Gorbachev's foreign policy: The new face of "peaceful coexistence'

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By ALAN Last February, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) held its 27th Congress in Moscow.

Much attention was paid in the media to Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev's proposals for a reduction in the arms race with the United States and to his "strategy for economic modernization." Far less attention, however, was placed on what is clearly a major focus of the Soviet bureaucracy's international policy—its commitment to "peaceful coexistence" with U.S. imperialism.

The draft of the CPSU's political program, which was approved by the Congress, spells out this policy clearly: "The only sensible and acceptable way out in the present-day world, which is riddled with acute contradictions and which faces impending catastrophe, is a peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems."

"Peaceful coexistence," which looks to détente and not the world socialist revolution as the solution to the crisis of humanity, has historically meant counterrevolutionary cooperation between the Soviet Union and the United States against the world's toiling masses.

This is the case today—despite the increased tensions between the two countries.

Last October, President Reagan, in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly, appealed to the Soviet Union to contribute to "solving regional conflicts throughout the Third World." Reagan was specifically soliciting the Soviet bureaucracy's help in holding back the Nicaraguan Revolution and in defusing the powder keg in the Middle East.

The Los Angeles Times (March 24, 1985) reports that the Soviet Union is sending out strong signals indicating its willingness to respond positively to Reagan's appeal. According to the Times, Kremlinologists who have studied all the documents approved by the 27th Congress "have found strong indications that Gorbachev wants to reduce Soviet involvement in the Third World and to focus on relations with the United States."

Among the evidence provided, the Times notes "the absence [in Gorbachev's speech to the Congress] of traditional Kremlin support for 'wars of nationa liberation' and 'national liberation struggles."

A New York Times article (March 22, 1985) made the same point: "The muted response [to Reagan's declaration that Nicaragua was a "cancer"] was in keeping with the cautious stance Moscow has long adopted toward the Sandinistas.....This [approach] was apparent at the 27th Communist Party Congress, [where] Nicaragua was ignored in the long speech by Mikhail S. Gorbachev."

Beyond words and omissions But the commitment of the Soviet Union to "peaceful coexistence" goes far beyond the wording of keynote speeches by party leaders.

In the few months following the Geneva summit meeting, there have been many concrete examples of the new face of U.S.-Soviet "cooperation."

The Middle East is one example. In December 1985, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution condemning "terrorism." After 10 years of opposing this resolution, the Soviet delegate indicated that in the spirit of the Geneva Summit his government now "fully supported" it.

The U.N. resolution, however, had nothing to say about U.S.-sponsored state terrorism—the main source of terrorism throughout the world. The Cuban delegate to the United Nations put it this way: "It is shameful that the United Nations does not have the courage to get at the roots of terrorism. It refuses to condemn U.S. aggression against Nicaragua, the assassination attempts by the CIA against Cuban leaders, and the Israeli crimes in the occupied territories."

Soon after the adoption of this resolution, the Soviet Union loudly praised the United States' act of international piracy in which it intercepted an Egyptian airliner and forced it to land in Italy in the aftermath of the Achille Lauro affair.

And after the recent bombing of a nightclub in Berlin, the Soviet ambassador to Libya held a press conference where he announced that the Soviet Union had no mutual defense agreements with Qaddafi and that it was pulling its ships out of the Gulf of Sidra. This gave Reagan the green light to attack Libya.

Support to Marcos

One of the best indications of what "peaceful coexistence" means today is the total support the Soviet Union gave to the Reagan administration's policy in the Philippines.

Until the very last moment, the United States was committed to backing Ferdinand Marcos. It feared that the removal of the dictator would unleash an uncon -and turns tainable revolutionary situation the world.

These were also the views of the Soviet bureaucrats. Last October, as the Filipino masses marched in the streets of Manila by the millions to demand the ouster of the tyrant, Imelda Marcos was warmly received in Moscow by Gorbachev himself. Mrs. Marcos was told that "relations [between the Soviet Union] and the Philippines are very good."

In February 1986, Marcos held fraudulent elections and scandalously proclaimed himself the winner; something even the U.S. fact-finding delegation could not swallow.

As strange as it may seem, the only government in the world to recognize these elections and to congratulate Marcos was the Soviet Union. The message of congratulations was delivered on Feb. 19 to Marcos by Soviet Ambassador Vadim I. Shabalin.

Two days later, an article appeared in the Soviet official daily Tass which explained that Marcos was still "capable of stabilizing the situation in the country. " By this time even the Reagan administration had given up on Marcos.

Origins of betrayals

In 1917, the Bolshevik Party of V.I. Lenin and Leon Trotsky led the Russian workers to power and charted a strategy for socialism on a world scale. Only the socialist revolution could lead humanity out of the deadlock created by imperialism and imperialist wars, the party's program affirmed.

In 1919, the Bolsheviks founded the Communist International (or Third International) with the goal of advancing the world socialist revolution. They saw the Soviet Union as the advanced outpost in this struggle.

Within a decade after the victorious Russian Revolution, however, the Soviet Union broke with the proletarian internationalism of the Bolshevik Party.

Under the conditions of a long civil war and the intervention of 14 imperialist nations, the leadership team assembled by Lenin and Trotsky was severely weakened and finally defeated by a rising bureaucratic caste headed by Joseph Stalin. The democratic institutions of workers' rule were destroyed and replaced by the dictatorial rule of a monolithic party.

Before long, the Soviet Union was embarked on a course of "peaceful coexistence" with imperialism. From a force for progress, the Stalinized Communist parties became a force for international counterrevolution.

How did this betrayal of the original ideas and policies of the Russian Revolution come about? The answer to this leads to an examination of Stalinism, its origins, and history. See article by Tom Kerry below. 1917, the Bolshevik Party in its entire leadership, and in this there were no exceptions, considered that the revolution in Russia was the beginning, not the end, of the world revolution.

From the very moment of the establishment of Soviet power, the leaders of the revolution looked to the working class of the West, to the advanced capitalist countries of Europe, to come to the assistance of the more backward country of Russia. And there was no lack of revolutionary developments in Europe—in Germany, Hungary, Italy.

But the revolutionary wave began to recede after 19191920. The revolutions were defeated primarily because in no country in Europe did the left wing of the Second International, which all the socialist tendencies were affiliated with, succeed in building the kind of a party which was necessary to lead a successful revolution.

This was Lenin's unique contribution to the art of revolutionary struggle-the concept of a strongly disciplined combat party to lead the workers to power.

Trotsky became a Leninist on this question. He wasn't always a supporter of Lenin's views on the party. In fact, (continued on page 11, in “The twists of Stalinist policy”)