p’s aggressive act on the River Ussuri
be classified as a chance frontier incident,
| was prepared long before, not only in the
lary aspect, but in terms of diplomacy, too.
§ I see it, its early history is linked up with
prospect of a change in the relations between
S group and the U.S.A, its growing collabor-
with the F.R.G. and some other western
. According to the Washington Post,
n November the Peking leaders announced
ry meeting of the Cntral Committee of
nese Communist Party that Russia was
no. 1,” and that it was with the west
Ought to seek a “modus vivendi.”
be recalled that it was precisely at that
at they began particularly actively to seek
with Washington, which later on mater-
into a prospect of resuming meetings in
aw on the Chinese and U.S.A. ambassador-
tel. Though the meeting never took place,
aS not an object in itself. The main object
[have been to provoke the U.S.A., the Amer-
press, into discussing the problem of Chin-
imerican relations in order to see Washing-
ction and sentiments.
} aim was reached all right — there came
& lavish torrent of proposals and Sugary
addressed to Mao and his clique as
before. Peking felt that in its geopolitics
S.A. highly appraised China’s trump-card.
being the case, China could afford a gesture
mouncing the meeting in Warsaw, just to
ing reproached with a secret deal with

dently, certain American politicians are so
‘interested in building up the Mao group
anti-Soviet course that they have dis-
ided the diplomatic affront. The U.S. Secre-
of State Rogers said, “We are still ready to
4 meeting with the Chinese Communists at
ime.” A group of U.S. orientalists was sent
} some diplomatic reconnaissance in Paris
@ they got in touch with the Chinese Em-
y Officials. The U.S.A. press went on flirting
| Peking practically without changing its
any way. The Wall Street Journal, for
ace, has all of a sudden discovered that
la is “‘a vast and proud country” which must
Mthout delay incorporated into the “inter-
law and order.” We do not remember
heard such compliments addressed to
or to the so-called “cultural revolution”

ylews and comment...

_ Two Soviet analysists
on border provocations

and Peking’s embarking upon the course of
militant anti-Soviet policy.

Peking, evidently feeling itself indebted, de-
cided to pay by staging an aggressive act on
River Ussuri, choosing the moment most oppor-
tune for certain circles of the west—an aggrava-
tion of the tension resulting from the presidential
election unlawfully held in West Berlin, on the
one hand, and a new offensive launched by the
U.S.A. and Saigon against the South Vietnamese
patriotic forces, on the other.

Peking is still getting moral support from over-
seas even after this act which has seriously ag-
gravated international tension. Washington Post
of March 4 sounds downright instigative in re-
ferring to some non-existent “undefined sections”
on the Soviet-Chinese frontier and trying to rep-
resent the island attacked by the Chinese as
being “disputable.”

On the same day the Washington Daily News
openly wrote, “The U.S.A. has got itself some
Opportunities to set the two Communist countries
against one another.” As far as Peking is con-
cerned, the newspaper seems to be right—Wash-
ington has got a chance for “setting” it against
the U.S.S.R. Washington Daily News offers to
repay at once by extending the exchanges with
Peking of non-strategic materials, scientists,
correspondents, and so on. Again I stress that all
that has been written since after the Ussuri
incident.

West Germany’s right-wing press does not
conceal its rapturous tones these days either. The
most cherished dream of the revanchists, whose
existence and influence in the F.R.G. cannot be
denied, is to see the Soviet Union and other
socialist countries threatened on their eastern
frontiers. Incidentally, even Hitlerite diplomacy
dreamed of dealing a simultaneous blow from the
west and the east. The Belgian newspaper La
Wallonie has good grounds for saying:

“Their common hatred of the Soviet Union
may well lead to China and West Germany join-
ing their efforts against the Soviet Union.”

In that way, the attack against the Soviet
frontier post turns out to be not a local incident,
but rather an act of “great” and internationally
dangerous policy in which Peking has sympa-
thies, both open and secret, and which is: directly
encouraged by all western anti-Sovietiers,

V. Ardatovsky
APN political observer.

Teaction of Peking propa-
to the latest Soviet-Chi-
‘border incident was the
®st of all. Within hours
! of truckloads of war-
demonstrators, as if wait-
for a signal for departure,
*d into streets and squares
minese cities and to the
t Embassy in Peking, rend-
ne air with rabid calls.
l€ bloody incident of the
River was deliberately
a by Peking in order to
to the anti-Soviet cam-
nd to stir up passions to
Proportions. What for?
er is self-evident. The
Ingress of the Mao Tse-
Party, that has been so
layed, is just on the verge
ig Opened at the sign of
‘Same conductor. Only one
iS Seems to be regarded as
Mlable guarantee” of suc-
the creation of so heated
vinistic atmosphere that
no room for mind and
Mce to act.
are new signs also of
Pasing role of the army
Ma0 Tse-tung’s unbridled
| ambitions. The army
aS an instrument of pro-
IS and organizes anti-
demonstrations.
May International con-
of Communist and

Workers’ Parties is also within
the compass of Peking’s atten-
tion. The Mao Tse-tung group is
not satisfied with what it has
done so far against the unity of
communists all over the world.
Now it is openly provoking ac-
tions that might stand in the
way of a practical discussion by
Communists of questions relat-
ing to their common §anti-
imperialist struggle.

It scarcely needs explaining
why the imperialist circles take
special pleasure in noting Pek-
ing’s anti-Soviet escalation. For
it distracts attention both from
the Paris talks on granting the
Vietnamese people the right to
be masters in their home, from
NATO threatening militarist ex-
ercises and from pressing prob-
lems of the progressive move-
ment for peace and against im-
perialism.

The founders of communism
repeatedly stressed that the
working class movement is to
fulfil the mission of eradicating
unjust imperialist wars and
establishing a world brotherhood
precisely because the working
masses are least of all suscept-
ible to the contagion of chau-
vinism and nationalism. What
the Maoist group is now doing
shows clearly that by means of
militant chauvinism it is seek-

ing to bring its influence to
bear on the national liberation
movement and to act in a cor-
rupting way on the interna-
tional working-class movement.
Anti-Sovietism is the main
touchstone for sharpening the
nationalistic edge of Peking’s
policy.

There is a maxim of Mao Tse-
tung’s that the Chinese people
are a sheet of clean paper on
which anything can be written
or drawn. Evidently the men in
Peking must have decided that
the best that can be done with
a “clean sheet” is to smear it
with anti-Soviet dirt. Common
sense cannot bring itself to ac-
cept this outrage over the con-
science of an entire people. As
for Soviet people, they, no mat-
ter how much their feelings may
be wounded by _ adventurist
moves of the Maoists, firmly be-
lieve that these actions have
nothing in common with the
true interests of the Chinese
people. The U.S.S.R. is guided
by feelings of friendship in re-
lations with the Chinese people
and intends to continue this
line. But any provocations by
Chinese authorities will be re-
buffed and cut short resolutely
by the Soviet side.

Spartak Beglov,
APN political observer.

Appropriate response

Is public opinion being softened up for an
escalation of the war in Vietnam?

There are many ominous signals emanating
from Washington that indicate President Nixon
intends to expand the war. He has his stoney-
bottomed diplomat in Paris unable to move from
dead center in negotiations, and he has his stone-
headed Secretary of Defense, whose philosophy
is vintage Dulles, touring South Vietnam. Mean-
while Nixon is talking about “appropriate re-
sponses” to the latest enivs of the South Viet-
namese Liberation Front as if he thought the
Vietnamese were about to lay down their arms
unilaterally.

Although the United States has been forced
to stop the bombing of the North, and to go
through the motions at least, of opening tal
to seek a political settlement, the war has raged
on in South Vietnam. Since the bombing of the
North ended an unprecedented tonnage of bombs
have been dropped in the South, On the ground,
battalion sized operations have increased by
one third since last November. The American
military has instigated 1,077 offensive actions
involving large scale troop movements between
November and January.

The stepped-up military activity of the Amer-
icans has ate sondushel along side of heady talk
about the possibility of a military victory which
would prop up the puppet regime. Such delusions
must of course be blasted away.

What has been dished out to the Yanks by the
Vietnamese in the past few weeks has been, an
“appropriate response.”

The Vietnamese will continue to give an “a
propriate response” until the Americans decide
to cut their losses and negotiate their way out
of Vietnam. Of this we can be sure, but it is the
skillful orchestration here of the myth that the
U.S. is negotiating in good faith that has within
it the danger that public opinion will be lulled
into the fatalistic acceptance that the war will
and must continue.

In the dying days of the brutal war waged by
the French against the Vietnamese, then Vice-
president Richard Nixon proclaimed “It is im-
possible to lay down arms until victory is com-
pletely won.”

In spite of Nixon’s urgings in 1953, the French
gave out six months later. Events of the past
period show Nixon to follow the true tradition
of the Bourbons who forget nothing and learn
nothing. However that is his problem. He will
continue to receive his “appropriate response’
from the Vietnamese and get it in spades. What
he needs now is an “appropriate response” from
the peace movement, before these maneuverings
lead to a further ravishing of Vietnam and an
escalation that would cause irreparable damage
to the cause of peace.

“The columns are Doric, the barbed wire and gun
emplacements are 1967.”

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 14, 1969—Page 3 |