Preparing the conditions for a new campaign against imperialist militarisation
The fourth convention of the European peace movements which is taking place in Amsterdam from July 3-6, comes at a key time in the struggle for peace. The peace movement saw its biggest rise in Europe in response to the NATO "twin-track" decision of December 1979, and it now has to face a new situation. (1) Since the autumn of 1983, the deployment of cruise and Pershing missiles has gone ahead, to all intents and purposes, at exactly the pace required by the capitalist governments.
This has not, however, led to a decline in the mobilisations of the peace movement, as the activities in spring this year show. There were Easter marches in Great Britain and West Germany; demonstrations against NATO and against Reagan's visit in the Spanish State; demonstrations against the decision of the Martens' government to deploy the first cruise missiles in Belgium. This is not to say that the situation of the movement in some countries, such as France, Italy and, in a different way, West Germany, is not still very difficult. Imperialism's new moves towards greater militarisation, especially militarisation of space, demands a response at a higher level and a more worked-out political response offering an alternative strategy.
If it is able to take these questions head on, then the Amsterdam convention could play a very positive role.
Jacqueline ALLIO and Jean-Louis MICHEL
The installation during the last 18 months of the first cruise and Pershing missiles, despite the mobilisations against the NATO decision, shows two things.
In the first place, the strength of the peace mobilisations has not prevented the capitalist governments from implementing policies that are in direct contradiction to the views of the people expressed in public opinion polls. This is no less the case, despite the fact that the decision in the Netherlands is still pending. This shows the inability of a social movement of this type, no matter how powerful it is, to overturn the will of western governments, unless a real political means of forcing the issue can be found through generalised industrial action, through mobilising on the electoral level, or through a combination of these types of activities.
The peace movement as a whole has often been too timid in pursuing such actions. However, it is only on this basis that it would be possible to act effectively to change the course of events. This lesson holds true for the future, and it obviously requires an assessment of the type of political alliances it will be necessary to seek.
On the question of alliances, we know that there are widely differing views. On the one hand there are those who preach in favour of alliances with the right, and of political wheeling and dealing, and who are trying to divert the movement in any way possible from its objectives, even looking for 'guarantees' for 'European defence'. On the other hand, there are those, including us in the Fourth International, who believe that the movement can rely only on the power of its mobilisations and on their social impact in order to force militaristic governments to respect the 12 will of the masses. This presupposes the need to defend the independence of the movement.
In the second place, of course, no one would dream of trying to repeat the old battles over Euromissiles in the countries where they have already been deployed. But does this mean that the immediate goal of 'no to the missiles' should be abandoned? Should we merely limit ourselves to the general slogan of a nuclear-free Europe from Poland to Portugal. Should we, as some are proposing, take up the slogan for the denuclearisation of the NATO forces in such a way as to avoid more concrete objectives and to avoid posing the question of the need for a break with the imperialist alliance?
This would evidently be the wrong road. The way forward for the peace movement is to link the fight against nuclear weapons to the fight against the presence of foreign troops under NATO command. The twin demand of the Spanish movement, for example, for the closure of American bases and for NATO out of Spain is undoubtedly the best response to the threat of the nuclearisation of the Cadiz bases.
The problem is posed in the same way in Greece, though in different circumstances. The demand for the withdrawal of foreign troops from both Germanies has a similar value, since it implies withdrawal from NATO. We are in favour of the generalisation of unifying slogans of this type for two reasons: - They take account of all aspects of the militarisation policy, which cannot be reduced solely to the question of nuclear arms. - At the same time, they set out precise objectives that the masses can mobilise around.
In addition, the fight against foreign bases must, from now on, be linked to the struggle against the participation of Western Europe in the Star Wars plan.
Both the Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI) proposals, conceived of by the Pentagon, and the Eureka project, proposed by Francois Mitterrand of France, lead logically toward increased militarisation of space. The cost of this will rapidly become insupportable for humanity.
In the long term the imperialists are looking for a new strategic deal giving it a margin of security that will leave its hands free for forcing through their policies in all four corners of the globe.
In the middle and short term, the imperialist centres might hope to attain, with the help of the financial and industrial world, several interlinked objectives. These are to create a permanent deterrent in relation to the Soviet Union, and therefore make it impossible for the bureaucratic leadership of that country to play a role in most regional crises; to give a new impetus to the crisis-ridden capitalist economy through an increase in the rate of profit at least in the key sectors; and finally and most importantly to impose a policy of austerity on the working class, both in the imperialist centres as well as the other countries linked into this programme.
What is really at stake in the coming years is the extent and brutality of the austerity plans that will have to be imposed on the masses by Western governments in order for the latter to be able to finance the SDI and Eureka programmes.
The so-called twin track' decision was taken by NATO on December 12, 1979. It envisaged both negotiations with the USSR at the same time as deployment, from June 1983 onwards, of 108 Pershing-2 missiles in West Germany and of 464 cruise missiles in four other countries (Italy, Great Britain, the Netherlands and Belgium).
International Viewpoint 1 July 1985
The US government has already pledged some 26 billion dollars for the initial phase of research over the first five years. The main industrial groups overseas who are interested in space research have also invested an enormous amount. The Pentagon has let it be known that it is counting on a commitment from the US's allies equivalent to that of the American government, in other words something of the order of 25 billion dollars for the same five-year period.
The European governments, having approved the general direction of American policy in NATO, are still holding back, for political as well as economic reasons, from investing directly in this crazy enterprise, which from the outset is cut to the size of the tremendous economic strength of the US. They would prefer by far to have a more discreet link between industry in their countries and the SDI projects, especially in relation to arms factories, whether they be public or private. They may very well go through the motions of well on through the motions of following the path of inter-European cooperation, independent of the US and integrated into the French Eureka project. This will be an item for discussion at the next European summit in Milan.
In fact the Eureka plan is neither less dangerous nor, frankly is it economically any less wasteful than the SDI programme. The two operations, far from being mutually exclusive, in fact go in the same direction. The programmes linked to Eureka are to be financed from the civil budget for research and development, and up till now the bill has come to about eight billion French Francs (about 700 million pounds). A further billion francs will be injected into the scheme before the end of the year, according to the French minister for research, Hubert Curien. And everyone knows that western governments have always made a point of hiding a large part of the credits allocated to war preparation. This is particularly the case when it comes to research, whether it is public, private or a mixture of the two.
In this situation the peace movement has to do a basic job of defending the public interest and demanding that these decisions, investments and their ultimate goal be openly explained. The wall of silence around this area of activity by governments and heads of major industrial groups must be broken down, and the demand for the opening of the books must be put forward (including state accounts as well as those of the top companies). The idea that tax contributions and profits squeezed from the workers should be invested in the militarisation of space must be thoroughly rejected.
In this regard, the peace movement and the workers movement have a decisive role to play in exposing, before the eyes of the masses, the link between the new phase of the arms race in space International Viewpoint 1 July 1985 and the policies of austerity by the bosses and the government. These latter are hell bent on forcing wages down and dismantling the social gains that have been made.
Only a peace movement really rooted in the workers movement and based on its organisations can make the perspective of democratic control of defense decisions credible.
Most people in Europe have already shown their aspirations for democracy through referendums (whether self-organised or official) in relation to NATO's Euromissiles. This process should be carried forward through a massive rejection of the militarisation of space and of Star Wars.
For the past decade, the fight for peace has always carried with it a strong element of interationalism which must be reinforced at the Amsterdam convention. A people that oppresses another can itself never be free. Neither can a people, or peoples, that abandon others to imperialist barbarism or the yoke of bureaucratic dictatorships.
This is the direction of democratic demands, which are not divided up according to which part of Europe you come from. For several years the peace movement has supported, without reservation, the struggle for democratic rights in Eastern Europe. But the relations that components of the West European peace movement have maintained with the official peace committees in the East have led to big differences within that movement. Some elements want to sacrifice relations with independent peace activists for the sake of maintaining diplomatic relations between those who respect the established order East and West. Others propose, on the contrary, a break with the official committees in order to build links with the independent activists. We beleive that we must take advantage of the stated intentions of the official bodies in order to make them confront the demands for democratic rights throughout Europe, and that this issue must be at the centre of the convention's work. Of course the kind of work peace activists engage in and their demands will reflect the different conditions and different approaches that arise from the situations in East or West Europe. But the demand for democracy, in a fundamental sense, by its very nature can unite the movement from one side of the continent to the other.
Therein lies the significance of the open letter (see page 28) signed by women of five European countries, East and West, in which either American or Soviet missiles are currently deployed.
But the internationalism of the movement is not confined to the frontiers of Europe. Peace activists are firmly on the side of those people struggling for national and social liberation. They support especially the Nicaraguan people in their fight against the armed aggression of the US government. It is no coincidence that, in the United States, the antiwar movement is embracing both forces opposed to intervention as well as to the missiles.
The Amsterdam convention could provide the opportunity for launching projects of cooperation and solidarity with the peoples of the world - from Central America to the South Pacific, from the Middle East to South Africa.
The obvious ones are a campaign against the Nicaraguan blockade by US imperialism; raising the demand that western goverments cease all support to the racist regime in Pretoria; for the recognition of the right to independence, peace and security of the peoples of the South Pacific, amongst whom the Kanaks are currently being submitted to imperialist repression.
What sort of impact the fourth European convention can make will be determined by the sort of decisions it comes to on these questions.
13
PACTEDA CIDADE EASTERN EUROPE.