Throughout there of supporters. who have formed a common front to staging demonstrations DURING THE 1950s the United States waged what is known in history as the 'cold war'. The United States totally devastated Korea in the war in that country. In Vietnam it used the entire might of its armed forces to attempt to crush the struggle of the Vietnamese people for independence. The US supported military governments in Brazil, Indonesia, any other place that suited it. The policy under which it justified this bloodshed and exploitation was called 'suppressing Communism' Communism being defined as anybody who thought that American companies should not be able to exploit them and their country.
In the 1970s however the United States claimed to have changed. barked on a policy it called "detente'. of Nixon's visits to Peking and Moscow. The Helsinki conference on European Security held. This adopted a so called policy "human TILLS which none the signatories observed. 1970s is stil pointed to be This pointed to by the Kremlin as the idea period of relátions. "Detente' is also a word much used by the cold war' and the policies of Reagan. It is still seer by many people as the goal of international relations.
Zaire and What therefore were the real politics 'detente'? the American leopard changed its spots?
The Kremlin's view of them was expressed recently by Soviet first foreign secretary Georgi Korniyenko following the death of Brezhnev. Addressing the United States an for Newsweek magazine Kor*The new Soviet leadership attaches the STEALSE portance to the development of Soviet-American relations ... It was on the basis of equality that our countries did SO many good things together various spheres, including commercial and economic ones, auring ine 1y/us. He claimed that, 'we have danger or nuelear war. the enemy A similar view was expressed the Secretary General of the Soviet AnaroDowl us new yea interview for 1983. He stated that he wished for *lasting sperity in 1983 and that peace and *today the Soviet people and the Americans have one common enemy, the threat of war and everything that enhances But was the United States ruling class view of 'detente'? Does capitalism believe that under detente it had a common Chell with the Soviet Union in fighting against nuclear war? What would be it goals in any new period of 'detente today? Death Fortunately we don't have to pure or tathe CUEU nouncements preceding the death of Brezhnev, the very organiser TOT the American end of 'detente under Nixon, Henry Kissinger, felt it useful to ex plain what goals the U.S ruling class had been purKissinger explained his view of the world simply by stating that between American capitalism and the Soviet Union, 'We are in effect, confronted with the conflictual opposition of two systems When asked therefore, summary then detente' never 1o you unlike for the Soviet Union anything other than a tactic at the service of a more global strategy! he replied, ALO solutely. President Nixon conceived of detente as a means to create a satisfac tory relation of forces and a certain world order.
When Kissinger was asked why therefore they on the policy of detente he replied was the tremendous political crisis the effects of the Vietnam war had created inside the •What else could do otherwise than calm the atmosphere when in this country (the United States) the political climate was close to that of a civil war.' When he was asked what were the goals of Us foreign policy he replied with the word 'rollback which was used American Secretary State John Foster Dulles himself. Kissinger simpl explained that "rollbacl cannot be a politics in itself. It can only be restorical process, is Rollback al KO Dad was Testora one word itor the restoration capitalism in China Vietnam, the Soviet tastern Cuba and anywhere else where it had been overthrown. Kissinger simply explained that while the United States ruling class sometimes changes its tacit never changes it goals.
Remember that and you'll understand they want those Cruise and Pershing Il missiles Europe.
Newsweek 25 November 1982 2. The Guardian 31 December 1982 Socialist Challenge 14 January 1983 page 9
BERTRAM discusses the in France during the 1930s IN our continuing series on the history of social democracy CHRIS experience of the Popular Front