—victor perio :
PEOPLE VS. PROFITS

The pentagon put-on

P... forces are making a strenuous effort to win at least one victory over the

Pentagon steamroller by defeating the B-1 production funds in the Ford-Rumsfeld
superkill procurement budget. :

The B-1 is one of the three large items, moneywise, in the fiscal 1977 procure-
ment budget. What is at issue is about a billion dollars to build three of these flying
electronic labs and nuclear bomb carriers at $350 million each, including spares.
Originally, President Ford said he would wait until further testing; now he says
he will go ahead regardless. The official line is that when the plane gets into mass
production the cost will go down to a ‘‘mere’”’ $88 million each, but don’t you be-

lieve it. At $350 million each, the 244 programmed will cost $85 billion — half the -

amount needed to finance a whole year’s peace budget for major socially con-
structive government works and programs.

The American Friends Service Committee, in its excellent little leaflet on
the B-1, says it ‘would be used in a dangerous military policy of nuclear overkill
and brinkmanship. It would help support a foreign policy which equates the nation-
al interest with the huge investments of U.S. global corporations.”’

While the arguments used to justify the B-1 are based on confrontation with
the USSR, the principal use of its predecessor, the B-52, has been’ to slaughter a
million civilians in the genocidal terror bombing of Indochina — and the B-1 is sup-
posedly a more effective mass murderer.

3 Production of the B-1, the cruise missile, and the Trident submarine are be-
ing pushed by the most aggressive Pentagon brass and most avaricious war profit-
eers in order to break the Vladivostock terms for strategic weapons restraint
and to prevent a SALT II agreement consolidating those terms. This will endanger
the temporary restraints embodied in SALT I and let loose the most dangerous-
ever cycle of the armament race. To his eternal shame, the representative of the
UAW local at the Rockwell Industries plant making the B-1 has joined the lobby
for it. Auto workers should demand of Leonard Woodcock public repudiation of this
anti-labor, anti-peace position.
The Administration succeeded in putting over the record military program
- with the big wave of anti-Soviet, anti-Cuban propaganda, and a big lie campaign
about the comparative military budgets of the United States and the USSR. Using
CIA-invented statistics, they insisted that the Soviet military budget was going

up while that of the U.S. was going down, and that the Soviet military budget was
_ much larger than ours, reducing the U.S. to a second-rate power.

Actually, the Soviet military budget was slightly declined in six years while”

ours went up more than 50 %; theirs is now $23 billion, exactly one-fifth of the $115
billion new U.S. budget. This data was suppressed and ignored by those mem-

bers of Congress duped by, or, more often, bought and paid for by the military-
industrial complex. :

The big lie was transparent, as readers of this column know. The New York
Ti nes military affairs writer, John W. Finney wrote:

“The ‘dollar gap’ may turn out to be as much a myth as the ‘missile gap’ of
16 years ago. But for the noment it is a political reality carefully created by an
oe intent upon selling an expanding defense budget to Congress

President Ford is supposed to control the CIA and the Pentagon. He is re-
sponsible for their lies. And now, having rammed the full budget and more through
Congress, he is exposing his own lies in his argument with Reagan.

Ford boasted that the United States ‘‘is the single most powerful nation on
earth ... and we’re going to keep it that way”’ (N.Y. Times 4/22) .. . “‘We have
more warheads — about a 2-1 ratio — over the Soviet Union ... And we have a
lead of about 3 to 1 in strategic aircraft” and in naval tonnage. He claimed to have
yes accurate”’ and ‘‘more survivable” missiles than the USSR (N.Y. Times

). =
: Kissinger boasted, ‘‘The Soviet Union remains far behind us and our allies
in any overall assessment of military, economic and technological strength’
(N.Y. Times 4/6).

This kind of boasting is used by bullies to build up their courage for aggres-
sion. It is not only dangerous, it is just as false as the opposite argument, used
earlier. The world camp of socialism, the national liberation movements, and the
working class are now stronger than the forces of imperialism. U.S. imperial-
ism, should it attempt to repeat Hitler’s aggression, would suffer a more dras-
tic defeat, but with untold destruction to humanity in this nuclear age. Indochi-
na and Angola are indicative of the real balance of forces. _

Senator Willian Proxmire is conducting hearings against the B-1, using the
argument that it is a wasteful weapon and that the same money could buy more
effective ones. His opposition is welcome, but his reasoning is wrong: the prin-
cipled position is to oppose any military buildup, to come out for a radical reduc-
tion in the military budget, for acceptance of the many Soviet initiatives for mu-
tual cuts, and for the outlawing and destruction of stockpiles of nuclear weapons.

The Pentagon is spreading stories about the new jobs that the B-1 will create.
But it would destroy many more jobs through inflation and taxing away mass pur-
chasing power. The same sums spent for civilian needs, according to the AFSC,
would create four tines as many jobs — and without the negative effects.

Peace advocates have a major opportunity to zero in on the contradictions of
the Administration position. Tell your Congressmen and Senators you see through
the Ford-Kissinger-Rumsfeld-CIA big lies. Make clear that the test of integrity for
any legislator now is to vote against the B-1 and for reduction of the military budg-
et all along the line. There will be chances to reverse earlier verdicts, because au-
thorization bills already passed must be financed with actual money appropria-
tions, which Congress can refuse.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JULY 30, 1976—Page 4

Peoples

‘By Vasili Uvachan

A historian who visited the Northern
region where the Yenisei flows, shortly be-
fore the October 1917 Revolution, wrote:
“There is nothing more pitiful in the Far
North than the emaciated, hungry and half-
naked remnants of the once healthy and
numerous tribes of warriors, who today are
sometimes driven by hunger to cannibal-

condition of the nations of the North ™

of the §

Their hardships were aggravated by’
ruthless policy of the. czarist authori ©
and the Russian bourgeoisie. It was ©)”
natural that in old Northern legends |
police officer, the tax collector and?
merchant were the most sinister Ci
ters. Tribal chiefs and shamans also ™
lessly exploited the poor.

On the eve of the 1917 Revolution’

tragic. Even the birth of a child br
no joy. A Tungus mother (Tungus was”

ism.”’

The region stretches over two million
square kilometers (775,000 square miles),
almost one-tenth of the country’s total
area. Before the Revolution this vast land
was called the Turukhansk Territory. From
time immemorial it had been inhabited by

Evenks, Nenets, Enti, Dolgans, Nganasans, —

Selkups, Kets, Yakuts and other peoples.
They belonged to different ethnic and dif-
ferent linguistic groups, but they did have
one common characteristic: their extreme
backwardness. Both their economic and

social relations were primitive. Hunting,
fishing and reindeer breeding were the
main sources of subsistence for the indig-
enous peoples of the Northern region. Al-
most everything they needed they produced
themselves. Only fur. was exchanged for
goods brought by merchants. .

Reindeer breeders and hunters, the peo-
ple were mostly nomadic. For days on end
they were exposed to winter blizzards and
summer rains. Cold, wet, soot, smoke, dirt
and darkness were constant companions in
the chums, their primitive homes. The
nomads were always at the mercy of the
forces of nature. Destitution was the way
of life.

term used in the literature of the ti i
all the indigenous peoples of the Nd
asked bitterly at the crib of her ™
“Why were you born into the world ® Bi
taiga, where hunger reigns? Your ™ '
will never know the taste of meat, 7#
body will never know the touch of #4.
blanket, your face will never know a
and your eyes will see nothing but sort”

Czardom profited from the utter "i
wardness of the peoples of the b
from their downtrodden position and ’
their isolation. Their development w?
tarded by hundreds of years.

Only a week after the October R
tion the Soviet Government adop
Declaration of Rights of the People 4
Russia, which set forth the following * j\,
ciples:

Equality and sovereignty of the p@
of Russia;

The right of the peoples of Russi)
self-determination up to and incl’
secession and the formation of an indeP",
ent state; ee 4

The abolition of all national and '},
gious privileges and restrictions; F

The free development of the na)
minorities and ethnic groups.

wort MAGA? I