The imperialist press the world over was all but delirious over the recent Pravda article denouncing "left sectarianism." And with good reason! For they knew all too well that the long-awaited attack was directed not against real living sectarians or ultra-lefts, but against none other than the firmest, and strongest class ally of the Soviet Union — Communist China and the Chinese CP.
With malicious delight, the New York Times of June 14, 1960, exclaimed that Khrushchev would eventually have to come out against Peking in much less guarded terms. Loyal Communists throughout the world, genuine Socialists, and friends of the Soviet Union generally, have a natural reluctance to accept the imperialist interpretation of events. And that is the way it should be.
But the deeds of the imperialists which speak a thousand times louder than all the imperialist propaganda, must be examined carefully and clearly by all class-conscious workers and Communists.
Just consider this: Barely had four weeks elapsed since the collapse of the Summit Conference and the U.S. ruling class quickly began to readjust its strategy toward the Communist bloc. In doing so, it once again demonstrated that its class instinct for blackmail and bribery is as sharp as its appetite for imperialist plunder is insatiable.
In the case of Poland, for instance, the U.S. announced that it will negotiate a credit in the sum of no less than $100 million for surplus food, and in return will merely take "local currency." A rather generous offer, indeed!
This offer followed immediately upon the heels of a speech by the Polish Ambassador to the UN, Jerzy Michalowski, on May 24,1960. The speech was made during the U-2 debate. Michalowski, while he supported and voted for the Soviet resolution, made it clear that his line of attack was based principally and primarily on "violation of international law and sovereignty" — and pointedly refrained from attacking the U.S. as an imperialist aggressor which was the line of the USSR's attack.
All who had their ears carefully attuned to the measured words of the Polish delegate knew what his speech meant. It was a diplomatic signal from Gomulka to Eisenhower that the Polish regime still stood at the extreme right of the Communist bloc — with the exception, of course, of Yugoslavia.
How different it was with the case of China! No imperialist handouts there! But more guns, planes, ships and missiles to reinforce the Seventh Fleet and "safeguard" the security of the Western Pacific! And that's not all. The hastily convened SEATO Conference was quickly shifted to Washington, where both Herter and Nixon unloosed the most provocative and bellicose of war speeches directed against China and made open threats of continual military maneuvers around the South China Seas. And this, on top of more than one hundred violations of China's air space!
Can Khrushchev fail to realize the significance of the mightiest capitalist government handing out generous offers to one of his collaborators and meting out punishment and threats of aggression to another? Hardly.
By scandalizing the Chinese CP to the glee and merriment of the entire imperialist bourgeoisie, Khrushchev weakened the USSR and sharpened the appetites of the war-makers.
And the irony of it all is that by doing so, he has done damage to his own theses of "peaceful co-existence." For if there is any validity to his thesis at all (and we don't believe there is), one of its firmest pillars is the avowed unity of the entire Socialist camp. Yet who among the imperialists will fail to see that Khrushchev's attack on the Chinese CP revealed a widening rift within the camp.
The bribery offered to Poland and the blackmail attempt on China are in the final analysis only two different forms of pressure exerted on the USSR, itself. One only has to ponder for a moment the enormous harm to the defense position of the USSR and the international proletariat if U.S. imperialism's tactic toward Poland and China were to succeed even only partially!
Fortunately, the same acute contradictions of imperialism which perpetually pull it in the direction of war against the Soviet bloc also exhibit a tendency in the opposite direction. The revolutionary intervention of the masses in Japan, the overthrow of the Syngman Rhee government in Korea, and the ouster of Menderes in Turkey operate, even if only temporarily, as a tremendous brake on the Pentagon militarists and constantly upset their war plans.
This has saved the Soviet bloc from the catastrophe that Khrushchev is courting with his false policy of conciliation with imperialism, while China openly defies the U.S. war-makers. This is the real issue in the struggle he is waging against the Chinese CP, for which "left-sectarianism" has served as a shabby cover.
CHAPTERS:
Index Introduction 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27
Last updated: 16 June 2018