Re: [A-List] A Chinese Marxism view: Problemsofint'l.strategyfortoday's China

["James Daly" <james.irldaly@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I am an enthusiastic reader of Henry's anti-imperialist writings.  But
there is one period where I think he has a blind spot.  Having lived
through the period, though no scholar or expert in the field, my take
on it (partly deriving from Ernest Mandel's account at the time, which
was very critical of the USSR) was that a revolutionary China was
(criminally, according to Mandel) rejected by the détente-pursuing
Soviet Union.  At that time China was supporting revolution in East
Africa, and I remember one of my joys in life was reading the journal
Tricontinental, published in Cuba, advocating Third World unity.  But
Mao signalled the new line China seemed to have adopted -- "The enemy
of my enemy is my friend" -- (which it has now, thankfully, abandoned)
when he invited Nixon to China, and he continued that line by, along
with the USA, supporting Pinochet and Pol Pot, and ceasing to support
East African or any other National liberation, whereas Cuba and
Vietnam remained on the revolutionary and liberatory side.
Attributing Cuba's heroic struggle against South Africa to coercion
from a continually-détentist Soviet Union does not seem to me very
plausible.  The USSR also seems to me to have followed a decent
geopolitics in Afghanistan, and credit for its defeat there has been
plausibly claimed by its American architect, Brzhinski (sp?).

Original Message -----
From: "Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "The A-List" <a-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, February 18, 2006 2:46 PM
Subject: Re: [A-List] A Chinese Marxism view:
Problemsofint'l.strategyfortoday's China

Henry C.K. Liu wrote:

Superpower involovement was a rivalry between a socialist imperialist
and a capitalist imperialist.  National liberation was at best an
excuse.  Cuba was acting as a proxy for the USSR. Cuba had no choice,
as it was dependent of Soviet aid. China was also involved in Africa
in that period.

bar@xxxxxxxxxxx   had written:

PS. Or the Cuban deployment of troops to fight the South Africans in
defense of a socialist soutethern Africa in which they won an
overwhelming victory. Is that an example of Cuban imperialism?
...
I dont see how a reply to a request by the Afghans to the USSR to help
support their regime in the face of an assault by the US proxies can
be construed as "imperialism." The evidence is clear the Afghan war
drained the USSR and it did not benefit one whit from that war. Are
you saying that any time a socialist country comes to aid of another
and sends troops there that it is engaging in imperialism? Then what
was the Chinese war agaisnt Vietnam in the mid 70's all about?

Chris

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