The following is adapted from a speech by Sam Marcy, Chairperson of Workers World Party, to a meeting of the Party on March 2.At last we have an opportunity to discuss in somewhat greater detail the significance of the war, to expound our point of view without having to meet a deadline or be confronted by a demonstration.
So today is an opportunity to go over the questions uppermost in the minds of the movement: What is unfolding on the world arena? What is the meaning of this war? How did it develop and end so suddenly?
Marxists must always start with a class definition of any social phenomenon, whether it be a club, a union, a social organization. We must analyze it from the point of view of our class. Marxism is a method of analyzing the class struggle.
Broad scope of this war
What kind of a war has suddenly been thrust upon the whole world? It's inadequate to describe it as merely an intervention by an imperialist power against an oppressed nation.
It's not just an expeditionary force to quell an insurrection. It's not just the kind of gunboat diplomacy which has been exercised for over a century--by the U.S. in Latin America, by the British Navy in the China Sea, by Tokyo attacking Seoul, or by the Dutch attacking Indonesia. It's much more than that.
It is a collective war of the leading imperialist countries against the oppressed people, not only in a particular country called Kuwait or Iraq, not only in Palestine this time, but against a whole region. We believe it will go much further.
A collective agreement has been secretly made and executed, with certain understandings on how to go about it and how to divide the spoils of victory among themselves. It's not an individual undertaking of the greatest imperialist power. It's done in collusion and conspiracy with the others.
Having chosen the proper time and having organized themselves politically and militarily, they have apparently succeeded. But perhaps not.
We know that the capitalist organizations do have secret treaties. The classical one is called the Sykes-Picot Treaty. We have been writing about it for some time, and even the King of Jordan has now referred to it. It was a secret treaty to divide up the Arabian Peninsula between France and Britain drawn up in the midst of the First World War. And the only reason it didn't work out was because the U.S. intervened a year later and told them that hereafter they had to consult Washington.
The war in the Gulf today is very much akin to that great imperialist war, and may be the opening stage of a wider, deeper military struggle. It is not the beginning of a new world order for peace.
The struggle today isn't just to divide the oil; there's a lot more to it, a great deal we're not privy to. But some of it is coming out now that the hostilities are ending.
Shultz, Bechtel and secret agreements
I was interested in yesterday's news dispatch which gives the names of construction companies which are going into Kuwait, probably also later in Iraq. Who's auctioning it off? The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. So far contracts are going to 36 U.S. companies, 20 British, maybe five or 10 for the French, and so far the Japanese and Germans have been left out.Now, this is billions of dollars. It's a division of resources. These construction companies are in with the oil companies, the military-industrial complex and the political figures who dominate the U.S. government.
I've been wondering, "Where is George Shultz?"--the former Secretary of State and a leading person at Bechtel, that giant construction company for the Middle East. Yesterday he suddenly appeared on TV. You know, Bechtel just got the biggest contract. But nobody asked him any questions about that.
These construction contracts are worth tens of billions of dollars for years to come. They waited for the destruction and now they want to participate in the reconstruction. And who will pay for it? The blood of the Arabian people.
So the secret agreements will reveal themselves after a while. More will come out. But we know already what military forces control Kuwait. Not the Malaysians, or the Indonesians, or the Costa Ricans. The U.S. Army is in control of Kuwait.
What has changed is the military possession of the peninsula. Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Iraq are under the complete military domination of the U.S. Possession is nine-tenths of the law. That's what it has always been in class society.
Let's disregard all the talk about bringing the troops home early, which is so dear to the hearts of the workers. They're not going to bring them all home. They have established military hegemony on an unprecedented scale. There are 700,000 all told, with France, Britain, Egypt, Turkey, others.
The ruling class knows how to hold back whatever information they have. They control the media, the press, all the social and political institutions. And when they say keep quiet about the construction contracts, keep quiet about the division of the oil, they keep quiet.
The right time and place
Among the left in this country, some will say whatever comes to their mind, whether it's necessary or not, no matter how it affects the class struggle. They'll say, "The Iraqis killed communists, why don't you bring that up?" Well, why should we? Is that necessary now? "The Iraqis did this and that on such and such a day and overthrew such and such an important figure. Why don't you bring it up?"
Well, you bring it up at an appropriate time. Don't hide it. We never did. But why not learn something from the ruling class? Don't shoot your mouth off everywhere and whenever.
We have to take stock of our class, and the state of the oppressed movements throughout the world. And we have to ask some questions. When the war broke out, where were some of the organizations on a world scale to answer this world conspiracy? They were not there.
For instance, take the Non-Aligned Movement, which has a commendable record in many ways and claims membership of many, many countries. It was established for the purpose of exercising an independent role. They were not heard from. If they were, I would like to hear and be enlightened.
Where was the World Peace Council? Where have they been, with this holocaust-like attack upon the oppressed people?
Where was the World Federation of Trade Unions? World Federation. If they said something, we didn't hear it, and not because we're not looking for it. That's the left-wing trade unions. Where were the so-called "free" trade unions--another world organization with millions and millions of followers? Where were the Indian trade unionists, with millions upon millions? And where were our comrades, the Soviet Union and China?
Where were they? This world conspiracy could only be put over when all the others are silent. It couldn't have been done without that.
And finally, where was our working class? The combined force of the two anti-war coalitions did not bring out more than 500,000, did not have the punch to actively attempt to disrupt and stop the imperialist war.
So this is the situation. Now we have a chance to think about some of these things. We have the freedom to speak our mind, we have the freedom to gather our thoughts together, to discuss. This is the belly of the monster. Many people abroad look to see who is going to lead a fight here.
Importance of international solidarity
At the beginning we, in common with all the others including I believe Iraq, were looking forward to a revolutionary overturn of the puppet regimes in Egypt, perhaps Saudi Arabia, perhaps Syria. But it did not materialize. We hailed each one of the demonstrations, each one of the powerful outpourings of millions of people. But that alone could not overturn a regime.
Look at the Russian Revolution. It was different in that it was a proletarian revolution, but it was besieged in the same way as Iraq. But it set up an organization called the Communist International which spread throughout the world. It called upon the workers to overthrow the other imperialist governments. And some tried, as did Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg in Germany. They tried in Hungary, and came near it in France. Even the British general strike, in 1926, was helpful in some ways.
However, the worldwide overturn of imperialism envisioned by Lenin and Trotsky didn't materialize. And pretty soon the Soviet government pulled back into somewhat of an isolationist position.
When one considers the immense consequences that are flowing from this defeat in the Gulf, it required a world response. But it was not forthcoming.
Now, there are stages in the development of this war that are important for us to know. In the first stage, the U.S. rounded up its allies by diplomatic means in the United Nations.
Remember, the U.S. imperialist government regarded the UN over the last two or three decades with scorn and contempt. They refused to pay dues to it until this very year. On many occasions they organized hooligan groups of neo-fascists demanding that the UN be evicted. All this was inspired by the Pentagon and the ultra-right militarist forces. During the Reagan administration, the UN representative got up and said, "If you don't like it here, you can move." What haughtiness, what brazenness.
And then all of a sudden, they round up their allies at the UN as a screen to carry out this most predatory, this most racist war.
Taking the measure of the new world order
We first have to get the measure and the magnitude of the catastrophe that has befallen us--without the slightest concession to bourgeois pessimism or the kind of morbid sentimentality that the petty bourgeoisie disseminates. We've got to be objective and dispassionate in all this. It is a catastrophe. And the question is how to reverse it, where do we go from here, and what do we do?
The takeover of the oil I think everybody will understand. But there's also an electronic takeover. AT&T moved right in. They're now a principal in the telephone lines over there. They are competing against the French, the Japanese and everybody else. And so is the media. CNN has become a world factor, has raised its competitive power to the nth degree.
We've all seen now what this "new world order" is like. Gorbachev called it "universal human values." And you can see the human values when you view the carnage in Kuwait and in Iraq.
It's important to see the UN in perspective, too. Where did it come from? Why has it been constructed and what relevance does it have as an intermediary in the struggle?
Marx and Engels had proposed a world organization not of governments but of the workers. "Workers of the world unite" was their slogan, and during Lenin's time he amended it to "Workers of the world and oppressed people unite," because of the new world situation arising from the oppression of the colonized people. The Western proletariat was, after all, only a minority.
Why League of Nations was formed
There never was a world organization of states until after the First World War. Agreements were always of a bilateral character. If, for instance, Norway needed an agreement with Iceland, they didn't need a world organization. What started all this business of a world organization?
The first world organization made by the imperialists--the League of Nations--was meant to contain their contradictions, so that the French, British, Japanese, Germans and so on would be able among themselves to arrive at agreements and rally their satellites and dependencies to support each other.
The proper thing for a communist was to shun the organization as one constructed for, by and in the interests of the imperialists. The fact that the Soviet leadership under Stalin began to support the League of Nations didn't change the character of the organization. It was imperialist controlled.
The League of Nations proved its bankruptcy in not being able to stop an imperialist war, so the UN grew out of the Second World War. It was Roosevelt's idea. By the time of the battle of Stalingrad in 1943, the U.S. realized there was a revolutionary ferment all over what was then the colonial world. China, India, Latin America--even the Peronistas were regarded as an anti-imperialist threat, although they were not. And the Arabian Peninsula began to stir to life after being throttled by imperialism for so long.
The role of the veto in the UN
The imperialists needed a world organization to contain the revolutionary movements. How could they get the Soviet Union to agree to something like that? They hit upon the idea of a veto power. France, defeated by the Nazis and reduced to a secondary power, got a veto. British imperialism was on the brink of catastrophe but was saved by the Labor Party, which could have taken power if it had had the guts and the necessary class solidarity with the workers. So Britain got the veto. And the United States and the USSR.
China at that time was under Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and seemed to be a suitable member.
So four capitalist powers--the U.S., Britain, France and China--could dominate the world scene. The others would vote whatever they wanted to, but it would all be vetoed.
Where is there any semblance of democracy in that? Where is there any semblance of democracy when this group could bring Kuwait into the United Nations in the same year that it kept out revolutionary China, with a billion people?
Where did it ever stop a conflict? It's just been a screen behind which to maneuver. Once a struggle is on the verge of being settled, they come in as a mediator and give it blessing. But nothing else.
Defection of USSR, China
This war could not have taken place without the defection of the USSR and China from the anti-imperialist camp.
I think our Party has probably shown more loyalty to the Soviet Union as a working class formation than any other organization, including the CP, which unthinkingly follows the leadership but does not analyze the class interests of the USSR.
But the Soviet leadership voted for the key resolutions that gave the imperialists and the U.S. the green light in Iraq. It played a treacherous role during all the negotiations also, the role of a fraudulent mediator. As you see, Bush thanked Gorbachev yesterday. He said that he was helpful. The Soviet Union and the U.S. are back on course as collaborators.
I will say without belaboring the issue that Gorbachev is a transitional figure. He will not last long. Either the counter-revolution will triumph, or there'll be a revolutionary upsurge of communism to overthrow the corrupt and rotten regime that collaborates with imperialism. Everybody with a speck of revolutionary honesty can only hope he'll be thrown out.
We're not in favor of military coups that leave the masses passive, but there's nothing so odious as to see this guy on the international arena again and again shaking hands with the blood-stained imperialists at a time when the masses more than anything need leadership, everywhere. The worst thing is to make excuses for him.
But at the same time we should be able to differentiate where the Soviet Union will have to play a progressive role. We must take into account that U.S. military forces are now 150 miles from the Soviet Union. They have put the Soviet Union in great danger. However, revolutionary military leaders are not going to be frightened. Because they can say to the U.S. imperialists, "Your forces are within range of the Red Army." It all depends upon whether you take a revolutionary viewpoint or one of complete demoralization and adapting oneself to the imperialist modus vivendi.
Palestine the cutting edge
I would like to go into what agitates the movement--about Kuwait, Palestine, and some of the political problems that are of an internal character.
We can't do it all today. We must begin with some of the practical aspects.
In every great crisis, one issue will become the acid test, the cutting edge that divides the revolutionaries from the bourgeois reformists. During the Russian Revolution it was Are you with the Bolsheviks or the Mensheviks? Later on, when China was becoming liberated, it was Are you for the Chiang Kai-shek Taiwan government or People's China?
In the Middle East the cutting edge is Where do you stand on the Palestinian question?
And on that the movement here is weak, and has disregarded it for many years. Our first demonstration on this after the 1967 war only brought out some 70 people. You couldn't get them out.
Some said the Vietnam War was the most important issue. We didn't deny that, but the '67 war was just as vicious, just as significant, and it destroyed the possibility of liberating Palestine and of making the Middle East an independent region.
So it is important that Iraq, for whatever reason, went out of its way to support the Palestinians. If Iraq had come out and denounced the Palestinians, it would be altogether different. Their stand rallied the masses of people. And the fact that the Palestinians, or a great many of them, supported Iraq in its relationship to the current struggle is also of great significance.
(Next week: Kuwait and the national question.)