[PEN-L:4635] [Fwd: Jan Myrdal calls for a new Peace Front] boundary="------------E2308F03820701C9C403C263"

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
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The call by Jan Myrdal fwd below was clearly intended specifically
for the Swedish left, but it is so clear in its summary of the 20th-c
struggle against imperialism and war, and of the primary obligations
of socialists in a world dominated by U.S. aggression, that it could
serve as a template for similar calls elsewhere. Moreover, Jan
Myrdal's call opens up a first crucial step socialists all over the
world can take to respond to the intermittent calls for unity, calls
that are usually empty and even counter-productive because they
fail to recognize that unity of principle and program must emerge
from a prior unity of practice. Opposition to the U.S. imperialist
project can form the basis for unity of practice among those
differing widely, even wildly, in theoretical loyalties.

Of course we who live in the belly of the beast have a special
responsibility, and just *because* we enjoy democratic rights
(in contrast to the German people of the 1930s) that responsibility
is all the greater. How difficult that task is we may know not only
from the waffling as well as outright support for U.S. savagery
on this list, but from the leftover mythology from the Vietnam War
which still dominates the media. In this morning's Chicago Tribune
the columnist John Kass, at the end of a column devoted to the
usual pro-war ravings about how terrible war was, writes as follows:

    "If we're going to fight, we must fight to win. We already fought to

lose once, in Vietnam." (Chicago Tribune, March 29, 1999, Sct. 1,
p. 3,  col. 1)

We must remember that a good deal of U.S. "anti-war" sentiment is
based on this myth of "fighting to lose" in Vietnam. It is one of the
myths which it is most important for a unified anti-imperialist movement

in the United States to fight to destroy, and it will not be easy.

One difficulty exists at the very beginning. No one in the United
States (and certainly no marxist) has the prestige that Jan Mydal
enjoys in Sweden, and a Call will have be issued by a collective,
a collective with non-Marxist leadership. The only two "names" I
can think of are Noam Chomsky and Manning Marable, but both
have other responsibilities, particularly the latter for there can be no

enduring progressive movement in the United States without a
strong and independent black movement.

Of recent posts on the overall issue, one by Doug Henwood suggests
one serious specific issue for a movement to focus on. He writes as
follows (on lbo-talk, Sun, 28 Mar 1999 19:06:48 -0500)

==============
But this is all perfectly consistent with U.S. bombing strategy, from
Dresden through Hiroshima through Iraq, to terrorize civilian
populations
in order to undermine popular support for and destroy the human
infrastructure of regimes the U.S. is at war with.

I love the propaganda parallel with the Gulf War - a demonized
"Milosevic"
just like the demonized "Saddam" - we're at war with the evil "Him," and

not the people we're actually bombing. At some level Clinton & Co.
probably
believe this.
============

To spread to a broader public this perspective on U.S. use of air power
would go part of the way towards undercutting the lies about the U.S.
"fighting to lose" in Vietnam. We can't do it however merely by arguing
with each other on e-mail lists. But the present moment does present
an occasion in which we can test the claims (often extravagant perhaps)
which have been made for the use to which the left can put the internet.

Clearly it can make instantly available to us the kind of necessary bank

of information and analysis which a number on these lists have been
providing these last days. But that is merely ammunition in the armory.
Can mail lists help in organizing to use it?

Carrol

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	Sun, 28 Mar 1999 19:02:43 -0600 (CST)
	for marxism-outgoing; Sun, 28 Mar 1999 19:58:25 -0500 (EST)
          by dfw-ix13.ix.netcom.com (8.8.4/8.8.4)
	id rma019152; Sun Mar 28 18:56:22 1999
Date: Sun, 28 Mar 1999 16:56:25 -0800
From: Juan Fajardo <fajardos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: marxism-unmoderated@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Jan Myrdal calls for a new Peace Front
Sender: owner-marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Reply-To: marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

In line with statements from other individuals and organizations which
have appeared on the various lists which comprise "Marxism space" on the
internet, and in line with efforts to spread information about what is
happening and the options before us, I forward this call by Swedish
writer Jan Myrdal.  I received it from someone who  received it from
someone named Hans Isaksson, so I suppose any comments should
properly be directed to Mr. Isaksson at hissak@xxxxxxxxxxx
- JRF

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    A   C A L L   F O R   A   N E W   P E A C E   F R O N T

                       By Jan Myrdal

The United States, its allies and its subordinate states have
thoroughly changed the international situation by their war of
aggression against Yugoslavia.

It is, however, not only up to the United States whether the
United Nations will now become like the League of Nations after
the Japanese aggression back in 1931. Nor is it entirely up to
the United States how the future conflicts will develop - it is
up to us, the people. In order to act intelligently we shall
have to realise this fact and discuss  its implications.

Even if  WW I was trigged by the shots in Sarajevo it started
with the Balkan wars during the preceding years. It was fore-
boded by conflicts, possible to discern and to analyse already
in the 1890-ies, between the big powers on the repartition of
the world. The contemporary peace- and labour movement  could
foresee this big war in advent.


The analysis made by the Basle conference of the Second Interna-
tional was perfectly clear. However, in the absence of a broadly
based peace movement, organised by and among the people their
leaders were able to desert the struggle for peace. Instead they
began to serve the imperialist masters and to drag the peoples
into a sanguinary world war. On our side we have discussed how
this could happen since the autumn of 1914.

Even if the Second World War, as far as Europe was concerned,
was trigged when Hitlerite Germany attacked Poland in 1939 it
was initiated when Japan occupied Manchuria in 1931 (and it was
continued by the Italian assault on Abessinia   and  by the
fascist coup, supported by Germany and Italy, against the legal
government in Spain in 1936). In this imperialist power game the
leaders of Great Britain, France and the United States thought
that they might be able to turn Japan and Germany against the
Soviet Union, thus being able keep their own empires for them-
selves.

In spite of this the contemporary peace movement and the anti-
fascist forces in the interval between the preludes of the war
and its exacerbation  made a great performance  to unite the
peoples on the broadest possible foundation against the fascists
and the war. In doing this they contributed to the future defeat
of the fascists. Even if they were not strong enough to prevent
the war they had learnt from the events in 1914.

It is granted that the third  World war was initiated by the
bomb over Hiroshima - which was not necessary in order to defeat
Japan but was needed in order to secure the  world hegemony de-
sired by the United States - and later by the iron curtain
speech by Winston Churchill, the Truman doctrine and NATO. How-
ever the war never broke out. We succeeded in the fifties where
we failed back in 1914 and 1939. We were able to resist the for-
ces of war.

We were millions all around the world working for the Stockholm
call for peace. Our slogans were simple and seemingly self-evi-
dent: Prohibition and destruction of nuclear arms under interna-
tional control - any state, deploying nuclear arms by this fact
was to be considered a war criminal. The press and our official
politicians were raging.

Whoever remembers the witch-hunt won´t forget it. The Daily News
(the leading Swedish daily newspaper) slandered us as "Russian
agents". Our Prime Minister was very upset. On the initiative of
the United States here in Sweden 20000 informers were organised
to spy on all those among their fellow countrymen  who worked in
favour of  "the peace of Moscow" - and to annihilate them so-
cially and politically. But we simply were too many millions all
over the world organising to resist the US warmongers. They
could not realise their dream - exposed on the cover of Col-
lier´s Magazine in November 1951 with its atomic mushroom over
Moscow. Their war machine was defeated in Korea. They were co-
erced into keeping peace.

In Sweden powerful forces among  Big Business , the military ap-
paratus and their friends in the bourgeois parties as well as
parts of the social democratic leadership tried to make us join
the NATO and its war. But the peace movement was on its guard
and the public opinion was against NATO. The peace movement
grew. Certain generals and politicians were in the service of
the United States. They had to act illegaly and secretly.

With the support of the public opinion we made Sweden officially
stick to the very same political line that it had adhered to
since 1834: Freedom of alliance in peacetime, aiming to neutra-
lity in wartime. This fact constituted a severe defeat for the
diplomacy of the United States and  for the pro-NATO forces in
our country.

Among the political/military leadership a program for the deve-
lopment of Swedish arms was prepared, however. Even Olof Palme
was in favour of that program. Here, also, the military and the
politicians had to yield to the pressure of the public opinion,
organised by the peace movement. So Olof Palme switched his opi-
nion, being a shrewd politician.

You may remember how our work against the US war of aggression
in South East Asia was organised? Then official Sweden was on
the side of the United States. We had good reasons to call, as
we did, our Prime Minister and the head of the National TUC "the
flunkeys of Lyndon".

There are several us remembering  how they got beaten up when
the government deployed their mounted police force on the 20th
of December 1967. By sticking to the mass line, by reasoning,
spreading information and by sticking to the simple principles
which conformed to the interests of the Swedish people we made
the government yield. At least in words, if not in its deeds it
had to oppose the US war. Olof Palme himself ended up heading
demonstrations. For this we ought to respect him and hail him.
We should not be sectarian or self-righteous.

As many of  us know our work for peace and solidarity continued  with
the struggle for the rights of the Palestinian People, it went
on to oppose the Brezhnev doctrine, used by Moscow in order to
establish and expand its hegemony.

In this moment for  economical and power political motives the
leadership of the United States and their followers are striving to
enforce the world hegemony of Globalisation. This is done by
deliberately by-passing the UN, by exploiting internal ethnical/
religious conflicts. All means, political and military, are in-
strumental to this end. Thus, our struggle for peace must be
continued.

We shall work broadly, without condideration for old contradic-
tions. In different ways we shall organise a public opinion. We
shall raise simple political demands in the interest of the
broad majority of the people.

In Sweden, for instance:

Return to our political guidelines in foreign policy  valid
since 1834:

Freedom of alliance in peacetime, aiming to neutrality in war-
time. Return to the line of foreign policy, enforced by the
peace movement and the people in the sixties.

In favour of the UN, against the self-imposed "right" of super-
powers (the Truman doctrine, the Brezhnev doctrine or the cur-
rent Clinton doctrine) to intervene by military force in the in-
ternal affairs of other states.

Solidarity with the demands of the Third World ("the South") for
an egalitarian distribution of the wordly goods, against plun-
dering and neo-colonialism, in favour of mutual respect and un-
derstanding as a foundation for the international intercourse.

It is of paramount importance to counter the ever more uniform
news media by spreading an objective information about world af-
fairs.

Another central task is to reveal the methods of propaganda de-
ployed by imperialism and neo-colonialism. You´ll notice that
Washington is now talking about "human rights" in the same man-
ner as the Victorian British talked of "Christian Values", the
Tsar of  "the freedom of small nations", the warring Japan of
"freedom from colonial masters and common welfare", Mussolini of
 "liberating the Abessinians from slavery", Hitler of "new,
brotherly Europe". You can demonstrate this by quotations and
examples!

Further, you should fight the ideologies about "the war between
civilisations" and  "obsoleteness of the national states" that
are now being produced by the "think-tanks" of the United States
and by their parroters in our countries. You should fight them
thoroughly, hard and by means of arguments.

These are great tasks confronting us.

(Translation from the Swedish, authorized by the author:
Hans Isaksson)

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