be aes oe =— j ey Compass. — With the UN Special Session on Disarmament, and the bellicose TO summit creating a vivid contrast on the world stage, this article reveals the real motives of the forces for peace and liberation, &nd of those libelling and attacking them. Which course is in the 9enuine interests of the people of Canada? The facts are a compel- ¢ By WILLIAM KASHTAN f Leader, Communist Party th Two important events have hit Nhe front pages of the world press these days, the UN Special As- Nee on Disarmament and the : ATO summit meeting. The only aaaity between these two Vents is that both were held in esa The UN Special Assembly on < Sarmament which is to last five _ Weeks, is an information forum to “Taw attention to the cost and ers of the arms race which bith consumes close to $400- 10n annually or one billion dol- Sa day. 3 The Assembly will try to define Set of principles and a program ) action to reverse or at least cut : Wn the arms race. The Peeches of delegates from many aunties correspond with this Si A striking difference how- yer was the speech of USA _Iee-president Mondale which “ Went off in a cold war direction. | S speech was in marked con- "ast with that of Gromyko of the Diccincackd tanlics tac Sraelae i aa ee & |ONcrete measures which could }°€8in the process of disar- | Mament. The two-day NATO summit =, ct itself an entirely different ’ eke - Instead of discussing how. y ‘0 begin the process of disar- mament, it undertook an $80-bil- he arms program spread over the next 10 years, based on an | @Nhual 3% increase in arms ex- : Penditures by all NATO mem- j ay an action contrasting shar- ' ah the sane and reasonable } episal of Soviet leader ‘ ee pe terating i edi a a ban on ce) | Weapons, mite | Suppressing Liberation tignstead of supporting the na- gle 4, and social liberation strug- i. eis) Africa and outlining addi- ) 4 aeehea os to bring an end to ing 1d, racism and colonialism 4 Outh Africa, Zimbabwe and f ‘amibia, NATO discussed how —> interfere in Africa with the ay 3 5 4 aa of suppressing the national | Social liberation movement, how to overthrow progres- - Siv : : _ e governments in that conti- Tent, * * * = ATO needed a pretext for ac- ir Fating the arms drive and for €ct and indirect interference in Be tegnal affairs of Africa. The “So xt, as we know, is an alleged tires ce" threat’. What Soviet doe at? There is none. Socialism ieee wars of aggression 0 pro: s then is the ae prosper. What the ; Sov “threat” is the fact that the and ¢t Union has achieved parity Us eo uality of security with the for N A secret report prepared State ATO bears this out when it Sone the well known fact that the per Union is not likely to un- tional Major war, and the addi- nae fact that the Soviet Union feri Overcome -a ten-to-one in- 2 >) “a s cs at 8Nce to the point that today it is With ty or essential equivalence the USA. It is this which the is | | } | } SR which outlined anumber of. sralead in the central strategic reactionary forces of imperialism see as the ‘Soviet threat’’ and are trying to change by an accelerated ~ arms race and more particularly by the neutron bomb. The neut- ron bomb, apart from anything else, is part of an effort to force concessions from the Soviet Union and socialist countries while simultaneously condition- ing people to accept nuclear war as a necessary and not so danger- ous evil. : The security of peoples how- ever, does not lie in an endless arms race, with its threat of nuc- lear war, but in its limitation and reduction on the basis of equality of security,— a task which must be undertaken with renewed vig- or. : Soviet Expansion Claim The second pretext for step- ping up the arms race is the claim of an alleged ‘‘Soviet expansion- sim’. Where? When? Develop- ments in Africa are drawn atten- tion to, such as Angola and Ethiopia. What is involved how- ever is not Soviet expansionism but the implementation of a well-known. policy the Soviet Union, Cuba and other socialist countries never shied away from, that of full support to national and social liberation. As Gromyko.-stated in. his re- marks at the UN Disarmament Assembly, his government had - every intention of continuing aid to the national liberation move- ments. ‘“‘The aggressor and the victim of aggression’’, he said, “cannot be placed on an equal footing. The rights of the peoples waging a legitimate struggle for their liberation from colonial and racist oppression cannot be en- croached upon”. Under the pretext of combat- ting non-existent “Soviet expan- sionism’’ imperialism has set it- self a course of trying to halt the processes of change in Africa. Imperialism in general and US. imperialism in particular is devis- ing new methods of neo-colo- nialism to achieve that objective, . one of which is the formation of a pan African ‘‘defence”’ force — having Africans fighting Africans — financed of course by im- perialism. This is now seen in Zaire, in NATO’s “‘act of collective col- onialism’’, to ensure that the re- sources of Zaire, its copper, cobalt, tin, zinc, manganese, diamonds, exactly the raw mate- rials and resources imperialism wants, remains safely in its pos- session. This is the centre of at- tention of the five-country meet- ing in Paris. These erstwhile col- onial empires including the USA will map out their territories, their ‘raw material resources, while . protecting their considerable investments in that continent. NATO Program The NATO summit meeting with its three-fold program — to escalate the arms race, intervene against the liberation movements, and heat up the cold war, shows that NATO, far from being an in- strument of peace, is an aggres- sive imperialist alliance directed NATO admits Soviets unlikely to start war to prepare and wage wars against the socialist countries, against the: national liberation movement, against the working class and democratic movements in the capitalist world. However, this _ aggressive alliance comes up against factors which hinder the realization of its aims. The balance of forces on a — world scale continues to shift against it. The principles of peaceful co-existence have be- come firmly rooted in inter- national relations despite the ef- forts of the cold warriors to revert to cold war positions. The ever growing movement of the peoples against the dangers of another j world war and for disarmament hinders its plans. In addition NATO is rent by internal contra- dictions. Lenin many years ago stated that an imperialist alliance needs a firm economic basis. But there is no firm economic basis in the imperialist world and in NATO, torn as it is by conflicts and contradictory interests: e Despite the efforts of NATO the contradictions between Tur- key and Greece have not been re- solved. e The sharp division of opinion regarding the production and deployment of the neutron bomb in western Europe and now ex- pressed by Prime Minister Trudeau, reflects this. ; e The sharp battle within NATO over how the $80-billion arms program is to be spent and which industrial military complex is to benefit: mets e The peoples of western Europe and Canada are being saddled with an enormous arms bill, with increased taxes, an in- flationary spurt and declining liv- ing standards — all for the pur- poses of strengthening the aggres- sive imperialist aims of NATO. Sovereignty Threatened For Canada the latest NATO summit constitutes a grave threat to its sovereignty, independence and security. Prime Minister Trudeau was on sound ground when he stated, as distinct from the petty, reactionary and anti-national positions of Diefen- baker and Clark, that there is no alternative to a policy of detente. He was likewise more farseeing in opposing Canada’s participation in. military adventures in Africa, and in appearing to be against the production and deployment of the neutron bomb. While his position appears tobe ‘‘not necessarily the neutron bomb, but a neutron bomb if necessary’’, nevertheless. it acts as a factor against the pro- duction of the neutron bomb. The Conservatives want to debate this issue in parliament, not to call for rejection of the neutron bomb by Canada but rather to find a way of supporting the aims of U.S. imperialism in a different way than Trudeau. At the same time one should not forget that the Trudeau govern- ment supports the accelerated arms race. Contrast this with the restraints .being enforced on housing, social services, educa- tion, the needs of pensioners and the poor, and one can see that for Trudeau and Company and. for the Conservatives, guns come before butter. __ Independent Affairs Clearly it will depend upon the NATO used a ‘Soviet threat’ as a pretext for accelerating the arms drive, says Communist Party general secretary William Kashtan. efforts of peace-loving and patrio- tic Canadians, the working class and democratic movement, to compel the government to pursue . an independent course in foreign affairs, free from U.S. domina- tion, free from domination by the Pentagon, to bring an end to what Prime Minister Trudeau has cal- led that ‘‘stew’’ coming out of the NATO summit. Public opinion must pressure parliament to reject increased military spending, reduce the arms program by 50% and re- allocate such funds to socially useful purposes. This includes withdrawal of Canada from NATO and NORAD; rejection of any interference in the internal af- fairs of Africa; an end to economic support in any form to the racist, colonialist regimes of South Africa and Zimbabwe; support for policies of disarma- ment with parity and equality of security for all countries; opposi- tion to the production or deploy- ment of the neutron bomb, and consolidation of detente through the process of disarmament. There is a direct relationship between the fight for such policies and the battle against re- strictions on democratic rights. There is a direct relationship be- tween the stepping up of the cold war, a police state and the drive to the political right. The work- ing class and democratic move- ments must draw the necessary conclusions for this in the coming federal elections and strive, more aggressively than ever around a democratic alternative, to place Canada firmly and squarely on the path of peace, disarmament, democracy and social pro- gress. China Joins U.S. _ Peace-loving Canadians in pur- suit of such policies must con- demn the dangerous course pur- sued by the Maoist leadership in China. directed to sabotage de- tente and disarmament. Today Maoism constitutes the left bower of imperialism, particularly U.S. imperialism. Around their class- less ‘‘three worlds”, now ‘“‘two worlds’ concept the Maoists have openly aligned themselves with the reactionary forces of im- perialism. NATO speaks of ‘‘Soviet ex- pansionism’’, the ‘‘Soviet threat’’. Maoism speaks of the Soviet Union as the chief in- stigator of an ‘‘inevitable’’ third world war for ‘‘global mastery”’ and calls for a world front against the Soviet Union and its allies. What price is Maoism paying for its present course of *‘a united front of struggle’ against the USSR and other socialist coun- tries? It has accepted two Chinas, ‘the U.S. military presence in south-east Asia and western europe, and support for NATO and the arms drive. The two or three world concept hides the fact that in the real world the struggle is between peace and war, pro- _gress and reaction, national liber- ation and colonial oppression. The ugly truth is that the Maoists have taken China out of the camp of peace, progress and socialism and into the camp of the advocates of international reac- tion, imperialism and war. In Zaire as in other parts of the world Maoism has coordinated its line with that of imperialism and NATO. At the same time the Maoists try to dull the peoples’ vigilance towards its own expan- sionist policy, a policy aimed at torpedoing detente and provoking a world nuclear war. Around the “united front’ against the ‘‘Soviet threat’’ the Maoists want to attack the socialist countries and then deal with yesterday’s ‘‘allies’’. One should have no illusion on that score. This is why the fight for peace calls for a ceaseless strug- gle against Maoismas it calls fora ceaseless. struggle against imperialism. Two Paths Offered Peace-loving Canadians are being offered two paths — that of the UN Assembly on Disarma- ment which opens up possibilities of coming to grips with the threat _ of nuclear war — the other indi- cated by the NATO summit which aggravates the inter- hational situation, undermines detente and leads to new military adventures. It is safe to assume that peace-loving Canadians will reject that course and.work as never before to strenghten the movement for peace and disar- mament and in support of the na- tional liberation movements. PACIFIC TRIBUNE—June 16, 1978—Page 9