Does it deter?
Socialist Organiser1984 1984-01-26Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 11 →
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ONE particular point stuck out in Tony Richardson's article on disarmament of the Stalinist states. He seems to support the theory of nuclear deterrence!
Whether nuclear weapons "defend the Soviet Union" in a Trutskyist sense is a contentious issue. I believe, however, that Tony was correct in describing the defensive role of Soviet rearmament in the 1950s; the US would have undoubtedly attacked China without it.
Where I part company with Tony is in his trust in leaving nuclear weapons in the hands of the bureaucracy. Precisely because the bureaucracy is unstable, as Trotsky analysed it, there remains a very real chance of the weapons being used. Now nuclear conflict is a qualitatively different form of warfare to conventional conflict. One hesitates to see even Tony battling through the radiation clouds, turning imperialist war into civil war!
Whichever states are involved - and I share Tuny's view on the class nature of the Stalinist states - we have to recognise the existence of a highly volatile nuclear arms build-up, which could possibly wipe out all existing property relations, whether nationalised by workers' revolution or not.
A little more serious thought about the threat of nuclear annihilation is in order, I think.
RICHARD BAYLEY.
York.
Scan page 12
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