AFTER 30 years of war, imperialism. during which the most The greatest blow has barbaric and sustained been struck against capitalbombardment by the ism since the Chinese Revolution of 1949, and a lasting world's most advanced blow also at the treacherous weaponry had failed to ex-Stalinist conception of tinguish the spirit of revo- 'peaceful co-existence' and lutionary struggle, the 'detente' put forward by the Vietnamese workers and Moscow and Peking bupeasants have defeated reaucracies. the puppet forces of Taken with the revolutionSouth Vietnam and US ary victory of the Khmer • the endeavour of the presses something which working class of the entire has never been seen so world, whose unrelenting clearly until this day. No struggle dispersed the country in the world has power of the capitalist sys- ever met an imperialist ontem and its war criminals. slaught on the scale of that The Vietnamese triumph in Indochina. - in a way that no revolu- The allied invasion of tion has been since Russia Russia in 1918 was nothing in 1917 - is the victory of compared to the nightmare the international working of Vietnam. Five times as class and its struggle. many bombs as in the enVietnam - the spark tire Second World War which lit the flame of revo- rained down on a country lutionary struggle for mil- with a population only half lions of people in the that of Britain. imperialist countries - is The forests were the ultimate disproof of the stripped, the people were lie that imperialism and the attacked with poison gas, world working class could and the soldiers were as'peacefully co-exist". Viet- phyxiated with bombs nam is the living example which sucked the oxygen that the socialist conquest from the air. The United of power must involve the States created a South Vietviolent destruction of the namese army of over a milcapitalist system. lion and gave it the third Finally, Vietnam ex- largest airforce in the Rouge forces in Cambodia and the rapidly approaching complete collapse of the government in Laos, the Vietnamese victory must be seen as part of the world movement of the working masses now taking place against the attacks and oppression of capitalism.
Flowing from this must come an understanding of the continuing international world. And it was the Americans who lost.
Their puppet army was pulverised to defeat in eight weeks. Nothing in history has ever shown in quite the same way the force, the superiority of politics to weaponry, the superiority of courage and revolutionary will to the mechanical power of the paid puppets of imperialism.
Indochina is the ultimate lesson that no matter what horrors capitalism can unleash, it will be the working class that will triumph in the end.
Vietnam resounds around the world because it confirms the great cry that once echoed from Havana through the slums of Harlem to Hanoi: 'Venceremos - We Will Win!' (Red Weekly, May 8 1975) obligations of the new united state of Vietnam. The dangers are that the Hanoi regime, which has held bureaucratic control of the economic and political life, will turn away from these responsibilities.
The statement by Mme Minh at Heathrow Airport last week when, amidst general statements on supporting struggle in other countries, she said: "But having suffered so much from foreign intervention it is not our intention to interfere in the affairs of other countries", shows the dangerous tendencies towards nationalism gaining a hold on the bureaucracy now that the immediate threats of imperialism have been dispelled.
While supporting wholeheartedly the revolutionary struggles of the Vietnamese masses, we have stressed the vital need for organs of workers' and peasants' power to combat the danger of bureaucratic degeneration within the now united This is in opposition to the astounding line of the Workers Revolutionary Party, which now declares unconditional support for the 'consistent revolutionary line' of the Hanoi regime since the NLF took up arms in 1941.
Murder
Presumably the WRP consider the 'consistent revolutionary line' includes the murder of the Vietnamese Trotskyists, who led the struggles against the French and Japanese in the 1930s and the Second World War, and who led workers' militias in South Vietnam in 1945. Such a statement is scandalous in a paper claiming to be Trotskyist.
The problems now require a Trotskyist leadership with the lessons of the historical fight against Stalinism.
It is clearly impossible to construct socialism (under which the level of material wealth and of production must be raised above that possible under capitalism within the narrow national confines of Vietnam itself.
For the overthrow of capitalism in Vietnam to go forward to the establishment of a socialist workers' state, there must be both an expansion of industry under the control of organs of workers management, directing towards an overall national plan, and the fullest active support for revolutionary struggle throughout Asia and the imperialist The Moscow and Peking bureaucracies have restricted the supplies of arms to the struggles in Vietnam and Cambodia as part of their separate push for deals and detente with the US imperialists - using the Vietnamese masses as a bargaining counter.
Now the technological assistance forthcoming to Vietnam will be very much conditioned by the political manoeuvres of the Stalinist bureaucracies.
The economy will thus remain inadequate to eliminate the inequalities on which bureaucracy festers and future social contradictions can store up.
The way forward is therefore through the establishment in the towns and villages of soviets through which the power of the liberated workers, peasants and soldiers of Vietnam can be consolidated in challenging the bureaucracy, and bringing about the political revolution.
Socialist Press, May 15 1975
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK No. 82. April 29 1995, Page 10.