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Salient. Official Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 41 No. 26. October 2 1978

Imperialism and Trotskyism

Imperialism and Trotskyism

Dear Simon,

The report on the "Detente" forum written by Simon Wilson has created a new low in Salient journalism. Like the previous Progressive Student Alliance forum where various leftwing groups spoke, this report was written by a partisan of one of the viewpoints expressed. Moreover it involved the distortion of the other speakers' viewpoints. "Bias" in journalism, ie. the expression of one's own viewpoint is of course acceptable, but it is incumbent on the reporter of a debate, in particular if they side with one view, to report the views of the other side accurately and honestly. Simon Wilson's report of my views at the forum was totally inaccurate and dishonest.

In 9 paragraphs dealing with my views there is not One accurate presentation of what I said. There are no less than 12 deliberate distortions or lies. Unfortunately space will not allow me to deal with them all but I would like to take a few examples.

Wilson writes: "The main reason that war will not come, said Treen, was that there will be revolutions in second world countries (like France, Germany, i.e. Secondary imperialist powers) to avert it." Then further on he contradicts himself and writes that I said "that war was on the cards, but that it was likely to come from one of the imperialist countries (France, USA, Belgium even) invading the workers' states. Is it possible that Belgium is thinking of invading the USSR? Sounds ridiculous.... And if Belgium was attacked by the Soviet Union? Treen advises them to build air raid shelters."

Firstly I never said that war will not come. But unlike David Murray who also spoke at the forum, I do not believe world war to be Inevitable, that it cannot be prevented. I explained that the only way to prevent war is by working people disarming the imperialists through a socialist revolution. If you believe that war is Inevitable then the wisest thing would be to build atomic raid shelters instead of supporting the arms race of one side as David Murray and China recommend.

China's position, which David Murray supports, is to promote the building up of the arms race in the West. They support NATO, France's nuclear arms programme, they oppose the "shelving" of the Neutron Bomb. This essentially means that you give up the struggle for socialism because you are in fact supporting the strengthening of the military establishment in the capitalist state.

I explained that the threat of war came from Imperialism as a system, that there are no "good" and "bad" imperialists. I explained the marxist view of imperialism and its war drive, which is that developed capitalist countries are driven to launch wars because of a compulsion in their economies to expand, find and guarantee markets and investment outlets. The bureaucratic dictatorships in the USSR, China and Eastern Europe don't have this compulsion in their economies. That is why I believe the war danger comes from the imperialist powers who seek to open up the "closed" markets in the USSR and China or to prevent the closing off of markets and fields for investment in colonial countries through socialist overturns.

Of course its absurd to suggest that Belgium will invade the USSR but the imperialist alliance NATO, is preparing for just that as well as opposing the colonial revolution. But even little Belgium has invaded its former colony Zaire (formerly the Belgium Congo) to protect its investments from a popular insurrection.

The second point I would like to deal with is the distortion contained in the following paragraph of Wilson's article when he wrote that I "accused China of betraying the revolution in the third world countries by pointing out that the Chinese leadership had diplomatic relations with some very reactionary regimes. This he said, was not a revolutionary foreign policy, ignoring the fact that at the same time as China recognised the governments it gave aid to the liberation movements in those same countries."

In fact I said that China has the right to establish diplomatic relations with any country. But that should not involve giving political support to those regimes or abandoning support for liberation movements which is what China is doing. For instance, as I explained at the forum, until recently China gave aid to guerrilla movements in Zaire against the corrupt dictatorship. Now China has a high ranking military delegation in Zaire training the Zairean army in counter-insurgency.

Chinese aid to the Eritrean rebels in Ethiopia ceased after the Ethiopian Emporer Haile Selassie visited China in 1971 only to be resumed after this feudal monarch was overthrown in a military coup and the new regime turned to the Soviet Union for aid. Aid has also ceased for the Front for the Liberation of Occupied Oman in deference to the Shah of Iran who has troops fighting them. The list can go on and on.

In fact as general policy China supports any anti-soviet government. They also support the strengthening of economic, political, and military ties between third world countries and the second world which includes all the major imperialist powers except the USA, ie. Germany Britain, Japan. That is, they in effect support imperialism's continued domination of the third world. This policy leads them to supporting French, US and Belgium intervention in Zaire.

These points I have made were all explained at the forum in some detail and go to show how far from reality Wilson's report was. I can only conclude that Wilson's dishonest reporting was an admission that he could not counter my real viewpoint which only confirms for me the weakness in both his and Murray's arguments.

Mike Treen

(You may complain, Mr Treen, that I have not reported you fairly, but to be quite honest I found it exceedingly difficult to discover a consistent logic in your argument. I'm afraid to say your letter doesn't help much. You agree that world war is possible, but suggest that the only way it can be averted is by socialist revolutions in the European second world countries. The important question is, which will come first, revolution or imperialist war? Looking at objective reality there can only be one answer......war.

I do not, as your fellow Young Socialist, Patrick Mulrennan, simply put it, fall back on the wishful thought that revolution "just has to come". It is this singular ability to confuse desires with reality which underlies your attitude to the question of a third world war.

Your understanding of the marxist ...alysis of how imperialist war develops suffers from this same attitude. It is true that developed imperialist countries "are driven to launch wars because of a compulsion in their economies to expand.....", but you overlook the fact that rapidly developing imperialist countries have a similar compulsion. These countries are at a disadvantage in that the world has already been divided amongst the other imperialists, and therefore they must be all the more aggressive in their search for spheres of influence.

The last world war made this quite clear in the case of Germany. The Soviet Union today is in a similar position. In my view, if we were not to recognise the clear signs of global expansion and the threat of war they bring, we would be taking up a policy very like that of Chamberlain and others in the 1930s.

Right up until 1939 Chamberlain was able to convince himself that Germany's actions in Europe were not a threat to peace. When war came, the anti-fascist United Front was that much the less prepared. Bearing this historical example in mind, it would be absurd to claim that the Warsaw Pact troops and weaponry lined up on the NATO border are there for defense purposes.

As to your other main point, I am not, as you would be so happy to make me do, about to become an apologist for Chinese foreign policy. But I do suggest that your method of analysing the circumstances of China's foreign relations leaves a lot to be desired. On the question of Iran, for example, you and other Young Socialists have argued that the anti-Shah forces should be supported because they are anti-Shah. The fact that should they win an even more reactionary regime would be imposed on the country is neither here nor there. It is ways necessary to analyse the nature of political events, and not proceed from abstract notions about what should be. The situation in Zaire could do with a little more such analysis. The invasion of that country by the Cuban and Soviet-backed FNLC (mercenaries who have fought for the Belgians and the Portugese, among others) was anything but a "popular insurrection".

It is your opposition to the theory of the three worlds which underlies most of your argument. The thing you seem not to grasp is that this theory is a strategic method for countering the main threat in the world to the development of socialism. It does not subvert the class struggle, but places it in a context where it can be most profitably fought. For make no mistake about it, Soviet domination of the world would do more harm to the international proletariat than any other event in the history of capitalism —Ed.)