Stalinism also has left its mark on the environment

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People who support environmental goals often point to the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and China to "prove" that planned economies cannot solve environmental problems any better than capitalist economies.

This point of view ignores the fact that a socialized system of production is inherently superior to the "privateenterprise" system because a plan exists that can be altered in terms of ecological needs. In addition, these countries are not hampered by the capitalist drive to exploit the earth's resources in search of ever-increasing profits.

It is true, nevertheless, that the Soviet Union and its neighbor countries are grappling with ecological disruptions at least as serious as our own. Since the rapid industrialization that followed World War II, pollution problems have intensified in this region due to inefficient technology and the pressure of bureaucratic expediency.

According to the Polish Academy of Sciences, one-third of that country's 38 million people live in "areas of ecological disaster." The Academy reports that toxic pollution is expected to kill off 20 percent of Poland's plant life and 15 percent of its animal life in the next 10 years.

A 1989 report from the East German Environment Ministry says that one out of every two children living in the highly industrialized areas of the country suffers from lung ailments and skin diseases. Children in some areas of Czechoslovakia are sent away to the mountains twice a year to prevent permanent lung damage.

Eighty percent of the rivers in China and Poland are polluted. The Dniester River in Moldavia is no longer suitable for vacationing or industrial needs.

The Elbe River, which flows through Czechoslovakia and East Germany, is so thoroughly poisoned with mercury and lead that some ecologists estimate it could take 50 years to return the water to its 1970 level of purity-if nothing else is dumped in the river.

In the Soviet Union, data for 1986 show that the thyroid glands of 5800 children and 7000 adults were damaged by radiation from Chernobyl. Three years after the accident, as many as 4 million people still live in areas that are dangerously contaminated. In some villages, livestock and plants are grossly deformed.

Due to industrial waste and the overuse of irrigation, the Aral, Caspian, and Black Seas are becoming so polluted that the fish are dying. Last year, the magazine Novy Mir reported that women who relied on water from the Aral Sea were giving birth to an increasing number of deformed babies, including ones without any skull bones and others without anuses.

Struggle for socialist democracy Under the Stalinist regimes in these countries, working people have been denied a role in social planning. Instead, production has been manipulated to serve the interests of a relatively small parasitic caste. This privileged bureaucracy, like the capitalist class in the West, borrows some of the cost of production from the ecosystem For this reason, the struggle over environmental concerns has become a part of the overall struggle for socialist democracy in the Soviet Union and the countries within its "sphere of influence." As in the West, women have been prominent in this movement.

In Hungary, environmental protests caused the government to cancel plans for a multimillion-dollar dam project that was counter-ecological. In the Soviet Union, following public protests after the Chernobyl disaster, 15 to 20 nuclear reactors at six to eight plants have been closed down or remain unbuilt. Protesters in Siberia forced the shut-down of a dangerous weapons-dismantling facility.

The outcome of the battles shaping up in this region can have tremendous ramifications for the fate of the earth and the global struggle for conservation. If the planned economies are dismantled and replaced by free-market relations by Western capitalists and the bureaucracies, the pace of environmental destruction can be expected to escalate.

Hilary F. French, author of an article in the March/April edition of Worldwatch magazine, said that environmentalists are worried that Western penetration of the East could lead to ecological disaster. The fear is that Western companies would try to sell obsolete and ineffective anti-pollution equipment to the Eastern bloc or "technological band-aids," rather than assisting with technology that could root out pollution at the source.

If the masses mobilize to establish genuine organs of workers' control of industry and planning, they would have the kind of power that is needed to effect meaningful anti-pollution technologies. If they are successful, the environmental movement would gain a powerful new ally. -L.T. that protecting our natural resources does not cause unemployment; it is caused solely by the drive by the big corporations for more profits. Clear-cutting the forests, for example, means less timber-related iobs in the long run than the practice of selective cutting in order to conserve our timber and wildlife.

A program to save the earth It is time to demand that the huge profits that industry gains from despoiling our soil, air, and water be redirected to provide jobs and social benefits for all. Tax the big polluters 100 percent!

When corporations claim they "don't have enough money" to clean up the environment or to give jobs to the people who need them, the environmental movement should answer: "Open your account books to public view! Let the people judge!"

If the corporations continue to produce toxic wastes, clear-cut the forests, strip-mine the land, destroy our wildlife, or shut down factories and throw people out of work, they should be nationalized under the control of the workers.

Environmentalists should join with other social activists in demanding an end to the government's military campaigns in Central America and other regions. No more money for war!

All the money that now goes to buy tanks, helicopters, and nuclear missiles should instead be used to restore the environment and to provide people with social services that include free healthcare, free mass transportation, low-cost housing, and efficient, renewable energy sources. These measures will also create many more jobs.

In order to achieve these demands, it's necessary to break with the Democratic and Republican parties—which are run by and for the capitalists—and to build a workers' political party with a revolutionary program.

Ultimately, the working class around the world will take the lead in reconstructing our society along socialist lines. That is the essential step in safeguarding the future of the earth.