castes.

Within the framework of their détente agreements, however, Moscow and Beijing have responded differently to the imperialist drive against the Vietnamese revolution.

Because of geographical proximity, the impact of revolutionary advances in Southeast Asia is more directly threatening to Beijing than to Moscow. This is particularly true at the present time, when the Beijing-based caste is under severe internal strain. So, while Beijing reacted to the advance of the Vietnamese revolution by openly expressing its visceral hatred, the Moscow-based caste, although likewise hostile to advances of the Vietnamese revolution, did not feel its impact with the same urgency.

Furthermore, Southeast Asia is one of the few are as in the world where Beijing has significant political and military weight and is thus under great pressure from the imperialists to prove its reliability as a counterrevolutionary force. Moscow, by contrast, has greater options for maneuver with imperialism. The Kremlin sought to exert increased leverage in its dealings with Washington by establishing a formal alliance with Hanoi.

To try to contain the Vietnamese revolution, the imperialists turned to Beijing for military aid, and to Moscow for diplomatic aid. While Beijing invaded Vietnam, Moscow pressured Hanoi to reach a Geneva-type settlement over Kampuchea acceptable to the imperialists.

II. Imperialist Pressure and the Sino-Soviet Conflict

The current world situation, marked by the Washington-Moscow and Washington-Beijing détente arrangements, has intensified the Sino-Soviet conflict, to the advantage of the imperialists.

Both Moscow and Beijing fear that imperialism's relations with the other will be pursued at the expense of their own détente plans. Each of the castes, to enhance its own bargaining strength with imperialism, strives for influence over mass organizations throughout the world, and, in particular, for influence over the regimes of the other workers states. Moscow, as the stronger power by far, is in a much better bargaining position on a world scale. But Beijing has significant strength in its immediate border are as in Southeast Asia, where it is determined to resist Moscow's inroads in its leverage.

This competition serves to weaken all the workers states in face of imperialism. Each caste, to counterbalance the other, makes greater and greater concessions to imperialism.

The Moscow-Beijing competition is not rooted in an inherent drive to expand their national base at the expense of the other. It does not reflect a jockey ing for position in preparation for a major war between these two world powers, although short-lived border wars are possible.

The Sino-Soviet conflict itself takes place within the basic framework of the world class struggle, in which the ruling classes confront the workers and their allies. On the decisive questions—such as revolutions—the bureaucratic castes in Moscow and Beijing are not independent agents. The castes can be forced into situations in which they must defend against imperialist attack the states and the property relations from which they derive their privileges. But the fundamental interests of the castes are opposed to the interests of the workers. The castes need to seek accommodation with imperialism; thus they basically act as transmission belts for imperialist pressure against the working class.

The Sino-Soviet dispute is a result of the fact that imperialist pressure takes different forms and operates at different rhythms toward each of the national bureaucratic castes. This provokes differing and conflicting responses on their parts, as they compete to obtain favorable relations with imperialism.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, imperialism began pulling back from its extreme "containment/rollback" stance toward the Soviet Union. At the same time it continued to maintain a very aggressive posture toward China. There the socialist revolution was fresh er, and its immediate impact was still felt throughout the colonial world.

Moscow's effort to curry favor with the imperialists necessitated betrayal of the Chinese workers state in face of imperialist economic boycott and military pressure. The withdrawal of Soviet economic aid; the refusal to defend China in the Sino-Indian war; and the failure to guarantee China's defense in the event of an imperialist military attack were notable examples. The difference on the level of material interests was reflected politically. Beijing, facing acute imperialist pressure, responded by escalating its anti-imperialist rhetoric and pre tens es of economic self-sufficiency, while denouncing Soviet "revisionism." Moscow could not permit the example of the Chinese revolution to challenge the monolithic political framework it was trying to maintain.

In Southeast Asia today it is the fresh Vietnamese revolution that has been subjected to the fierce st immediate aggression of the imperialists. And it is to Beijing as well as Moscow that the imperialists have turned for help, exploiting the Sino-Soviet dispute for their own ends.

From this standpoint, the Sino-Soviet conflict was a factor in the recent events in Indochina. But it is subordinate to the contending class forces of imperialism on one side and the workers and peasants on the other—because the Sino-Soviet conflict itself is a product of imperialist pressure.

The strongest imperialist powers—the USA, Japan, West Germany, France, and Britain—have all been competing for trade relations with Beijing as well as Moscow. The Japanese capitalists gained the initial advantage in this competition over trade with Beijing. But the British and American capitalists are now closing the gap, negotiating expanded trade deals—and arms deals, as well. Beijing has also been able to take advantage of this rivalry to gain better terms of trade with Tokyo.

Despite its weakened condition, American imperialism proved that it still retains great economic capacities vis-à-vis its rivals. It also showed its ability to use the leverage of its preponderant military power to economic advantage.

The imperialist propaganda campaign during Beijing's invasion of Vietnam showed that an important component of its political strategy today is to try to reverse the existing antiwar feelings of the masses and create a climate in which working people will once again accept the large-scale use of imperialist troops against the world revolution. Behind the talk of preserving peace and stability lies preparations for new wars. This campaign is closely linked to the capitalist economic offensive against the working class in all the imperialist countries.

III. The Invasion of Vietnam

On February 17, 1979, troops of the People's Republic of China invaded the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, initiating a large-scale border war. Within less than three weeks, Beijing began withdrawing its troops, although it has held on to some territory and has threatened to provoke a new flare up of armed conflict.

Considerable material damage and loss of life were inflicted on the Vietnamese people. But Washington and the Beijing Stalinists failed to achieve their main goals.

The roots of the China-Vietnam border war lay in Washington's stepped-up campaign against the Vietnamese revolution and against the threat of anticapitalist advances elsewhere in Southeast Asia.

The major concerns for the imperialists were:

1. The anticapitalist measures taken in southern Vietnam between 1975-1978, bringing about the political unification of the country, the expropriation of the remaining capitalist strongholds in the South, and the consolidation of a workers state throughout Vietnam.

2. The toppling of the capitalist Pol Pot regime in Kampuchea in December 1978-January 1979 by the combined military efforts of the anti-Pol Pot Kampuchean forces and the Vietnamese army. This gave encouragement to the masses of Kampuchea and upset the imperialists' plans to use the Pol Pot regime as a buffer against the spread of socialist revolution elsewhere in Southeast Asia.

3. The heightened threat of anticapitalist mass mobilizations elsewhere in Southeast Asia—particularly in Thailand, where the Kriangsak dictatorship has been weakened and its opponents encouraged both in the urban centers and the countryside; and in Laos, where the social revolution has deepened under the impact of the recent events.

As part of their effort to stem the advance of the socialist revolution in Southeast Asia, Washington and the other major imperialist governments have been trying to shore up the capitalist regimes of the ASEAN regional alliance (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand). In particular, Washington has stepped up arms aid to the Thai military dictatorship. Bangkok has also been used as a funnel for military aid to rightist guerrillas in Kampuchea and Laos.

Hanoi considered that it was compelled, as a defensive measure, to take action to overturn the hostile Pol Pot regime. The main immediate objective of the imperialists has been to force Hanoi to remove its troops from Kampuchea, facilitating the overturn of the new Kampuchean government and the imposition of a proimperialist government there.

But to attempt to overthrow the new government in Kampuchea required a greater military effort than was possible by the Pol Pot and Khmer Serai forces. Rather than taking on the antiwar workers in their own countries by open military intervention, the imperialists enlisted the help of Beijing. In return for improved diplomatic relations and the promise of major economic aid, the Chinese Stalinists endeavored to "teach Vietnam a lesson." Their objective was to carry out a punitive expedition to prove their reliability as a counterrevolutionary force against the spread of the Indochinese revolution. The goal was to force Vietnam out of Kampuchea, as the imperialists wanted.

An additional objective of the imperialists was to use the war to propaganda advantage to discredit Marxism and weaken the labor movement. This propaganda objective was particularly important to Washington, which has been engaged in an ongoing effort to reverse the still-widespread antiwar attitudes of the American people, so that they will once again accept the use of U.S. troops to intervene in the affairs of other countries.

Key events before and during Beijing's invasion of Vietnam confirmed the collusion between imperialism and the Chinese Stalinists.

The expropriation of the last capitalist bastions in the southern part of Vietnam and the consolidation of the workers state throughout the country was met by universal hostility from the imperialists. This included a hypocritical propaganda campaign on behalf of the expropriated merchants and traders (the "boat people") and the former functionaries of the old Saigon regime (portrayed as victims of a so-called Vietnamese Gulag); continuation of economic and diplomatic pressure against Vietnam; bolstering imperialist economic and military aid to the surrounding capitalist states; renewing and stepping up economic and diplomatic relations with the Pol Pot regime; and speeding up the establishment of closer relations with Beijing, especially by Washington and Tokyo.

Consultations on Beijing's invasion plans were carried out in Washington and Tokyo. During his visits to these capitals, Deng publicly announced Beijing's intention to "punish" Vietnam. Although Washington initially feigned innocence about the actual invasion, the State Department later admitted that it had been informed in advance of the plans.

During the invasion, the imperialists demonstratively adopted a posture of "business as usual" toward Beijing. The aim was to make clear their full backing for the invasion without taking direct responsibility for it. This stance included ceremonies establishing full diplomatic relations between Washington and Beijing; high-level trade missions to Beijing and the negotiation of major economic agreements by both London and Washington; and the continued efforts by Bonn and Tokyo to consolidate major trade deals with Beijing. In addition, with varying degrees of forthrightness, most of the major capitalist media in the imperialist countries backed Beijing's invasion.

As a deterrent to Soviet aid to Vietnam, Washington dispatch ed a nuclear-armed naval task force off the Vietnamese coast during the war. In addition, Washington made a point of publicly stepping up its military aid to the Thai regime.

The imperialists launched a concerted diplomatic campaign to win support for a solution to the conflict that, in the guise of evenhandedness, fully reflected their objectives. This included the proposal for reciprocal withdrawal of Vietnamese forces from Kampuchea and Chinese troops from Vietnam, and a Geneva-type conference to impose an ostensibly neutral (but actually capitalist and proimperialist) government in Kampuchea. Beijing, of course, immediately accepted the formula for reciprocal withdrawal, as well as the proposal for a "neutral" Kampuchea to be headed by a capitalist figure such as Sihanouk.

The invasion of Vietnam, however, failed to produce the imperialist's main objectives. Vietnamese troops were not forced to withdraw from Kampuchea, nor has a proimperialist regime been installed there. To the contrary, while the China-Vietnam border war was raging, Pol Pot forces were rout ed from the last provincial capitals they held. Struggles by the toiling masses throughout the region have been facilitated. The capacity of the imperialists and Stalinists to block revolutionary advances has been weakened.

The Beijing Stalinists also suffered a setback. Although they demonstrated their willingness to go to war to prove their usefulness to the imperialists, they exposed their own weaknesses. They laid waste the are as they occupied but were unable to deal a "punish ing" military blow to the Vietnamese army. On the political level, Beijing suffered a clear setback. Widespread dissatisfaction or opposition to the war came to the surface within China. This will create difficulties for the Deng regime in the period ahead, and could further open the door to the expression of working-class and peasant opposition to Stalinist policies. The Beijing Stalinists also won near universal condemnation in the world working-class movement; never have they been so isolated as they are today.

Despite improved diplomatic and trade relations with the imperialists, the Chinese workers state has been made more vulnerable to imperialist pressure, and weakened in face of the ultimate danger of military attack aimed at capitalist restoration.

Although Hanoi succeeded in organizing the military defense of Vietnam, due to its Stalinist character it failed to carry out an internationalist campaign directed at winning the support of the Chinese people, including the soldiers of the Chinese army. In Kampuchea Hanoi still seeks to arrive at a modus vivendi with imperialism, rather than promoting a socialist revolution.

The withdrawal of the Chinese army from Vietnam, however, and the consolidation of the victory against the Pol Pot forces will encourage action by the masses there. The impulse given to socialist revolution elsewhere in Southeast Asia, particularly in Laos and Thailand, will ultimately work to undermine the hold of the bureaucratic caste in Hanoi over the Vietnamese masses.

Moscow's stance in face of the current imperialist offensive against Vietnam has been fundamentally the same as it was during the height of the massive U.S. military intervention. Its military and economic aid to Vietnam has been far below what Vietnam needs, and has been used to exert pressure on Hanoi to meet Moscow's foreign policy objectives. The Moscow Stalinists have been in complicity with Washington's diplomatic pressure on Hanoi.

Moscow's central concern has been that the Washington-Beijing alliance will impair Soviet-U.S. relations. In line with this stance, Moscow systematically covered up for U.S. imperialism. The clearest expression of this came in Brezhnev's major policy speech on the China-Vietnam border war, given on March 2,1979. Brezhnev branded China "the most serious threat to peace in the whole world," while failing even to mention Washington's role in the invasion. Moscow's competition with Beijing for imperialism's favor has led it to wage a racist anti-Chinese propaganda campaign within the USSR.

In contrast to Moscow's class-collaborationist line, the position of the Castro leadership was marked by: 1. assertion of the need to aid the Vietnamese revolution to the fullest extent possible; 2. mobilization of the Cuban masses in a spirit of internationalist solidarity with the Vietnamese revolution; 3. condemnation of Washington's responsibility in the conflict; 4. exposure of the Washington-Beijing objective of restoring a proimperialist regime in Kampuchea; 5. differentiation between the Beijing regime (condemned for its traitorous action) and the Chinese people (to whom solidarity was extended). Cuba's position was a continuation of its proletarian internationalist line, as expressed in Che Guevara's famous slogan, "Create Two, Three . . . Many Vietnams!"

The statements by the Cuban government that it was prepared, if requested, to send troops to aid Vietnam was not only a declaration of internationalism, a defiance of imperialism, and a condemnation of Beijing. It was also a clear criticism (within the diplomatic constraints imposed on Havana) of Moscow's stinginess in giving aid to Vietnam. It helped Vietnam fend off the intense imperialist pressure for withdrawal from Kampuchea.

The revolutionary position taken by the Cuban leadership—once again risking retaliation from Washington—confirms that they continue to believe that the fate of Cuba itself depends first of all on the defense and extension of the world revolution. The popularization of this view aids the working people and peasants of Indochina. As a result of this stand, the prestige of the Castro leadership will rise in the eyes of the revolutionary-minded working people throughout the world.

As part of their continuing offensive against the world revolution, the imperialists utilized the China-Vietnam border war to wage a propaganda offensive that included the following main themes:

1. That Washington and the other imperialist powers were not responsible for the invasion of Vietnam; that it was a war rooted in rivalries between "socialist countries," unrelated to any imperialist drive against revolutionary change in Southeast Asia; that the imperialists' role in such conflicts could be that of an "honest broker," helping to restore peace and stability.

2. That workers states have a built-in drive toward war; that communists (and socialists) are prone to fratricidal conflicts; that Marxism, which claims that socialism will eliminate the roots of war, is now a proven failure.

3. That the Sino-Soviet dispute and the rivalry between Beijing and Hanoi for spheres of influence in Southeast Asia was the basic framework for the border war; that the Sino-Soviet dispute could escalate into a third world war; that world politics is entering a new era marked by wars among workers states.

4. That war is caused by age-old problems that exist independently of economic or social systems—problems such as nationalism and national hatreds, struggles over spheres of influence, the need to respond to affronts to national prestige and power rather than "lose face" on the international arena.

5. That after the imperialist armed forces were driven out of Indochina in 1975, the inherent instability in this backward and benighted region exploded into war.

The thrust of this propaganda campaign was designed to win support for the idea that "enlightened" diplomatic and military action by the imperialists, particularly by Washington, could contain the destabilizing impact of developments that threaten world war. In the words of the Wall Street Journal, "the spiral into disorder can be averted only if the U.S. starts to assert itself once again."

This attempt by the U.S. imperialists to chip away at the mass antiwar sentiment that exists met with little success in the American working class. Open U.S. military interventions in other countries would still be met by profound suspicion and massive opposition.

However, the worldwide capitalist ideological offensive did manage to create social-patriotic pressure and exacerbate disorientation and demoralization among petty-bourgeois sectors of the working-class movement and radical circles, which echoed many aspects of the propaganda themes promoted by the imperialists.

In particular, many of these tendencies advanced essentially the same political solution to the conflict as the imperialists: reciprocal withdrawal of Vietnamese troops from Kampuchea and Chinese troops from Vietnam. In general, the explanations for the war that were given by the petty-bourgeois tendencies also deemphasized the centrality of the imperialist drive against revolutionary change in Southeast Asia. They generally discount ed the continuing imperialist role.

In contrast to these capitulatory tendencies, the revolutionary Marxist position on the war centered its fire on the imperialists, and stressed slogans along the following lines:

Hands off Vietnam! Stop the imperialist campaign against the Vietnamese revolution! Solidarity with the struggles of the masses of Kampuchea, Laos, and Thailand against imperialist domination! For massive economic aid to rebuild Indochina!

Within that framework, revolutionary Marxists demanded the immediate withdrawal of Beijing's troops from Vietnam. Revolutionists called on the Soviet Union to give the Vietnamese whatever military supplies they needed—no strings attached—to fend off Beijing's attack, while warning the Kremlin bureaucracy to keep hands of China.

IV. Consolidation of Vietnamese Workers State

The victory of the liberation forces in Vietnam on April 30, 1975, was greeted with an explosion of popular enthusiasm by the masses of workers and peasants.

Workers seized factories to prevent sabotage and theft by fleeing capitalists. Factory and neighborhood committees were formed to organize social and economic life, usually under the leadership of Vietnamese CP cadres. The actions of the masses showed that they looked forward to the speedy overturn of capitalism and the reunification of the country.

The imperialists left behind massive devastation and a disrupted economy. Unemployment was 3.5 million. There were hundreds of thousands of homeless. Prostitution, drug addiction, and disease were widespread in the urban centers. Huge amounts of once-fertile farm land were bomb-cratered, defoliated, and unproductive. Millions of peasants had been forced into the cities.

The Vietnamese CP leaders at first sought to preserve a separate government and capitalist property relations in southern Vietnam. They hoped this would enable them to obtain aid and establish trade with the imperialists, and that the remaining capitalists in the South could be induced to help revive the shattered economy.

Le Duan outlined the VCP's policy in a speech on May 15, 1975. He projected "socialist construction" for the North, but the creation of "a prosperous national-democratic economy" for the South. The Provisional Revolutionary Government was installed as a separate entity in the South on June 6, 1975.

The mass workers mobilization that emerged with liberation was dam pen ed by this class-collaborationist policy, but it was not crushed or eliminated.

The new regime did not allow democratic rights. But it enjoyed sufficient prestige, in the absence of any alternative anticapitalist leadership, to keep control of the masses without resort to extreme repression.

The policy of court ing imperialist help and reviving the economy on a capitalist basis failed. Washington reneged on its 1973 promise to give $2.2 billion in reconstruction aid and instead imposed a tight economic boycott. Trade with other imperialist powers was minimal; they had no confidence in the VCP's capacity to stabilize capitalism in the South, prefer ring instead to use economic pressure to weaken the regime.

The Vietnamese capitalists who had remained in the South made no new investments, and profiteered from their near-total control of commerce. Vietnam remained plagued by inflation, unemployment, and shortages.

As for Vietnam's professed allies, things were not much better. Beijing demanded payment for rice. Moscow stingily extended interest-bearing loans, insufficient to meet Vietnam's needs, and refused to grant long-term credits requested by Hanoi.

In this situation, and under constant pressure from the masses, the VCP was forced to shift from acting as the guardian of capitalist property relations.

The stage of a workers and farmers government was reached after August 1975, when banks were nationalized, some leading merchants were arrested, and a currency reform was carried out. These moves were accompanied by popular demonstrations of outrage against price-gouging, hoarding merchants.

In November 1975 a unified National Assembly for all Vietnam was projected. In July 1976 this body met and formally carried out reunification.

But Hanoi hesitated to expropriate the Southern capitalists, still hoping for imperialist aid, trade, credits, and investment (particularly in offshore oil).

By early 1978, however, it was clear that the imperialists were maintaining and increasing their diplomatic, economic, and military pressure. Furthermore, devastating floods and droughts in 1976 and 1977 forced a drastic reduction of the rice ration; popular anger rose against the hoarding, black-marketeering merchants who profiteered from their control of trade under shortage conditions. The attempt to apply a national economic plan to contradictory economic structures had failed, dangerously increasing dislocations in the North as well. Significant numbers of Stalinist cadres in the South had been forging close and profitable links to the capitalists.

In March 1978 thousands of people were organized under the direction of army cadres to seize the shops and goods of the big merchants. The expropriation of 30,000 firms was announced. Soon after, mass demonstrations were organized to crackdown on the black market. In May, a single currency was introduced for the country.

These measures signal ed the economic unification of Vietnam, establishing a workers state of 50 million people, the third largest in the world.

Vietnam is a deformed workers state. The parasitic caste that dominates the workers and peasants can only be removed by a political revolution and the establishment of workers democracy.

The social revolution in Vietnam has great accomplishments to its credit, despite the grave difficulties caused by the imperialist war, the subsequent economic blockade, and natural disasters.

Capitalism has been abolished, and Vietnam is free of imperialist domination. Unemployment has been vastly reduced. Education and medical care are being extended steadily, with the reduction of illiteracy and the elimination of formerly common epidemic diseases. Through rationing, a more equitable system of food distribution less ens the disastrous effects of food shortages. About 1 million people have been persuaded to move from the overcrowded cities to "new economic zones," where agriculture is being restored under extremely difficult living conditions. The institution of national economic planning for all of Vietnam opens the door to significant improvement in the standard of living.

These conquests, consolidated through the mobilization of mass pressure, contrast sharply with the social disaster in Kampuchea during the same period.

The Vietnamese masses have many criticisms of the VCP for its privileges, its antidemocratic practices, for its corruption and mismanagement. But they are ready to fight to defend their gains against any attack.

Towards the end of 1977, as Vietnam headed toward elimination of the last strongholds of capitalism, the imperialists began a new offensive. Their immediate aim was to contain the revolution, to weaken it, to destabilize Vietnam economically, and to prevent the extension of the revolutionary impulse to Laos, Kampuchea, and Thailand.

The Pol Pot regime, in concert with the imperialist efforts, broke relations with Hanoi and stepped up raids against Vietnam's borders, particularly in the are as of the "new economic zones." At the same time, the Pol Pot regime began to mend its fences with the Kriangsak dictatorship in Thailand and the other ASEAN regimes. Beijing, for its part, showed increasing hostility to Vietnam, building up its troop strength on the border. Thus both Pnompenh and Beijing signal ed their collusion with imperialism against the Vietnamese revolution.

Despite numerous diplomatic overtures by Hanoi, Washington reaffirmed its refusal to recognize the Vietnamese government. With the massive expropriations in early 1978, imperialist hostility to Vietnam increased. In September 1978, at the very time that Hanoi was appealing for emergency food aid, Carter reaffirmed the U.S. trade embargo against Vietnam.

In face of this hostility and encirclement, Hanoi felt compelled to act while it still had a favorable opportunity, to take a military initiative against Pol Pot in cooperation with Kampuchean rebels. The orientation to topple the increasingly proimperialist Pol Pot regime was an act of self-defense for the Vietnamese workers state. The fall of Pol Pot was a step forward for the Vietnamese revolution and for the Kampuchean workers and peasants.

Accompanying the imperialists' military and economic pressures has been a propaganda campaign centering on three themes:

1. They bemoan the "tragic" fate of the "boat people," who are said to be fleeing oppression in Vietnam. Actually, most of the "boat people" are expropriated merchants, traders, and the like who left Vietnam voluntarily after losing their property and privileges. The imperialists, whose bombs forced millions of people into homelessness, have hypocritically closed their own doors to the "boat people."

2. They charge that there is a "Gulag" in southern Vietnam, claiming that the regime is just as repressive as its U.S.-backed predecessor. But those people being held in "re-education camps" are mostly the officials and army officers of the old regime, many of them guilty of war crimes. They have not been treated in the horrendous manner they once treated the liberation fighters who fell into their hands.

There are no equivalents in southern Vietnam to Stalin's "Gulag" prison camps, in which millions of working-class dissent ers perished. The capitalist propaganda on this helps divert attention from the very real capitalist "Gulags" elsewhere in Southeast Asia such as Indonesia and the Philippines. It is also aimed at justifying the imperialist war in Vietnam, and laying the groundwork for imperialist military intervention elsewhere.

3. They claim that Vietnam is an expansionist power, seeking to enlarge its ancient "sphere of influence" and dominate the people of Indochina. This propaganda line is designed to discredit resistance to imperialist maneuvers, the alliance between Laos and Vietnam, and the toppling of Pol Pot.

The Fourth International ex poses and condemns these lies and explains the truth about Vietnam.

The devastation of war, imperialist economic pressure, and the effects of recent droughts and flooding weigh heavily on the people of Vietnam, Laos, and Kampuchea. The Fourth International places the blame for this first and foremost on imperialism and calls for massive assistance to reconstruct these countries. We call for full diplomatic relations with the government of Vietnam and the new government of Kampuchea, and for an end to the U.S. economic blockade. We demand that the imperialists end their arms shipments to Southeast Asia and withdraw the U.S. Seventh Fleet and all military bases now!

V. The Class Struggle in Kampuchea

In March 1970 a U.S.-backed coup toppled the Sihanouk regime and installed Lon Nol's military dictatorship in Kampuchea. Long-simmering unrest exploded.

The Vietnamese CP had supported Sihanouk's landlord-capitalist regime in exchange for the use of eastern Kampuchea as a military base. When the Lon Nol regime, with U.S. and Saigon army backing, moved to crush these bases, the Vietnamese acted in self-defense. They joined with Kampuchean Communist Party-led guerrillas to fight Lon Nol. An uprising swept the countryside, and a powerful peasant army of 50,000 was mobilized. The "Khmer Rouge" army quickly won control of almost the entire countryside.

Like the Vietnamese CP, the Kampuchean CP was a Stalinist party. Part of an international current in the workers movement, the KCP was petty-bourgeois in program, composition, and leadership. It advocated the preservation of a reformed capitalism, rather than the establishment of a workers state. For this purpose, the KCP created the National United Front of Kampuchea (FUNK), headed by Prince Sihanouk and encompassing other landlord-capitalist politicians.

At the time of the Paris Accords of January 1973, the VCP pressed the KCP leaders to reach a settlement with the Lon Nol dictatorship. Most Khmer Rouge leaders appear to have opposed this. In response, the Vietnamese Stalinists sharply reduced their military assistance, leaving the Kampuchean fighters isolated during the most savage U.S. bombing of the Indochina war.

The wing of the Kampuchean CP led by Pol Pot, Ieng Sary, and Khieu Samphan used this as a pretext to purge the party of those suspected of "pro-Vietnamese" sympathies. At the same time, they carried out sweeping repression in the liberated zones most tightly under their control, robbing the land of poor peasants as well as expropriating the exploiters, and carrying out forced population transfers.

The fall of Pnompenh to Khmer Rouge forces on April 17, 1975, placed the KCP leaders at the head of a nation whose social and economic structure had been shattered by civil war and U.S. bombing. Massive starvation was a real danger. Under these circumstances, only the establishment of a workers and peasants government and the mobilization of the oppressed and exploited masses to topple capitalism could have blocked economic and social catastrophe, and opened the road forward.

But the Pol Pot-Ieng Sary-Khieu Samphan wing of the Khmer Rouge followed an opposite course.

Upon coming to power, the Pol Pot regime carried out sweeping nationalizations of private property. Not only were the imperialists, the Kampuchean bourgeoisie, and the landlords expropriated, but the property of the poorer peasants and petty urban traders and peddlers was seized as well. The Pol Pot forces executed, imprisoned, and suppressed not only the former officials of the old regime, but real or imagined dissidents of any kind. The city workers and other technically skilled and educated persons were particularly suspect.

From its first day in Pnompenh, the regime launched a brutal reactionary drive against the workers and urban poor, forcibly expel ling them to the countryside and treating them as enemies. Shortly thereafter the regime moved brutally to disperse the poor peasants throughout Kampuchea, conducting forced migrations to agricultural labor camps. Even cooking utensils and extra clothing belonging to the poor peasants were eventually confiscated. The aim was to atomize the urban and rural masses and prevent resistance. The cost was great human suffering: death, illness, and starvation.

The Pol Pot regime slashed or eliminated public services of all kinds. They decreed the seven-day workweek and extended the hours of the working day. They instituted child labor. They eliminated all higher education and most elementary education, as well as most medical care. Transportation and communications networks were slashed to a minimum or collapsed altogether.

At the same time privileges enabling better living conditions were granted the Khmer Rouge.

To enforce this brutal reduction in the expectations and living standards of the masses, the regime instituted a totalitarian repression that envelop ed every aspect of every individual's life.

The Pol Pot regime's "nationalizations" and "collectivizations" had nothing in common with the expropriation of the capitalists and landlords for which the workers and peasants had fought. The workers were dispersed; industrial production and manufacture were set back. The peasant mobilizations that had brought the Khmer Rouge to power were reversed. The social forces capable of advancing the anticapitalist struggle were crushed.

The capitalist state apparatus that had previously existed was smashed, but the emergence of a workers and peasants government was blocked. Any chance for a political alliance between the proletariat and the poor rural toilers was destroyed. The brutal and sudden expropriation of the poor peasants was a blow to the interests of the workers. The working class was not able to replace the shattered foundations of Kampuchean society with a new social order. The so-called suppression of money did not, and could not, eliminate either commodity circulation or the use of money commodities. This was a temporary, administrative measure, whose goal and main effect was a further restriction of the consumption of the masses in favor of the privileged apparatus.

Without a thoroughgoing social revolution—clear economic and social advances for the toiling masses which they are willing to defend against all attempts to reverse them—there is only one possible outcome of sweeping expropriations by a petty-bourgeois leadership. That is increasing private capitalist accumulation by the petty bourgeoisie in the government bureaucracy, the army, the agricultural labor camps, and in assorted nooks and crannies of the economy. In this respect, Kampuchea, albeit with a primitive, highly dislocated economy, resembled other capitalist states where sweeping nationalization has occurred, rather than workers states such as China or Vietnam.

The nationalization of property is not of itself sufficient to establish a workers state. Also necessary is the establishment of the workers as the ruling class through the transformation of the relations of production in the interests of the workers and their allies.

This was demonstrated most clearly in the Russian and Cuban revolutions, where revolutionary leaderships consciously guided the mass upheaval. It was also shown in the socialist revolutions that were deformed by Stalinist misleadership—from the overturns in Eastern Europe and China to the social transformations that reached a qualitative turning point in Vietnam last year. The nationalizations and forced labor camps in Kampuchea were not a conquest of the workers and in no way constituted a step toward solving the social and economic problems facing the Kampuchean masses.

Despite a temporary estrangement, the Pol Pot regime found that it required imperialist backing as the ultimate weapon against the workers and peasants, particularly in face of the revolutionary process in Vietnam. Pnompenh's alliance with Beijing also grew closer, as the latter bid more and more openly for imperialist aid.

The imperialists at first greatly distrust ed the Khmer Rouge regime and exploited its brutal actions for anticommunist propaganda purposes. But as the revolutionary process deepened in Vietnam, the imperialists and the neighboring capitalist regimes began looking at Kampuchea in a new light.

From the beginning, the Pol Pot regime resorted to anti-Vietnamese chauvinism and provoked military conflicts on the border, in hopes of sealing off the impact of the Vietnamese revolution. These incidents accelerated to the level of a border war in late 1977, forcing Vietnam to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people from the border regions. On December 31, 1977, Kampuchea broke relations with Vietnam.

The Pol Pot regime established diplomatic relations with Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia. It moved toward establishing relations with Australia.

Border incidents between Kampuchea and Thailand receded. Border incidents between Kampuchea and Laos stepped up.

News reports in the capitalist press began to soft pedal the violations of human rights in Kampuchea. Instead, capitalist propaganda focused on the threat of "Vietnamese expansionism." In late 1978, the U.S. State Department stressed—in reference to Kampuchea—the need for "a stable system of independent states." Japanese imperialism started making plans to aid the Pol Pot regime, to try to make it economically viable in face of the threatening example of the Vietnamese revolution.

Oppositionists in Kampuchea, however, who responded to the pressure of the workers and peasants, hoped for support from the Vietnamese revolution.

In mid-1978—after the Kampuchean regime had broken diplomatic relations with Vietnam, after Pnompenh launched increasingly bloody border raids despite Vietnamese retaliation, and after Pnompenh rejected all offers to negotiate, indicating they felt confident of powerful backing—Hanoi abandoned its earlier goal of resolving the differences peacefully. In addition to the aid that Pnompenh received from Beijing, Hanoi had good reason to assume that Pol Pot would soon be receiving U.S. economic, diplomatic, and military help as part of the imperialist efforts to put pressure on Vietnam.

In face of this situation, Hanoi strengthened its ties with oppositionists within the KCP and the Khmer Rouge apparatus. Guerrilla warfare against the Pol Pot regime started up in eastern Kampuchea. Other rebellions occurred elsewhere.

The need to defend the Vietnamese workers state led Hanoi to send massive numbers of troops into Kampuchea in December 1978, helping the rebels to establish a new government.

The Fourth International hails the fall of Pol Pot as an advance for the Kampuchean revolution. This creates an opening for the masses to struggle for a workers and peasants government that can undertake the measures and lead the mobilizations necessary to establish a workers state.

The class-collaborationist line of the Vietnamese Stalinists and the new Heng Samrin government in Kampuchea stand in the way of such an advance. Nevertheless, in response to the pressure of the imperialists and the demands of the masses, they may be forced to go further than they originally intended in undertaking anticapitalist measures.

Immediately after the fall of Pol Pot, the new government and its Vietnamese backers were put under heavy pressure in three key policy are as: 1. to reorganize and restore agricultural production and take steps to undo the damage done by Pol Pot's forced labor camps; 2. to renew and expand industrial production and manufacture and to provide for the livelihood of the people returning to the cities and villages; and 3. to establish administrative and military structures that can mobilize and arm the masses to protect the population from punitive raids by the Khmer Rouge.

Although the Heng Samrin government has had to rely to a degree on popular mobilizations, it cannot be given any confidence to carry out the measures needed. This requires the active intervention of the workers and peasants. The goal of the Fourth International is to support and participate in the struggles of the Kampuchean workers and peasants in order to help forge a mass revolutionary Marxist, genuinely internationalist party in Kampuchea.

A key immediate need is for food, medical supplies, and reconstruction aid. An international campaign should be launched demanding that all governments, particularly the imperialists, who bear the main responsibility, grant massive aid to reconstruct Kampuchea and stave off the threat of famine; for recognition of the new Pnompenh regime; and for an end to imperialist, Thai, and Beijing backing for the Pol Pot and Khmer Serai forces.

VI. Revolutionary Change in Southeast Asia

The victory of the liberation forces in Vietnam in 1975 shifted the relationship of class forces throughout Southeast Asia in favor of the working class and its toiling allies.

The greatest advances in the intervening years outside Vietnam have been in Laos, one of the poorest and smallest countries of Asia.

Following the 1973 Paris Accords, a coalition government, including both the Stalinist Path et Lao and proimperialist forces, was established in Vientiane. But after the 1975 victory in Vietnam, mobilizations of workers, students, and urban poor precipitated the breakup of the coalition. In December 1975 the Path et Lao dispersed the coalition and took sole responsibility for the government.

In the following three years, the government of Premier Kaysone Phomvihane has followed a vacillating but increasingly anticapitalist course. The royal army was disbanded. The monarchy was abolished. The big landlords were expropriated, and land distributed to landless peasants. The privileges of the caste of Buddhist monks were reduced. Foreign firms were expropriated and most Laotian-owned businesses were placed under state or joint state-private ownership. Education and medical care were rapidly expanded. Although much trade still remains in private hands, the rationing of necessities was introduced.

The Phomvihane government is trying to end large-scale cultivation and trade in opium. (Opium had been the country's principal export under the old regime and the biggest concentration of merchant capital; its continued production facilitates imperialist economic penetration and poses a military threat from the strong, imperialist-backed mercenary armies connected with the opium trade.)

These moves mark the Laotian government as a workers and peasants government, although one that is dominated by a Stalinist party that en sur es its own control over the mass mobilizations and does not allow democratic decision-making by the workers and peasants.

The Laotian government has forged a close alliance with Vietnam, formalized in the twenty-five-year military and economic pact signed in July 1977. For this, the capitalist media denounces Laos as a "puppet" of Vietnam. In fact, Laos and Vietnam were brought closer together as a result of the developing social revolution in both countries.

The Fourth International rejects the counterrevolutionary slander campaign against the Laotian revolution. But we grant no political confidence to the Laotian Stalinists, who have indicated their fear of the spreading revolution by signing an "anti subversion" agreement with Thailand and by pressuring the Thai guerrillas to leave their bases in Laos. We stand for the construction of an independent revolutionary Marxist leadership in Laos, as in Vietnam and Kampuchea.

In the other countries of Southeast Asia the example of the Vietnamese and Laotian revolutions, combined with the effects of the imperialist economic crisis, has produced growing social unrest.

Most deeply affected was Thailand. It had already been shaken by an upsurge of workers, peasants and students in 1973, which toppled the dictatorship of Than om Kittikachorn. A capitalist counteroffensive was launched in October 1976, with a rightist military coup that installed General Than in Kravichien. A bloody repression began.

Popular unrest continued to deepen, however. The workers in trade unions and the peasants fighting for land refused to be intimidated. The capitalist rulers then changed course. A new coup brought General Kriangsak Chamanan to power in 1977. He tried to contain unrest by holding elections and introducing Thailand's first minimum wage. But in the existing conditions of economic crisis, the workers and peasants have become more impoverished under his rule.

A peasant war has been gaining momentum in the Thai countryside, particularly in the north and northeast. It has the support of the Peasants Federation of Thailand, which organized massive peasant demonstrations in Bangkok in the mid-1970s. Peasant insurgents headed by the Communist Party of Thailand are now reported to be operating in forty-six of Thailand's seventy-three provinces.

The Kriangsak regime saw the example of the Vietnamese revolution as a deadly threat and sought to prop up the Pol Pot regime as a buffer against the spread of the revolution. But Bangkok was dealt a blow when the overthrow of Pol Pot and the continued deepening of the revolution in Laos brought the revolutionary threat to Thailand's borders. In addition to asking Beijing to counsel restraint to the Thai CP, Kriangsak visited Moscow to seek its help in Kampuchea.

Elsewhere in the region—in Bur ma, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia—the social crisis continues, although in less intense form than in Indochina.

U.S. imperialism realizes that its ASEAN satellites cannot by themselves resist the spread of revolution. Massive direct use of imperialist military forces will be needed. Hence the current propaganda campaign that portrays "Vietnamese expansionism" or "Sino-Soviet competition" in Southeast Asia as the source of the war danger in that region. Behind this smokescreen imperialism has canceled troop withdrawals from South Korea, and is moving to strengthen the Seventh Fleet, rearm Japan, and assure military ties with the Taiwan regime.

The Fourth International denounces the imperialist moves in East and Southeast Asia. We unconditionally defend the steps that the Vietnamese revolution has taken in response to the imperialist moves.

But we grant no political confidence to Hanoi. Hanoi does not aim to take advantage of the opportunities to extend the revolution in Southeast Asia. Like Beijing and Moscow, the caste in Vietnam seeks a class-collaborationist deal with U.S. imperialism. Pham Van Dong's declarations of opposition to the peasant struggle in Thailand during his tour of Southeast Asia in late 1978 indicate the willingness of the Hanoi leaders to move against revolutionary-minded workers and peasants if imperialism will agree to a détente with Vietnam.

However, the measures taken by Hanoi to defend the workers state encourage the workers and peasants of Vietnam and elsewhere in the region, and can facilitate class mobilizations that will take the social revolution further than the Stalinist mislead ers intend.

VII. Washington and Beijing

The Chinese Stalinist leadership has been increasingly open in promoting its counterrevolutionary line.

This posture was already blatant in the early 1970s. Mao's regime established friendly relations with the Nixon government at the very time that Washington was brutalizing Vietnam with saturation bombing. Politically, it was not a very big step from that form of complicity with imperialism to the more direct form that Beijing took by invading Vietnam in 1979.

The Beijing Stalinists have always sought peaceful coexistence. Even in the heyday of its leftist rhetoric, in 1968, the Mao regime made clear overtures to Washington. But it was not until U.S. imperialism ran into deeper trouble in Indochina that Washington decided to accept Beijing's standing offer.

Washington's turn towards détente with Beijing released the Chinese Stalinists from the constraints on their official stance that had been previously imposed, owing to the hostility of U.S. imperialism. Beijing became brazen in its support for imperialism and the worst capitalist dictatorships of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. It gave support to the shah's dictatorship in Iran and the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile; it endorsed the 1978 imperialist military intervention in Zaïre by French and Belgian troops backed by the United States and Britain; it hails NATO and the U.S.-Japan military treaty; it calls for American imperialism to "punish" the Cuban revolution.

Beijing has bid for a preferential détente relationship with Washington to the detriment of Moscow. Trade arrangements are increasing. For Washington, however, the relationship it has with Moscow remains central. The Soviet Union has qualitatively greater weight militarily. Moreover, Moscow retains far greater influence in the world working-class movement than Beijing, and can much more effectively intervene and affect the course of events in many countries to the benefit of imperialism. In most are as of the world Beijing's influence in the working class is limited. Nonetheless, in speaking in the name of 900 million people, its extreme verbal support for imperialism not only brings discredit to Chinese Stalinism but is useful to world capitalism.

The Chinese Stalinists do, however, have the capacity to directly affect developments in Southeast Asia.

During the long Indochina war Beijing continually urged restraint on the part of the liberation fighters. The continuation of this line was signal ed most recently by: 1. Beijing's campaign in defense of the expropriated capitalist merchants and traders of southern Vietnam and its bitter hostility to the extension and consolidation of the Vietnamese workers state in the South; 2. Beijing's efforts to undermine the workers and farmers government in Laos; 3. Beijing's support for the brutal repression of workers and peasants by the Pol Pot regime in Kampuchea, and its success in helping to draw that regime closer to imperialism and the capitalist states of the region; 4. Beijing's open endorsement of the ASEAN capitalist regional bloc aiming to prevent the spread of revolution in the area.

Beijing has significant influence in the Stalinist parties of Southeast Asia, including in the Thai CP, which plays a prominent role in peasant struggles in the countryside.

Although Beijing continues to profess support for the struggles in Thailand, it has been acting to betray them. A high-level source in Bangkok described his government's reaction to Beijing's current policy as follows: "actions speak loud er than words. We see no evidence of increased Chinese support for insurgency. So in this case the actions are different from the words." (Far Eastern Economic Review, November 10, 1978.) Bangkok sees accurately that Beijing's role in Thailand is to try to prevent the class struggle from threatening the ruling order.

Bangkok is also reported to have the following view of Beijing's role in Southeast Asia as a whole: "Nor do the Thais fully sympathize with Hanoi's charge that Peking's control of communist insurgency, the influence of the Overseas Chinese, and its economic weight are weapons designed to dominate Southeast Asia. The Thais view Chinese influence from within as potential support for the regime, if Thailand's foreign policy conforms to Peking's basic interests." (Ibid.)

This is an accurate assessment of Beijing's objective. Contrary to Hanoi's claims, Beijing is not aiming to dominate Southeast Asia and turn it into a Chinese "sphere of influence." Nor is it aiming to conquer or dominate Vietnam, or to topple the Hanoi government.

As a workers state, China does not have a built-in expansionist drive to exploit or dominate the working masses of other countries. It is fundamentally different from a capitalist state in this respect. On the contrary, the Chinese workers state is under constant pressure from imperialism and the imperialists' capitalist foot holds in the region.

The government of China is dominated by a parasitic caste. The basic aim of this Stalinist caste is to preserve its privileges within the framework of the workers state. These privileges are in the area of consumption. The caste does not accumulate capital, and it does not have a drive to expand into new are as of trade or investment.

What the caste seeks, above all, is to steer a course toward stability, under pressure both from the imperialists and the class struggle.

Vis-à-vis the imperialists, and the neighboring capitalist states dominated by imperialism, such as those of ASEAN, Beijing seeks peaceful coexistence, that is, guarantees against attack and, if possible, friendly relations, technology, and trade.

Vis-à-vis the Chinese working people and peasants, and the toiling masses of the world, Beijing also seeks to be left alone, that is, to preserve the status quo. They constantly crush any motion toward workers democracy; they aim to head off the destabilizing impact of revolutionary outbursts in other countries; and they need to deliver economic progress in China to stave off mass discontent.

Deng Xiaoping's government is under particular pressure domestically at this time to deliver rapidly on its promise of the "Four Modernizations." This flows from the economic failures inherited from the Mao era—the hovering of agricultural production at subsistence level for two decades and the stagnation of industrial development—combined with popular discontent with the extreme political and cultural repression of the years following the so-called Cultural Revolution. This domestic pressure has made the bureaucracy especially anxious to obtain an infusion of advanced technology from Western imperialism.

This framework explains the Chinese invasion of Vietnam.

In return for improved diplomatic relations with the imperialists and economic aid and trade, Beijing has undertaken to do what it can to prevent revolutionary change, particularly in Southeast Asia. Beijing's invasion of Vietnam was a move in the service of imperialism against the threatening example of the Vietnamese revolution.

This framework also clarifies how the Sino-Soviet conflict relates to Southeast Asia.

Both Moscow and Beijing are motivated primarily by their objective of peaceful coexistence with imperialism. Each sees the other as a competitor in that objective (a rivalry that the imperialists continually aim to exacerbate and exploit).

Despite the bitter verbal attacks, neither Beijing nor Moscow is out to dominate or conquer the other. They are not competing for "spheres of influence" designed to protect themselves from economic offensives or military attacks by the other. The tension between them in Southeast Asia is not a spillover from the tension on the Sino-Soviet border.

Nor is the situation comparable to that when Moscow invaded Hungary in 1956 or Czechoslovakia in 1968 to put down developments leading toward political revolution. There, the Kremlin sought to check unfolding processes that threatened the caste's own privileged position at home.

Politically motivated border wars are possible between Beijing and Moscow (one large-scale clash already occurred on the Ussuri River in 1969), just as they are possible between Beijing and Hanoi. But the ruling class in each of the workers states—that is, the working class—will not permit the inter-bureaucratic rivalries to reach the point of imperiling their most fundamental class conquest, the workers states themselves.

Thus, the verbal violence of the Sino-Soviet dispute does not point to a new era of major wars between workers states. It is, rather, a sign that the respective Stalinist castes are desperate in their need to firm up their détente relationships with imperialism, and that each sees the other as a bitter competitor in that effort.

Far from pushing toward an era of "socialist world wars," the criminal policies of the Stalinist castes in Beijing and Moscow are undermining their stranglehold over the Soviet and Chinese workers, thereby bringing closer the day of final reckoning through the political revolution.

VIII. Where United Secretariat Majority Went Wrong

The United Secretariat of the Fourth International issued three declarations in the course of the developments in Indochina over the past period.

• A January 16, 1978, statement, "The Border 'War' Between Hanoi and Pnompenh," adopted unanimously by the Bureau of the United Secretariat and issued in the name of the United Secretariat. (Published in Intercontinental Press/Inprecor, February 6, 1978.)

• A February 1, 1979, statement, "The War Between Hanoi and Pnompenh," approved by a majority of the Bureau of the United Secretariat. (Published in Intercontinental Press/Inprecor, February 5, 1979.)

• A February 21, 1979, statement, "Chinese Troops Out of Vietnam!" adopted by a majority of the Bureau of the United Secretariat. (Published in Intercontinental Press/Inprecor, March 12, 1979.)

The line and analyses of all three statements are fundamentally wrong. Five major errors can be singled out.

1. Failure to take the class struggle as the point of departure and see the responsibility of the imperialists in the conflicts.

Neither the February 1, 1979, nor the February 21, 1979, statements takes note of the overturns of capitalist property relations in southern Vietnam as a factor in the conflicts. Neither statement recognizes the positive impact given to the class struggle in Kampuchea as a result of the overturn of the Pol Pot regime.

The February 1 statement, the major statement on the Vietnam-Kampuchea conflict, treats the current imperialist campaign against Vietnam as a factor of fifth-rate importance, barely mentioning it at the conclusion of the statements.

No mention is made in any of the three statements of the significance of the imperialists' prior turn toward the Pol Pot regime.

No consideration is given to the positive impact on the class struggle throughout Southeast Asia of the recent developments in Vietnam and Kampuchea.

The January 16, 1978, statement describes the conflict between Vietnam and Kampuchea at that time as a "fratricidal war," a "bloody border conflict." Although correctly fore seeing that the conflict "could deteriorate into a broader military conflict," no mention is made of the imperialist objectives in Indochina, other than their attempt to exploit the conflict for anticommunist propaganda.

The February 1, 1979, statement says that in relation to the Vietnam-Kampuchea war, revolutionary Marxists concentrate "their main fire against imperialism." But imperialism is not presented as a causal factor in the conflict. The imperialists are charged only with the sin of hypocrisy—supporting Kampuchea's "national sovereignty" after having so ruthlessly bombed it in previous years, and with trying to profit politically from this issue, using it as a "pretext" against Vietnam. The imperialists' actual objective of installing a proimperialist government in Kampuchea is overlooked.

Despite the reference to concentrating the "main fire on the imperialists," the source of the conflict is presented as "the responsibility of the ruling bureaucracies" of the USSR, China, Vietnam, and Kampuchea, "without any distinction among them."

The January 16, 1968, statement does not specifically mention the class character of Kampuchea. The February 1, 1979, statement implies that Kampuchea is a workers state, by saying that the Vietnam-Kampuchea conflict is one of the "fratricidal wars and threats of military action between workers states." This is wrong.

In the February 21, 1979, statement on Beijing's invasion of Vietnam, the imperialists are presented only as trying to "exploit" the conflict to their advantage. The statement notes that Beijing acted in response to the overturn of the Pol Pot regime, but rejects imperialism's objectives in Kampuchea as a causal factor. The direct collusion between Beijing and Washington is not noted. (No mention is made of Deng Xiaoping's prior consultations in Washington and Tokyo, for example.) Beijing is presented only as "objectively" aiding the imperialists' goal of weakening Vietnam and strengthening the capitalist states of the region.

The February 21 statement asserts that Beijing's aggression "falls within a broader political context that gives it its true significance and scope. It is the conflict between the Soviet and Chinese bureaucracies, for which the Kremlin bears the historic responsibility, that constitutes the framework for the clashes between the Chinese, Vietnamese, and Khmer Rouge leaderships."

Thus, the axis of the statements of the United Secretariat was wrong.

2. Failure to promote a correct revolutionary Marxist line in the conflicts.

Grave errors in line flowed directly from the incorrect evaluations noted above.

The January 16, 1978, statement called for "an immediate suspension of the armed clashes" between Vietnam and Kampuchea and said "the border issue should be settled through open and public negotiations." It failed to raise the need to defend the Vietnamese workers state against the imperialist drive being carried out through the increasingly proimperialist government in Kampuchea.

The February 1, 1979, statement came out for "opposing the invasion of Cambodia by the regular Vietnamese army." It advocated "immediate withdrawal of the Vietnamese army from Cambodia." It thus failed to support the defensive military measures taken by the Vietnamese workers state.

Although stating opposition to the Pol Pot regime, the effect of the immediate withdrawal line, if implemented, would have facilitated the efforts of the Pol Pot forces to re-establish a proimperialist regime in Kampuchea, threatening the Vietnamese revolution as well. The line of the statement offered no perspective for the Kampuchean masses to assert their independent interests.

The February 21, 1979, statement on Beijing's invasion failed to direct its main slogans against imperialism.

Although the statement correctly called for the immediate withdrawal of Chinese troops from Vietnam and correctly warned against Soviet attacks against China, it failed to call on Moscow to give Vietnam whatever military supplies it needed to defend itself. This gave the impression of a pacifist appeal for Beijing to pull out.

Another error, albeit less grave, was the way in which the January 16, 1978, statement raised the call for a "Socialist United States of Indochina" and the February 1, 1979, statement the slogan of a "democratic socialist federation of the Indochinese peoples." Although this general objective is correct, the two statements presented it as an abstract substitute for addressing the immediate central problem confronting the Indochinese revolution. The way the slogan was raised suggested that the major problem was to overcome fratricidal conflict among the Indochinese workers states and the danger of Vietnamese domination over the Laotian and Kampuchean peoples.

This framework was wrong. It was simply another way of saying that the real problem was Vietnamese "expansionism."

To the contrary, the central problem in Kampuchea at the present time is twofold: 1. To crush the remnants of the reactionary Pol Pot forces. Rather than showing hostility to the Vietnamese forces, the Kampuchean masses have welcomed the aid and protection they received from Vietnam in the fight against Pol Pot. 2. To take steps to reorganize the Kampuchean economy and society through the establishment of a workers state.

The perspective of a socialist federation of Indochina makes political sense only within this framework.

3. Failure to correctly explain the conflicts.

All three statements maintain that the central responsibility for the conflicts lies with the bureaucracies of the workers states. The two main explanations for their actions are the Sino-Soviet dispute and nationalism.

a. The Sino-Soviet dispute.

The January 16, 1978, statement asserts that "the Sino-Soviet conflict has played a direct role in the deterioration of relations between Vietnam and Cambodia." Moscow is said to be acting out of "fear of the pro-Chinese sympathies of Sihanouk and the Khmer Rouge." Beijing's goal was "to resist the spread of Vietnamese [and Soviet] influence in the area." Thus, "the Soviet and Chinese leaderships are both covering up for their 'ally' in the conflict between Vietnam and Cambodia. . . ."

The February 1, 1979, statement asserts that by its policies over the years, "the Soviet bureaucracy created the framework for the unfolding of the ensuing tragedy"; that "the Chinese bureaucracy in turn used its hegemony over the Cambodian CP leadership to whip up a systematic anti-Soviet and anti-Vietnamese campaign"; and that "the Vietnamese bureaucracy transformed the concept of [an Indochinese] federation into a formula scarcely hiding Vietnamese domination and control." "Under these circumstances," the statement continues, "it was inevitable that traditional Cambodian nationalist hostility to the Vietnamese would again unfold and give both the Chinese bureaucracy and its stooges in Pnompenh the necessary basis for their irresponsible campaigns against the Vietnamese workers state."

Although the statement asserts that "each of these bureaucracies" was acting "with arms in hand" in order "to defend its own immediate interests," it never explains what material interests were involved.

Both statements tend to present the conflicts as stemming from false ideas. The January 16, 1978, statement says: "Had the Stalinist ideology of "socialism in one country' not triumphed, the sharpness of the confrontation between Vietnam and Cambodia would be inconceivable." The February 1, 1979, statement says that the conflicts "represent the coming to maturity of the poisonous fruits of Stalin's theory of 'socialism in one country.'"

The February 21, 1979, statement on the China-Vietnam border war asserts that in addition to seeking capitalist stability in Southeast Asia, the Soviet bureaucracy seeks to "extend its own influence by capitalizing on its ties with the Vietnamese regime," while Beijing, on the other hand, considers the area "part of its sphere of influence."

In all these explanations, the central factors in the Sino-Soviet rivalry are omitted or their importance is rejected: the competition between the castes for relations with the imperialists and the attempt to defend their privileges in the area of consumption by trying to contain the class struggle and prevent the spread of revolutionary developments.

Rejecting these considerations, the February 1, 1979, statement says that Hanoi took an "irresponsible" action in Kampuchea and the February 21, 1979, statement says that Beijing was "showing its blindness" in invading Vietnam. In fact, however, both Hanoi and Beijing acted rationally from their own caste stand points. Despite Hanoi's Stalinist methods, however, its action coincided with the interests of the Vietnamese and Kampuchean workers; Beijing's action, to the contrary, damaged the interests of the Chinese workers and the defense of their social gains.

Instead of seeing the bureaucratic castes as non expansion ist by nature, the assumption is that workers states dominated by bureaucratic castes have a built-in drive towards war, based on trying to extend their spheres of influence. The February 21, 1979, statement says that "the infernal logic of inter-bureaucratic conflicts has prevailed." Even worse, it says, "the debacle suffered by the U.S. forces in Indochina, and the weakening of imperialism's position in Asia, have made it harder for the imperialists to intervene directly, and have made it easier for conflicts between bureaucracies following an orientation of building 'socialism in one country' to take a military form."

If drawn out to its logical conclusions, this assessment would call into question the Trotskyist position rejecting the notion that the workers states, even bureaucratically degenerated or deformed, have no built-in drive toward war.

b. Nationalism.

Both the January 16, 1978, and the February 1, 1979, statements place strong emphasis on nationalism as a causal factor in the Vietnam-Kampuchea conflict. A virulent form of nationalism is ascribed not only to the regimes in Kampuchea and Vietnam, but to the masses as well. No distinction is made between the nationalism of the masses and the nationalism of the regimes. Nor is any distinction made between the nationalism of the bureaucratic caste in Vietnam and the nationalism of the capitalist Pol Pot regime in Kampuchea.

The January 16, 1978, statement says, "The weight of Stalinism internationally and the Stalinist training of the Vietnamese and Cambodian leaderships partly explain the extent of the resurgence of nationalism in Indochina."

The February 1, 1979, statement says that "Stalin's theory of 'socialism in one country'" led to "nationalism and nationalistic messianism getting the upper hand in bureaucratized communist parties."

While it is true that Stalinist castes conceive of and present their own interests in nationalist terms, this is not the fundamental cause of their actions. In defending their own caste interests, they falsely identify these interests with those of the nation as a whole. Their nationalism is but a guise for their interests as a parasitic caste. Capitalist regimes likewise identify their class interests with those of the nation as a whole. Here, too, it is necessary to delve below the ideology to expose the material class interests at work.

Hanoi was guided by the necessity of defending its caste interests in face of the growing imperialist pressure, in particular in face of the imperialist turn toward using the Pol Pot regime against the Vietnamese workers state. Thus Hanoi moved against the Pol Pot regime, while at the same time trying to keep the lid on struggles by the workers and peasants.

The capitalist Pol Pot regime, on the other hand, was guided by the necessity of defending its class interests against the threatened spread of the example of the Vietnamese socialist revolution.

Although both regimes resorted to chauvinistic appeals, their ideological views stemmed from different sources. Failure to distinguish the material roots of nationalism led the United Secretariat majority's statements into the trap of a non materialist explanation for the conflict.

The nationalism of the toiling masses is a different matter. Although the workers and peasants can be misled into following the chauvinistic ideologies of the respective governing regimes, this is not the only source for the nationalism of the masses. Often it reflects not a false ideology but a partial recognition of their real class interests. An example is the intense anti-imperialist nationalism of the workers and peasants of Vietnam, Laos, and Kampuchea during the imperialist military interventions in Indochina. As an expression, albeit partial, of the real class interests of the workers and peasants, this nationalism was and remains progressive, advancing rather than hinder ing the development of proletarian internationalism.

It is false to speak, as the February 1, 1979, statement does, of a "traditional Cambodian nationalist hostility to the Vietnamese," as if this were a constant attribute of the consciousness of the masses. It is likewise false to assert, as the January 16, 1978, statement does, that there has been a "resurgence of nationalism in Indochina" and to imply that for the masses the "historic animosity [was] deliberately intensified by imperialism" and that their "outlook [was] mold ed by more than thirty years of long-isolated national liberation struggles."

On the contrary, the anti-imperialist nationalism of the masses that arose in response to the imperialists drew the Kampuchean and Vietnamese people closer together, not further apart.

Furthermore, there is no evidence that the Vietnamese action in Kampuchea provoked nationalist hostility among the Kampuchean masses. On the contrary, there is evidence that the Kampuchean masses supported the new turn of events and saw their own interests advanced as a result—a situation that is inexplicable in the framework given in the United Secretariat declarations.

It is also to be noted that the February 1 statement neglects to explain how the "resurgence of nationalism in Indochina" applies to Laos. Here, it seems, the "historic animosity" toward Vietnam has not been evident. But, then, the revolutionary process in Laos has been advancing, drawing Laos and Vietnam closer together.

It is true that as long as the Stalinists rule in Hanoi, the possibility of Vietnamese great-power domination exists. But it is false to say that this is an overriding problem in the eyes of the Laotian and Kampuchean masses today. In fact, to the degree that steps are taken to advance the socialist revolution in Kampuchea and to deepen the social revolution in Laos, this threat, as well as the power of the Vietnamese Stalinist caste, will diminish.

The United Secretariat's declarations are unable to explain the ideological processes because of their failure to distinguish correctly the social processes at work in Laos, Kampuchea, and Vietnam. As a result the line presented is false.

4. Failure to correctly assess the results of the conflicts.

This error flowed directly from the incorrect analysis and line of the three statements.

The January 16, 1978, statement asserted that a broader conflict between Vietnam and Kampuchea "may deal a hard blow to the revolutionary struggles under way in Southeast Asia." The February 1, 1979, statement described the broader conflict that broke out as "disastrous." The exact opposite was the case.

The February 1, 1979, statement says, "The very interests of defending the Vietnamese workers state against imperialism make an immediate withdrawal of the Vietnamese army from Cambodia absolutely imperative." In actuality, however, the withdrawal of the Vietnamese army from Kampuchea was precisely the objective that the imperialists aimed for in their drive against the Vietnamese workers state.

The February 1, 1979, statement asserts that the further presence of Vietnamese troops in Kampuchea "will also strongly inflame Cambodian national feelings against foreign occupation and risk to trigger off long-term mass resistance—even in the form of prolonged guerrilla warfare—which under the present circumstances could make it easier for the Thai reactionary dictatorship and imperialism to prepare a comeback against the Vietnamese revolution for the first time since its crushing defeat in 1975."

In actuality, rightist guerrilla resistance has been going on, backed by the imperialists, and armed via Bangkok; the immediate withdrawal of Vietnamese forces would make it easier, not more difficult, for the imperialists.

While it is true that the long-term presence of Vietnamese troops in Kampuchea could spark mass hostility, this would occur only under conditions in which Hanoi was acting to prevent the masses of Kampuchea from asserting their independent interests. The imperialists would have nothing to gain from backing the independent struggles of Kampuchean workers and peasants against the Hanoi Stalinists.

Thus, all three statements draw conclusions that are the exact opposite of the real impact of the recent developments on the class struggle in Indochina.

5. Inability to counter the imperialist propaganda campaign and offer a clear alternative to the disorientation of the petty-bourgeois left.

The February 1 and February 21, 1979, statements correctly point out that the imperialists have seized on the developments in Indochina to wage an anticommunist propaganda campaign, and assert the need to combat it.

Very little is said, however, about the specific content of the imperialists' arguments. This omission is glaring.

In fact, the line and analyses advanced in the February 1 and February 21 statements demand the immediate withdrawal of Vietnam from Kampuchea; reject demanding Soviet military aid to Vietnam; de emphasize the causal role of imperialism in the conflicts; and advance instead the view that the conflicts developed out of the Sino-Soviet dispute and the resurgence of nationalism. These positions could only disarm revolutionists in face of the arguments raised in the imperialist propaganda campaign.

The February 1, 1979, statement attacks "the attempts by international capital and by demoralized petty-bourgeois intellectuals to make a hue and cry over the 'Cambodian tragedy.'" Later on in the very same statement, however, the statement uses this very tone; it talks of "the unfolding of the ensuing tragedy" in Kampuchea, and calls it a "disaster." It was the opposite. It opened the possibility for a new advance of the Kampuchean revolution for the first time in three and a half years.

The lessons to be drawn from Vietnam's action in toppling the Pol Pot regime are compared with the lessons to be drawn at "the moment when Soviet tanks crushed the Hungarian revolution in 1956 and the Prague Spring in 1968." But these were examples that illustrated Stalinism's crushing of the workers (which was favored by the imperialists). The toppling of the Pol Pot regime, on the other hand, was an advance for the workers (which was opposed by the imperialists).

From this standpoint, it was impossible for the February 1, 1979, statement to counteract what it recognizes as the "disorientation, cynicism, and demoralization in big sectors of the international working class and anti-imperialist fighters in the colonial and semicolonial countries."

It was untrue to assert that "Today, the huge fund of sympathy built up by the Indochinese revolution among the toilers of the world has been to a great extent jeopardized."

This was not the reaction of the toilers of the world. It was the reaction of many demoralized petty-bourgeois radicals, however. And, unfortunately, this failing spirit was not effectively countered in the statement of the US FI Bureau majority.

The incorrect line and hand-wringing tone of the statements released in the name of the United Secretariat contributed to disorient ing many sections of the Fourth International. Many sections published positions in their press similar to those of the United Secretariat statements, and in some cases more extreme.

These errors must be rectified to prevent further political damage.

Only a thorough discussion can clarify the issues and open the door to re orient ing the Fourth International along a correct axis in relation to the conflicts in Indochina and their implications for revolutionary Marxists.