Following are excerpts from

a speech given by Gus Hall, —

Communist Party general secre-
tary and the Party’s candidate
for President, at an election rally
June 18 in Chicago. Hall had led
a Communist Party delegation
to the Democratic Republic of
Vietnam from April 15-22.

By Gus Hall

£ es first thing we must keep
-in mind about Vietnam is

that no one in the socialist world,
absolutely no one, takes any ac-
tion that involves the Vietnamese
without Vietnamese agreement.
It is arrogance to think other-
wise. If you have any doubts
about this they will be dispelled
when you meet the Vietnamese
leaders.

Therefore, the reaction to the
mining of the harbors, that is,
the fundamental decision regard-
ing how to react, was made by
the Vietnamese, in conjunction
with the Soviet Union and other
powers, of course, but the Viet-
namese made the decision.

Secondly, we must realize that
there was no confrontation after
the harbors were mined because
there was no crisis of supplying
the Vietnamese. They have fore-
seen the possibility of a block-
ade for-a long time, and have
stockpiled well in advance. I say
this not only based on discus-
sions, but because I have seen
these stockpiles.

The Vietnamese have types of
sophisticated anti-aircraft wea-
pons stockpiled that they have
never used. They will use them
when the time comes. Some of
the weapons being used today
were stockpiled two years ago.

Furthermore, there is no crisis

because there are two rail lines
that run through China, and there
are literally hundreds of Ho Chi
Minh trails from China into Viet-
nam. These railroads through
China have been used for the
past ten months, cutting the time
of delivery from the Soviet Union
two..thirds. You know the only
reason these railroads were not
used before was because of Chi-
nese policy, and that policy has
been changed for 10 months.
_ The basic policy of the social-
ist countries is to defeat U-S.
aggression in Vietnam, and to do
it if possible without a world or
nuclear war. This is the policy
of the Soviet Union and the Viet-
namese. They will tell you, ‘‘We
have U.S. imperialism hog-tied
here, and this is our contribution
to the world struggle.”

The basic policy of the Soviet
Union and the socialist countries
is Very simple: what the Viet-
namese need and want, the Viet-
namese shall get. If. a situation
ever arises when the Vietnamese
are not getting their military
goods the Soviet Union will take
the initiative and get those goods
there, even if it comes to world
confrontation.

This is a fundamental question.
It is part of the world relation-
ship of forces today that not
only in Vietnam but wherever
there is a struggle for national
liberation, that struggle has the
full support of the socialist coun-
tries, and there will not be need
of guns or ammunition or food
or clothing.

This applies to Angola, all of.

Africa, Latin America, anyplace.

Under these circumstances,
talk about ‘‘deals”’ is nonsense.
It is a disservice to the libera-
tion movement, to the struggle
for socialism, to the left in this
country, to the revolutionary
movement and to anything that’s

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, JULY 28, 1972—

LECTig

For instance, he says he’s

_ ready to go to Hanoi. But, of

course, I tell McGovern, I’ve al-
ready come back, and I’ve
brought back a peace plan for
which you don’t have to wait 90
days. And this plan is available
to Nixon, McGovern or anybody.

It is a very simple plan, as
simple as picking up the White
House phone and calling Saigon
and telling General Thieu to
pack up the millions you have
stolen from the United States
and take them and your family
to Switzerland. That’s it.

This is the key log. in the log-
jam. Then there can be elections;
there can be a ceasefire; you
can even accept the four-month
date that Nixon has proposed;
the prisoners will be released
and the whole thing will be over.
It’s as simple as that.

Thus, voting for the Communist

The war-The elections —
and the Communist Party.

progressive. Who started this
slander? It appeared first in the
New York Times and the re-
marks of Hubert Humphrey, Busi-
ness Week, Time, and other or-
gans of big business.

But it was picked up by cer-
tain sections of the left, and
that’s where it becomes a serious
problem. They are peddling bour-
geois propaganda.

When the New York Review
of Books bought I. F. Stone’s sub-

scription list for $37,000, that’s

not all they bought. I. F. Stone
became an ideological gun for
hire, and since his first article,
after being bought, it is obvious
he has been assigned the histo-
rical task of destroying the in-
fluence of socialism in this coun-
try.

In some of these articles it is
the socialist countries that have
become the main enemy now.
Not U.S. imperialism but the So-
viet Union, China and the social-
ist countries that are the main
enemy of national liberation. The
danger comes when people with
left reputation have bought this
slanderous bag and have spread
it.

The Election Campaign

Some people ask, ‘‘Why run
Communist candidates?” They
say, ‘All right if it were slimy
Humphrey and Nixon, but what
if it’s McGovern? Will you with-
draw?”

We have to take a hard look at
politics in this country. The basic
essence of political struggle is
not candidates and names but
political consciousness, trends,
ideas and moving masses along
political lines to a deeper under-
standing of what the system is
about and what the solutions are.

‘It is in this sense that we have

to look at what has been the na-
ture of broad electoral politics.
It’s like pushing a truck that has
no motor up a hill. We’ll get it
up there pretty far and then on
election day let it go and down
it comes, right back to where
we started from.

At some point we have to get
out of this circle of Tweedledee
and Tweedledum. To make poli-
tics more meaningful we’re go-
ing to have to build more mean-
ingful coalitions. Coalitions that
take part in elections but that
do not collapse after election
day, that will guarantee that the
truck will stay up there where
we've pushed it. Our campaign
is to develop such coalitions,
such movements and _ political
currents, and as an absolutely
important part of that, our own
revolutionary current.

Therefore we take up two
tasks: the building of such cur-
rents and building the vote for
the Communist Party. You know,
not everyone is ready to vote for
the Communist Party. They have
to be people that are ready to
look into more basic things, for
more revolutionary concepts that
go a lot further than anything
McGovern has proposed, for
example.

With McGovern there is the
big print and there is the fine
print. It couldn’t be any other
way; these are candidates who
defend the capitalist system, who
defend the profits of the mono-
poly corporations. They are can-
didates of the capitalist class
and we can never forget that.
Even the very best of them are
wavering. McGovern is wavering
in spite of the fact that there is
a difference between him and
Nixon.

Some people ask, “Why run co.
munist candidates?’’ They say
right if it were slimy Humphrey ® ;
Nixon, but what if it’s McGovern: |

. setting the sum later, 4M

candidates is the most my
ful vote you can cast in this
tion.

The small print says, f°
ple, that what McGovern ® j
ly talking about is nol ™y
inheritances over $500.4) J
only taxing it a maximum #
percent.

Or when he said he W8)
increasing the corporalé
tax from 48 percent bal iy
percent, the small print f
was for only taxing profils he
from frozen wages and es
prices at a higher rate.

Ail the way down of
there is that small print a
long as there’s not a Pil.
movement, an anti-monop®l
lition that starts from 4 4
ent premise, you cannol
bourgeois politicians.

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