ENTION AND REVOLU-
¥ by Richard Barnet (New
can Library, $8.50)

d Barnet, an out-ot-the-
liberal, tells the story
intervention in various
the world since World
, and of the official ex-
and policy statements
justify these acts.

‘also makes some etforts
n the dismal pattern.
ked in the State Depart-
ig the Kennedy years.
he was an out-of-the-
liberal because he has
an honest book. Though
not divulge any informa-
previously available to
Iblic, the book is quite use-
because it brings together
Wganizes facts scattered
thout dozens of books.
all is said and done,
no one could mistake
t for anything other than
eral Democrat. He is too
sdgeable to swallow the
liberal yarn that the
its present “world lead-
position thrust upon it,
the whole the U.S. has
discharged its “duties”
tremely generous, if oc-
y erratic or overzea-

he shows many other
lat he is just a liberal: he
pied with refuting
cy theories and he is
to give an economic
of the event's he des-
Before criticizing Barnet,
tr, it might be useful to

¢ information on _ his

He sees that the United States
has been engaged in a global
counter-revolutionary effort. He
says:

“Most of the coups, rebel-
lions, and civil wars that have
erupted in the last twenty years
have concerned tribal, religious
or sectional rivalries and have
not elicited an American res-
ponse. Where, however, an insur-
gent group or revolutionary re-
gime has attempted radical so-
social change, even suggesting a
communist influence, the U.S.
has sooner or later intervened
against it on the grounds that
the revolutionaries were acting
for a foreign’ power.”

This campaign has been waged
by “fair” means (military aid,
etc.) and foul (CIA conspiracies)
and without regard to how the
governments it wished to undo
came to power. The U.S. has
shown, says Barnet, that it “will
Oppose where it can or where
it dares the establishment of new
communist or communist-lean-
ing governments whether they
come into being through foreign
invasion, domestic revolution or
election.”

Governments have been label-
led “communist” — which U.S.
leaders generally take to mean
“Kremlin controlled” — for car-
rying out any of these policies:
“nationalization of private in-
dustry, radical land reform, ac-
ceptance of Soviet or Chinese
aid, (or) insisténce upon follow-
ing an anti-American or non-
aligned foreign policy.”

At the core of Barnet’s book
are three quite good chapters on

U.S. actions in Greece, Lebanon
and the Dominican Republic. In
connection with the first, he dis-
cusses the origins of the famous
Truman Doctrine, that the U.S.
is called upon to support free
societies “based on the will of
the majority,” “who are resist-
ing attempted subjugation by
armed minorities or by outside
pressures.”

These ideas, it will be remem-
bered, were cyncially proposed
by Truman and others, as they
were preparing to bring the
Greek people under the oppres-
sive rule of a rightist clique
supported by a small minority.

Barnet surveys the increasing-
ly degenerate results of the
U.S.'s imperialistic efforts which
thus resumed in Greece after
World War II, culminated in the
actions of Johnson in Vietnam
and the Dominican Republic. In
the latter case Barnet does not
think that Johnson even believed
that there was a threat of com-
munist takeover, but argues that
the President was worried “that
events were out of control and
might lead to a nationalist, anti-
U.S. regime that would look to
Castro or Moscow for help.”
Johnson, justifying his actions
a few weeks later at Baylor Uni-
versity, put forward what Bar-
net calls the “Johnson Doctrine”,
which involves. “a virtually un-
limited claim of legitimacy for
armed intervention in civil
strife.”

When Barnet seeks to explain
these events, he shows that Mc-
Carthyist spectres still haunt
the liberal mind. For he is pri-

marily interested in refuting ar-
guments of the neo-fascists that
communism is a vast conspiracy
directed from Moscow. He re-
jects, for instance, the argu-
ment that the various guerrilla
movements in south east Asia
are somehow parts of a single
army, which if “appeased”
rather than fought at each point
will take: over that region and
continue on to storm the Philli-
pines and Australia. He ridicules
as “psychotic” the notion “that
Castros of the future will muster
an army of millions, transport
them by sampan and burro, and
loose them in our cities.”

Barnet shows the limitations
of the liberal’s mind, when he
moves from rejecting the psy-
chotic’s fancy that strings are
pulled in Moscow, and revolu-
tions or insurrections or riots
break out in “vulnerable
areas,” to maintaining that the
various revolutionary move-
ments are essentially national-
ist, albeit left-wing, which
though they might “inspire” one
another will not necessarily
form a pattern or alliance
threatening to the U.S.

In doing this he fails to make
the vital distinction between
control (“orchestration” is his
word) of revolutionary move-
ments by “Moscow,” which does
not exist, and fraternal encour-
agement, advice and material
assistance which does (and
should) exist among most of the
socialist countries.

Barnet goes from the true
premise that wars of national

is sha

low pessimism criticized

lemocratic or revolution-
ty?
the headline pessimism
just be a way of identifica-
[with the current philosophi-
or existentialism, to
aster and death play a
role than any merely liv-
nenomenon, the tone of the
fis not much brighter.
Rubin starts out by be-
the “we (the move-
suffering the greatest
in our history” —
evidently from 1965 or
earlier until the present
ll the different sections
Ovement are in confused
to inactivity—the intel-
the Black Panthers, the
ure, the draft dodgers
campus; with Eldrige
riven into exile, Huey
Tim Leary, Dr. Spock,
self and other leaders
tong prison terms. And he
wistfully: “Are we a new
ood, or are we just a
Organizations and com-
os?”
Seems to be one of the
mmas of Jerry Rubin
new left. Two thousand
Jesus preached the
hood of Man, with no
result until now than a
of middle class Christ-
Jews, gathering once a
‘wine and dine each
with the occasional black
ht in for good mea-
@ hundred and twentv
@go Marx thundered:
of all countries, un-
still only one third of
"s population has unit-
or less, into this bro-
to date. But the Jerry
. because they have
able to chalk up a total
or the new order in 4-5

i

years! As one young woman sta-
ted recently: “But I want to see
socialism now, I can’t wait!” In
other words, the members of the
new brotherhood have been con-
taminated with the successful
sales pitch of the old rat race:
instant coffee, instant potatoes,
instant reading, instant profits,
etc., etc. They want instant revo-
lution. They cannot wait.

Not that Jerry Rubin over-
looks the positive highlights of
the movement: “Our history has
been marked by a series of great
battles: Berkeley, the Pentagon,
Columbia, Chicago.” He dwells,
however, exclusively on the bat-
tles, without mentioning the vic-
tories of partial gains that
brought total victory one step
nearer. Evidently he evaluates
spectaculars higher, unless the
gains are 100 percent victories.
But the only immediate all-out
victory ever known was when
the fellow killed seven flies with
one swat. And then there were
still flies some place else.

In the same vein he clamors:
“We kicked LBJ’s ass!” That is,
of course. an ambiguous excla-
mation. LBJ is out, not so much
on account of the kick of the
Jerry Rubins as the ones receiv-
ed bv the people of Vietnam.
And if Rubin alludes to political
Americana, the LBJ’s ass kicked
back like a mule in the shape of
the Chicago Mayor. In any case,
it was only a partial achieve-
ment, as they did not kick Nix-
on’s elephant as well and thus
did not clear the air for the
choice of a better presidential
quadruped.

At the same time as Jerry Ru-
bin identifies himself and his
movement with the middle class
—‘if the brats of her (Amer-
ica’s) white middle class insist

on acting like blacks . . . they
will jail and kill us, too” —he
deplores that “the intellectual
community (of which 90 percent
still comes from that class) was
paralyzed by fear. When cops
come on the campus, the liberals
scream; but gradually the liber-
als get tired and go to sleep.” If
Jerry Rubin had studied his his-
tory, he would know that the
intellectuals as a group—with a
few honorable exceptions — al-
ways acted in this manner. Not
so much on account of fear and
tiredness, but because the state
apparatus, by centuries of ap-
plication, has a firm grip around
their heart strings. That: is not
going to change, before the sons
and daughters of the working
class become the inajority on the
campus.

That Jerry Rubin comes from
the middle class is quite evi-
dent: “Our search for adventure
and heroism .. .”, “The yippies
were the most public, anarchic
and fearless conspiracy .. .”
“This happened slowly, not in
the way expected, the knock on
the door and_ concentration
camps for thousands of us. The
American way is to pick one off
here, one there, and try to scare
the others into inaction.” Public,
granted; fearless. granted; and
also anarchic, unfortunately. The
rest is pure middle class roman-
ticism, inoculated into the little
children from grade three on by
help of “A tale of two cities,”
“The scarlet pimpernel” and
Hollywood’s war-time and later
horror films, revolution, counter-
revolution and war were always
a grim business and never high
adventure to those in the thick
of it. And heroism was mostly
reserved for the fallen.

No, Jerry Rubin does not un-

derstand why the steam has
gone out of the yippie revolu-
tion. Evidently he does not know
that there is an ebb and a tide
in every movement. Thus, when
the ebb sets in, he fears that it
is the end. Besides, he does not
know, what all middlé class
revolutionaries of the past have
known: that the success of their
revolution depended on the par-
ticipation of the working class,
a thing that was essential at the
same time as they feared it. But
Jerry Rubin does not mention
the organized workers with one
word; which proves that he does
not see the necessity of an alli-
ance, and that very few at-
tempts, if any, have been made
from either side for a mutual
understanding. While it can not
be denied that the American and
Canadian working class has be-
come somewhat anaesthetized
by the Horatio Alger myth and
the apparently high living stan-
dard, it is still potentially the
greatest revolutionary force in
society on account of its class
war experience of strikes in the
thousands and its organization.
Despite these observations it
shall readily be admitted, that
Jerry Rubin is a highly valuable
fighter. He seems to have a vast
amount of selfless strength, a
sharp sense in regard to changes
around him and evidently the
ability to attract and enthuse
mvriads of his contemporaries.
He could easily develop into an
excellent leader inside a united
revolutionary movement and is
still young enough to have the
chance to see the hoped-for rev-
olution. For history has a ten-
dency to run faster and faster.
And it can and must be acceler-
ated by properly organized as-
sistance.

The American response to revolution

liberations are made by the peo-
ple themselves in reaction to
“local conditions” to the false
conclusion that such movements
are discreet and do not cumula-
tively enlarge the _ socialist
sphere.

Let us turn now to Barnet’s
criticism of the Marxist-Leninist
explanation of U.S. actions, and
to an anlysis of his own position.
He rejects the Marxist analysis
of the situation, because such
classic theories, he says, “under-
estimate the independent role of
the national security bureau-
cracy.

Later, however, without no-
ticing any inconsistency, he says
that American practices are
“designed more to ensure a
sense of economic and political
well-being at home than to
achieve any particular lasting
results abroad,” which perhaps
shows that though he is very
good at dropping names of
Marxists, he does not really
understand their ideas very well.

He spends some time describ-
ing the characteristics of these
bureaucrats or “National Secur-
ity Managers.” He speaks of
their “bureaucratic compulsion
to control as much of the world
political environment as poss-
ible,” (an odd concept) and their
“ultimate bureacratic dream .. .
to push a button, make a phone
call, dispatch a cable and know
that the world will conform to
your vision.”

He discusses the personal
background of these men, how
they behave, that there must be
law and order (shades of Wal-
lace!) in the world:

“The ‘eruption of violence
makes (them) acutely uncomfor-
table for it threatens a status
quo which if left undisturbed,
promises to bring a steady ap-
preciation of America’s pre-
eminent wealth and _ power.
(That is what we call imperial-
ism, Mr. Barnet!) . . . the Mana-
gers have come to feel that
when the bell tolls for some
corrupt but orderly government
in a far off land, it is indeed
tolling for them.”

When Barnet goes on to re-
commend such policy changes
as an end to unilateral inter-
vention, multilateral interven-
ion mainly through the U.N. and
phasing out of all military as-
sistance programs (if the Soviets
will follow suit), another major
flaw in his analysis becomes ap-
parent. He fails completely to
point out that these National
Security Managers come from
the ruling class of the U.S. Per-
haps he dreams of the Second
Coming of a Kennedy who
would drastically change the
national security bureaucracy.
He assumes, then, that from the
U.S. big bourgeoisie might come
a radically different sort of Na-
tional Security Manager — one
who would wish to put into ef-
fect a global laissez aller policy.

The failure to make a class
analysis can also be seen to
be the basis of Barnet’s belief
that the U.S. is not threatened
by the spread of revolution. He
is so eager to categorically deny
the conservatives’ thesis that
U.S. survival is threatened by
the spread of communism, that
he fails to see the practical truth
they have grasped: that the pre-
sent class structure of the U.S.
is threatened by the spread of
revolution in the underdeveloped
countries, by the inevitable
growth of the socialist sphere.

 aill
nero William Tell

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 7, 1969—Page 9