Pat Jordan's article "Vietnam: the Priority for the left", in the November INTERNATIONAL is a valuable starting-point for the debate on strategy that must take place after the October 27th demonstration. However, it seems to me that the article suffers from a serious contradiction.
At the beginning of the article, Jordan argues that the Vietnamese struggle is of a "decisive nature." Later, however, he states that the "crisis of British capitalism would exist even if there were no Vietnam war,"
The only argument for giving priority to the struggle in one particular country is that that country is decisive for world revolution: e.g., the defence of Russia after 1917.
Vietnam has certainly shaken U.S. imperialism deeply - politically more than economically. But it now looks as though the U.S. wants to, and will be able to, get out of Vietnam, without being anywhere near the point of collapse.
Jordan's account of internationalism seems to be an entirely abstract one. Revolutionaries, and especially tiny groups, have to examine how they may intervene effectively. It is rare that such intervention can be effective other than on a local scale. Obviously if British troops were involved in an imperialist war, there would be scope for intervention. Otherwise solidarity must be largely symbolic, and no revolutionary can survive on symbolism alone.
It is, of course, true that Vietnam has radicalised a significant section of youth - above all where it has brought them into struggle on a more local level: against police, university authorities, etc.
But this is not to accept Jordan's assertion that the campaign on the solidarity issue makes "revolutionaries." It is comparatively easy for students and youth to participate in demonstrations, surrounded largely by people like themselves. But in itself this will not train revolutionaries - people able to take a lead in any struggle that may come up for the next twenty years. For this systematic work with the working class is required.
Obviously it is not enough to link issues in a crude way. "3d off your wages" will not mobilise masses of workers over Vietnam. It will not, we have learnt, mobilise them against the wage freeze either.
But unless the new generation politicised by Vietnam can be initiated into the often prosaic and fragmentary class struggles at home, they will succumb to the long-term pressures of society and a great chance of building a revolutionary movement will have been lost.
Ian Birchall