Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! No. 28, April 1983
The imperialists hypocritically pretend to support peace, yet throughout the world they butcher the oppressed — in Ireland and El Salvador; in Palestine and South Africa; in the Falklands/Malvinas. Imperialism has ensured that the world has become a slaughter-house. This century imperialism has forced upon us two world wars and hundreds of colonial wars — quite apart from the daily butchery by the exploiting classes, everywhere struggling to maintain their rule against the rightful anger of the risen people. Imperialism needs war to maintain its exploitation, to safeguard its profits, to protect its investments: imperialism and war are inseparable. And so, as its power to exploit is threatened, imperialism grows more aggressive.
The imperialists have a particular hatred for the socialist countries where the oppressed people have thrown out imperialism, put an end to exploitation, misery and want, and set about laying the basis for a truly free society free from oppression, unemployment, starvation, disease, illiteracy, racism and sexism. The imperialists sense that their brutal wars of oppression are only a doomed rearguard action, and that the relentless advances of national liberation struggles and the consolidation of the socialist countries will end in the death of imperialism. Ever since the October Revolution, the imperialists have done everything possible to undermine and overthrow socialism. Between 1918 and 1922, 8 million died during the imperialist invasion of Soviet Russia; a further 20 million lost their lives in the Soviet Union following the Nazi invasion in 1941. The people of Korea, Vietnam, Cuba and Angola too have suffered barbaric imperialist butchery designed to halt the advance of socialism and national liberation.
ATOMISING INDOCHINA
- Assuming the Chinese Communists intervene…
- Employing atomic weapons, whenever advantageous, as well as other weapons, conduct offensive air operations against selected military targets in Indochina…
- Assuming Chinese Communists do not intervene…
- Conduct air operations in support of allied forces in Indochina. The employment of atomic weapons is contemplated in the event that such course appears militarily advantageous.
Memorandum from Admiral Arthur W Radford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to US Secretary of Defense Charles E Wilson, May 26 1954
The imperialists have long yearned to annihilate socialism, and when they developed the atom bomb, it seemed at last that they had the power to do so. Just before the bomb was dropped on Japan, Prime Minister Winston Churchill was already enthusing at the opportunities now open:
‘The secret of this explosive and the power to use it would completely alter the equilibrium which was adrift since the defeat of Germany. Now we had a new value which redressed our position … now we could say, “If you insist on doing this or that, well … And then where are the Russians?”’
US imperialism’s military power
The United States has 2,500 military bases or installations in 110 countries. More than half a million troops are permanently deployed abroad, whilst the Rapid Deployment Force of 300,000 troops is earmarked for operations outside the US. This means that more than 40 per cent of all US troops are specifically assigned to tasks outside the US. Some 12,000 nuclear warheads, a third or the US arsenal are stationed outside the US — 7,000 in Western Europe; 1,800 in Asia; and 2,500-2,800 on ships of the Atlantic and Pacific fleet.
Nor were the British alone in preparing to atomise their erstwhile ally. In the United States, less than three months after the first atom bomb had been dropped on Japan, the US Joint Intelligence Committee in its document 329 of 3 November 1945 had selected 20 Soviet cities with a total population of 13 million, for strategic atomic bombing. The document clinically noted the advantages of atomic weaponry as instruments of mass murder:
‘The ability of the atomic weapon to destroy concentrations of personnel is one of its outstanding features and should therefore be exploited if possible in conjunction with other effects.’
US imperialism planned to take over where the Nazis left off in their crusade against Communism. The Joint Chiefs of Staff had already argued for the need to launch an unprovoked attack on the Soviet Union, if its armed forces seemed to endanger the United States:
‘we cannot afford, through any perilous idea of avoiding an aggressive attitude, to permit the first blow to be struck against us. Our government, under such conditions, should press the issue to a prompt political decision, while making all preparations to strike the first blow if necessary.’
‘Dig a hole, cover it with a couple of doors and then throw three feet of dirt on top … It’s the dirt that does it … If there are enough shovels to go around, everybody’s going to make it.’
T K Jones, US Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Strategic and Theatre Nuclear Forces
These plans, which relied on the connivance of Britain and other imperialist countries, grew in barbarity and sophistication, including plans for US occupation policy after the anticipated victory. In NSC document 20/1 of 18 August 1948, the Policy Planning Staff wrote:
‘we will be faced with the problem of the human remnants of the Soviet apparatus of power. the problem of dealing with it would be a relatively simple one; for we would only need to give the necessary arms and military support to whatever non-Communist Russian authority might control the area and permit that authority to deal with the communist bands through the traditionally thorough procedures of Russian civil war.’
Faced with such threats, the Soviet Union was forced to develop the atomic bomb to defend itself, and the continuous arms race since then has been a succession of attempts by US imperialism to gain the advantage, forcing the USSR to respond in defence. Today, the arsenals of nuclear weapons are now so enormous that if the imperialists, in their fear and hatred of communism, start a nuclear war to destroy the socialist countries, they will succeed in wiping out the entire human race. This is the brink to which imperialism has brought us and the prospect which awaits us so long as imperialism exists.
Yet the imperialists are preparing such a war. The cruise and Pershing missiles to be deployed in Europe are designed to attack Soviet missile sites. But this only makes sense if delivered while the Soviet missiles are still in their silos: it only makes sense as part of a plan to launch a first strike against the Soviet Union.
Although the socialist countries are the prime target of imperialist nuclear weaponry, they are not the only ones. The more than 200 threats by the US since 1945 to use nuclear weapons include: • Yugoslavia in 1946 after a US Air Force plane was shot down over the country • Uruguay in 1947, when seven nuclear armed B29 bombers were sent to show that the US would oppose communist subversions • during the Korean war of 1950-53 — General Omar Bradley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff revealed that ‘We have discussed many times the use of the atomic bomb, tactically, against China as well as in Korea in 1954 • the US offered France nuclear weapons for use against the Vietnamese people fighting for their freedom • Suez in 1956 the US threatened to use nuclear weapons • Lebanon 1958 — the 14,000 US troops who invaded the country, were armed with Honest John tactical nuclear missiles • in 1962, the US threatened nuclear war over Cuba • nuclear attack on Vietnam was again discussed in 1968 • in 1973 the US put its forces on nuclear combat alert during the Arab-Israeli war • Iran 1980 – the US drew up plans for a nuclear attack. The barbaric fascist imperialist mentality which can calmly contemplate a nuclear holocaust, has already brought nuclear death and suffering to the oppressed. US Atomic Energy Commission radiation experiments between 1963 and 1973 included experiments on prisoners, including exposure to lethal doses of radiation. The University of Cincinnati conducted lethal radiation experiments on sick people, most of them poor and unable to afford medical treatment. Three quarters were black. Moreover there is the colossal waste of arms spending in a world where 500m are starving. In 1980 the world’s total military spending was equal to the total production of the world’s sixty poorest oppressed nations —with a population of 1,550 million. The latest US ‘Defense Guidance’ has just stepped up US military spending by $400m —a sum approaching the total wealth of the British economy — to a staggering $2000m over the next 5 years.
The only factor that has so far rest-rained the imperialists – from wholesale nuclear slaughter of the oppressed is the fear that the Soviet Union might retaliate. Yet, to continue to exploit the world, the imperialists must constantly threaten nuclear war and play a game of brinkmanship. The socialist countries, by contrast, have nothing to gain from the arms race, having no empire to protect. They have none of the colonies, the foreign investments, the massive loans which make up the imperialist spiders-web which straddles the world. All of them have experienced the worst ravages of modern war and want only peace — unlike the bloated privileged imperialist United States.
‘Q: Do you mean five per cent would survive? Two per cent?
Vice-President George Bush: More than that. If everybody fired everything he had, you’d have more than that survive.’
The only way that peace can be preserved is through a relentless struggle against bloodsucking, war-mongering imperialism. The imperialists are trying every means to prevent this, from smooth trickery to outright repression. Their ‘negotiations’ in Geneva are a phoney political ploy which they will arrange to ‘break down’, throwing the blame onto the Soviet Union – which has proposed a series of compromises. They are conducting a lying propaganda campaign through their despicable media. And meanwhile they lock up the magnificent Greenham women who refuse to be intimidated by the police or the courts, or to be hijacked by the wretched vote-chasing Labour Party. Yet none of this has stopped the movement from advancing. More and more, the hard core of this movement is joining the fight against imperialist weapons with the fight against the entire imperialist system, linking their struggle with all the other struggles of the poor and oppressed everywhere against imperialism. Anti-imperialists must reach out to these comrades, helping bring closer the day we can all dance on the grave of the butcher Imperialism, enemy of us all.
Steve Palmer
LABOUR’S NUCLEAR RECORD
Actions speak louder than words and nowhere louder than over Labour’s hypocrisy on nuclear weapons. While the Labour Party supports unilateral nuclear disarmament on paper, its whole history is one of complete support for imperialism in deeds and total implication in the British nuclear weapons program. Since 1945 Labour governments have sent British troops to gun down the people of Ireland, Vietnam, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Aden, Korea and many other countries. Labour took power in 1945 before the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima – Prime Minister Attlee knew of the decision in advance and approved it.
It was a Labour government which decided in 1947 to build the first British bomb, secretly spending more than £100m. It also awarded contracts to develop the nuclear V bombers and began related guided weapons research. It signed contracts for uranium supplies with fascist Portugal, racist South Africa and colonialist Belgium. It was the Labour government which helped found the anti-socialist NATO alliance in 1949.
When out of power, Labour usually feigns opposition to Tory policy, but when the Conservative government proposed to develop the Hydrogen bomb in 1955, the Labour Party gave them its support.
When another Labour government came to power in 1964, it confirmed the decision to acquire Polaris submarines — a policy it had attacked, of course, in opposition. Its wholehearted commitment to nuclear weapons was shown by its initiation of an important warhead improvement programme at Aldermaston in 1967. This programme came to fruition in early 1974, under another Labour government which took the secret decision to go ahead with the Chevaline warhead enhancement programme, costing £1000m. It was clear by this time that Polaris was obsolete, and that a replacement was needed. From 1967 onwards, Labour placed a series of contracts to investigate the feasibility of replacing the British Polaris with cruise missiles.
Labour’s supposed opposition to the siting of US cruise and Pershing missiles in Britain is also hypocrisy. In December 1978 the Labour inner Cabinet reached a consensus that NATO must deploy new long range weapons — a decision which paved the way for the cruise/Pershing deployment.
It is true, however, that Labour opposes the replacement of Polaris missiles with Trident but only on grounds of cost! It is worried that there won’t be enough money to spend on colonial wars to defend British imperialism’s interests outside Europe:
The Opposition spokesman accused the Defence Secretary Mr John Nott, of putting the Government’s whole maritime policy for operations outside NATO at risk by continuing with the Trident nuclear deterrent programme. (Guardian 15.12.82)
Never mind what the Labour Party says — that’s just to pull in votes. What matters is what it does — and Labour’s record is clear —it is a faithful nuclear armourer for British imperialism.
Steve Palmer
