alting World

fy. cial

has C-0 . Pr eBing. "ganization of society Th e adhe crucial 1930's A ast.Weet Were crucial years : ism Telations. German Hh, Sing ge ot the rise with the t © major capitalist it ague of Nations hands and .the

Ss “

=a a network of _to stop Hitler. Minister Litvinov,

ng eae League of Na- MeWed tha yePlil of that

mets lead to war. oer the USSR a League of .Na- Italys. StPng sanctions teats against pee: under the : might 3 g anger a Nd force Italy aut of is Y, refuses to act. Pe fi © curtai i Mesos ooe* Spain ae - years are criti- My ‘ emendon France in spite ‘ the S_ international Geo sSR and thou- & to defe Mocratic - minded the the government Spanish people. m abet Tman and Italian

by the capital: Ww I known pita

4 : ty @ period of States the powerful Mov. to Hitler’s ex- Oth j €s. Again and S 4 Side the League adpealg Nt outside, the Ve Or a network of Pan wes to stop WwW aN als fall on deaf ne : War Two is tent gus history on basic “Ation Viet foreign policy "Verse Econ series. as j € roles—the : ism bent the aggressor e Mes the peace.

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Nto a : "Ith ¢ - Wartime m thei; USSR to defeat in Viet Own. interests nese vty, Over the inged tho wlan axis. It Ia] 8eographi Capita? of pee ay St states, large Once existed, eed in the Teplace ements, old sy , lays, p2°ing back t : o the Merge People's Democ-

op German

nd the 24ed on Oct. 5,.

a

Wartime Alt; 3 - ‘

ence against fascism upon which hopes rested for C99réssive Sie disintegrated as world capitalism replaced it sm, ©cs and pacts aimed, once again, at destroying

and it became clear to western strategists that the USSR would no longer stand alone as it had done for 23 years.

Hopes for continuation of the Anglo-British-Soviet alliance in- to the post-war period faded quickly. The 1945 Potsdam Con- ference which agreed to strip Germany of its war potential

was not four months old be-.

fore the United States and Britain tried to scuttle it under the pretext that Germany’s war industries were needed to re- build her economy: In 1945 the USSR warned that the capitalist states were aiming to replace the wartime coalition as the hub of the new United Nations with an Anglo-U.S.-French alli- ance. Soviet warning hits the mark

Consider how true is this Soviet warning, made in 1945, when looked at in 1974. The USSR charged that the emerg- ing capitalist bloc had as its main aims:—‘“the revival of German militarism;

—stopping the tide of demo- cratic and socialist advance in Europe;

_ —the maintenance of Japan as an imperilalist watchdog in Asia;

—the suppression of growing anti-colonialist struggles.”

As if to deliberately make a shambles out of Gayn’s theory about the peaceful intent of capitalism toward the USSR, events following World War Two moved along quickly. In 1946 Churchill’s infamous’ “Iron Curtain” speech described the

final breakdown of the old war-—

time alliance and the start of the cold war as we know it. The old warhorse outlined the “con- tainment of communism” and “rollback” policy to come. He signalized the sudden ~- turn

which resulted in open warfare |

on socialist ideas, spy scares, imprisonment of communists and the outlawing of parties. His speech was greeted by the pack of anti-Soviet, anti-com- munist thugs, including the Canadian ruling class and its media.

An important Western strat- egy was nuclear blackmail with the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki being Truman’s ace-in-the-hole in future deal- ings with the Soviet Union. Calls for the placing of the awesome nuclear weapon under United Nations’ control were ignored. When in 1949 the USSR re- iterated its call for the outlaw- ing of nuclear arms and for the

signing of a peace pact, Ameri- can Officials replied cynically, “js the same worn old story

In. a real sense, they were right—it was, the same story. It’s the point Gayn misses. The USSR fighting doggedly for peace pacts, arms control, nor- malization, — detente, and~ the capitalist nations sabotaging every move and creating the groundwork for decades of wars and arms races in their effort

‘to contain and roll back social

advance. everywhere.

The Western offensive

These two opposite trends continued to quicken, The West formed NATO, SEATO, CENTO and a bevy of war pacts aimed against the socialist world. They spent over $12-billion on the Marshall: Plan in Europe to “restore economic health to Free Europe and halt the march of Communism.” They invaded Korea in 1950 as an answer to the victory of the Chinese revo- lution a year earlier. When French colonialism was buried at Dienbienphu in May 1954 the United States stepped in and is still subverting the Vietnamese struggle for independence. The capitalist reply to growing na- tional feelings in the Mid-East was a direct attack in 1956 on Egypt by British, French and Israeli forces.

This massive, concerted effort failed to stop the historical process. Socialism is strong and growing stronger. The national liberation struggles are advanc- ing everywhere and colonial empires collapsing. - Together with this world-wide process, the years of principled, consis- tent effort by the USSR which today we call detente and peace- ful coexistence is bearing fruit. What Lenin described as the “peaceful co-habitation” of states with differing social sys- tems is under way. The main tendency in world development is turning from cold war and confrontation to detente and

cooperation.

An important part of Western post-war strategy centred on nu-

‘clear blackmail with Truman’s

destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki being their ace-in-the- hole. Repeated Soviet calls for crms control and peace agree- ments were met with distain and nuclear threats.

E t ] t as . I es ast-Wes cooperation, as in the planned joint space program, points up what is Pp ssible between st w

10: ates hen detente replaces

Gayn’s third article belittling the Soviet economy is a clever smokescreen. The main brunt is examples of inefficiency (fac- tories turning out suits with two left sleeves, TV sets that project no image, etc.) and his general conclusion that the So- viet consumer, by demanding more and better goods, has

pressured the government into .

a detente posture.

No exhaustive study of the USSR’s economic path since 1917 is possible here, although volumes of figures and anaysis are available and are being pro- duced daily. However, some basic truths should be stated.

_ USSR's industrial advance

From the period 1917 to 1937, notwithstanding the terrible backwardness of old Russia and years of war and blockade, the USSR’s industrial output rose

by 700%. But it’s important to.

bear in mind that, in addition to dramatically increasing. produc- tion and building heavy industry from the ground up where none existed, socialist economic policy includes much more—

- education, medical care, hous-

ing, social legislation—a whole new system to provide for people’s basic needs.

They had no sooner developed their industry and agriculture when Hitler attacked. And, while the Western powers grew rich and powerful, the devasta- tion wrought on’ the USSR was incredible—1,710 cities and towns destroyed along with 70,000 villages and 31,850 indus- trial enterprises. Gone were 750 machine tool plants, 60 power stations, 40,000 miles of rail- way, 56,000 miles of roads, 98,000 collective farms and 1,870 state farms. Over 20 million Soviet citizens died.

Gayn talks only about defici- encies and problems. If he were honestly interested ~ in such

questions he could discuss these matters with Soviet economic planners who deal with prob- lems every day. The USSR dis- cusses them, proposes solutions, develops long-term projections as well as being vitally con- cerned with such questions as waste, inefficiency and poor quality.

But whatever a “suit with two left sleeves” has to do with the USSR’s position as the second industrial power on earth, rising in an historically short time from a peasant economy, must escape the honest reader.

Secret economic study _Gayn quotes “an authorita- tive Western study of global economy in»1972 not available to the public’: (very handy) as pegging the USSR’s growth rate at 1.5%. Soviet figures (avail- able to the public) tell another story. .

“In the USSR the yearly in- dustrial growth averaged 8.6% (1961-65); 85% (1966-70) and is to reach 8% (1971-75). These figures are considerably above (2.3 times for 1951-72) the rates of industrial growth of the U.S.A... . whereas in 1922, the initial year of its peaceful development, Soviet Russia’s industrial output -was as little as 2.6% of the Ameri- can level, the present Soviet figure exceeds 75% of American industrial production. .. .”

* a %

If Mark Gayn were to write a series of three thousand articles he could not ‘change history. Detente, arms controls, trade, -cultural and technical exchanges, travel and all the benefits derived for working people everywhere from this sccialist policy is being under- stood in spite of hacks who twist the truth and mislead their readers.

Z

Tetreating the rubble ie armies

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, APRIL 19, 1974—PAGE 7