First Published:The Workers’ Advocate Vol. 9, No. 3, March 29, 1979.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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The “CP(ML)” social-chauvinists, the main agency of Chinese revisionism in the U.S., are openly hailing as a “victory” for their counter-revolutionary cause the savage Chinese social-imperialist aggression against Viet Nam. Just as the criminal barbarism against the freedom-loving Vietnamese people ordered by the revisionist cutthroats in Peking has laid bare the aggressive and warmongering course of Chinese social-imperialism, so too, the enthusiasm of the Klonskyite “three worlders” for this savage aggression exposes them further as brazen social-chauvinists and zealous lackeys of both Chinese and U.S. imperialism.
The social-chauvinists’ newspaper, The Call, has carried two front page articles saluting China’s invasion of Viet Nam. One article is entitled “Chinese troops strike back at Vietnamese” and the other is an editorial entitled “USSR-Vietnam to blame for Asia fighting”. In these articles, the social-chauvinists make two points: 1) that Chinese social-imperialism’s outrageous crimes against the proletariat and the people, and its savage invasion of Viet Nam “have been just, necessary and correct”; and 2) that the U.S. imperialists and all reactionaries should follow China’s lead in taking such “forthright actions” as invading Viet Nam in order to cope with the competitive power of Soviet social-imperialism and the revolts of the proletariat and peoples of the world.
The “CP(ML)” leaders, taking their cue from their mentor, the fascist revisionist gangster Teng Hsiao-ping, defend China’s invasion of Viet Nam with straightforward imperialist and fascist logic. The Call arrogantly declares: “China’s successful counterattack against Vietnam with its limited aims was in no way an ’invasion’ as it is billed in the U.S. and Soviet press. It is precisely a ’lesson’ both to the Vietnamese and to all those who support or appease Soviet aggression in the world today.” What outrageous fascism! Contrary to what the whole world has been given to believe, China’s savage aggression against Viet Nam is not an invasion at all because it is only for “limited aims”, that is to “teach the Vietnamese a lesson”. Indeed, dear lackeys of imperialism! And the U.S. imperialists too invaded Viet Nam with regular troops in 1964, after the so-called “Tonkin Gulf incident”, with the “limited aims” of “teaching the North Vietnamese a lesson”. And according to Johnson and Nixon too, U.S. imperialism never, invaded Viet Nam nor waged one of the most savage wars of aggression there at all, but only waged a “limited war” to “curb North Vietnamese aggression”. The Chinese invasion, no matter what name it is billed under – whether it has “limited aims” or is only a “punitive raid” or only to “teach some necessary lessons”, –remains unbridled imperialist aggression just the same.
China has emerged as a big social-imperialist state which is striving to carve out its own spheres of influence and domination. Viet Nam is a small country, and because it has refused to toe Peking’s line and come under China’s control, the Chinese social-imperialist armies launched ferocious aggression into Viet Nam, creating the danger of a much wider and more terrible conflict. Clearly only the most brazen of social-chauvinists such as those of the “CP(ML)” could describe such imperialism and fascism as “just, necessary and correct”.
The Call authors literally revel in the “successes” of China’s invading forces. They shamelessly write:
“Of course we cannot be happy that a situation has arisen in which it is necessary for China to act militarily in Vietnam”. But since a military invasion has become “necessary” to China’s plans to conquer Asia, The Call declares with cynical glee that the “swift strike” of the Chinese invaders is “dishing out a strong lesson” to Viet Nam, and that “already the effects of the Chinese strike are being felt”. Teng Hsiao-ping also spoke of the Chinese “successes”, claiming that the Chinese aggressors had “smashed the myth of Vietnamese invincibility”. But what these imperialist fiends are referring to as the “myth of Vietnamese invincibility”, is the liberation war against French and then U.S. imperialism which, after decades of the most arduous struggle, culminated in Complete victory in 1975, only four years ago. It is this glorious liberation struggle of the people, and unprecedented defeat for the U.S. imperialists, which Mr. Teng and Mr. Klonsky have so much cynical hatred for. Despite Peking’s claims, the Chinese social-imperialists have only “succeeded” in devastating the northern border provinces of Viet Nam with a “scorched earth” policy learned from their Pentagon general friends. And they have only succeeded in further exposing Teng Hsiao-ping and all his social-chauvinist, pro-imperialist hangers-on, as the warmongering criminals that they are.
The Klonskyite social-chauvinists are using China’s invasion of Viet Nam for propaganda to spur on U.S. imperialism in its war preparations and intervention and aggression against the peoples. These loyal lackeys of imperialism and junior advisors to the. State Department, openly call on the U.S. monopoly capitalist rulers to follow the “model” of China’s invasion of Viet Nam and to take “forthright actions” to “firmly and militantly” defend the positions of U.S. imperialism. As The Call puts it:
“The U.S., as it is prone to do, took a vacillating and self-contradictory position on the current fighting. Ignoring the Soviet threat in Asia and its threat to Europe, a U.S. State Department spokesman claimed that the China-Vietnam fighting was ’none of our business’...
“The U.S. appears bent on placating the Soviet-Vietnamese aggressors, while at the same time protecting its newly-established relations with China. On the other hand, China’s forthright actions were posed as an example to the appeasers, showing that a country which firmly and militantly defends itself has a better chance against Soviet aggression than one which apologizes for the new czars and encourages them onward.”
And further:
“... The only road that can postpone the outbreak of war on a world scale is determined resistance by the peoples and countries of the world. China is offering a model of such resistance through its current posture in relation to Soviet-Vietnamese aggression and expansion.”
Thus, first of all, according to these social-chauvinists, U.S. imperialism has failed to take sides in the fighting and properly take its position in open support of the Chinese invasion. However, these claims from both the State Department and the “CP(ML)” about U.S. “neutrality” are a patent fraud. They are aimed at portraying the U.S. imperialists as “human rights” angels who want nothing to do with such military adventures. But the whole world knows that the U.S. imperialists approved of and instigated China’s invasion. It was only six hours after the conclusion of his U.S. tour that Teng Hsiao-ping proclaimed that China was “going to teach Vietnam a lesson”. Obviously the Chinese^ invasion oft Viet Nam was discussed beforehand in Teng’s secret meetings with Carter and is a direct product of the U.S.-China aggressive alliance. Nevertheless, the “CP(ML)” is engaged in chastising the State Department for failing to make the invasion of Viet Nam their “business”. No doubt these warmongering “three worlders” would only be satisfied if the U.S. imperialists should take the more “forthright action” of dispatching a fleet of B-52’s to bomb Hanoi and to mine Haiphong harbor to “soften up the Vietnamese for the Chinese invaders. Maybe that would put an end to Washington’s so-called “vacillating and self-contradictory position on the current fighting”!
When Teng Hsiao-ping visited the U.S., he openly called for a “united front” and a military alliance of the United States, China, Japan and “united Europe” and other imperialists and fascists against Soviet social-imperialism. Teng lectured the chieftains of U.S. imperialism that only the “united action” of these aggressive imperialists who are armed to the teeth “can place curbs on the polar bear”. Immediately on his return to Peking, Teng dispatched Chinese troops on a “punitive raid” into Viet Nam. And now the “CP(ML)” has declared this invasion “an example to the appeasers, showing that a country which firmly and militantly defends itself has a better chance against Soviet aggression.” These frenzied social-chauvinists have dropped any disguise in their desire for a U.S. imperialist policy of unbridled aggression and war. Their principle demand is that U.S. imperialism must abandon so-called “appeasement” and should not appear weak-kneed in the face of the people’s revolution and the “Soviet threat”, but must “firmly and militantly defend itself” and become yet more aggressive as the executioner of the peoples and world gendarme of the capitalist-imperialist system.
For instance, The Call denounces U.S. imperialism for “ignoring the Soviet threat in Asia”. And thus, when the heroic Iranian people rose up to overthrow the bloodsoaked U.S. puppet regime of the Shah, the “CP(ML)” warned of the need for a “compromise” with the Shah’s man Bakhtiar “or the country will be propelled into civil war” and then the Soviet Union will “take advantage of the upsurge to serve its expansionist aims” (see The Call, 2/26/79). According to the fascist logic of the “CP(ML)”, the U.S. imperialists should learn from the Chinese “example” and order an invasion of Iran by the U.S. marines to “teach a lesson” to the Iranian proletariat and people for objectively “appeasing and supporting Soviet expansionism” by rising up against China’s allies, the fascist Shah and U.S. imperialism.
In fact, the propaganda of the followers of Chinese revisionism for U.S. imperialist aggression and war is unsurpassed by the most hardened warmongering U.S. politicians. The “Open Letter” of 70 retired U.S. generals and admirals to President Carter demanding stepped-up war preparations and an increased U.S. military presence around the world to counter the “Soviet threat” and to put down the revolutions of the proletariat and oppressed peoples, was approvingly cited in the pages of The Call (1/29/79). But even these decrepit U.S. imperialist war criminals are outdone by the likes of the social-chauvinist chieftain Michael Klonsky. His notorious thesis of the U.S. proletariat “aiming its main blow at Soviet social-imperialism”, the foreign threat, has proved itself to be a slogan of hitlerite imperialist aggression and war.
The question arises, how can such a liberal group of notorious social pacifists and ACLU “Marxists” as the “CP(ML)”, which has never taken a firm or militant position, let alone any “forthright actions”, against the U.S. monopoly capitalist class and its state or against modern revisionism or any other enemy of the proletarian cause, how can such a flabby group so “firmly and militantly” champion the cause of imperialist aggression and war ? The answer lies in their alliance with the warmongers, with the U.S. imperialist and Chinese social-imperialist states. “CP(ML)” finds the “courage” for its hitlerite propaganda for aggressive war in the counter-revolutionary U.S.-China alliance, in the imperialists’ arsenals of nuclear weapons and their colossal military apparatus.
The “CP(ML)” social-chauvinists are nothing but brazen lackeys of U.S. imperialism and Chinese social-imperialism and their warmongering plans for world domination. Nevertheless, certain characters continue to try to obscure this fact. The conciliators with social-chauvinism want to portray the social-chauvinists as simply misguided souls with a few unfortunate formulations and not flunkeys of imperialism and enemies of the proletariat. Such conciliators editorialize: “It won’t be long before the CP/ML not only chastises the U.S. bourgeoisie for its supposed lack of aggressiveness, but comes out with a direct call to the U.S. working class to set aside its struggle against U.S. imperialism because it ’would weaken the struggle against Soviet social-imperialism’. This is the inevitable road the revisionist CP/ML will follow, one that is in complete opposition to the interests of the working class and in complete support of the bourgeoisie” (Unite!, 3/1/79, underlining added). What shameless confusion- mongering! Just how many outrageous crimes against the revolution and in defense of imperialism does the “CP(ML)” have to commit before the conciliators will find it necessary to condemn them as “in complete opposition” to the working class? Wasn’t Michael Klonsky’s notorious call for the U.S. proletariat to “direct the main blow at Soviet social-imperialism”, a call declared nearly three years ago, exactly such “a direct call to the U.S. working class to set aside its struggle against U.S. imperialism” ?! And if these professional conciliators have left any doubts in anyone’s mind, as the Chinese invasion of Viet Nam has further demonstrated, Klonsky’s “main blow” at the foreign threat has become a slogan for the open incitement of war, for the savage “forthright actions” and military adventures of imperialism.