MEMADED 72m ASSEMIF HYDE PARK 1.30PM.
Though the nauseating tones of Nixon's whining. "sincerer than thou voice have faded away into the background, his message of November 4th still remains with us. It is the voice of American Imperialism, an imperialism faced with impending defeat, but which at the same time realises full well the historic significance of this defeat. In the words of its mouthpiece Nixon:
Our defeat and humiliation in South Vietnam would without question promote recklessness in the councils of those great powers who have not yet abandoned their goals of world conquest. This would spark violence wherever our commitments help maintain peace the Middle East, in Berlin, eventually even in the Western hemisphere. For these reasons I rejected the recommendation that I should end the war by immediately withdrawing all our forces."
What Nixon is saying in effect is that the victory of the Vietnamese revolution in the southern part of Vietnam would give a tremendous boost to the anticapitalist forces throughout the world and in so doing he understands better than some 'socialists' in England the nature of the struggle in Vietnam. Nixon's decision to continue the war demands of all revolutionary socialists a decision to continue the struggle in solidarity with our Vietnamese comrades by mounting continuous and militant demonstrations against American imperialism. The illusions fostered by both the peace negotiations in Paris and the change of administration in Washington have been largely responsible for a downturn of the solidarity movement in Britain. It is essential, therefore, to combat these illusions and mobilise ourselves for the demonstration on November 23rd; whether this demonstration will be a militant demonstration or a long walk depends on the demonstrators themselves. If the mood is as it should be, no force can prevent the demonstration from becoming militant.
The mass demonstrations in the United States in October and November have shown that increasing numbers of people continue to be radicalised by the war. The most important development in the United States has been the radicalisation within the ranks of the American GIs which has manifested itself in large numbers of GIs taking part in demonstrations against the war. When the GIs demand an immediate withdrawal, they are demanding a victory for the NLF, because even Nixon admits that this is what it would involve. The anti-war movement in the United States has increased the repression inside the imperialist fortress. The gagging of the Black Panther leader, Bobby Seale, his feet manacled to a chair in an American court of law, speaks more loudly than anything we could write of the corrupt and racist nature of bourgeois law as applied in the land of the Dollar. No black American will see the chaining of Bobby Seale without being reminded of the hundreds of years their forefathers spent in chains providing slave labour for the development of American capitalism. The struggle of the Vietnamese workers VIETNAM DEMONSTRATION ON and peasants has become inextricably linked to the struggle taking place in the United States.
The contradictions of United States Imperialism are such that while they realise full well the significance of an American defeat in Vietnam they also realise that continuing the war would mean an intensification of the struggle inside the citadel itself. For us it is necessary to exploit these contradictions not in the abstract by stressing parrot-like the need for a revolutionary party to overthrow British capitalism, something which we all accept, but by developing a revolutionary consciousness in Britain, by combating economism in the labour movement and by building a movement in solidarity with the Vietnamese revolution and with the anti-imperialist struggles throughout the capitalist world. This is one of the ways of building a strong and viable revolutionary movement in Britain. The demonstration on November 23rd, therefore, must be supported by all socialists.
The Black Dwart 26th November 1969 Page