Lourmtes J!

Western press reports on the recent conference on aid

: to underdeveloped nations would scarcely make one

aware that among the 145 countries sending delegations
were the Soviet Union and the other socialist countries.

Any reference to socialist participation in the Paris .

conference, which took place in the first half of Sep-
tember, was buried in a sentence or two about “‘totally
inadequate Soviet aid,’’ claimed to be but a few million
dollars compared to billions from the West.

Analysis
ss FAM Se RT NTP CR RT a
William Pomeroy

t]

One would get the impression that aid to developing
countries is given only by advanced capitalist industrial
powers to fledgling states to help them develop their
economies. The Soviet Union is depicted as a skinflint
for not joining in such aid programs.

The Soviet Union certainly does not join in these
programs of plunder. It does not belong to the IMF, the

World Bank or other agencies of imperialist finance, .

which provide ‘‘did’’ in the forms of loans, grants or
other types of finance.

These western ‘‘aid’’ programs have high interest
rates, are tied to conditions on how the funds are to be

spent and carry terms under which the receiver state’

must adjust or alter its economic policies to suit the
desires of the lender.

Results of western aid

As a result of this western ‘‘aid,’’ most developing
countries have stagnating economies. They are unable
to ‘jump off’ to industrialization, and instead are
smothered with immense debt to western international
financial agencies. Like addicts, they are compelled to
seek further loans, to pay off present debts or to make up
the huge trade deficits they suffer because of unequal
terms of exchange with those countries which have given
“‘aid.””

Asa socialist country, of course the Soviet Union does
not engage in these capitalist practices. Its aid is not
measured on the basis of the amount of debt-incurring
loan capital it makes available.

Soviet aid is aimed at assisting developing countries,
which are mostly former colonies of the western powers,
by encouraging the state sector of the economy — heavy
industry, a balanced industry and agriculture, and tech-
nical training. This helps them to assert their indepen-

| Socialist and capitalist aid contrasted

tit Fs

as :

train its staff.

dence and to escape exploitation. The aid is channeled
through economic and technical cooperation agreements
negotiated on the principles of equality, cooperation and
mutual benefit.

Debt burden avoided

For these projects the Soviet Union usually supplies
the entire plant and equipment, along with the techni-
cians to set up and operate them. Credit that may be
extended has a nominal low interest rate. Repayment,
wherever possible, is made out of whatever is produced
in the completed plant, thus avoiding the debt burden
while helping to stabilize new industries. Once com-
pleted, the project or enterprise is handed over to the
receiver country, which becomes the full owner.

Over 1,200 major projects have been completed for
developing countries in this way and hundreds of others
are in progress. Up to 75% of Soviet economic and
technical assistance has been for the development of
industry and power; 37% has gone into building up iron
and steel industries.

This kind of assistance, consciously given to provide
the least strain and the maximum stimulus to developing

Soviet doctors working at a Lybian hospital in Tripoli. The Soviet Union helped equip the hospital

and its citizens help

economies, has been of far more benefit than all the
billions of dollars poured out as ‘‘aid’’ by the U.S. and
other western powers — ‘‘aid”’ that returns swollen with
profit.

Educational establishments built

A good comparison is in the area of training techni-
cians or specialists for the developing countries. In the
past 10 years over 40,000 specialists from developing
states have been trained in-socialist countries. All have
returned to their countries to help in development. In
addition, the Soviet Union alone has built 130 educa-
tional establishments in those countries for training more
orgie 2 and 64 other educational facilities are being

uit.

In contrast, the western powers have been drawing
enormous numbers of specialists out of the developing
countries in a vast ‘‘brain drain’ that contributes to
western capitalist economies. Between 1961 and 1980
over 500,000 specialists were drained away from the
‘third world,’’ three-fourths of them enticed tothe U.S.,
Britain and Canada.

CBC twists historical facts

CBC-TV commentary aired on Sep-
tember 17 by ‘‘Newshour’’. The com-
mentary was aired in conjunction with a
small demonstration purporting to be in
memory of the alleged suppression of
democracy in Poland on September 17,
1939 and continuing up to the present
day. That date marked the entry of So-
viet troops into Poland to confront Hitle-
r’s nazi army which invaded Poland on
September 1, 1939.

* * *

aka

A reader asks that we comment on a Fo

World War Two when France and Brit-
ain declared war on Germany at the
beginning of September.

* * *

Alfred Dewhurst

* *

Marxism-Leninism Today

April, 1941 Hitler’s armies attacked and |
occupied Yugoslavia and Greece.
/*

So much for the imperialist plotting of

agreement, while pursuing their original
aims of provoking war between Ger-
many and the Soviet Union.

* * *

In the event of Hitler launching an
armed attack against Poland it was in the
interests of Britain, France and the So-
viet Union to come to the defence of
Poland. For Poland could not stop the
nazi forces by itself. For its part the So-
viet Union could not move into military
action against the nazi troops without
passing through Poland as it did not share
acommon border with Germany. But as

We had also viewed the program
which our reader asked for comment on.
And, we can say without fear of
contradiction that both the demonstra-
tion and commentary represent a delib-
erate twisting of fact and history. For
what purpose? In order to camouflage
the present reality in Poland. To
dramatize this bit of blatant forgery the
demonstrators were dressed in Polish na-
tional costumes and wore bright red gags
across their mouths, implying suppres-
sion of free speech in today’s Poland.

The suppression of democracy, in-
cluding the loss of free speech and the
right of assembly, struck Poland on Sep-
tember 1, 1939 when Hitler attacked Po-
land. The Polish people fell victim to
fascism, losing what little democracy
they had managed to gain under the then
capitalist-landlord regime. The reaction-
ary government of that time betrayed Po-
land to the nazis by rejecting the military
help offered by the Soviet Union. The
rape of Poland marked the beginning of

However Britain and France did not
declare war on Germany in order to save
Poland from fascism. They did so in
order to push the Hitlerites eastward to-
ward the Soviet Union. They plotted for
a war between fascist Germany and
socialist Soviet Union under the grisly
banner of anti-Sovietism. However, the
Hitlerites had their own scenario. They
were out for world domination and as
events transpired it became evident that
nazi Germany aimed at subjugating the
west European countries first, in order to
use the resources of those countries to
back its attack against the Soviet Union.

In April 1940 Hitler’s armies took
Denmark and Norway. In May the nazis
opened up an offensive on the western
front, occupying Holland and Belgium,
drove the British troops back to Britain
and occupied France. Following these
victories over their erstwhile fellow-con-
spirators, German troops were stationed
in Finland, Bulgaria, and Romania, and
their pro-fascist governments became
active collaborators of nazi Germany. In

Britain, France and the USA to turn Hit-

Jer against the Soviet Union in order to

bleed both Germany and the Soviet
Union white, to paraphrase the words of
a former Canadian prime minister. Fas-
cism, the sworn enemy of democracy,
was thrust upon the peoples of western
Europe behind the guns of the nazi
butchers and the anti-Soviet blinkers of
the reactionary governments of France,
Great Britain and most of the countries of
western Europe including Poland.

But to get back to Poland and the

muzzling of democracy inthat country as -

a result of the nazi occupation. Prior to
the nazi invasion and on the initiative of
the Soviet Union backed by democratic
pressure in Britain and France —
France, Britain and the Soviet Union
commenced negotiations to join forces if

Germany launched a war. However, it

soon became obvious during the course
of discussions on a military level that
France and Britain had no intentions of
reaching such an agreement. All they
wanted was to keep talking about such

already mentioned the Polish Govern-
ment was opposed to Soviet armed
forced crossing Polish territory to make
contact with the nazi invaders.

Unfortunately, neither France nor
Britain did anything to persuade the Po-
lish Government to change its position.
As a result the nazi armed forces swept
across Poland and within two weeks had
occupied two-thirds of that country.
Nazi Germany was well on its way to
subjecting the Polish people to its jack-
boot fascist rule, with all of its attendant
atrocities.

* * *

Such is the truth of the rape of democ-
racy in Poland. Contrary to the CBC’s
twisting of historical fact, democracy in
Poland was crushed by Hitler when his
armed forces invaded Poland on Sep-
tember 1, 1939 with the connivance of
the imperialist rulers of the Western
democracies.

N.B.: more next week on the restoration
of democracy in Poland.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCT. 16, 1981—Page 5