Playing Global Dominos (continued)

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The election in 1950 of the allegedly pro-communist President Arbenz in Guatemala proved a thorn in the flesh of the US administration. In the throes of Cold War hysteria, they saw the nationalist regime as a threat to the profits of the US-owned United Fruit Company (owners of 10% of the country's land), and to the security of the Panama Canal.

Arbenz nationalised uncultivated land and supported strikes against foreign monopolies - but his government remained dominated by anti-communists, and the main power remained in the hands of the army.

In June 1954, having failed in diplomatic efforts to isolate Guatemala, US Secretary of State Dulles sanctioned a CIA-backed invasion by right wing Guatemalan forces from across the borders in Honduras and Nicaragua.

This toppled Arbenz, and installed a pliable, pro-imperialist regime.

suffered its traumatic defeat Mozambique) has also in Vietnam, and further helped to expand Soviet struggles including ihose in global influence beyond its Southern Africa, Iran and mere capacity to deliver Nicaragda have shown the nuclear weapons on US or limited ability of imperialism European targets. to control its "spheres of So what now is the world influence" by direci military relationship of forces force. between the Kremlin leaders And of course the emer- and imperialism? As Reagan gence of radicalised leader- and Thatcher pound out ships in such liberation their Cold War propagnda, struggles and the ability of giving dire warnings of the the Soviet bureaucracy to power, aggressiveness and establish economic, diplo- capriciousness of the soviet matic - (and sometimes, burcaucrals as arguments for military - alliances with runway • military spending them, as in Angola and and still more nuclear weapons, it can be useful to assess the reality.

Two recent books -though marred by substantial weaknesses - help us in this task.

"Superpowers in • Collision" , a collection of essays Jonathan Steele and John Gittings (Pelican, £1.95) looks relationships between the USA in particular and the NATO alliance in general and the USSR and China. And Fred Halliday's book "Threat from the East?" looks at the region where the Kremlin leaders are allegedly most actively fomenting the "end of the world as we know it" - the 'are of crisis' from the Horn of Africa through Iran to Afghanistan.

Chomsky's article "The USA: from Greece to EI Salvador" looks at the evolution of Cold War ideology from the immediate post-war period to the present day.

Quoting from President Truman's secretary of state Dean Acheson he shows clearly how a whole anti-Soviet scare was deliberately manufactured early in 1947 as the basis for the announcement of the Truman Doctrine, and US involvement in Greece and Turkey. Chomsky points out that:

"The Soviet Union la, eú no significant role in the civil war in Greece since it recognised that this was an area central to American power. It was the first domino on the way to the Middle East - and in fact the domino theory was first formulated with explicit reference to the Greek situation.

This was American turf which Stalin knew the US was not going to abandon. He was therefore trying to call off the guerrillas, much as he sought to persuade the French communists to collaborate in the reestabSoviet arms supplies to the Salvadoran liberation forces.

Jonathan Steele takes up an examination of the Soviet Union, and the policies it has pursued since finally achieving a rough equivalence nuclear weapons with the USA in 1969 Steel stresses how recent the period i which the USSR could even hope to be ecarded as an equal negoti ating power witt Thf Americans, and explains the VATIOHS ways In when policy of detente, floated b ananixon in int early 1970s, fitted well into Ine polltical Tninkin of Brezhnev and his Stalinis colleagues.

They sought top-level recognition from the imperialists, and forms of collaboration and co-existence which might enable them to hold down their multary . budgets and take steps to placate e the economic demand of thei OWI working classes rome. And in particular the wanted to obtair Western credits and technology anich TheiT OWn Iso ated economies had failed to generate From the imperialist standpoint: "Kissinger the US could build up web of relationship with Moscow, through trade, polit100 E dialogue and nuclear arms control, the Russians would be locked into collaborative with ther behaviou West.

This would make it harder for them to break out in a wild, adventurist way." lishment of capitalism in the was northe Republican leadearly post-war years.

Yet since the US was ers. but the Democrat committed to using force to Jimmy Carten • in the USA crush what amounted to the former anti-Nazi resistance who brought about a reversal of this in Greece, a justification was tion. Pentagon chiefs needed at the ideological had seen that despite detente level, and this was provided the US had suffered serious by the Soviet Union. setbacks Vietnam Ethiopia and in Angola Scares Witn Soviet backing to the opposition in each case.

Chomsky snows how Carter's administration similar sonteswere стелес began its offensive with the in 1950 and in the 1960 "human rights" charade US Presidential election (exposed 1n Chomsky's where ine "liberal" Kennedi article) but went C on criticised Eisenhower for cribark bon production p being insufficiently Cruise and MX missiles, and aggressive towards the USSR in the wake of the Iraniar and unprepared for war. revolution and hostage crisis 1962 over Berlin, Cuba forge ahead. with the and Laos, Kennedy had establisnment Rapid looked towards nuclear war Deployment Force. In 1979 Carte also launched He shows how the hysterical outcry over Soviet resent _contilc troops in Cuba as a smoke Salvador has been exploited screen for halting the stratby Reagan's Cold War propa- egic arms limitation talks gandists in ways similar to (SALT II). At the end o the situation in Greece 1979 Carter announced 1947, and he exposes. .the plans to site Cruise missile: State Department lies ove in europe Carving up the world - Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin at Yalta

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In the closing days of the Eisenhower administration, CIA chiefs completed plans for an invasion of Cuba, to be carried out by exiled reactionaries under US direction and The plan laboured under the illusion that the Cuban masses were longing only for an opportunity to rise up against Castro's regime, and that a small force could cataThe invasion forces, armed and financed by the USA, were trained in bases loaned by the Guatemalan dictatBut the attack was not launched until April 1961, under conditions where Kennedy had vetoed the provision of US air cover. It proved an unmitigated fiasco.

Within 3 days the 1,500 strong invading force had been Beaten up killed or taken prisoner, while thousands of underground reactionaries inside Cuba were rounded up and arrested by Castro's secret police. The masses rallied strongly beh- by cops!

Throwing all the balance-of-forces calculations askew' - Polish workers challenge the hureaucracy Almost as if in answer to this, the Soviet bureaucracy in December 1979 invaded Afghanistan - handing Carter and Reagan a colossal propaganda tool for use at home and abroad against the 'Soviet menace'.

Control

The picture emerging from Steele's account is one La soviet bureaucracy seeking ways and means of stabilising its relations with a dominant imperialism, but forced to respond to events in the class struggle and to shifts of imperialist policy which they cannot control.

He concludes:

"The Russians are militarily stronger than they were in 1970, but the world beyond their borders is no more favourable to them than it was a decade ago. The United States is still economically, technologically and militarily their superior." (p.64)

Halliday too emphasises the limitations of Soviet military power when compared to that of US imperialism:

«The Soviet Union aims to have a global military capability. It has been building a naval fleet capable of sailing in all the main waters of the world, and it has developed a long-range air capability — as demonstrated by the 1977 airlift to Ethiopia Its global capability is still smaller than that of the United States, and its network of overseas facilities (with the exception of those in Eastern Europe) is, in comparison with that of America, diminutive."

One major facet of this weakness of the Soviet bureaucracy is its internal problems - the emergence of independent struggles by the working class in Poland and elsewhere, and the economic dislocation brought about by decades of bureaucratic mismanagement.

Another is the division since the late 1950s between the Soviet and Chinese Stalinist bureaucracies, which has enabled the American leaders to draw Peking into similar collaborationist frameworks to those offered to the USSR in the early 1970s, and play one off against the other.

John Gittings' article explores the emergence of Chinese power in the last 33 years, and draws attention to the way in which the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was a blow against the Chinese bureaucrats as much as against the imperialists.

Halliday's book explains the various reasons why the 'Arc of Crisis' should have become the focus. for analysis of the balance of power between the Soviet Union and imperialism.

He relates this to the weakening grip of Western control in the Third World, the strategic importance of the Gulf's oil supplies, the growing power of the OPEC in relation to the West, the erosion of US control over its own allies, the drive by US generals for increased military spending, and the real increase in the military power of the USSR.

He goes on to explain the immense historic and geographical ties which link the Soviet bureaucracy with efforts to influence events in the Middle East..

«What the West sees as the northern tier is for the Russians, the southern tier, a line of countries whose international and internal orientations are of prime concern to them, just as much as the politics of the Caribbean and Central American countries are to the USA"

Halliday catalogues and examines some of the extremely costly Soviet diplomatic disasters in the region. Amongst these the most catastrophic was the relationship between the USSR and Egypt, beginning under Nasser in 1955 and ending, under Sadat, with the expulsion of Russian technicians and advisors, the repudiation of Egypt's $7 billion debt to Moscow and the cementing of alliances between Egypt and the USA.

Indeed many of the Soviet arms lavishly supplied to Egypt during that period are now being funnelled into the hands of the reactionary Islamic forces fighting the Soviet invaders in Afghanistan! Soviet military aid to the capitalist government of Egypt outstripped its aid to the Communists fighting US imperialism in Vietnam during the same period.

Halliday looks also at some other such failures -such as Somalia and Iraq. He shows how profoundly unstable are current Soviet relations with Gaddafi's Libya and the Syrian Ba'athists, and analyses a "net deficit in its record of Middle East diplomacy since the War."

Halliday is also the most categoric in spelling out the negative implications for the Soviet bureaucracy of their invasion of Afghanistan -which has embroiled a vast army in a prolonged war in which they can only further antagonise the masses of Central Asia.

But usefully Halliday also undermines some of the mythical explanations of Soviet policy. For instance he explains why it is false to overestimate the threat to the Kremlin bureaucracy from the Muslim minority peoples within the USSR.

And he explodes the argument that the USSR is pursuing a quest for oil supplies.

On the events in Iran, Afghanistan, South Yemen and Ethiopia - where Us and other leaders have .. 00-2220200 20222/1022 1921003 claimed to find evidence of ishned Soviet 'expansion, Halliday successfully shows that developments far from being consciously instigated by Moscow happened largely despite the Kremlin leaders' efforts to control developments, and leave a situation which the benefits they have secured are by no means unambiguous.

And he points out that:

"Far from being single mindedly inimical to the West, Soviet policy has too often allowed itself to be swayed from pursuing local advantages by tactical considerations arising from concern over the thrust of East-West relations. Such initiatives have run counter this involved playing too cautious a role precisely in order not to antagonise the with US air cover.

lyse a mass movement.

orship.

ind Castro. West. Soviet indulgence to the Shah and delay in openly backing the iranian revolution is a striking case of this • At other times the Soviet desire to rival the West leads it into courting some of the more repressive right-wing leaders of the Third World who may have disagreement of greater or shorter duration with their Western allies".

While thus successfully restoring some balance to the Cold War view of unbridled and burgeoning Soviet military power, and pointing the finger at the reactionary deals and alliances carried out by the Moscow bureaucrats in their search for their utopian "peaceful coexistence" Halliday, like the authors of "Superpowers in Collision" offers no political explanation of their conduct.

Indeed in many respects they show a quaint naivete about in particular the Soviet leaders and their motivations. Halliday, in search of a statement of Soviet foreign policy objectives, looks to the double-talk of the Soviet Constitution of 1977. And he is also charitable in his assessment of the reasoning behind Soviet aid to the Ethiopian regime and the invasion of Afghanistan.

But Halliday's gullible approach is more than matched by that of John Gittings, who is critical of the Moscow bureaucracy's "curiously un-Marxist' approach to collaboration with the leaders of US imperialism, and goes on to talk of Brezhnev's "Moscow electors"!

The collection of essays in Superpowers in Collision, while avoiding the jargon of Marxist terminology, dese end instead into the jargon LIEU un Jagun of journalese, referring indiscriminately to both the imperialist USA and the bureaucratised workers' state of the USSR as "superpowers"

Halliday stresses in his account the extent to which Soviet trade and aid to 'friendly' regimes produces little or no economic benefit to Moscow - in stark contrast to the loans and aid packages put together by the imperialists.

But the authors of superpowers in Collision remain so preoccupied with 'power bloc' politics that the different social systems on which the two main governments rest are largely left aside.

Their conclusions are thus vague suggestions for "codes of conduct' (Halliday) or 'public discussion' and 'neutrality' (Gittings and Steele), resting on the idealist notion that capitalist and Stalinist regimes alike can be peacefully - and by rational argument - transformed into systems which do not mean exploitation and repression for the world's population.

The nationalised property relations in the Stalinist-ruled states can only be defended and developed, and the warmongering of imperialists defeated by the construction of a revolutionary Marxist leadership for the working class in every country of the world. That is our only way to ensure that the missiles scare of 1962 does not return as the armageddon of the future. MOHAMMED Ibrahim Ismail Patel, an Imam for the Islamic community of Aston-Under-Lyne has been threatened with deportation by the Home Office.

The Islamic community invited Mohammed Patel to serve them, after attempts to find an Imam from within the community. The mosque applied for his residence to be made permanent bui this has been refused.

The Home Office has refused extension of stay for Mr. Patel despite the obvious need of the local Muslim community; a thousand strong petition made on his behalf, and representations made by the local MP, Robert Sheldon.

The Mosque Committee REGGIE Yates from North London has been threatened with deportation to Ghana. The Home Office have forced onto him the choice of leaving his familý or allowing them to be deported.

Felida, his wife, is a British citizen, but cannot confer her British nationality to her husband, as she was not born in this. country. However, Reggie's grandfather was born in Britain. Under the 1968 Immigration Act, this should give him citizenship.

The Home Office have decided that this is not good enough. Where their racist laws are not fully effective, they re-interpret them!

The chairperson of the Tribunal had been a magistrate in Ghana, and his racist and sexist attitudes have decided Reggie's legal status.

He said, 'Many EuroEIGHT Asian youth aged 15-21 were arrested on Friday September 24 in Newham, East London, after incidents with plain clothes police officers, and face serious charges ranging from threatening behaviour to actual bodily harm.

One of the eight was hospitalised for several days as a result of being beaten up by the police. All of them were subjected to racist abuse and harassment.

The youths were attacked by plain clothes officers who did not declare their identity. Almost immediately, uniformed police arrived on the scene and arrested them.

This followed a series of racist attacks in the area. There were at least three separate incidents in the week before alone. no.107 November 4 1982 Page 11 has prepared sworn statement, witnessed by a commissioner of oaths, stating the needs and duties of an Imam; their inability to find a suitable une in Britain; and confirming that the Imam can be maintained without need of public funds.

The problems faced by the Muslim community ol Ashton are also faced by other mosques, temples and Gurdwaras throughoul the country. Those non• Christian land non-white religious leaders being increasingly blocked by the racist Home Office. •Contact: Tameside Immi gration Campaigns Suppor Group, c/o 35а Manchester Road; Denton, Man. chester 12.

Whitelaw peans, since wives seldor come out to stay, enterer into relationships witt women living in the country (Ghana). I find it is ex tremely unlikely tha (Yates') grandfather be lieved that he was enterins into a valid marriage ... an it is not proved that hi grandmother believed shr was validly married tr George Williams Yates, i indeed she gave the matte any thought at all!! •Contact: c/o Miera 43a, Harrow, London W10.

ps On one occasion 60 t 70 white youths with iro bars and sticks went on th rampage in East Ham an Manor Park looking fo Asians to beat up.

The only crime commit! ed by the youth was tha of self-defence. The Vir brothers, also from New ham, were sentenced i 1979 to jail sentences of u to seven years for the sam 'crime' Yet again, the polic have acted against the vi tims of racist attack, an not the racists who organis the violence. • Friday, November i Picket of Weet Ham Cour West Ham Lane, Stratford E15. • Contact: Defence Cam paign, c/O 285 Romfor Rd, Forest Gate, London E 9HJ [tel. (01-) 534 164 evenings].

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Socialist Organiser no.107 November 4 1982 Page 12

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to the popular movements in the region. In some cases

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religious communities finding applications