The recent victories of the Indo-Chinese revolutionaries against American Imperialism, symbolised by the Battle of Highway 9 in Laos, has shown once again the tremendous reserves held in store by the Indo-Chinese revolutionaries. These victories have been coupled with a commendable display of internationalism by the Vietnamese, who have publicly declared their solidarity with the anti-war GI's fighting in Vietnam and have issued instructions to their troops to deal with them fraternally and aid them to desert or avoid battle. These actions only enhance the already immense prestige of the struggling Indo-Chinese in the imperialist heartlands and act as an impetus to the mass anti-war movement in the United States in particular.
At a time when the imperialist armies in Asia are thoroughly demoralised and over-extended, any revolutionary extension of the Indo-Chinese struggle which opens up new fronts can only aid the Vietnamese and help accelerate the defeat of United States imperialism. It is in this light that we should view recent developments in Eastern Bengal and Ceylon.
The Indian peninsula is virtually the last major stronghold of international capitalism in Asia and any revolutionary openings therefore pose a serious challenge to Imperialism hegemony in the whole continent. The invasion of East Bengal (formerly East Pakistan) by the armed force of West Pakistani capital after a General Election result in which the Bengali masses voted for virtual independence, thus created a situation extremely favourable to revolutionaries. In one swift blow the armies of General Yahya Khan destroyed all the illusions of the Bengali petty bourgeoisie as symbolised by the Awami League. The latter, complacent and self-satisfied after its electoral triumph, thought that the Army bosses would be forced to come to terms with it. Its leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, indulged in idle negotiations with the military dictator Yahya Khan. He was confident that his strength as the only antidote to revolution would force the Army to come to an agreement with him. He declared truthfully to a correspondent of the Agence France Presse: "Is the West Pakistan government not aware that I am the only one able to save East Pakistan from Communism? If they take the decision to fight I shall be pushed out of power and the Naxalites will intervene in my name. If I make too many concessions, I shall lose my authority. I am in a very difficult position." (Le Monde, March 31, 1971).
But what was involved, even in the 6-point charter of the Awami League, was the expulsion of the West Pakistani bourgeoisie from the East and its replacement by an indigenous bourgeoisie. This the Army could not tolerate and thus it proceeded to smash the Awami League, the only organisation which could have delayed the development of the revolutionary left forces.
Thus the politics of the petty bourgeoisie (the real petty bourgeoisie, comrades of the I.S. Group!) showed its total inability to provide any leadership to the Bengali masses. Having steeped itself in electoralism, having condemned viciously the activities of the left groups who were preparing for the armed struggle, the Awami League leadership led the masses to a bloodbath. The responsibility for not preparing the masses can be laid only on its shoulders. Of course the left parties can not be completely absolved, but their weakness lay in their past; their inability to provide a strong opposition to the Ayub regime owing to the opportunist friendship of the Chinese state with the latter their sectarian refusal to understand the relevance of the political and economic subjugation of East Bengal by West Pakistan and thus grasp the importance of the national question. All these factors allowed the Awami League to steal the thunder and to emerge as a powerful nationalist force. The left groupings however, understood the necessity of the armed struggle and the most advanced of them began to propagandise for it almost immediatly after the overthrow of Ayub Khan in March 1969. Thus they were better prepared for the present struggle than most. What could have tipped the balance decisively and firmly in their way would have been an unequivocal display of support by the Chinese state for Bengali national self-determination. But despite all its demagogy of the past and its revolutionary rhetoric the Chinese bureaucracy was more concerned with preserving its own short-term interests (though it is disputable whether it will achieve even that) and it decided to back the military regime of General Yahya Khan. It dismissed the uprising of the Bengali nation by pretending that it was "Indian interference" and a "Renmin Ribao" commentator wrote on April 11, 1971, that:
"The Chinese government and people will, as always, resolutely support the Pakistan government and people in their just struggle for safeguarding national independence and state sovereignty against foreign aggression and interference." (Peking Review, April 16, 1971).
In his personal message to Yahya Khan, the Chinese Prime-Minister, Chou en Lai, went even further and exceeded all past precedents in grovelling before a reactionary state. (cf. Pakistan Times, 13 April, 1971)
The declaration of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International on the struggle in Bengal (18th April 1971) correctly took the Chinese leadership to task for this abject betrayal:
The Fourth International condemns the treachery of the Maoist government in publicly supporting the Yahya dictatorship and thus helping it to maintain its ruthless exploitation and oppression of the Bengali people. In the guise of combatting Indira Gandhi's "interference", the Mao regime stands today as a direct accomplice to the massacre. Chou en Lai's message to Yahya Khan on April 12th is a brazen attempt to cover up Peking's approval of the massacre of the Bengalis:
"We believe that through consultations and the efforts of Your Excellency and leaders of various quarters in Pakistan, Pakistan will certainly be restored to normal. In our opinion, unification of Pakistan and unity of the peoples of East and West Pakistan are basic guarantees for Pakistan to attain prosperity and strength."
Mao's subsequent personal message to Yahya Khan repeats the same idea in even stronger language. The "unity" of Pakistan is the "unity" of a monstrosity sponsored by British and world imperialism against the unity of the workers and peasants of the Indian sub-continent. It is a "unity" that strengthens the grip of a tiny group of semi-feudal landlords, comprador capitalists and Generals over millions of super-exploited and starving peasants, agricultural and industrial workers, It is a "unity" that showed callousness to the most elementary needs of the Bengali people by failing to take precautionary measures in advance of last years tornado and by doing nothing for the victims afterwards. It is a fundamental revision of the elementary principles of Marxism-Leninism to speak about the Pakistani "state" and the Pakistan Army without clearly specifying its class character: a state defending the interests of a coalition of semi feudal landlords, rapacious compradors and monopoly capitalists (22 families of robber barons control two-thirds of the industrial assets of the country). The army is a reactionary bourgeois army formed and trained by imperialism and ready to join similar armies in Iran and Afghanistan in forming an anti-communist cordon sanitaire in Central Asia in the direct service of world imperialism. These are the forces approved by Mao to preserve "unity".
The support given to Yahya Khan by the Chinese bureaucracy represents an open betrayal of the class interests of the workers and poor peasants who have died in the struggle for national self-determination, who are struggling today against the Pakistan Army and who will tomorrow continue the struggle for a socialist Bengal. It is obvious that the Maoist leaders, far from learning the lessons of the Indonesian defeat or the lessons of their unprincipled support for Yahya's predecessor, Ayub Khan, continue on the same opportunist road. Their course weakens the socialist forces in Bangla Desh and strengthens right wing elements that utilise Peking's support of Yahya to discredit "communism". Mao's support to Yahya Khan weakens and harms the advance of the Chinese Revolution: the only substantial bulwark against the threat of imperialist aggression from the Indian peninsula against the People's Republic of China is a strong and powerful revolutionary mass movement moving towards the overthrow of the reactionary states of India and Pakistan, towards a victorious workers and peasants revolution in the whole sub-continent. If the mass uprising in East Bengal is smashed, this will strengthen reaction in the whole peninsula and the very same reactionary army that Mao and Chou flatter today, would be ready tomorrow to support aggression against the Chinese Revolution.
Those communists on a world scale who have chosen to support the Chinese leadership in the Sino-Soviet dispute on the grounds that it acts in a more revolutionary and militant way against imperialism must say today where they stand on this issue. Silence would amount to complicity.
Thus the Chinese state acted as an open impediment to the development of the struggle. Fortunately their opportunism has not prevented their former supporters from carrying on the struggle against the Pakistan Army (often with Chinese weapons stolen from the army in commando raids.)
The second important outbreak occurred in Ceylon where the Coalition government of Mrs Bandaranaike which includes pro-Moscow C.Pers and the LSSP renegades (who were expelled from the Fourth International many years ago) is still attempting to crush the forces of the JVP (Popular Liberation Front). The JVP, which consists of unemployed graduates and poor peasants, undeniably has mass support. Its membership estimates vary between 50,000 and 80,000. The crisis was provoked by the Coalition government itself which wanted to behead the JVP before it developed further and before the growing economic crisis brought the Colombo proletariat out on the streets: that conjuncture would have spelt the death-knell of the bourgeois state in Ceylon. As it is the militants of the JVP were compelled to fight a defensive battle without the active support of the working class. It is obvious that a General Strike would have virtually paralysed the Bandaranaike government.
Another key factor in propping up this decaying regime of renegades was the support it received from the biggest counter-revolutionary international co-operation since Metternich: both India and Pakistan sent help (frigates and helicopters respectively), the Soviet bureaucracy sent MIGS and advisers, United States imperialism sent arms and sympathy, the Chinese regime provided an interest-free loan and maintained a friendly silence (they could hardly allege that they were combatting "Indian expansionism" in the company of Indira Gandhi!), the Yugoslavs and Egyptians also joined in the chorus with a few weapons to show their solidarity (revolutionary solidarity from the same Tito who refused to send arms to Cuba!).
In this way were the Vietnamese revolutionaries stabbed in the back by their "allies"? Che's slogan of creating "two, three, many Vietnams" in order to take the burden off Indo-China was acquiring a certain reality, only to be slapped down by Moscow and Pekin. To its credit the North Korean regime seems to have given the JVP in Ceylon a certain amount of help and have been expelled from Ceylon for their pains. The sharp right turn taken by the Chinese government demonstrates the necessity of building an independent revolutionary leadership in China and elsewhere.
Apart from helping the bourgeoisie in Pakistan and Ceylon, the Maoist regime recently described the Kuwait government as "anti-imperialist" and welcomed the sister of the Persian butcher, Reza Pahlevi, to Pekin. Chou en Lai in proposing a toast to the Shah, welcomed his sister: 'Her Royal Highness Princess Ashraf Pahlavi is a friend whom we know well......' And this only a few weeks after the Shah had ordered the execution of Maoist student militants. Thus Chinese foreign policy turns a full circle. From pressuring the Vietnamese in Geneva in 1954, Bandung in 1955, the Indonesian debacle in 1965, friendship with Pakistan and Nepal, through the isolationism during the "cultural revolution" down to the betrayals in Bengal and Ceylon today. The future probably holds in store a healing of the Sino-Soviet conflict, the resumption of friendly relations with the Indian bourgeoisie and a seat in the United Nations, that well-known citadel of world revolution. By this time presumably some Maoist groups will begin to demand the rehabilation of poor old Liu Shao Chi and other "agents of capitalism" who were adjudged guilty of these very "crimes" not so long ago.
The response of some Maoist groups to these "new revelations" has been a return to the primitive Stalinism of the Thirties. Instead of trying to explain the Chinese position they resort to publishing denunciations of Trotskyism as an "imperialist-CIA" ideology and other charming sophistications. The balance of forces today, however, has been slightly modified and imbecilical ravings of this sort will be treated contemptuosly by the revolutionary vanguard. From the more sophisticated Maoists, nevertheless, we demand to know where they stand on these vital issues concerning the Asian revolution. In particular those mandarins who "situate themselves within the anti-revisionist movement", whatever that means in Marxist terminology, have a duty to themselves to speak up on these important issues, which after all, have a relevance which extends far beyond Asia. Because whether our centrist comrades like it or not the whole question of an international revolutionary organisation is posed. Despite its limited resources, the Fourth International is the only existing force organised on a world scale. Its militants in Argentina, who are leading the People's Revolutionary Army have shown the possibilities of what is possible today in the colonial and semi-colonial world even with limited resources. We do not tell them: we can only build an International only after we have built, in varying degrees, isolated national organisations, which will somehow spontaneously converge together. The recent events in Bengal and Ceylon stress the necessity of the Fourth International. Above all they confirm the nature of the epoch in which we are living—not the epoch of a titanic struggle between the petty bourgeoisie and Imperialism, not the era of new form of capitalism, not the era of "non-capitalist roads of development" but the epoch of socialist revolution.