Soviet Style "Detente"

If the neutron bomb is "barbaric", does this make other nuclear weapons civilised and humane? Of course not! All nuclear weapons are barbaric and inhumane — including the thousands of ordinary tactical nuclear weapons already deployed by the Soviet Union in Europe. The inhumanity of nuclear weapons did not prevent the Soviet Union moving in 6 missile carrying submarines into the Baltic Sea last year. Although diesel-driven and carrying old fashioned 1200 km intermediate range missiles (about 18 in all), these submarines threaten with total destruction. 36 West European cities, including Paris Amsterdam, Brussels, Copenhagen, Dusseldorf, Bonn, Oslo and possibly London. This may be humane to Brezhnev; others would call it something else!

And just like its present behaviour over the neutron bomb, the Soviet Union charged Sweden with "sharpening tensions in Nordic Europe" and threatening "detente" when the latter country protested against the presence of the missile-carrying submarines in the Baltic Sea.

The charge that the neutron bomb is "capitalist" is ludicrous. Weapons do not have a class character. A rifle is a rifle, a tank a tank, and a tactical nuclear weapon a tactical nuclear weapon. It is the war in which the weapons are used which has the class character. As Lenin said: "War is the continuation of policy by other means. All wars are inseparable from the political systems that engender them. The policy which a given state, a given class within that state pursued for a long time before the war is inevitably continued by that same class during the war, the form of action alone being changed." (War and Revolution. May 1917) Only philistines or hypocrites could talk about "capitalist"

weapons, particularly if they are the leaders of a state-monopoly capitalist and fascist state like the Soviet Union.

The charge that the neutron bomb will "sabotage detente" and be a "challenge" to the Soviet Union is nothing but a thinly veiled threat. How is it that the US neutron bomb threatens "detente", while the Soviet Union's recently deployed missile, the SS—20, its Backfire bomber and its recent deployment of missile carrying submarines in the Baltic are not? The SS—20 is a mobile missile carried on a tracked tank like vehicle, with a range of at least 3500 km it carries three independently targetable warheads each with a yield many times greater than a neutron bomb. The SS — 20 is a modified version of the SS —16, a three-stage strategic missile which the Soviet Union has produced and tested but not deployed. The SS—16 carries a single warhead and has a range of at least 8800km. The SS — 20 is a two-stage rocket easily convertible into an SS — 16. This would enable it to be rapidly converted into a strategic missile in the event of war. With large numbers of 22—20s, the Soviet Union has potential ICBM's not covered by the SALT ceiling of 2400 delivery vehicles. How is it that this missile which now threatens the major cities of West Europe and China does not "sabotage detente"?