One of the most important political developments of the last few years is the re-emergence of a mass movement for nuclear disarmament, This new movement has attempted a much more sustained theorisation of world conflict than its previous counterparts. Phil Hearse argues that the campaign for nuclear disarmament is inseparable from the struggle for socialism.
The importance of the discussion on world conflict lies in its implications for practice. If the nuclear disarmament movement was united about practical tasks then the debate about overall problems of world conflict might not be so pressing. But as Raymond Williams acutely observed in New Left Review 124 there are at least three different strands within the movement with distinct practical perspectives — the unilateralists, the European Nuclear Disarmament campaign (END), and the World Disarmament Campaign (WDC) which proposes simultaneous multilateral disarmament. As Williams explains:
'Arguments drawn from these differences of emphasis become confused, and genuine differences of policy and affiliation are overridden by the too simple conclusion that since all are against the arms race, all know how they will work to end it. This state of mind was memorably and damagingly indicated at the 1980 Labour Party conference, when motions deriving from all three positions were passed, allowing endless opportunities for subsequent confusion and doubletalk.'
Indeed, The doubletalk became all too obvious when Michael Foot, seizing on the fact that the Labour Party conference faced in several directions at once, appointed an avowed opponent of unilateral nuclear disarmament, Brynmor John, as his defence spokesperson, If we are not careful the nuclear disarmament movement could become the victim of forces that would debilitate it and turn it away from action for unilateral disarmament into a low-key 'current of opinion' expressing 'concern' about the nuclear threat,
These differences in emphasis in the movement reflect fundamentally different analyses of the world, Remorselessly, the problem of nuclear weapons poses the major questions of world politics — of imperialism, socialism, and above all, the character of the USSR — in our time.
The breakdown of 'detente'
The re-emergence of the nuclear disarmament movement is obviously a response to the breakdown of 'detente' and the new arms race that resulted. 'Detente' never really removed the arms race: the first Strategic Arms Limitation agreement (SALT 1) merely amounted to a certain rationalisation and limitation of the arms race, in the mutual interest of both the US ruling class and the Soviet bureaucrats.
It signified that despite the antagonistic social systems in the USA and USSR, it was possible to develop a joint approach to try to contain areas of conflict on a world scale. Neither side wanted unrestrained conflicts or local 'hot' wars which threatened to destabilise the world situation, So why did 'detente' break up?
In our view the end of 'detente' resulted from the changed military, economic and diplomatic fortunes of the USA, particularly at the hands of the developing colonial revolution, and the response of the Carter administration and its strategic planners. The standing of the US as a world power received some sharp reverses in the 1960s and 1970s, The most obvious was the defeat in Vietnam, which had immense consequences politically, economically and morally,
Despite the gradual withdrawal from Vietnam under Nixon, the final humiliating collapse of the Thieu regime in 1975 was a great blow to American prestige and morale. This combined with the Arab states' use of the oil weapon to hit US interest after the Middle East war with Israel. The Iranian revolution only confirmed the view that the United States was under siege
But above all it was events in Africa that inflamed the Carter regime and spurred on its most bellicose faction led by security advisor Brzezinski. After the Soviet-backed Cuban intervention to defend the Angolan revolution against South Africa and the CIA, and Soviet and Cuban military aid to shore up Ethiopia's position in the Horn of Africa after 1974, Brzezinski began to speak of 'linkage'. The idea was that a new Soviet military offensive by proxy was taking place in the Third World,
This view became clear in a battle inside the Carter administration in 1977 over the report on Soviet intentions called Presidential Review Memorandum 10 (PRM 10), written by Samuel Huntingdon. He claimed that studies under the Ford regime suggesting a Soviet push for nuclear superiority were wrong. He further argued that despite any temporary Soviet advantage the US was vastly ahead technologically. As the USSR was diplomatically isolated by the pro-Western turn of China it was therefore in a position of relative weakness.
Brzezinski argued that this weakness should be utilised by the United States to go on the offensive against the Soviet Union, The arms race should be stepped up to put pressure on the Soviet economy; diplomatic links with China should be strengthened; and Soviet difficulties in Eastern Europe should be exploited.
Secretary of State Cyrus Vance argued on the contrary that Soviet weakness created the basis for a continuation of 'detente'. He eventually resigned over the Iranian hostages rescue attempt (whose main architect was Brzezinski) after a series of disputes with Brzezinski inside the administration.
The changes in US policy signifying the end of 'detente', including the decisions on the neutron bomb and Cruise missiles. were well under way before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
One small indicator was the hue and cry in 1970 over the 'discovery' by 'liberal' Democrat Frank Church that 3000 Soviet combat troops were stationed in Cuba. The CIA and State Department were not unduly worried as they had known of the brigade stationed in Cuba for 17 years,
But were US suspicions justified? Was the Soviet Union on the offensive, in Africa as elsewhere? The answer cannot be reduced to the Carter regime's post-crisis reappraisement. Undoubtedly the US ruling class and the Soviet bureaucracy represent exceedingly reactionary political forces, which both abhor revolutionary change. But because they preside over very different social systems, this mutual distaste for revolutionary changes is not enough to create a long-term community of interests. Both sides may desire 'detente' and peaceful co-existence but that can only ever be partial and temporary
However far the Soviet Union and its leadership may be from our conception of socialism (and the distance is considerable as indicated for example, in the Fourth International's Theses on Socialist Democracy) its economy is not a capitalist one and its bureaucracy is not a ruling class. This is a vital distinction from which important consequences follow, For our purposes here it is sufficient to note that while the United States uses its full imperial might to defend its interests world-wide, the Soviet leadership is compelled to manoeuver diplomatically, economically and occasionally militarily to defend its own interests,
These two ruling groups are invariably drawn in behind different sides in world conflict. Vietnam is a classic example. The Soviet leadership wanted an end to the Vietnam conflict and frequently urged compromise on the Vietnamese communists. Above all it didn't want any direct conflict with the US. It therefore grimly gritted its collective teeth while Soviet supply ships were bombed in Haiphong harbour, killing Soviet sailors. But so long as the Vietnamese Communist Party remained intransigent it was politically impossible for the Soviet Union, as leader of the 'socialist' camp, not to give aid to their struggle, even if this was administered through an eyedropper. A complete abandonment of the Vietnamese would have had incalculably negative effects on the communist parties across the world,
Another more recent example where 'detente' broke down is the Middle East. The United States, despite its barely concealed contempt for the Begin regime, relies heavily on the Israeli state as the main bulwark against the Arab revolution. The Soviet bureaucracy, to defend its own strategic interests in the area, has forged an alliance with Arab bourgeois nationalist regimes, above all the Syrians. Neither side has any time for the Palestinian resistance, nor wants revolution, But both are drawn inexorably into conflict with one another, via the medium of their local allies
The conflict between the Arab regimes and Israel is not the warring of two opposed gangs, but represents the pressure of the Arab and particularly the Palestinian masses on these regimes. Revolutionary struggle, and the different attitudes towards it that the contending 'superpowers' are forced to take, is the main obstacle to 'detente'.
It is the response to this struggle which fuels the US war drive. To defend its interests against the rise of the colonial revolution, whether in the Middle East or in Central America, the US needs much more than nuclear weapons. Its re-armament programme includes the creation of the Rapid Deployment Force — 100,000 soldiers ready to go anywhere that US interests are threatened at a moment's notice — and the stationing of US troops in Egypt. But to prepare for the full use of its strategic and military might, nuclear superiority over the Soviet Union is needed.
One final point on the US militarisation drive is necessary. Along with the rest of the capitalist world the US economy suffered a sharp recession in 1974/75 from which it has not yet fully recovered. Capitalist crisis frequently leads to an upsurge of militarism. It is the combination of this crisis with the perceived threat from the colonial revolution and the Soviet Union which has led to the upsurge of bellicose xenophobia in the US ruling class, And nothing suits the capitalist class more in a period of crisis than a campaign of mystification and hysteria about an external threat — whether it be that of the Islamic Iranians, the communist Cubans or, of course, the Russians
The layered rhetoric of EP Thompson
Our view of the breakdown of 'detente' has many opponents in the disarmament movement. None are more vehement than the person who had done most to regenerate the anti-nuclear weapons campaign, EP Thompson. His most strident piece, 'The Logic of Exterminism' in New Left Review 121, insists that the very existence of humanity is threatened and therefore the kind of analysis which seeks to apportion blame to one side or another is something we can well do without: 'But exterminism itself is not a ''class'' issue; it is a human issue, Certain kinds of ''revolutionary'' posturing and rhetoric, which inflame exterminist ideology and carry divisions into the necessary alliances of human resistance, are luxuries we can well do without.'
But beneath the layer upon layer of Thompson's doom-laden rhetoric there is after all an analysis of the world, and of the kind of campaign we need, This analysis should itself be subject to criticism despite Thompson's attempt to pre-empt it through heavy-handed sarcasm about 'revolutionary know-alls'. Thompson claimed in The Guardian for example that such know-alls 'know... among other things that El Salvador is more important than Afghanistan, and that Russian missiles are mainly defensive'. We plead guilty to both.
Thompson's essential position is this. The arms race is 'a self-generating independent variable'. Weapons systems are not politically neutral, but have far-reaching political effects on the societies which produce them. To analyse the Soviet Union and the United States in terms of their 'modes of production' is to miss the point, as their military bureaucracies play a determining role. The nuclear weapons race is shaping the very societies which gave rise to it. He explains:
'It may comfort socialists to see a 'cause' for this (the arms race) primarily in western imperialism, and only secondarily in Soviet reaction. This is now beside the point, To argue from origins, to nominate goodies or baddies, is to take refuge from reality in moralism (sic)... Superpowers which have been locked for thirty years in the postures of military confrontation increasingly adopt militaristic characteristics in their economies, their policy and their culture. What may have originated in reaction becomes direction. What is justified as rational self-interest by one power or another becomes, in the collision of the two, irrational. We are confronting an accumulating logic of process.'
The conclusion is that we are dealing not with 'imperialism; the highest stage of capitalism', but 'Exterminism: the final stage of civilisation'. As Thompson says:
'There is an internal dynamic and reciprocal logic here which requires a new category for its analysis. If 'the hand-mill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam mill, society with the industrial capitalist', what are we given by those Satanic mills now at work, grinding out the means of human extermination? I have reached this point of thought once before, and turned my head away in despair, Now, when I look at it directly, I know that the category which we need is that of exterminism.'
Despite his admirably activist conclusions, Thompson's analysis is in fact one of despair. Whatever alliances of 'human resistance' we need to create, Thompson's vision is that of a world gone mad, a world in which the two most powerful nations have been literally taken over by their military machines. One can't help thinking that there will be many more sympathetic to Thompson than to us 'revolutionary know-alls', who detect a slight over-statement in this thesis.
Neither the United States nor the Soviet Union are societies which are in the most literal sense irrational. The state machine in both, including the military machine, defends a given order, particular class or bureaucratic interests. Neither are they societies whose central objective is to reproduce their military machine. An abundance of human purposes are served by both, not least the production and reproduction of surplus value in the United States, and the defence of a bureaucratically planned economy in the other.
This brings us to a central point of dispute with Thompson. 'Weapons', he says, 'are political agents also', No: weapons are subordinate to the aims and interests of those who wield them — it is precisely that which prevents us from despairing, and gives us the certain knowledge that there exist the social and class forces which can prevent them from being used.
USA = USSR?
Despite denials to the contrary, the view that both sides are 'equally responsible' for the arms race, is extremely common in the disarmament movement. In particular the view that even if both sides are not equally responsible, both share some responsibility, informs many of the leaders of the European Nuclear Disarmament campaign (END), Indeed, their founding statement says: 'We do not wish to apportion guilt between the political and military leaders of East and West. Guilt lies squarely on both parties. Both parties have adopted menacing postures and committed aggressive actions in different parts of the world'. This position is echoed by the slogan on the masthead of Socialist Worker: 'Neither Washington nor Moscow'.
But contrary to Thompson's protestations the dynamics of the conflict between USA and the USSR can only be grasped historically. There is indeed an irony that this should be denied by so eminent a socialist historian. The USA emerged from the second world war as overwhelmingly the world's leading economic and military power, The economy of the Soviet Union was in ruins. But from the dropping of the first atomic bomb in 1945, to the decision to go ahead with the production of the hydrogen bomb in 1950, the United States progressively adopted a more hostile attitude towards the Soviet Union. At each stage since then the new twists in the arms race have each been given by the United States — the first intercontinental ballistic missile, the first nuclear submarine, the first anti-missile missile — at each stage of the technological race the United States has striven to establish its nuclear superiority.
There are therefore only two arguments against 'apportioning blame' for the arms race: that the Soviet Union was wrong in the first place to defend itself with nuclear weapons, or that the Soviet Union had 'agressive intentions' against the west. The first is a utopian argument, It's no secret that the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was at least in part motivated by the intention of demonstrating to the Soviet Union the superiority of the United States. In order to defend itself against the capitalist west, and to prevent unlimited blackmail from occuring, it was necessary for the Soviet Union to develop its own nuclear weapons,
It would be naive in the extreme to believe that the US and other western powers would not have used a nuclear monopoly to impose their own will, including trying to roll back the borders of the Soviet Union. And it would be even more naive to believe that the Soviet Union could have dealt with such a threat simply by appeals to the workers of the world to defend them. Potentially, at least, the continued existence of the Soviet Union was at stake.
Once the nuclear defence of the Soviet Union was embarked upon, there was an in-built logic to maintain the credibility and effectiveness of the Soviet nuclear force, in the context of unremitting US attempts both to encircle the Soviet Union with its military might (hence NATO, CENTO and SEATO) and also to use its military forces against revolutionary developments throughout the world.
Soviet nuclear weapons have constrained what US imperialism has been able to achieve militarily, not just against the Soviet Union itself, but against developing revolutions as well. Without Soviet nuclear weapons, there would have been at least the temptation to use, or to threaten to use nuclear weapons in Korea and Vietnam and possibly in Cuba as well
In Marxism Today, March 1981, Dan Smith, a leading member of END polemicised with this approach: 'The Soviet response has been a response in kind. One must first ask if that is good enough... and one must then ask whether it need have gone so far... Both sides are equipped with nuclear overkill,'
He contests the view that the Soviet Union is somehow more progressive than the United States since there is 'no evidence that the USSR is attempting, or has thought of attempting, to overthrow the majority of the world's nastiest regimes.' He further disagrees with the view that the Soviet Union has been less militaristic than the USA on the grounds that Afghanistan may signal a change in this, and that 'military strength has been the basis of the USSR's hold on Eastern Europe.'
Has the Soviet response been good enough? Clearly not. Since the Soviet leaders adopted the formula of 'socialism in one country' they long ago abandoned the idea of international proletarian revolution to rid the world of oppression, Instead they have sought peaceful coexistence with imperialism at a diplomatic and political level, whilst militarily attempting to match the USA missile for missile, nuclear overkill for nuclear overkill. A socialist defense policy would place centrally the international mobilisation of the working class and the oppressed against imperialist militarism — a policy which is diametrically opposed to the peaceful coexistence strategy of the Soviet bureaucrats.
The USSR's exclusive reliance on military and nuclear technology for defence has its flipside in the extinction of socialist democracy throughout eastern Europe enforced by Soviet military might. Any socialist perspective and defence of the Soviet Union would have to include the overthrow of the Soviet bureaucracy and the institution of socialist democracy throughout eastern Europe, But all Dan Smith's arguments skirt round the central questions: does the Soviet Union have the right to defend itself seriously, including with nuclear weapons, notwithstanding our profound differences with their strategy? Is there anything at all worth defending about the Soviet Union?
David Fernbach in 'The [illegible] facing CND', Politics and Power No3, is much more direct. Seizing on the ambiguity of the END and CND leaders on the responsibility of the arms race he asserts that essentially the USSR is the greater evil: 'In Europe there is no symmetry between East and West, Here, as far as the writ of the Kremlin holds sway there is brutal repression of all progressive movements, and any pretence of democracy is a fraud. In Western Europe, for all the undoubted evils of our society, the existence of democratic institutions both sets definite limits to injustice, and provides the means for steadily working to erode it. Wherever people have the chance to choose which of the two systems to live under, they vote massively with their feet'
The logic of such a position is implacable: 'Western Europe very definitely does have something to defend, as much as the citizens of any democratic state might need to defend themselves against the threat of dictatorship generated within their own society.'
Imperialism and war
These questions about the Soviet Union, as well as the proposal of Mary Kaldor of CND that Britain should unilaterally disarm but not the United States, can only be answered by an analysis of the basic cause of wars in our epoch, Once again we have to defy Thompson and seek an historical explanation.
Lenin in 1913 defined the new period of world capitalism, imperialism, as the epoch of 'wars and revolution', The next six years provided a rather stunning vindication of his assertion — not just the first world war, but the revolutions in Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary. War has been a constant feature of the world situation since then. Few people on the left would demur from the view that the first world war was an inter-imperialist war, in the first instance a war between German and British imperialism.
The second world war, involving the conflict between the Soviet Union and Germany, and the resistance struggle of nationally oppressed countries against Nazi occupation wasn't simply an inter-imperialist war, but in its origins, without doubt, its motor force was the attempt by German imperialism, under Nazi leadership, to overcome the crippling effects of the settlement imposed by French, American and British imperialism after the first world war, Overlaid with this conflict was a specific competition between American and Japanese imperialism for control of the Pacific, and an attempt by Italian imperialism to grab a piece of the action on the coat tails of Germany.
Unless the causes of the second world war are situated in this fashion, one is reduced to discussing human irrationality or 'accident'. Competition between rival imperialisms, or competition by rival nation states (themselves the product of the emergence of capitalism) — this is the source of war in our period,
The connection between imperialism and war was never in doubt for socialists like Rosa Luxemburg, who produced some of the classic writings of socialist anti-militarism at the beginning of the century. They understood the fundamental point that the logic of competition is worldwide expansion, They also understood that there was a built-in logic for rival imperialisms to clash militarily because of this struggle to dominate markets and sources of raw materials. For the Marxists of the early twentieth century, like Lenin and Luxemburg, the abolition of war was interconnected with the abolition of capitalism,
That incidentally was why they never mixed up anti-militarism with pacifism and never abhorred all use of arms; they recognised that a certain use of arms — revolution — was the means to abolish capitalism, and hence war. They always viewed pacifism as essentially a utopian response,
But, of course, things have changed, First a number of states, including powerful ones, have come into existence which have a very different kind of economy, Whatever one's view of the Soviet Union it is difficult to assert that there is any fundamentally expansionary dynamic in its economy. Second, nuclear weapons have come into existence, Both these factors militate against future inter-imperialist wars,
It is hard to imagine, for example, trade conflicts between Japan and the United States being resolved in future by a nuclear war, because even the most foolish capitalist today understands that the destruction of all significant capital doesn't create the basis for gaining a decisive advantage over one's rivals, Moreover, the existence of non-capitalist states creates a necessary and inevitable solidarity between the imperialist powers against them. True. capital remains nationally based and inter-imperialist conflict and competition continues unabated. But all the imperialist powers recognise their common interest against a collectivist social system which threatens the basis of their existence.
But if inter-imperialist war is less likely in the epoch of nuclear weapons, then the armed might of the imperialist powers, its use and threatened use, remains an indispensable component of the maintenance of the imperialist world system, a category which seems to have escaped many writers on this question. Fernbach's judgement about east and west Europe omits any global assessment of the role of western imperialism and the USSR. 'Democratic' Europe is a component part of an inter-locking system of world wide oppression and exploitation.
The use, or threatened use, of armed force is an absolutely integral mechanism for maintaining the rule and domination of capital world-wide. It is the militarism of imperialism that gave rise to nuclear weapons, While its more immediate targets may be those fighting to end its grip over the colonial world, in the longer term the imperialist war machine is aimed at overturning the socialised economies of all the post-capitalist states, particularly the Soviet Union. Socialists should therefore both defend the right of the Soviet Union to possess nuclear weapons and call for the unilateral nuclear disarmament of all the imperialist countries,
Disarmament and socialism
With the world divided into antagonistic social systems it is clearly impossible to envisage the total abolition of nuclear weapons without the abolition of capitalism. Whatever partial and temporary limitations are put by treaty on the production of nuclear weapons, the ruling classes of the capitalist countries will never agree to abandon their most destructive and decisive weapon.
But there is no reason for inactivity or sectarianism towards the anti-nuclear campaigns. A mass anti-war, anti-nuclear weapons movement can put definite limits on the production, development and use of these weapons, and in this struggle can lead thousands of people to see the logic of fighting the nuclear arsenal — fighting the system that gave rise to it. It is not even excluded that one or two of the secondary imperialist powers can actually be forced, under left governments, to give up nuclear weapons, But the United States will never abandon its nuclear arsenal until the workers seize it,
This understanding of the possibilities and limits inherent in disarmament movements should inform our assessment of the different disarmament movements. The World Disarmament Campaign is without doubt the weakest and most utopian, Its leaders imagine that it is possible to abolish all weapons via negotiation. This is tantamount to believing that it is possible by discussion to abolish all class, national and other fundamental antagonisms in the world, The World Disarmament Campaign follows up the logic of its utopian position by putting the stress on influencing world 'leaders' and Opposes mass action, an orientation to the labour movement — and indeed unilateralism. Its influence in the disarmament movement is debilitating and diversionary,
The European Nuclear Disarmament Campaign (END) is not really a nationally organised campaign. Its objective, however, is not a reactionary one and certainly doesn't imply the Wonderland utopianism of the WDC. The demand of a nuclear-free Europe, as END put it 'from Poland to Portugal', is opposed by all those who benefit from the militarisation of Europe, — the NATO powers and above all the United States. Certainly, the US has stationed a huge arsenal of nuclear weapons in Europe to counter the possibility of a conventional attack from the Warsaw Pact.
While the END demand for a nuclear-free Europe should not be a barrier to participating in actions called by the campaign it would be logical to put the onus for the militarisation of Europe where it belongs — on NATO, and in particular, the United States. The intent behind the slogan of a nuclear-free Europe should be pursued through a campaign against NATO, and in western countries, for the withdrawal of these countries from NATO,
By far the largest and most influential disarmament movement is CND, which is committed to unilateral disarmament, It is beyond the scope of this article to discuss in detail the strategy of CND, but some general points are clear. CND today is bigger and more influential than it ever was in the late fifties or early sixties. It is far from having fulfilled its potential, If it chooses, it can mobilise hundreds of thousands on the streets, and its message can be taken up in workplaces and unions up and down the country; the weightiest sections of society can be won to fight actively for its demands. The question is: does CND really want to succeed?
To fight for CND's demands — no Cruise, no Trident, cut arms spending, for unilateral disarmament — means to fight against the interests of US and British imperialism. If there is confusion that to achieve the final goal of abolition of nuclear weapons means to struggle for world socialism, then there will be unclarity on the agency for achieving unilateral nuclear disarmament.
The British Communist Party sees a broad democratic alliance of classes as the key strategy. For us it is the working class in this country and internationally through its mass organisations which is the vital component for any campaign for unilateral disarmament. Not only does it alone have the strength to win such a campaign, but it is also the class whose interests will be best served by disarming imperialism. A clear-sighted view of who bears the responsibility for missile madness, and of the relationship between socialism and disarmament can only aid the building of CND and the struggle for socialism.