All Out for March 17th

The fericans' military position in South Vietnam has deteriorated: the reports which appeared in most British papers about the casualties U.S. forces have suffered in the battle of Hue are a small intication of the scale of the defeats inflicted by the N.L.F. The Americans and their stcoges are quite unable to prevent the N.L.F. from attacking such targets as Westmoreland's headquarters and the presidential palece of the South Vietnam regime, A certain disintegration has taken place in the ranks of Johnson's puppets: .itness the resignation — at this time! — of Ky. In this situation all those who are appalled by the suffering of the Vietnamese people should «do their utmost to give political support to liberation forces, Calling for negotiations, restricting one's demands to calling for an end to the bombing so that the "talks cen start", etc., is - regardless of one's intentions — doing the Vietnomese people a disservice, what the Vietnamese people want and desperately need is complete and final victory. From another point of view, a pause in the fighting whilst they regain time to reinforce could very well ssuit the Americans, It is in this context that we must view two things: the attack on the V.S.C. in the last week's issue of Comment, a ioumal of the Communist Party, and the March 17th demonstration, The l-page attack in Comment requires a full and detailed answer, rpt because of the profundity of the arguments but because the issues raised deserve a thorough:, airing and discussion in the whole radical and anti-war movement, We should ‘not be diverted from making a political assessment by the witch-hunt ing style in which the article wes written, Betty Reid shauld remember that this is 1968; in the past it might have been possible to have frightened Cormunist Party members and symp>thisers with the Trotskyist bogey but today that cuts very little ice. We will be publishing both a full reply from ourselves and some of the irdignant letters on the subject that we have received from our readers, But the best answer to those who seek to oppose taking a position of full solidarity with the Vietnamese people against American impericlism is to make the Merch 17th demonstration as big and as militant as possible. We learn from the demonstrations organisers that hundreds of letters of support have been received for the demonstrations, that both the stickers and the leaflets have been reprinted three times nd that committees of support have sprung up 21] over the country, Everything indicates a very powefful support indeed, There are just over three weeks to go, this time should be used to work up even more support to give an *»nswer to U.S. imperialism and its British supporters, In this process we shall also demonstrate just how wrong the opponents of the solidarity position are, All out for March 17th! .