A WORLD TO WIN    #16   (1991)

 

The U.S.-Led Aggressors Will Not Go Unpunished!

For six weeks the world was witness to a brutal display of gangsterism rarely seen in such a naked form. The U.S. imperialists, along with the British and French, temporarily put aside the business suits in which they usually appear before the people to don military khaki. These gentlemen, who like to present themselves as the pinnacle of human civilisation, carried out a gigantic human sacrifice to their God of Profit.

The excitement of the imperialists over having succeeded in defeating Iraq is truly stunning. After all, the strongest military and economic power on earth, the U.S., was leading the charge, directly supported by the military might of Britain and France and with varying degrees of support from all of the other imperialist countries as well, including the Soviet Union. Iraq, on the other hand, is a small country of 18 million people which, in the final analysis, never really fought. What glory can there possibly be in winning such an unequal conquest?

In fact, the undisguised thrill of the imperialists at delivering what most resembles a kick in the teeth to a person already on the ground shows the desperation of the enemy for cheap and easy victories.

When one civilian in the West or Israel is injured or killed in an attack headlines scream about "terrorism" for days. But when an entire bomb shelter full of hundreds of non-combatants, including many children, is deliberately destroyed it is a "legitimate target", and the destruction of a crowded open-air market is called "collateral damage" in the latest military doublespeak.

The intentions of the imperialists are multifold in this conflict. But one of their important objectives is an effort to send a message to the people all over the world that imperialism is all-powerful and that anyone who dares to stand up to it will be crushed into the dirt. The war does reveal much about the nature of the imperialist enemy -- its vicious, ruthless character, its two-faced hypocritical theatrics (UN resolutions and crocodile tears over the violation of international law, for example) which accompany its crimes, the fact that it is still a very strong enemy capable of lashing out wildly at the people. It certainly shows that these monsters will never lay down their butcher knives nor stop feeding off the flesh of the people until forced to by the armed force of the masses. But it most definitely does not prove that it is impossible for the people to defeat the imperialists.

As the Gulf War reaches an end of at least one phase, the anger of the masses of people throughout the world in the face of this aggression has been coupled with an extreme disappointment and bitterness. In its statement of 28 December 1990 the Committee of the RIM pointed out that, "Throughout the Middle East and the Arab world millions of people are hoping that the Iraqi regime will deal serious blows to U.S. imperialism if it attacks, and the revolutionary communists completely understand these sentiments. But the hopes of the people are likely to be dashed once again." The fact that this defeat was predictable, alas, does not make it any easier to suffer.

The repercussions of this war will be felt for many long years, yet there is much reason to believe in -- and work towards -- the possibility of transforming the situation in the Middle East from the one-sided slaughter of today into a different kind of "killing zone" where the imperialists and reactionaries will be bogged down in a massive trap surrounded on all sides by revolutionary peoples determined, guns in hand, to liberate their countries from the clutches of imperialism.

For the people the world over it is necessary to begin to make some summation of the events of the last seven months. What is the cause of the war? What has the war shown about the way the imperialist enemy fights? Why was the army of Saddam Hussein unable and, in the end, unwilling to fight? How could the people of Iraq and the region fight a different type of war which would lead to victory and not humiliation?

***

What is the cause of the war? Any pretext that it had much to do with the so-called "liberation of Kuwait" should have been dispelled when the U.S. and its "coalition partners" unceremoniously rejected the Soviet cease-fire proposal which met essentially all of the original U.S. demands and in which Iraq explicitly announced its intention to withdraw from Kuwait, all well before the final U.S. ground assault. The U.S. made it clear that they were not interested in a settlement and, unofficially, they spoke of an Iraqi pullout of Kuwait as the "nightmare scenario" because it would deprive them of unleashing their war of aggression.

Long before the outbreak of hostilities on January 17th there were numerous opportunities to find a diplomatic solution involving the retreat of Iraq from Kuwait. Press accounts indicate that the basic military plans, including the date for the beginning of the air war and another for the ground attack, had been set by George Bush as early as October. Gorbachev's foreign policy advisor Primakov reported that Western leaders were decidedly uninterested in Saddam Hussein's "peace feelers" and that Margaret Thatcher, then still Prime Minister of Britain, specifically advised Primakov to do nothing to stop the march toward war which she considered both inevitable and beneficial.

In any event, invasions of one state by another are fairly commonplace in the Middle East as well as in other parts of the world. The U.S. itself has carried out many invasions, including as recently as one year previously when it invaded the small country of Panama, kidnapped the head of state and imprisoned him in the United States. Many other invasions have also taken place -- Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the Turkish occupation and de facto annexation of Cyprus in 1974, Senegal's conquest and annexation of Gambia in 1981, to name but a few examples. Israel's very existence is built upon the theft of Palestinian land, and even the United Nations has solemnly ordered it to withdraw from the territories occupied in the 1967 war. Even after the Gulf crisis began in August 1990, the Syrian army conducted the latest in a long series of armed interventions against Lebanon. So why did the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait meet with such a massive military response from the great powers, while the others have been the object of, at most, tongue clucking and toothless resolutions by the United Nations?

It is well known that the Western imperialists are heavily dependent upon Middle East oil which is also a giant source of profits for them. But this war was not just about securing higher oil profits. George Bush has been completely unabashed in proclaiming his desire to build a "new world order" to last "for the next one hundred years". For the people of the world it is all too clear what this order is meant to be. As the Committee of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement said at the outbreak of the air war, "This order is nothing other than the same old imperialist law of exploitation and plunder of the poor by the rich; aggression, interference and bullying of the weak by the strong; and domination of the whole world by the West." It means that the prosperity of the imperialist countries will continue to be assured by the exploitation of the oppressed peoples -- their resources and, above all, their labour. That the economic organisation of the earth will still be such that whole regions and countries are organised for the benefit of the advanced countries. And that the U.S. and its imperialist allies hope to be even freer to use naked force to impose their diktat all over the world.

In order to impose this "order" the U.S. imperialists must attempt to terrorise the people of the world into accepting it. The imperialists are particularly happy to have aligned all of the imperialist countries on the same side of the conflict, enabling them to bring together enormous military power against a far weaker foe. The new "understanding" between the U.S. and the Soviet Union has most definitely created new opportunities for imperialist aggression.

The Soviet Union's support for the UN Gulf resolutions, including the infamous authorisation of the use of force by "member states", is proof of this. But it would be most wrong to draw the conclusion from this that everything is easy sailing in the camp of the imperialists. The arrogance of the U.S. is to be explained not so much by the increased opportunities now that the Soviet Union is acquiescing in U.S adventures, but more by the necessity felt by all of the imperialists to reconsolidate and expand their "spheres of influence". Clearly, the post-World War 2 order is coming to an end. Already the collapse of the East bloc has sent the whole imperialist world into disarray. All of the imperialist powers sense that now is the time to grab, and if they fail to do so, their competitors will grab first. Countries long under the domination of these imperialist powers are experiencing increased hardship and unresolvable crisis and are seething with unrest and popular discontent.

Indeed, there is an air of desperation in the feeding frenzy of these sharks. The "New World Order" is not a luxury but a necessity for the imperialist powers. The imperialist system can only live by ever expanding its sphere of production and exploitation. Each power is driven to seek new and even vaster markets for investments and sources of raw materials and labour. They carry out this deadly battle not only against their victims in the oppressed nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America, but from time to time they turn violently against each other -- like a pack of wolves fighting over a limited piece of meat. Today they are joined together to butcher Iraq, but even their much-heralded unity can quickly turn to renewed conflict in their own ranks.

The rule of the imperialists has always been built upon blood and bones and cannot be otherwise. For more than two years they yammered about a "new era of peace" and "peace breaking out all over" but the clearest indication of what this new era will offer is the bloody rampage in the Gulf. Even before the blood has dried in the Gulf, "peace talks" are beginning again. The Marxist-Leninist-Maoist teaching that "imperialism means war" has never been more true. Those who may have hoped that it would be possible to come to some accommodation with the imperialists or avoid having to fight them have been slammed in the head.

What the world has seen over the last number of months is not an exception to the workings of the imperialist system -- it is the inevitable consequence and concentrated expression of this system. Imperialist war at least has the merit of lifting the veil which usually covers its most hideous features. Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism, is the source of massive misery and bloodshed throughout the world -- this is in its very soul. But most of the time imperialism's robbery takes place in conditions of world "peace", and even its constant bloody attacks against the masses of the oppressed countries are usually carried out indirectly by imperialism's neo-colonial regimes in Asia, Africa and Latin America and presented as marginal to the workings of the world imperialist political-economic order. Behind the daily but hidden enforcement of imperialist order stand the deadly war machines the imperialists keep ready to unleash at a moment's notice.

***

At least for a few months the volume was turned down on the deafening and nauseating hymns to imperialist democracy that had been blaring loudly ever since the collapse of the East bloc in winter '89-'90. It is true that it is difficult to use the democratic paintbrush to decorate the Emir of Kuwait, one of the last absolute monarchs on Earth, or the Saudi royal family, who regularly execute women for adultery and cut off the hands of petty thieves while they themselves have huge harems and squander their country's wealth in the casinos of Europe.

But in reality the Gulf War and the orgy of self-congratulation about the so-called "victory of democracy" (by which they mean the collapse of the East European revisionist regimes) are part of the same package. Both represent the efforts of U.S. imperialism and its Western allies to grab more and consolidate what they already possess in the midst of a turbulent and rapidly changing world.

The war in the Gulf is proof of Mao Tsetung's statement that "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." Although Mao and his followers have been roundly condemned as "warmongers" for this declaration, the imperialists themselves have always understood this truth and put it into practice. The U.S. sought to drive this point home through the war -- not only to the oppressed peoples of the region, but even to other imperialist countries as well, such as Germany and Japan, who have great economic strength but cannot match U.S. military power.

The imperialist drive to establish a "New World Order" cannot help but put them ever more squarely in opposition to the people. The struggles of the people are already intensifying and will continue to do so. More and more people will be seeking the ways to take on the military might of their enemies.

In order for the masses to make real headway in their struggle they will have to reject the false path of revisionism and opportunism which has had such a stranglehold on much of the struggle of the peoples in the Middle East region. The most hallowed precepts of the revisionists and opportunists have been proven to be utterly bankrupt.

The Soviet Union, the self-described "natural ally" of the oppressed peoples, has willingly sacrificed even its former clients in the pursuit of the USSR's own imperialist interests. Those forces who for decades have been trying to apologise for the Soviet Union and portray it as a socialist and revolutionary force are now worse than empty-handed.

The truth is that the Soviet betrayal of today is just the continuation of their "kiss of death" of a few years ago. Their previous "support" for liberation movements and today's support for the "coalition" are both the pursuit of Soviet imperialist interests in a changed international context. What links the two policies together is that at no time has the Soviet Union been in favour of a determined struggle against imperialism and reaction. At no time did they cease preaching to the oppressed that they would have to come to some kind of accommodation with the imperialist order. At most, the oppressed were asked to trade one imperialist overlord for another. This was their message to the Palestinians where, despite their material "aid" and expressions of sympathy, the Soviets have consistently supported an "international settlement" whose central point would be the recognition of Israel and its "right to exist". In return for giving up their birthright, the Palestinians were to be given a small, disarmed mini-state completely at the mercy of Israel and the great powers. One would hope that those who demagogically justified this betrayal as "a first step toward the complete liberation of Palestine" would now see that the PLO's past opportunism was but one step toward the complete disorganisation of the Palestinian cause.

Nowhere on earth has cynical "realpolitik" been so loudly vaunted as in the Middle East. Opportunist alliances are established or broken on the basis of the most narrow expediency, political positions are bought and sold at the auction block. The only consistent principle among the myriad opportunists was that the progress of the oppressed could only depend upon their enemies! Now the bankruptcy of this endless search for illusory solutions should be apparent to all. But opportunism and revisionism is not mainly a question of ignorance.

No experience, even the most bitter, will bring the misleaders to abandon their course. One of the main political and ideological roots of the successive betrayals and capitulations in the region has always been a distrust in the capacity of the masses to take matters into their own hands and defeat the enemy -- a distrust which stems from the goal of these opportunist leaders to themselves become new exploiters (even if they perceive it as being the "saviours" of the masses). Already one negative effect is that a section of the masses, finding their "protectors" on earth to be powerless, are turning more and more to supernatural protectors in the sky.

The situation in the Middle East is, objectively, more favourable than before for the propagation of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought. But this development can never come about spontaneously. It will require consistent, vigorous and on-going work by the genuine Maoist forces of the region.

***

With the imperialist juggernaut aimed directly at his throat, it is not surprising that Saddam Hussein had become the object of widespread support among the oppressed peoples throughout the world. In the Middle East and Arab world certainly, but in a great many other areas as well, there were few illusions that the Iraqi army would defeat the "coalition", but people deeply hoped that Saddam would stand firm and deal the imperialists some of the punishment they so richly deserve. This is why the bitterness is so keen in the face of the Iraqi army's collapse without a fight.

The Iraqi army, like all armies, is a reflection of the society that produced it. It is a reactionary army built to use against the masses of people, certainly not to fight in their interests. The cause of Iraq against the U.S. was just, but the army's reactionary and unjust nature, which permeates all aspects of the army -- doctrine, training, relations between officers and the rank and file soldiers -- could not help but stand in stark contradiction to the kind of war it was objectively necessary to fight.

In a fundamental sense, Saddam Hussein could not stand up against the imperialists because he opposed the people and could not rely on them. Even though the people wanted to fight and indeed displayed great heroism in the face of the unprecedented air attack, these qualities could not be fully mobilised. Iraq's defeat does not show that it is impossible to defeat imperialism, but it does show that, as Mao Tsetung so brilliantly pointed out, "without a People's Army the people have nothing."

The Saddam Hussein regime represents the comprador-bureaucrat bourgeoisie in Iraq which has been directly fostered and nourished by various imperialist powers. This can be seen by the actions of the regime throughout the events in the Gulf and, most especially, by the army's inability and unwillingness to fight.

The invasion of Kuwait and the Iraqi leadership's hope of gaining control of at least some of Kuwait's oil wealth itself was an effort to come to better terms with the imperialist powers, not an effort to break free of them. Throughout the crisis, the regime sought some sort of compromise with the imperialists which would avoid a conflict and restore the good relationship they had previously enjoyed with the West. But the enemy was not interested, and every concession by Hussein just whetted the appetite of the U.S. and its partners in crime for ever more humiliating conditions.

The soldiers who make up the Iraqi army no doubt sensed this themselves. It seems many may have asked themselves, why die in a deadly game of poker when, in the last analysis, everyone knows that Saddam Hussein is bluffing?

Mao Tsetung made the extremely important observation to the Palestine Liberation Organisation that they should follow the principle of "You fight your way, I'll fight mine", by which he meant that the forces of the people must fight a completely different kind of war than that of the reactionaries. But such a policy could never be implemented by the Iraqi regime. The army Saddam Hussein trained and equipped and the kind of war he was prepared to fight are almost useless in the face of imperialist aggression.

The Iraqi army was equipped with a great deal of the most modern arms available. But these arms, purchased from the imperialists (East and West) themselves, were never meant to be used against their providers. (For example, neither the Soviet Union nor the Western powers sold Saddam a single plane that could make the return flight from Iraq to Israel.) More importantly, these modern high-tech weapons only work when they form a link in a whole chain in modern high-tech society. They must be maintained and operated by trained technicians. They need sophisticated and difficult-to-produce spare parts. Further, each high-tech weapon runs the risk of being countered by an equally high-tech "counter-weapon", forcing those who would rely on them into a never-ending spiral of newer and more sophisticated weaponry.

In the hands of the dominated countries, these weapons are, above all, a further means of control and interference which the imperialist powers exercise. It is these latter powers who provide (or stop providing, if that is in their interests!) the spare parts, technical assistance, counter- measures and so forth. These weapons are useful when they are aimed at another dominated country, or against the masses themselves within a dominated state, but they have yet to do real damage to the imperialists or their Zionist attack dog.

Yasser Arafat, the PLO Chairman, is quoted as saying, "By acquiring technology, Iraq is the defender of the Arab nation, of Muslims and all free men everywhere."(1) But the development of the war has shown this to be wrong. Imperialist-provided technology has proven to be the "secret weapon" of the U.S.-led forces, who have been able to use their own super-sophisticated electronic spy equipment to target Iraqi positions with their so-called smart bombs.

For decades lack of modern arms has been used as the constant excuse by a number of regimes in the region to back down in the face of the Israeli arsenal. And different opportunist forces have echoed this same line well. Now the illusion of somehow trying to rely on the imperialists to achieve arms parity has gone up in the smoke of Desert Storm.

Who can help but be gladdened by the news of Scud missiles slamming into Israel? But the fact of the matter is that all of the Scuds so far have been less damaging to the state of Israel than the rocks and knives in the hands of the Palestinian youth. When it comes to missile technology the imperialists win hands down. But technology alone will not enable them to defeat the masses of people if they rise in armed struggle, even using relatively unsophisticated weapons at first, and follow a correct Maoist military approach which pits the people's strong points against the enemy's weakness.

***

Military doctrine also reflects the nature of different types of armies. There is a reason that the Iraqi regime felt required to fight a fixed positional battle on its frontiers and could not follow the policy Mao used of "luring the enemy in deep". Not only was the regime incapable of relying on the masses and mobilising them to fight behind enemy lines, they feared the masses, and the army remained, even in the midst of a war against an external enemy, a tool for controlling and suppressing the masses.

Saddam Hussein himself spoke, at least on some occasions, of the possibility of the courage of the foot soldier compensating for the enemy's technological strength. "Under all circumstances, one who wants to evict a fighter from the land will eventually depend on a soldier who walks on the ground and comes with a hand grenade, rifle and bayonet to fight the soldier in the battle trench. All this technological superiority, which is on paper, will eventually be tested in the theatre of operations."(2) But the class nature of the Iraqi Army would not allow it to pursue the kind of fighting or apply the kind of military doctrine which would overcome the technological superiority of the enemy.

Saddam Hussein no doubt would have preferred that his soldiers fight, but because his regime is not a people's regime Hussein was unable to very effectively mobilise the troops. Instead he relied on a combination of lies (ridiculous battlefield claims bearing no relation to reality), religious incantation, bribery (even offering large cash awards to his own people for turning in enemy pilots!) and threats -- all of which made his appeals to patriotism seem hollow indeed.

Heroism also has a class content. Although even soldiers in an imperialist army are capable, at times, of a sort of battlefield courage, it is nonetheless true that men and women fighting for a just cause, knowing that their sacrifices are in the interests of all humanity, can withstand far greater hardship and fight far more courageously than imperialist soldiers kept in ignorance and generally drawn from classes with no interest in defending imperialism, and most comfortable when bludgeoning someone who is defenceless. It is only a revolutionary army, led by the proletariat, which can fully bring out the heroic characteristics of the people.

Furthermore, for the courage of the combatants to play its full role, it is necessary to apply a military doctrine which emphasises mobility, daring and fighting at close quarters. It will not do to rely on a military doctrine borrowed from the imperialists (Soviet, Western or, as in Iraq's case, both), and then simply exhort the soldiers to carry out their patriotic duties. There is no doubt that the Iraqi soldiers have shown a certain degree of heroism in standing up to one of the most brutal onslaughts in history -- certainly the U.S. soldiers would not have held out as well for six days, let alone six weeks, under such bombardment. But it is also true that this heroism is stifled and squandered by the kind of leadership they had and the type of war they were obliged to fight.

In fact, the imperialists themselves were more than a little worried about engaging the Iraqi army at close quarters. They often spoke of the great "unknown factor" being how well the Iraqi troops would hold up in combat -- but the great "unspoken factor" was how well American and other reactionary troops would hold up once they were not able to rely entirely on their technological advantage and once they started taking some serious casualties. Further, the more the forces of the people are intermingled with those of the enemy, the less capable the enemy is of unleashing their air power without hitting their own forces.

***

It is Mao Tsetung who taught that the communist position was to combine tactical respect for the enemy -- their ability to cause a great deal of death and destruction -- with strategic contempt -- that they represent a sick and dying system opposed by the masses the world over. The Iraqi regime followed exactly the opposite policy -- strategically they both feared and admired imperialism and never gave up looking for some kind of solution that would preserve intact the basic relation between Iraq and imperialism. Yet they did not base their tactics on a realistic appraisal of the strength of the imperialist enemy and its capacity to overrun Iraqi fixed positions. And they underestimated its merciless character.

The people treasure human life, unlike the rabid imperialist dogs whose very military doctrine is to destroy everything in their murderous path. But the people have a tremendous capacity for sacrifice when they understand that such sacrifice is necessary to achieve their liberation.

The reactionary ruling classes are afraid and unable to arm the masses with the truth and unleash them to fight on a scientific basis. But the people can and must be given an accurate picture of the strengths and weaknesses of the enemy and of their own forces as well. They can grasp and apply a strategy of protracted people's war which enables their armed forces to go from weak to strong over time and defeat the enemy bit by bit.

The imperialists are currently crowing that with their high-tech weapons they have rewritten the laws of warfare -- but nothing is further from the truth. They made the same claims in Vietnam which was, after all, the beginning of the so-called "electronic battlefield". In that war they ended up in ignominious defeat. Of course, weaponry has evolved in the two decades since the Vietnam war, but the difference is that Saddam Hussein, to the extent that he fought at all, tried to fight the imperialists "their way" and was far less able to mobilise and rely on the people. Now the imperialists hope to use the defeat of Iraq to try to wipe out the memory of their debacle in Vietnam and, specifically, to vaunt the so-called invincibility of their high-tech weaponry, but really they have proven no such thing.

***

Part of Iraq's dilemma, and one of the strong suits of the imperialists, has been that Iraq's rulers fear losing all that has been built up, largely with oil money, over the last two decades. This has meant that from the beginning the Iraqi regime sought some way out of the conflict other than total war.

Even in the midst of the war itself Iraq has continued to function along the pattern established by its condition as a country dominated by imperialism. Baghdad, for example, continued to hold a widely disproportionate part of the Iraqi population, even though what little industrial base that existed had already been substantially destroyed by the bombing. A revolutionary regime would, under the circumstances, have evacuated Baghdad to the greatest degree possible. and mobilise the people to fight in more favourable areas.

The countryside, by its very nature more suitable to fighting people's war, remains relatively underpopulated, and the mountainous Kurdish region, the most favourable terrain in the country for waging guerrilla war, could not be fully utilised to resist aggression because of the reactionary policy the regime has carried out in regard to the Kurdish people.

Iraq was built up to play a role in imperialism's "international division of labour". Despite the fact that the Tigres-Euphrates river valley, one of the earliest centres of civilisation on Earth, has been an extremely fertile agricultural area for thousands of years, the country has been developed almost exclusively around two poles -- the oil industry, whose production is controlled by and serves the imperialist countries, and the armed forces, who up to now have been used primarily in an imperialist-sponsored war with Iran and on barbaric attacks on its own population, especially the Kurdish nation.

Building up the country in such a way could not help but leave it extremely vulnerable to imperialist attack. As long as imperialism continues to dominate the world, it will always be able to hold the urban centres hostage to its blackmail. The development of a "modern Baghdad" was an illusory bubble, based on a coincidence of high oil prices and the need of the imperialists to construct a "counter-weight" to Iran. The war has shown that what the imperialists give, they can take away.

Mao Tsetung was very clear that a correct policy of economic development was very much linked to the problem of national defence. He argued that in order to be prepared against imperialist invasion it was necessary to build up industry in the rural areas and in the interior of the country and not just the big cities along the coasts. Furthermore, while carrying out socialist construction in both city and countryside, Mao always realised that these accomplishments were provisional as long as imperialism remained strong, and that they were likely to come under attack. He was prepared, ideologically, politically and practically, to abandon the cities of China and "return to Yenan", as he was fond of saying, and carry out guerrilla warfare against an invading enemy. The famous Chinese revolutionary policy of "dig tunnels deep, store grain everywhere and do everything for the people" was an expression of this line. The ability of a proletarian revolutionary like Mao to carry out this policy is linked to the communist goal of wiping out imperialism throughout the world and bringing into being communist society. He knew that with imperialism still strong in the world the socialist development of one country could only go so far, that peace with the imperialists would be at most a truce until the latter attacked once again.

Although even a genuine socialist economic policy will include developing urban centres, in the oppressed countries the centre of revolution is the countryside -- and this must also be the centre of national economic development and national defence. In light of the imperialists' efforts to starve Iraq, the full importance of Mao's instruction to "take grain as the key link" can be readily seen.

Even a correct military line will not be able to keep the imperialists from exacting a terrible toll on the people -- on this point there can be no illusions. But the country can be developed, and defended, in such a way that the tremendous sacrifices of the people are not in vain and that, through waging protracted people's war, they are in the end victorious.

***

The imperialists have many other weaknesses as well that a genuine people's war would be able to exploit. For example, U.S. imperialism is hated all over the world, and this hatred is particularly strong throughout the whole of the Middle East. In many countries of the region and the world, spontaneous outbursts of opposition to imperialist aggression and outpourings of revolutionary sentiment took place. But why has it proven so difficult for Saddam Hussein to take advantage of this?

First of all, Saddam Hussein's Baathist ideology, given a new Islamic coat of paint for the circumstances, has real limitations in its capacity to mobilise masses, especially the non-Arab peoples. The scars of Iraq's brutal war against Iran are an important factor working against the mobilisation of the people of Iran against the U.S. aggression. In Kuwait itself Hussein was unable to mobilise a very large section of the population who hate the reactionary rule of the Kuwaiti elite. But this section, made up largely of Filipinos, Pakistanis, Indians, Bangladeshis, Sri Lankans, etc., cannot be expected to embrace a slightly different version of the same Arab chauvinism which had been used to justify their servitude in Kuwait under the rule of the royal family.

It is particularly clear how a correct revolutionary and internationalist policy concerning the Kurdish nation would have led to entirely different results than the reactionary policy followed by the Iraqi regime. For the Baathists, the presence of millions of Kurds within Iraq is a dangerous liability. Yet not only are they a vital force to mobilise within Iraq itself but the Kurdish masses in Turkey, with a long history of opposing imperialism, are seething with revolt, and the potential for another front against the "coalition" was evident. The Turkish regime and its U.S. masters were aware of the danger of unleashing this torrent of rebellion (which is one reason they turned down offers from opportunists in Iraqi Kurdistan who wanted to enlist their guerrilla fighters in the ranks of the "coalition"). But how will the Kurds of Turkey feel about coming to the aid of a regime which has used chemical weapons against their people in Iraq and which, like the Turkish regime, preaches the inferiority of the Kurdish people?

Saddam Hussein also tried to break out of his isolation by reaching out to other forces in the region -- but he did this on a reactionary basis. He was able to come to a quick agreement over a territorial dispute with the reactionary regime of Iran over which eight years of bloody war were fought. But when it came to the rights of the Kurdish people, the only "concession" of the regime was to remind them of Halabja.(3)

Among the Arabs themselves, the reactionary past of the Baathist regime could not help but stand in the way of the people's desire to combat U.S. aggression. In Egypt, where up to two million workers had been in Iraq, it is widely known that the Baathist "Arab brothers" were brutal, chauvinistic and often deadly exploiters of the Egyptian workers. Unleashing the impoverished Egyptian masses against the Mubarak regime could have been one of the greatest possible "secret weapons", but it is a weapon that the Iraqi regime could not wield.

Even the Palestinian masses, who were solid as a rock in supporting Iraq against the U.S., were left sitting on the sidelines and waiting for Saddam Hussein to make good on his pledge to "burn half of Israel". In the final analysis, Hussein's bombast was a demobilising factor in Jordan and occupied Palestine and joins a long series of empty talk by Arab misleaders who promised to "liberate Palestine" but always restrained the people from fighting. The masses were ready to fight, and with correct leadership a second front in Jordan could have been opened up which would have delivered blows to Israel, mobilised further support throughout the region and diverted the "coalition" armed forces.

Generally it can be said that the potential in the region and in the world for opposition to the U.S.-led aggression has hardly been tapped. Mass demonstrations in all of the belligerent countries showed that the imperialist aggressors also faced opposition at home. An unjust war will give rise to opposition -- this is a law of history, confirmed again during the Gulf war. This worldwide opposition to the war could have been a vital reserve of strength for Iraq, but without a determined struggle on the part of Iraq itself this could only be partially mobilised -- if you want others to stand firm you must first stand firm yourself. But there is every reason to believe that if Iraq's war against U.S.-led aggression had gone on for a protracted period of time and begun to deliver blows to the enemy, opposition to the imperialists would have grown stronger. This is another important lesson of the Vietnam war, which led to an unprecedented movement of opposition within the United States itself, as well as other countries, which cannot be obliterated.

***

Often communists are told that our politics are "unrealistic". Your ideas may be correct "in theory", but "in practice" there is no choice but to bend your principles to meet the expediency of the moment. This approach is just as wrong in war as it is in politics. In fact, it is the same ideology and the same approach that preaches a mini-state, recognition of Israel and talks with the U.S. one day, and the next day stakes the fate of the Palestinian people on Scud technology.

Fighting a people's war, which requires a genuine people's army, uniting with and fighting together with the masses and for their interests, is the only path to victory. Other paths are but a dangerous mirage. And history has shown again and again that only the proletariat, through its vanguard party, can forge and lead such an army and wage such a war.

No, the politics of the revolutionary communists are not just a "better line" in the abstract. The ideologies of the exploiting classes, be it Baathism, imperialist-sponsored reformism, religious fundamentalism or any of a host of others, are wrong. Only Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought can explain the world correctly, can reveal the targets of the revolution, and can unite all who can be united of all nationalities. Only Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought can show the people how to use their strong points to attack the enemy's weaknesses, how to go from weak to strong. In short, how to win.

In this light it is important to note once again the example of the Communist Party of Peru which has been waging genuine people's war for ten years. There is the danger that the U.S. will now step up its intervention against the Peruvian revolution and it is vital that the slogan "Yankee Go Home!" resound all the louder in the wake of U.S. imperialism's ugly performance in the Gulf. In the final analysis, the people's war led by the PCP will prove stronger than all the fire and steel of the imperialists.

The imperialists have won a victory, but it will be short-lived. Even at the height of the war the imperialists were deathly afraid that the suppressed rage of the masses in the region could blow up in their face. And this is why even in the very days following the cease-fire, the imperialists already began to speak of the need not to totally crush the Iraqi army which, they said, might be needed to "quell internal disturbances".

The U.S. imperialists will not be able to organise their "New World Order" in the Middle East or elsewhere without further attacks on the people and continually disturbing the existing reactionary set-up, however much they strive to keep it intact. Furthermore, the period ahead also will be marked by increased squabbling and fighting among the imperialists themselves over the spoils of war. This increasing instability in the world and the region opens new doors for the revolutionary struggle.

The imperialists are already beginning to talk about a "lasting solution" to the "Palestinian problem". For more than forty years, the existence of the state of Israel in occupied Palestine has been the lynchpin of the imperialist order in the Middle East. On the other hand, the struggle of the Palestinian people against the Zionist state has been an inexhaustible source of the revolution in the region. In George Bush's dream of a "New World Order", the Palestinian people would meekly submit to Israel's reinforced role in the region.

But the Palestinian people have proven again and again that they will not allow their homeland to be bargained away. After the bloody spectacle in the Gulf the people are being told to put their confidence in international conferences sponsored by the same predators whose fangs are dripping with the blood of the Iraqi people. But it is unlikely that the Palestinians or other peoples of the region will soon forgive or forget.

The task still remains of "drowning the U.S.-led aggressors in a sea of people's war".(4) Now, more than ever, there is a need for the people to have their own revolutionary force in the field. The first and immediate step is for the rapid creation of genuine Maoist vanguard parties which can lead and wield such an army and uphold the independent interests of the proletariat and the oppressed. With these weapons it is possible indeed to turn today's defeat into tomorrow's victory.

1. Palestinian news agency WAFA, quoted in the International Herald Tribune, 26 January 1991.

2. Speech at the Islamic conference in Baghdad on 11 January 1991, quoted in the IHT 27 February 1991.

3. Before the outbreak of hostilities, Izzat Ibrahim, Vice Chairman of the Revolutionary Council of Iraq, made a speech to the people in Sulaymaniyah in Iraqi Kurdestan in which he reminded them of Halabja. Halabja is the town in Iraqi Kurdestan which was the victim of a chemical gas attack in 1988 which killed thousands of people.

4. See the Call to the Peoples of the Arab world and the Middle East by the Committee of the RIM in this issue.

Mao Tsetung on the War of the Chiang Kaishek Government Against the Japanese Invasion of China

"...As for the lessons, they are likewise great ones. Several months of fighting have disclosed many of China's weaknesses. They are manifest above all in the political sphere. Although geographically the war involves the whole country, it is not being waged by the whole nation. As in the past, the broad masses are restrained by the government from taking part, and so the war is not yet of a mass character. Unless it has a mass character, the war against Japanese imperialist aggression cannot possibly succeed. Some say, "The war is already an all-embracing war." But this is true only in the sense that vast parts of the country are involved. As regards participation, it is still a partial war because it is being waged only by the government and the army, and not by the people. It is precisely here that the chief reason for the great loss of territory and for the many military setbacks during the last few months is to be found. Therefore, although the present armed resistance is a revolutionary one, its revolutionary character is incomplete because it is not yet a mass war. Here, too, the problem of unity is involved. Although the political parties and groups are relatively united as compared with the past, unity still falls far short of what is needed. Most of the political prisoners have not yet been released, and the ban on political parties has not been completely lifted. Relations are still very bad between the government and the people, between the army and the people, and between officers and men, and here one observes estrangement instead of unity. This is a fundamental problem. Unless it is solved, victory is out of the question. In addition, military blunders are another major reason for our losses in men and territory. The battles fought have been mostly passive, or to put it in military terms, have been battles of "pure defence". We can never win by fighting this way. For the attainment of victory, policies radically different from the present ones are necessary in both the political and the military fields. These are the lessons we have learned..."

-- From Mao Tsetung, Selected Works, Vol II, "Interview with James Bertram".