First Published: Unity and Struggle, Vol. V, No. 5, May 1976.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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Nixon’s recent trip to China has been obscured somewhat by the rash of events, part of the “great disorder” in the world today. But it is necessary to analyze briefly the meaning of Nixon’s trip so that we may be armed against misinterpretations of the trip’s meaning by the bourgeoisie and Soviet revisionists and their fellow travelers especially.
First of all the Chinese see, and correctly so, that the main danger in the world today is from the Soviet Union. That Soviet Social Imperialism (SSI) is the most probable source of another world war because they are “wildly ambitious”, they are the “new” imperialist and are willing to take chances now in their struggle to replace US imperialism, the old imperialism, as Boss of the world. All over the world, for instance, the people are driving US imperialism out on the points of their bayonets. U.S. imperialism is now, so quickly, an old exposed imperialism, known by most of the people of the world to be a bloody beast imperialist. SSI, on the other hand is more dangerous because it is not only more aggressive but at the same time hidden from many by its signboard of “socialism” which it carries exactly for the purpose of obscuring its real designs!
Nixon was brought to China because he was the head of state of the U.S. when it promised to normalize relations with China, meaning that the U.S. would then restore diplomatic relations, and in doing so, stop recognizing Taiwan as anything but a part of the Peoples Republic of China, at which time they would pull U.S. troops out. This was some of the most important content of the “Shanghai Communique” calling for the normalization of relations between the U.S. and China. When Nixon was run out of office, this was still not carried out, and it is still not carried out today. The U.S. bourgeoisie in their idiotic pursuit of “Detente” with the Soviet Union, which the Soviets are using to get stronger so they can be victorious in the obvious world war that will come, were reluctant to completely normalize relations with the Chinese, and are openly dragging their feet around such issues as Taiwan. Nixon, an old Soviet baiter from way back, was brought to China to do just what he did, Put down Detente, “There are some persons who believe that peace can be gained merely by signing agreements,” and raise the question openly, by his presence in China, as to what happened to the carrying out of the contents of the Shanghai Communique. Nixon’s blast of Detente was so effective, coming when it did, right in the middle of the first presidential primaries, that Ford immediately issued a statement that he was “deleting Detente from his vocabulary.” Kissinger then had to make several speeches defending the Detente policy saying it could be carried out even if it was called something else.
The Chinese, in seeing Soviet Social Imperialism as the most dangerous of the two superpowers, acts on this by continuing to follow their correct political line “making use of contradictions, waging struggle on just grounds, to our advantage and with restraint and destroying our enemies one by one.” The U.S. is in decline, the USSR is the rising Imperialist, the most dangerous imperialist therefore, & therefore the one that must be most intensely opposed. The people must get prepared for world war, “or they will suffer” and the danger of that war comes mainly from the superpower calling itself socialist. The correct identification and use of contradictions and especially of what is, at any given time, the principal contradiction can only come by mastering the science of revolution, Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought. In this period of a struggle in the U.S., study must be one of our major concerns as we struggle to unite Marxist-Leninists and win the advanced to communism, in order to build the Marxist-Leninist Communist party that will make socialist revolution in the U.S.A. Party building is the only preparation for war and/or revolution, and the most important opposition to both superpowers, for people in the U.S.A. today.