How a force

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In a declaration released in late 1984 condemning the U.S. war on Nicaragua, Nobel laureates George Wald and Adolfo Perez Esquivel, along with 13 other members of the International Permanent Tribunal on Human Rights, expressed their opposition to Reagan's policies in the following manner:

"What we are witnessing is an increasingly ferocious war of aggression—undeclared and illegal-through which the United States refuses Nicaragua the right to independence and self-determination that the United States itself conquered two centuries ago""

On July 4, 1776, thirteen British colonies in North America declared their intention to fight for national independence, a struggle which seven years later culminated in the formation of the United States.

On July 19, 1979, the workers and peasants of Nicaragua, led by the Sandinista Front for National Liberation, decisively defeated the proconsul of U.S. imperialism, Anastasio Somoza, and thus took their own first toward true national independence.

The anniversaries of these two revolutions provide us an opportunity to review how the United States, an oppressed colony in 1776, has become the principal oppressor nation in the world today.

Roadblock to national independence Both the American and Nicaraguan revolutions share several salient features. Both sought political and economic independence from a foreign power. Both aimed to secure democratic rights for the majority of their people. Yet the United States is now the principal roadblock to the Nicaraguan Revolution.

Why is the United States, the first nation to win national liberation in the capitalist epoch, compelled to attack all attempts by other countries to achieve the same goal for themselves? The explanation is integrally tied to the transformation of capitalism from an economic system which stimulated the productive forces of society to one which today holds them back.

The American Revolution erupted just as capitalism was beginning to assert its domination over the globe. The Nicaraguan Revolution arose during capitalism's decline, and in fact, in revolt against what that obsolete system meant for a small, dominated country.

So if the American Revolution was made to create the conditions for the capitalist development of North America, the Nicaraguan Revolution is fundamentally a struggle to create the conditions for transcending capitalism.

"Give me liberty or give me death,, demanded by Patrick Henry, expresses the same sentiment as Augusto Sandino's "patria libre o morir."

But the Nicaraguan patriot also recognized that, in fighting for a free country in the 20th century, "only the workers and peasants will go all the way."

Capitalism grows in the "New World"

Early capitalism blossomed with the European conquest of the Americas. Plunder torn from the Western hemisphere was transformed into European capital, increasing the social weight of the emerging bourgeoisie. The classic bourgeois democratic revolutions-England in the 1640s and France in 1789— politically ratified the transfer of economic power from the aristocrats to the capitalists.

In the mid-18th century, the driving force of capitalism was still the extraction of profit through commerce rather than manufacture. This early form of capitalism, or "mercantilism, led each "mother country" to monopolize trade with its colonies in order to guarantee itself markets and high prices.

In the second half of the 18th century, the three main classes in the 13 colonies were the New England and Middle Atlantic merchants, the slave18 SOCIALIST ACTION JULY 1985 for progress owner planters of the South, and the small farmers scattered throughout the colonies.

Until the 1760s, each of these classes was generally content with British rule. The merchants transported much of the trade of the Empire; the planters grew rich supplying tobacco to Europe; the farmers prospered growing food and timber for the old world.

By 1763, Britain had defeated France in the struggle for mercantile supremacy. Straddled by a large war debt and jealous of colonial prosperity, Britain enforced its trade monopoly to restrict the New England merchants, to force down the price of colonial produce, to require the colonists to consume only British goods at artificially high prices, and to shift the war debt onto colonial shoulders. Since the colonists had no voice in the British parliament, they were initially powerless to counter this assault.

The First American Revolution Resentment grew into active protest, epitomized by the slogan "no taxation without representation" and by the Boston Tea Party. With the arena for compromise shrinking, the merchants and planters were urged on by the artisan and farmer masses to break with Great Britain. An armed struggle was begun.

The tasks of the First American Revolution were to (1) achieve national independence, (2) unite the colonies to create a sufficient internal market, (3) establish political democracy, (4) transfer political power to the capitalists, and (5) eradicate precapitalist economic survivals which stood as barriers to the full development of capitalism.

The historical conjuncture-characterized by the immaturity of a capitalism that had yet to transfer dominance from its merchant element to the industrialists—led the revolution to fall short of achieving the final two tasks.

The inefficient slave mode of production was given a new lease on life by the invention of the cotton gin and the expansion of cotton production throughout the deep South. The planters, allied with the small farmers, won control over the new state and held their hegemony until the Civil War.

It was the Industrial Revolution-releasing new forces of production for capitalist exploitation-that spurred the rise of a dynamic sub-class of capitalist manufacturers strong enough to contend for state power. But capitalism also created an industrial working class which will in its own turn contend for state power.

The struggle between capital and the slavocracy for political and economic supremacy in the United States ended in the Civil War—the Second American Revolution. Like all obsolete ruling classes, the slaveowners fought tooth and nail to preserve their privileges.

By destroying slavery, the American capitalist class, supported by the workers, farmers, and Blacks, played a progressive historical role for the last time in history. Since 1865, capitalism has become transformed from an engine for social change to its major brake.

From industrial capitalism to imperialism In the era which followed, cutthroat competition led ultimately to the monopolization of key sectors of the economy under the "robber barons."

But the concentration of America's economy made it impossible for any single industrialist to secure sufficient capital to compete. Large banking syndicates were now required, a role which led to the banks attaining the preeminent economic role in all of the major capitalist countries.

The development of the productive forces entailed by capitalism generated the manufacture of more goods than could be sold. The monopolization of production only intensified this Achilles heel of capitalism. Periodic depressions caused by overproduction exacerbated the exploitative conditions endured by workers in the factories and farmers dependent on markets run by finance capital. This led to a rise in unions, socialist parties, and farmer-based populist movements.

But overproduction also threatened the industrial capitalists with bankruptcy and the banks with excess capital which could not be invested in a slumping economy. Capitalism had long been using the underdeveloped countries as dumping grounds for overproduced goods. Now, finance capital saw these countries as fertile ground for capital which couldn't make a sufficient profit at home.

Foreign capitalism began taking over the economies of the underdeveloped world. The old (and still profitable) trading relationships were superseded by the implantation of monopoly capitalist economic relationships, particularly in agricultural and extractive industries.

A global division of labor was created, with the "underdeveloped" (actually over-exploited) countries becoming producers of raw materials for the industrial countries of Europe, North America, and Japan. By virtue of the Monroe Doctrine, the United States saw Latin America as its economic backyard, an attitude underscored by the repeated U.S. military interventions in the Caribbean basin since 1898.

This economic relationship, rightfully labeled "imperialism" by Lenin, did not resolve the crisis of overproduction; it only stimulated each imperialist country's drive to control ever more of the world economy. Two world wars were fought to determine which imperialist power would rule the roost, a status finally achieved by the United States in 1945.

Revolution erupts in the colonies The underdeveloped capitalist countries did not take imperialist pillage lying down. An immense nationalist wave after World War II succeeded in winning formal independence for most of them. Although imperialism, rolling with the punch, conceded formal independence to the capitalist classes of the new countries, it retained control of the world market, of the manufacture of the means of production, and most importantly, of sources of capital.

It was against this fundamentally unequal relationship that the Nicaraguan Revolution erupted. The struggle was initially couched as a campaign of all classes against the Somoza dynasty that the U.S. had imposed.

But the revolution quickly proved that the "oppositional" bourgeoisie in the underdeveloped countries-like their richer cousins in the imperialist countries-cannot be counted on in the protracted struggle for national liberation.

The Robelos have joined the Somozas in armed opposition to the Sandinista Revolution. Today, only the workers and peasants will go all the way in erecting an economy free from imperialist exploitation— a collectivized economy in transition to socialism.

The Third American Revolution But the struggle of the Nicaraguans, and of all the workers and peasants of the world, will not be complete until capitalism has been eliminated in its imperialist heartlands. Is this possible?

The long wave of postwar prosperity in the imperialist countries is over. Depressions have occurred closer in time and deeper in effect. Attempts to export this crisis of overproduction to other lands have resulted in a debt bomb which threatens to bring down the entire international system.

The ruling classes in the richest countries of the world are now required to institute takebacks and austerity. It is absurd to believe that the working class and the oppressed nationalities will bow docilely to this assault.

History has shown that every social system which outlived its usefulness was succeeded by another. Capitalism, having produced its own gravedigger through the concentration and growth of an industrial working class-cannot escape this fate.

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Who can win the war the politicians lost? Who can succeed where the Pentagon failed? In Sylvester Stallone's latest movie, Rambo: First Blood Part II, only one man-Rambo-can finish the job America left undone.

Stallone portrays Vietnam veteran John Rambo, freed from prison for a FILM REVIEW top-secret mission back to Vietnam to gather evidence that American prisoners of war are still being held captive. "Sir, do we get to win this time?" Rambo inquires of the officer sent to recruit him for this mission.

The United States may not have won the war, but Rambo surely wins the battle as he rages through Vietnam like a one-man army of revenge and destruction.

Rambo hates communists, especially those who've been so audacious as to drive out in defeat the army that he serves. Almost as much does he despise the Bureaucrats From Washington, who Vietna They want only to let bygones be bygones. If the word got out that there are still POWs in Vietnam, then everyone would supposedly clamor for an armed invasion to free them and-the war would start all over again. Rambo, it seems, would like nothing better.

Naturally Rambo overcomes all obstacles, aided by his trustworthy Vietnamese sidekick, a woman whose eye makeup is as precise as her aim with a machine gun. She wants only to go to America with Rambo and lead 'the quiet life."

But in the meantime, at least until she too meets her maker, look out.

Rambo frees the prisoners and returns in triumph to the U.S. base in Thailand. As a finale he sprays machine-gun fire through the office of the bureaucrat who betrayed him.

Helping Uncle Ron

USA TODAY decribes Stallone as a "modern John Wayne" whose character, Rambo, "appeals to the re-emerging macho male" and the "national need to reshape Vietnam into a winning experience."

The film is certainly a box-office success, but this seems more a product of the abundance of blood and bombs than some crying need to redefine Vietnam as a "winning experience."

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"The United States, an oppressed colony in 1776, Is today the main oppressor."