The threat of war and the struggle for socialism
Ernest MANDEL
Several times during the threat of an outbreak of the third world war in the near future seemed to loom. Impressionist commentators did not hesitate to draw this conclusion. A panic wave in fact arose, particularly in certain intellectual circles. The powerful and promising anti-war movement, which is growing today in the imperialist countries, was also at least partially affected The number of publications about a third world war already begun, underway, or on the point of ending, are countless (1).
The actual events are not unimportant in creating this panic wave. In June 1982 we saw: the re-opening of the Iran-Iraq war, the Malvinas war, the preparations for the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the growing foreign intervention in the civil war in El Salvador-without even mentioning the more or less forgotten "little' wars. There are those in Chad, Eritrea, Namibia, the Western Sahara, not counting the civil war in Yemen, the still smouldering civil war in Angola and Mozambique, and even this list is not exhaustive...To conclude from this that the flames of a world conflagration were mounting was only one step, which some have taken without considering what this unjustified conclusion means.
It is completely irresponsible to get carried away by either panic or euphoria on such an important question-what is at stake here is the physical survival of the
ADVANCES OF WORLD REVOLUTION Imperialism is more determined than ever to employ its counter-revolutionary violence against every revolutionary advance in the world. This takes the form of systematic armed intervention; sometimes disguised as support to one of the sides in a civil war, at other times an open massive foreign intervention.
The world imperialist system is decomposing in the throes of a profound crisis. Revolutionary conflagrations have been erupting one after the other for over a half-century, with no end in sight. Thus, the main danger of war lies in these numerous foreign interventions against revolutions in progress. For the last decades the great majority of wars have been of this type. It is the same today. It will be the same tomorrow.
This is not in the least a new phenomenon. In fact, since the intervention against Soviet Russia in 1918-22, every revolution that has been triumphant, or 14 on the road to important victories, has had to confront a counter-revolutionary
These are just the most important examples of this statethe intervention of German imperialism against the Finnish revolution in 1918; that of the Entente (France, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Rumania), using Rumania as the cutting edge, against the Hungarian Soviet republic of Bela Kun in 1919; Hitler and Musagainst the Spanish revolution in 1936-7; the British and American intervention against the Greek revolution in the imperialist intervention against the third Chinese revolution; the first Indochinese war 1945-54; the imperialist intervention against the Korean and Chinese revolutions in 1950-53; against the guerillas in Malaysia 1948-60 and Kenya 1952; the second Indochinese war 1961-75; in Angola 1961, Mozambique 1964, and Guinea-Bissau 1971; the imperialist-Zionist interventions against Egypt and the repeated imperialist at-
Palestinian revolution in 1969, 1970, 1975, 1976, 1978, 1981, scope of some of these wars was incomparably greater than the Malvinas war or the present imperialist intervention in Central America. only mention the first Indochinese war, Franco-British intervention on the Suez Canal in 1957, the Algerian war, and finally the second Indochinese war, which involved hundreds of thousands of solfrom the imperialist countries. The new fact is not these 'localised' counter-revolutionary wars. They are the rule. The new factor is that represented by the Nicaraguan and Iranian revolutions. There, at least at the moment of the fall of Somoza and of the shah, imperialism found itself politically not materially or militarily incapable of intervening because of the repercussions of the defeat it suffered in Indochina in
At the time the Fourth International considered that this paralysis had to be short-lived. The political resolution adopted by the Eleventh World Congress in 1979, as well as that of the International Executive Committee in May 1981, correctly stated that imperialism was dethe means to carry out new counter-revolutionary interventions into revolutions already underway, or new anti-imperialist initiatives. These preparations included, among other things, the setting up of the Rapid Deployment Force (RDF). This analysis has been confirmed since then.
The Malvinas war, the invasion of Lebanon, the imperialist intervention into Central America, and, rather more ambiguously, the Iran-Iraq war, are far from representing a new 'international situa tion', or bringing us to the threshold of the third world war. Rather they represent a 'return to normal. That is, the systematic, obstinate attempt of imperi alism to pit its counter-revolutionary strength against each new advance of reolution, a norm which has been established for nearly sixty-five years. COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY WARS
The two world wars which broke out in 1914 and 1939 were different from this almost uninterrupted chain of localised wars which punctuate the historical period since the Russian revolution. These wars prove the inability of imperialism to ensure peace for humanity. This, in fact, is one of the most important reasons for ridding ourselves of this system which emanates the most barbarous vio lence through all its pores. world war would be still more different.
These are not only quantitative dif They are qualitative. the 'localised' counter-revolutionary wars, the world wars involved tens, indeed hundreds, of millions of people. brought on a corresponding toll of victims and material destruction. Thus, the functioning of the world economy was altered from top to bottom, about a major drop of the productive forces, of the material wealth accumulated by humanity as a whole, and thus narrowing the basis for the socialist reconstruction of the world. It is nothing to do with 'pacifism' to recognise these effects. In this context we recall the judgement of the Communist Interna-
'Europe is covered with debris and smoking ruins...the contradictions of the capitalist system confront mankind in the shape of pangs of hunger, exhaustion from cold, epidemics and moral savagery?
It is true that the 'localised' counter-revolutionary wars can have the same effect in one country. The appal-
We note among these works one by Ri chard Nixon, former president of the United States: The Third World War Has Begun; that of former Joint Chief of Staff of the British army, General Sir John Hackett: The Third World War (Sphere Books, London, 1978). We also should mention the famous article by Edward Thompson 'Exterminism, the Last Step of Civilisation, from the symposium 'Exterminism and the Cold War' published by New Left Left Review (Verso Books, London, 1982).
ing consequences of the imperialist destruction in Cambodia-six months bombing from March to August 1973 on all the densely-populated zones by the entire enough. But, from a materialist point of view, the difference is whether it is one country, or a small number, who are driven back to the brink of barbarism, with the possibility of seeing the rest of the world rapidly make up their lost production; or if it is the whole, or the vast majority, of humanity, which is driven to disaster without the reserves to rapidly emerge from such prostration.
This difference between the 'localcounter-revolutionary world war has its roots in the different objective causes of the two phenomena. 'Localised' counter-revolutionary wars are immediate responses to partial advances the structural crisis of the system, against which it is a sort of last resort.
Of course this distinction has to be nuanced. Successive, although partial, advances of revolution are themselves the expression of the same structural crisis of capitalism which gives birth to world war. But despite this nuance the qualitative difference remains. 'Localised' counterrevolutionary wars can coincide, many times have coincided, with periods of 'peaceful expansion of the capitalist economy. A world war only arises when a deep economic depression appears to preclude any possibility of new peaceful expansion of the international capitalist economy for a long period. And, most importantly, counter-revoluwars, being a response to the fragmentary advances of the revolution, can, and generally do, coincide with a rise in the mass movement which slows down, indeed paralyses, the general march of im-
On the other hand, the outbreak of the Second World War reflected in a concentrated way a defeat or series of defeats of the mass movement of such gravity that the proletariat was temporarily paralysed in its response to the warlike initiatives of the bourgeoisie. In other words, the 'localised' counter-revolutionary wars accompany advances or partial victories of the world revolution. of the Second World War expressed a deep historic defeat of this same revolu-
NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND WORLD WAR The fact that the third world war will be, in all probability, a nuclear war only emphasises all the more the importance of this distinction. It gives it all the more weight.
It would be absurd, and contrary to the elementary principles of historic materialism, to argue that the development of a nuclear arsenal capable of destroying at least twenty times the present population of the world (2) changes nothing "fundamental' in the 'nature of the world war', and that this will pose the 'identical tactical and strategic problems' for the world proletariat and the revolutionaries as the First and Second World Wars.
Considerable human and technical resources are needed to build a classless society. It will not be socialism that arises from the nuclear ashes, but a planet on which the predominant life will be grasses and insects (3) or, in the 'best' alternative, a barbarous human society from which the survivors of the holocaust will move forward in an arduous and centuries-long ascent. The communist project would anyway be completely cut off from reality for a long period. Obviously, one could think, wrongly in our opinion, that all this has already become inevita-
But it is difficult to perceive why it "revolutionary' to substitute another project for the communist one, based on the hypothesis that the material base of communism is condemned to disappear-that is to say accepting the inevitability of a nuclear holo-
It flows from this that the strategic aim of the world workers and revolutionary movement must be to prevent the world nuclear war and not to 'win' it (whatever this might mean). That is, to explain this more precisely-to do everything possible to assure that the progress of the world revolution paralyses imperialism's ability to intervene with nuclear weapons, and to prepare the way for its nuclear disarmament by defeating its political power. However, as long as imperialism retains political power, and military and material power in the key countries, it would be utopian to think that the locounter-revolutionary interventions by imperialism can be prevented.
As the Fourth International has explained numerous times disarmament is only possible within the imperialist for tresses that have nuclear weapons and not outside them (4). Only the North Ameri
British, French, German, Japanese proletariat (supported by the Chinese and Soviet proletariat) can defuse the nuclear weapons; outlaw any use of them, junk them, and remove them once and for all from the face of the earth. To think anything else is to believe in miracles which will not happen: that the imperialists will always be intelligent or afraid or demoralised enough not to use their weapons of dispair even if they keep the power to
One could, at first sight, find a contradiction between the fact that we stress the inevitability of localised' counterrevolutionary wars and at the same time
According to the report Comprehensive Study on Nuclear Weapons, warheads of one megaton against the USSR and cause the instantaneous death 150-200 million people in these two countries. There are now already more than 40 thousand nuclear fallout, famine, contamination, etc. should be included.
of the initial essay of The Fate of the Earth by Jonathan Shell (Pan
London, 1982), an otherwise weak and inconsequential book which describes the suiaffirm the necessity and the possibility of preventing the nuclear world war. Do not the first run the risk of gradually opening up into the second, almost imperceptibly? Is there not a real risk that 'tactical' nuclear weapons will one day be used against advances of the revolution, either by imperialism directly or by one of its particularly determined allies (Zionist extremists in the Middle East or extreme supporters of apartheid in Southern Africa)? Does not any escalation and extension of 'localised' wars risk opening up a general conflagration, leading to a nuclear world war?
There is an element of truth in this objection, but only an element. It implies that the danger of nuclear war inincreases at the same rate the nuclear arsenal increases and 'local conflicts' multiply. But it is to move from dialectics to sophism to conclude from the consideration of the growing danger of nuclear war that its outbreak is inevitable.
It is exactly the particular nature of nuclear arms which allows us to pinpoint the major difference: as long as imperialism survives, local wars and the danger of nuclear war are inevitable, the nuclear war is not.
THE REALITY OF THE BALANCE OF TERROR It is a fact that, despite the development of a more and more terrifying arsenal of nuclear weapons over the last thirty years, they have not been used until
However, the number of "local' wars has been growing and more and more sophisticated and murderous conventional weapons have in fact been used in them. The reason for this difference seems obvious. Those who possess nuclear weapons and can decide whether to use them know perfectly well their suicidal meaning for humanity. The general public can be fooled with the monstrous talk of nuclear wars which will only cost some hundreds of millions (sic) dead, and that 'those who have nuclear shelters will sur-
Those in power are not duped. It is true that one of the partly rational' objectives of the mad nuclear arms race is the frantic search for nuclear weapons so 'small' and so 'clean' that their "tactical' use in 'localised' wars would be possible without automatically unleashing a nuclear world war. Although this hypothesis cannot be totally excluded it is exunlikely, and mean a horrific cost in human life and cidal consequences of a nuclear war for the human race with great conviction. 4. 'In the final analysis only the victory of the proletariat in the most highly developed imperialist countries, above all the victory of the American proletariat, can free mankind definitively from the nightmare of nuclear annihilation. This is the revolutionary-socialist solution that the Fourth International counterposes to the utopian illusions of "peaceful coexistence" and "victory" in a nuclear world war.' Dynamics of the World Revolution Today, document adopted by the Reunification Congress of the Fourth International in June 1963.
15
This clearly shows that it has been the fact that the Soviet Union has built and stockpiled nuclear weapons that has saved humanity up till now from a nucleterror' it is practically certain that imperialism would already have used nuclear weapons against the 'Chinese volunteers' during the Korean war and the Chinese and Vietnamese revolutions during the second Indochinese war (5), indeed against other revolutions.
Over and above the totalitarian and counter-revolutionary dictatorship, which is to a great extent responsible for survival of world imperialism, and thus, indirectly, for the existence of the nuclear threat, the existence of the Soviet workers state as a state of a different social nature from the imperialist states, a state that is not propelled down the road to a nuclear holocaust by its own deadly logic, reveals again its contradictory significance in the world today. This confirms the correctness of its Marxist characterisation, which displeases all those inconsistent and superficial detractors, who consider that the USSR is of the same social nature as the United States.
The statement that the balance of terror' has prevented the outbreak of the nuclear world war until now is not based on a naive faith in 'human rationality' Our exposition of the profoundly irrational nature of "late capitalism' has been too thorough for this reproach to be
We base ourselves on something much more profound than Reason: the instinct for survival (in the physical sense of the term) in the possessing classes, and particularly their most powerful representatives in finance capital, the military/industrial complex, and political leaders. These people constitute the richest ruling class that the world has ever known. To imagine that they would be ready to sacrifice all this wealth, this luxury, at any moment or in any circumstances on the altar of abstract ideas or principles like anti-communism, the 'defence of the market economy (called 'defence of freedom'), hatred of revolution' is to completely misunderstand the motivations and the pattern of behaviour of this class.
What we see from time to time is nuclear blackmail aimed at marginally modifying the relationship of forces within the 'balance of terror', not a suicidal attempt to use nuclear weapons to reintroduce capitalism in the East, or to alter the world relationship of forces between the totality of the imperialist forces on one side and the non-capitalist on the other (including the Soviet Union and China). This is the third time since the Second World War that imperialism has stepped up the nuclear arms race in this way. The first time was during the Korean war (1950-53). The second time was at the beginning of the 1960s. It started for the third time at the end of the 1970s. Each of these phases has ended in a new attempt at 'detente', that, is a confirmation of the 'balance of terror.' 16
Gunship over
El Salvador
THE LIMITS OF THE 'BALANCE OF TERROR' Although we believe that the balance of terror' has prevented for a whole historical period the use of nuclear weapons until now-and thus, the successive reprisals and escalations that would lead to the outbreak of the third world war we do not consider that this will continue makes possible a change in this situation is the increase in the structural crisis which is afflicting the
The difference in the present stepping up of the nuclear arms race from that in the 1950s and 1960s is that it corresponds to an intrinsic economic need of the imperialist economy, linked to the long-term decline of the economic situa tion of capitalism. In conditions of stagnation of the rate of profit and of the 'normal outlets' , arms production is more and the more the 'substitute market' par excellance that is impelling a resumption of capital accumulation.
The greater is the weight of arms spending in the imperialist economy, the greater is the pressure to increase austerity and dump the welfare state in all its
At the same time, the more the class struggle is exacerbated, including for defensive aims, and the more the imperialist bourgeoisie is forced to look for a change in the political regime in its principal citadels (7).
When we say that the North Americlasses have been motivated for the last thirty years, and remain so today, by everything that their wealth involves in and particularly by the possi bilities for manoeuvre that derive from the immense reserves they still hold, this means something quite precise for us. That is a whole political, social, military, and ideological climate resulting from a long period of accelerated growth, which has made a profound mark on the leading political personnel of imperialism. has developed against the background of a specific relationship of forces vis-a-vis the working class as much as vis-a-vis the Soviet and Chinese bureaucracies. tainly this personnel is capable of any number of barbarous initiatives against the colonial revolution (torture in Algeria, defoliants in Vietnam, massacres in Latin America, 'anti-personnel' weapons used against the Palestinian people, etc.). But it is not ready for the self-destructive barbarism of an Adolf Hitler in 1944-45, or General Hideki Tojo at the same peri-
There would have to be a totally different economic climate for the political personnel prepared to take the final solution for the whole of humanity to come to the leadership of the principal imperialist powers. The main forces of big capital would have to be literally driven to the brink. There would have to be other dominant ideologies, a different relationship of forces between the classes in these countries. Of course, as the downward trend of the international capitalist economy continues, and as the austerity offensive and war drive of international capitals sharpens, personalities, tendencies, indeed political forces, who symbolise the determination to literally fight to the death, including collective suicide, for the greater glory of private property, or
There are numerous sources which attest to the debates among the American leaders in which the use of nuclear weapons was discussed. When the sources that are still secret today are published it will be shown that these were not the only occasions.
See the chapter Ideology in the Age of Late Capitalism' in Late Capitalism by Ernest Mandel, New Left Books, London, 1976.
A parallel aim of the resumption of the nuclear arms race by imperialism is to exacerbate the social and economic crisis of the USSR. Following the decline in the rate of growth of the Soviet economy the Kremlin found itself driven to make difficult choices i1 it was to considerably increase its military spending as Washington intended. To avoid thi outcome it will have to pay a political price which imperialism is trying to make as high a possible.
the race, like Adolf Hitler and Hideki Tojo, will begin to appear in the wings and on the edge of the stage. But this time it will be nuclear death.
It would be deeply irresponsible to brush aside the possibility of such a 'suicidal turn' by the leading personnel of big capital, once a certain threshold of the structural crisis of capitalism in decline is passed, like that passed in Germany in
Those who think that the balance of terror' or anti-nuclear propaganda can save us forever are like those who believe in the little voice that whispers, You
Alas, our own fate, we humans, is not only that individuals inevitably die, but even the species could disappear. If it does not master its own fate in time, if, faced with the threat of nuclear war, it does not impose firm rules of order on society, by creating a world social order which makes war impossible. This means the abolition of private property and the sovereign nation state, and the constitution of a world government of producers (the world socialist federation) which outlaws the production of any major weapons and which is able to ensure that this rule is respected
The 'balance of terror' increasingly loses its effectiveness, as the depression and the longterm capitalist crisis worsen, as the relationships of force within the imperialist bourgeois societies modify, as the austerity offensive and the war drive
These phenomena are structurally linked.
An essential first conclusion flows whether or not a group of bourgeois politicians ready to launch a nuclear war come to power depends on the outcome of the totality of the political and economic class struggle in the principal capitalist countries in the years politicians would have to defeat the Western proletariat (and the anti-imperialist movement in the most developed dependent countries) before being able to push the button which would bring about the
An understanding of this is what must guide the orientation of revolutionary Marxists as well as the political course of all those who have understood the seriousness of the nuclear peril.
One parallel immediately comes to mind. Towards the end of the 1920s the great majority of the Stalinist faction used the imminence of war as a pretext for the criminal ultraleft course called the 'third period' of the Communist Interna-
There were some correct elements in this analysis. But we know how right Trotsky was when he emphasised that nothing was inevitable in 1928, 1929, or 1931, (date of the unleashing of Japanese aggression against China which was at the same time both an extension of more genaggression against the Chinese revolution, and the beginning of the march towards 1936 was anything inevitable.
The progress toward the Second World War had certainly already begun. But the inevitability of the Second World
War was the result of the defeat of the German proletariat in 1933, the betrayal of the advancing French revolution in 1936, and, above all, of the smothering and the crushing of the Spanish revolution in 1936-37. There was nothing inevitable about those things, certainly not in
In this sense, and with all the reservations necessary in historical analogies, the situation today is closer to that of 1928-31 than that after 1938. sive class battles are in front of us not be-
It is these which will decide the We can formulate a second essential the fate of humanity depends on the outcome of a race between the capacity of the international workers movement to overthrow the ruling power in the principal imperialist fortresses-obviously any exterior weakening would contribute to that overthrow but cannot substitute for it-to make a breakthrough in the progress towards socialism; and on the other side the attempt by imperialism to inflict decisive defeats on the international workers movement, which would leave the way open to nuclear war. deed, the austerity drive and remilitarisation offensive will lead sooner or later to a challenge to the essential democratic rights of the workers movement, which in its turn would open the door to a fundamental change in the political personnel of imperialism (8).
The first way involves the revolution growing over from its present frag mentary and empirical development to a universal and conscious development. The second means the defeat of the world revolution. While the first saves the human race, preserves the chances of a renaissance of civilisation in socialism, from the horror of nuclear holocaust (9), the second way can, and one could even say probably will, lead to that very holo-
THE IMPORTANCE OF ANTI-WAR
AND ANTI-NUCLEAR MOBILISATIONS As the austerity offensive accelerates, as remilitarisation increases, and as there are more and more serious attacks on the social and political gains of the proletariat in the imperialist countriesalong with murderous and barbarous attacks against the colonial revolution-the 'balance of terror' tends to lose effectiveness as a principal obstacle on the road towards the third world war. As this progresses, the importance of the anti-war movement (particularly anti-nuclear war) 8. We have insisted several times on the inherent political risks in maintaining bourgeois democracy for a democracy engaged in a policy impoverishment of the toiling Certainly there is no automatic victory the reformist left in such circumstances. This depends on a number of factors, varying from one country to another and from one situation to another. Nevertheless, the risk of an electoral comparable to that of May 10, 1981, in France is real in such conditions. for the first time history, the reformist left in Mauritius won all the seats in the parliament, in an election organised by the right.
grows to the same extent. The June 12 demonstration of a million people in New York (the biggest demonstration in the history of the United States, if not of the imperialist countries, with a million participants) is only a first indication of the potential of this movement.
What motivates this movement is not the immediate desire to overthrow capitalism, which alone bears the responsibility for the nuclear arms race, or support for the world revolution. It is true, of course, that many of the participants are motivated by these things and that it is the duty of revolutionary Marxists to propagandise for these ideas and increase within the movement. But the fundamental motivation for this movement is fear of the nuclear holocaust, the physical instinct of self-preser-
This is why, to general surprise, the German masses, whose level of political consciousness is a lot lower than that of the French or Italian masses, have participated in the movement a lot more extensively than their class sisters and brothers in the neighbouring countries. The German masses are convinced that the whole of Germany will be destroyed in the first days of a nuclear war, and they
Those who pedantically deny the objectively revolutionary impact of the actions of these masses, under the pretext that they do not at first glance distinguish the bureaucratised workers states and bourgeois states, that they sometimes use the jargon describing the US and the USSR as 'the super-powers' putting them on an equal footing; that these masses do not exhibit 'proletarian internationalism' towards revolutions in progress (reproaches which are, moreover, partly false) fail to recognise two essential aspects of the world situation.
Firstly, it is imperialism and imperialism alone that vitally and desperately needs nuclear weapons for its counterrevolutionary military strategy. Thus, to concentrate the movement against nuclear weapons is to objectively strike a blow
Secondly, to the extent that they include sections of the organised workers movement and the youth mobilisations unleash an objectively anticapitalist dynamic, independent of the phraseology used by certain of their lead-
These mass actions have imposed and will continue to press not only for concrete measures of unilateral disarmament (against the installation of Cruise and Pershing missiles, against North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) bases
Two Anglo-Saxon intellectuals, who are not at all revolutionary, have just declared themselves for the immediate abolition and outlawing of nuclear weapons; the British Lord Solin es NeW or 198) are chee Viking Press, 1982), former chief scientific advisor to the British Ministry of De fence; and the American Theodore Draper, Social-Democratic historian specialising in the study of Stalinism, and convinced anticommunist ('How Not to Think About Nuclear War' New York Review of Books, July 15, 1982). But they do not reply to the question, what are the political and social preconditions for this abolition and outlawing.
17
Fourth International, May 27, 1982, published
International Viewpoint, No 11, August 2, ted' the danger of nuclear weapons but but also for an economic policy founded on the anti-capitalist alternative to remili. tarisation and austerity-jobs not bombs where. ments' USSR proquestion: the obiective fortune
In the same way we resolutely support the autonomous mass movement against the arms race in the German Demcratic Republic (GDR) and the other Eastern European countries. Not that we put the workers states and the bourgeois states on the same footing as the capitalist ones, or that we have forgotten the duty to defend the former against the latter in the case of military conflict. But we understand that, in the situation in the world today, everything that helps the biggest and most unified mobilisation for unilateral disarmament by imperialism in Europe is a blow a thousand times harder against imperialism, and thus a contribution a thousand times more effective in defence of the USSR and the workers states, than a few more rockets, or a few less disciplinary conflicts in the of this or that workers In taking away from the bourgeoisie one of its main arguments for dividing the anti-war movement in the West, and slowing down its rapid growth, the antiwar movement in the East objectively cause.
the anti-
As has just pable banned.
every
As long as the pital.
the sy-
10.
*Political revolution
1982.
We re-
That remain te very strugg mobilisation resumption of the remilitarisaexdemocracy, and
Counter
Revolution
Committee of the