First Published:The Workers’ Advocate Vol. 10, No. 4, July 10, 1980.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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The great upsurge in the struggle of the people of El Salvador against the anti-popular ruling junta installed by U.S. imperialism is intensifying with every passing day. The working class and peasantry, the youth and patriotic people of El Salvador are waging a titanic struggle against decades of merciless exploitation and terrible poverty under the heel of U.S. imperialism and the handful of capitalists and landlords in its service.
The present military regime was put into power in October 1979 in a coup d’etat engineered by the U.S. State Department. It was put into power to stave off the revolutionary struggle of the Salvadorean people which was threatening to topple the fascist U.S.-backed regime of General Carlos Romero. The October 1979 coup simply replaced Romero with Romero’s colonels. While Romero’s colonels and the Carter administration claimed they would bring “peace” and “reform” to El Salvador, the new regime only brought the continued massacre of the people. This campaign of terror against the Salvadorean people is supported and organized by U.S. imperialism which has sent U.S. army counterinsurgency teams and millions of dollars of military aid to the fascist regime in order to put down the revolution.
However, neither the regime’s bloody suppression nor its demagogical posturing have deterred the heroic Salvadorean people from their revolutionary struggle. The fighting Salvadorean masses have denounced this “Romeroism without Romero” and the “moderate” policy of the military dictators has resulted in a fiasco, while the revolution surges forward, the regime of the colonels and U.S. imperialism lie totally exposed as the butchers of the Salvadorean people.
Just as the present junta becomes more thoroughly discredited, and its U.S. backing more exposed, who should step forward to try to save U.S. imperialist domination and to try to stop the people’s struggle but the Chinese revisionists – masters in the filthy craft of apologizing for U.S. neocolonialism!
In their April 14, 1980 issue of Beijing Review, the Chinese revisionists completely deny the U.S.-backed nature of the coup in October 1979. Instead, they write that a new junta was set up in El Salvador which the “United States welcomed” since it promised “it would allow the existence of various parties, respect freedom of speech, and carry out economic and social reform.” How touching! Bloodthirsty U.S. imperialism, the power which for over 43 years has collaborated with the Salvadorean reactionary classes to ruthlessly oppress and exploit the toiling masses “welcomes” the junta because it promises to carry out “reforms.” This charming line – which comes from the champions of the “third world” – is exactly the line with which Carter himself tries to deceive the people. The U.S. installed this junta because it was its only chance to maintain its domination in El Salvador against the rising tide of the genuine independence struggle. This move was undertaken precisely to draw the masses back under the wing of the government, precisely to throw water on the flames of revolt.
Once having prettified and covered for the role of U.S. imperialism, the Beijing Review then has some fast talking to do to explain why the junta has not carried out its “economic and social reforms,” and why, instead, it continues to savagely attack the people. They write, “Hamstrung by the right-wing forces in the army, ” however, the junta has not “fulfilled its promises.” (!) As well, they say, “armed anti-government organizations” occupied buildings, etc., thereby making it difficult to carry out reforms. What a fantastic tale! The junta would have carried out reforms if it weren’t “hamstrung” by the right wing and opposed by the people’s struggles! In reality, this is a regime of terrorist murderers, a regime that is waging war against the Salvadorean people on behalf of internal fascist elements and U.S. imperialism. In reality, this regime has been working to eliminate anyone who so much as raises his voice against the right-wing fascists. The present junta has never had any more intention of “fulfilling its promises” than has any other puppet of U.S. imperialism.
Finally, to complete the whitewash, the Beijing Review searches frantically to rescue the junta. They latch onto a “decree” promulgated by the junta “under which a limited land reform would be carried out by distributing 200,000 hectares of land to 50,000 peasant households.” If we again return to reality, we will see what type of “land reform” these revisionist butchers are praising in their Beijing Review. On March 23, 1980, when peasants peacefully occupied some land bordering on the population of Tacachico, the police surrounded them and proceeded to massacre them, leaving 25 dead, 50 wounded, and some 100 captured. This is the type of land reform for which U.S. imperialism and its puppets are so famous!
The foundation of the politics of the Chinese social-imperialists – who are socialist in words but imperialist in deeds – is the rotten theory of “three worlds.” This theory calls on the people of the world to give up their revolutionary struggle against their “own” reactionary regimes and instead to unite with them and with U.S. imperialism, in order to oppose Soviet social- imperialism.
Fully elaborating their “three worlds” theory with regards to El Salvador, the Beijing Review not only manages to praise the present junta as being an independent “human rights” regime which, through no fault of its own, can’t “fulfill its promises,” they also denounce the revolutionary masses under the pretense of opposing Soviet social-imperialism and their Cuban lackeys. According to these bootlickers of U.S. imperialism, “in the name of ’supporting’ armed struggle [emphasis added] the Soviet Union and Cuba have worked themselves into some Salvadorean organizations.” In this way, the Chinese revisionists try to paint anyone who advocates armed struggle against imperialism and the regime as a tool of the Soviets. If the Chinese revisionists were at all concerned about the revolutionary struggle of the Salvadorean people being liquidated, they would point out that the true agents of Moscow in El Salvador, the pro-Moscow revisionist “Communist” Party of El Salvador, was until recently the most diehard supporter of the new regime of Romero’s colonels and has only given up its open support in order to save itself from political extinction. But the Chinese social-imperialists cannot do this because, like their U.S. imperialist allies and the Soviet social-imperialists, they are bitter opponents of the revolution. Thus, the Beijing Review article defines a “patriotic stand” as “support for the coup by calling on the guerrillas to lay down their arms,” while only “foreign forces” would exploit the “tense situation” and call for revolutionary struggle. This is the most shameless, anti-popular, anti-liberation scribbling imaginable!
In their article, the Chinese revisionists do manage to come up with one point that can’t be disputed. They remark that “The turbulence [in El Salvador – ed.] has something do to with the situation in Central America and the Caribbean region as a whole.” This is true. But whereas this fact can be used to further grasp the struggle against U.S. imperialism in all these countries, the Beijing Review tries to use it to again call on the heroic people of El Salvador to unite with U.S. imperialism and the junta against Soviet social-imperialism.
While it is true that Soviet social-imperialism has been and remains, along with U.S. imperialism, the most ferocious and blood-soaked enemy of the freedom and independence of the peoples and social progress, it is also true that the U.S. imperialists consider Latin America to be their private domain of unrestricted robbery and plunder, and it is against the U.S.’s intolerable neo-colonial slavery that the proletariat and people of Latin America have risen up. The Beijing Review, however, says that the reforms which were so “welcomed” by the U.S. imperialists, “obviously displeased” the Soviet Union. This is painting the U.S. – the superpower which actually dominates in El Salvador – in pro-people colors, while at the same time portraying the Soviet Union as the “main enemy of the peoples” in Latin America. This is nothing but Beijing Review acting on behalf of U.S. imperialism as the thief who yells: “Stop thief! ”
The peoples of Latin America have demonstrated that they have no intention of remaining under the heel of U.S. imperialism. Nor do they want to become like Cuba, which has been crushed by Soviet social-imperialism. The peoples of Latin America are fighters for genuine independence and liberation against both superpowers and all reaction. The developing revolutionary situation in El Salvador is part of a great upsurge of revolutionary struggle sweeping Central and South America and the Caribbean. The triumph of the people in Nicaragua a year ago has sparked an increase in revolutionary activity in Central America and especially in neighboring El Salvador and Guatemala. In response to this upsurge, the Carter administration – proving that it remains a deadly enemy of the people – has stepped up its measures to put down the people’s liberation struggle sweeping Latin America. Last October, using hysteria about the “Soviet brigade in Cuba” as a pretext, Carter spelled out the new steps to be taken against the growing revolt of the people of Latin America and the Caribbean. Intelligence operations were expanded and a Caribbean Joint Task Force Headquarters was established to direct counterinsurgency military operations in the region. In summing up its defeat in Nicaragua, the Carter administration concluded that U.S. imperialism is faced with “insurgency and communism” throughout the region and that it had been “insufficiently forceful.” And Carter, Brzezinski and his National Security Council are plotting to ensure that there will be “sufficient force” against the people of El Salvador.
No matter how the Chinese revisionists may try to falsify and prettify the role of U.S. imperialism, the wave of popular struggle is and will continue to be directed against both the local feudal oligarchies and dictators as well as against U.S. imperialism which props them up. As the situation in El Salvador is demonstrating, the people are not about to be cowed down by the bloody terrorism, nor diverted from their goal by the fraudulent maneuvers ordered by the Pentagon, nor compromised in favor of the U.S. imperialists by the Chinese revisionist scribblers. The Salvadorean people have intensified their struggle. They are on the path of revolution which is the only path that can liberate them from the present bloodstained regime and U.S. imperialism.