PART ONE

IMPERIALISM IN CRISIS

'Imperialism is the eve of the social revolution of the proletariat. This has been confirmed since 1917 on a world-wide scale.' (Lenin, 1920)

Imperialism is in the throes of a deep economic and political crisis. All the social, political and economic conditions which cemented together the old order are now being undermined. The growing instabiliy of the capitalist system world-wide once again heralds a new era of wars and social revolutions.

THE ECONOMIC CRISIS OF IMPERIALISM

The economic crisis of imperialism is most sharply expressed by the international banking crisis, the intensified exploitation, mounting poverty and starvation in the oppressed nations, the massive rise in unemployment in the imperialist nations, and the growing inter-imperialist rivalries.

INTERNATIONAL BANKING CRISIS

The imperialist banks foster and feed off the financial helplessness of others, especially the oppressed nations of the world. The superprofits of imperialism have been increasingly supplemented over the last decade by the massive profits arising from international bank lending to the oppressed nations.

By the 1980s the imperialist banks provided more than half the net borrowing requirement of the oppressed nations compared to one third in 1971. The Eurocurrency market is a central source of loan capital throughout the world. The development ofthis market gives a clear indication of the massive increase in bank lending and its distribution world-wide. An increasing proportion of loans has gone to the oppressed nations.

But the imperialist banks now face an insurmountable problem. The imperialist exploitation of these countries by impoverishing them prevents them from paying off their debts. For this reason, 1982 saw a fall in the relative share of loans going to the oppressed nations.

Latest estimates put the total international debt of the oppressed nations at $629bn. A recent count showed that 40 oppressed countries are now behind in their payments-up from 26 at the end of 1982. This is a serious threat to many major imperialist banks. The loans of the nine major US banks to Mexico and Brazil, for example, amount to almost their entire capital base; when loans to other oppressed nations and socialist countries are included, this amounts to nearly 2 ½ times their total capital. Two major imperialist banks in Britain, Lloyds and Midland, each have loans to Latin America nearly twice (180%) their capital base.

Yet it is not simply the colossal size of the debt which makes the banking system so vulnerable, but its concentration in a handful of oppressed nations. While most Asian and African countries are too poor to be considered 'good risks', the bankers have fallen over one another to lend to the richest of the poor - the so-called 'Newly Industrialising Countries'. The Latin American countries hold 60% of the bankers' debt, while South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines account for much of the remainder. It is this concentration of debt that enables a crisis in a single country, such as Mexico or Brazil, to rock the entire banking system.

The soaring growth of debt contrasts with the collapse of the ability to pay. While production in the oppressed nations grew at 6% a year in the 1970s, it fell to 3% in 1980 and a mere 0.6% in 1981. Yet last year, their debts grew by l7%. In Latin America, the debt of Brazil, Argentina and Chile grew by l6%, 25% and 43% respectively, while overall production in all three countries actually declined. It is obviously only a matter of time before the crisis strikes.

The forthcoming imperialist trade war is going to make repayment even more difficult, because the first casualties will be those countries whose grain, steel, textile and chemical exports are about to be shut out of imperialist markets.

The threatened collapse in the price of oil due to dramatically reduced world oil demand is just as ominous for the banking system. A collapse of the price of oil would lead to immediate default of some oil producing nations with massive international debts. Mexico, with a total debt of over $80bn, with nearly $60bn owed to the international banks, gets over 70% of its overseas earnings by selling oil. And already Mexico's debt service repayments are far greater than its export earnings. Venezuela, now the third biggest borrower, which owes $22bn to the international banks gets 95% of its overseas earnings from selling oil. It already pays 95% of its export earnings servicing its debts.

The oppressed nations are now in an impossible position. The servicing of their debt has reached such proportions that they are unable to pay it back. The external debt of the oppressed nations rose from 19% of their national income in 1973 to 25% by 1980. The crushing burden of debt on all the oppressed nations is shown over the last few years by the ratio of this debt to export income. Table 2 shows this for 21 major oppressed nations holding 84% of all banking debts of oppressed nations. It also indicates why the imperialists are so concerned about their debts in Latin America.

Little wonder that under such conditions the imperialist banks have been attempting to slow down the growth of their lending to the oppressed nations. But even this has its limits. To be paid back anything at all they must continue to lend vast sums to the oppressed nations or face an inevitable default by one of the major borrowers. Their response has been to squeeze those indebted to them even further.

The banks make it clear that they will refuse to lend more to those countries in 'difficulties' unless the International Monetary Fund (IMF) steps in with immediate loans to allow debt repayments to continue while the rescheduling of the debts takes place and new loans are negotiated. A condition for the IMF loan being granted is that the debtor country accepts an 'austerity' programme - unemployment, cuts in government expenditure and other measures - to 'reform its financial affairs' which are designed to squeeze and oppress the population even further. The IMF acts as the 'political' arm of the imperialist banks. When it has done its dirty work the banks then step in and reschedule their debts and offer new loans - but at a price!

Banks are not only increasing the interest charged on rescheduled debts but amassing enormous fees for rescheduling old loans and giving out new loans. Mexico for example will pay almost $200m fees alone for rescheduling. It will pay an interest rate of 1-7/8% over and above the inter-bank rate. This is much more than Mexico was paying before and will mean a doubling of profits by many major banks on assets in Mexico. British banks which have outstanding loans of over $8bn in Mexico and which have been asked to lend a further $500m will have a share in this extra loot. These developments point to even higher bank profits in the immediate future. Meanwhile in Mexico by the end of 1983 not much more than half the Mexican labour force will be in full-time employment. If Mexico implements the IMF programme 4 million Mexicans will lose their jobs by 1985.

The stakes are high. The fate of hundreds of millions of people - whether they starve or not - is being decided by a handful of imperialist bankers. But the bankers know that should a revolutionary government take power in any one of the major debtor nations and refuse to pay back their loans then the whole imperialist banking system could be threatened with collapse.

POVERTY IN THE OPPRESSED NATIONS

The peoples of the oppressed nations have always suffered poverty, unemployment and starvation as a result of imperialist exploitation. Imperialist exploitation of the oppressed nations - exploiting their natural resources and industry, paying low prices for raw materials, paying low wages, lending money at high interest rates - gives rise to massive super-profits. Between 1970-1980 the net flow of foreign direct investment to the oppressed nations was $62,615 million. The imperialists took out $139,703 million profits - that is for every $1 invested $2.3 went into the imperialists' coffers and bank vaults. For US imperialism the rate of profit was even higher - for every $1 invested, $4.25 was extracted. The following table shows the scale of this robbery. And these figures are for the profits actually declared.

The imperialist nations are rich because they bleed the oppressed nations dry.

Despite the fact that only 25% of the world population lives in developed countries, they account for 83% of tbe world's gross national product, consume 75% of energy and 70% of grain, own 92% of industry and 95% of technical resources.

Now, faced with a deep crisis of profitability the imperialists are trying to squeeze even more from the oppressed nations. Prices of raw materials which oppressed nations produce are being forced down. Sugar, coffee, tea, cocoa, palm oil, cotton - all these have fallen in price. This means that the vital necessities which the oppressed nations must import now take even more of their meagre resources. For example in 1959 6 tons of jute produced enough income to buy a truck, by 1982 it needed 26 tons of jute. In 1959 one ton of copper wire produced enough income to buy 39 X-ray tubes for a hospital. Now it would buy only 3. Grenada must sell 5 times as much nutmeg to buy a tractor as it did 6 years ago.

The imperialists are also erecting trade and tariff barriers which keep out the manufactured goods of oppressed nations. As a result of this and the debt-crisis the growth rates for oil importing oppressed nations fell to 1.4% in 1981 - from an average of 5.6% from 1970-1980.

In order to survive oppressed nations are driven to borrow from the imperialist banks. Their debts have become so enormous that they must borrow more simply to pay off interest on the original debts. And when, finally, they cannot pay at all, in step the world bankers demanding 'austerity' measures which have, for example, cut the growth rate of seven major Latin American countries from 6% per year in the 1970s to 2.2% in 1981. In 1982 the gross national product of these countries actually fell on average by nearly 1%: a fall of 4% is predicted for 1983. Such falls in growth mean more unemployment, more poverty, more dead children.

The massive extent ofpoverty in the oppressed nations is shown by child mortality figures. Every year 18 million children under 5 years old die - 95% of them in the oppressed nations. They die of starvation, disease and poverty.

570 million people in the oppressed nations suffer serious lack of food. 40 million die of starvation each year-half of them children. Yet, because of the effects of imperialist exploitation, the growth rate of food production in these countries is falling. 1,500 million people in the oppressed nations have no access to medical treatment. Diseases long since wiped out in Europe and the USA kill thousands. Minor illnesses like measles and infant diarrhoea kill hundreds of thousands of children weakened by hunger and lack of sanitation.

800 million people in the oppressed nations have an annual income of less than $150. 500 million have no work, hundreds of millions more have only occasional work. Small wonder that a life of toil, lack of food and poverty should mean much shorter life expectancy.

The effects of the capitalist crisis are doubly felt in the oppressed nations. Chronic economic instability is unleashed, its most obvious symptom, besides unemployment, being massive inflation. Inflation in Latin America averages 100% and in the Middle East 40%. In some countries it is far higher. In Argentina it has reached over 250%, in Bolivia almost 250%, in Brazil in the region of 200%, in Mexico 80%, in Zaire approaching 50%. Whilst unemployment grows and wages fall, the masses have to contend with ever-rising prices.

As the suffering of the oppressed nations has grown the people have risen up against imperialism and its local agents. The imperialists know that this threatens their system of organised robbery. And they will go to any lengths of brutality and barbarity to defend it. So while poverty and starvation multiply in the oppressed nations, little wonder that the imperialists spend billions on arms in order to keep the oppressed in chains.

CRISIS IN THE IMPERIALIST COUNTRIES

The present crisis of imperialism is seeing yet again a massive destruction of the productive forces of the world in a desperate attempt to restore profitability. In the imperialist nations themselves unemployment has grown massively as world trade, industrial production and output have fallen.

Unemployment in the OECD area (24 industrialised capitalist countries) is approaching 10% of the workforce with an estimated 34 million people unemployed in 1983. Higher rates are forecast, with Britain expected to reach 14% and some smaller OECD countries averaging over 15%. These are official figures which seriously underestimate and disguise the real level of unemployment by not taking into account those who do not register and the many who have finally given up looking for work.

While larger sections of the working class are suffering the ravages of the capitalist crisis it is the most oppressed sections of the working class and the youth who are taking the brunt of the crisis at the present time. In the USA unemployment stands at just over 10%, yet for black workers it is over 20%. Unemployment among white youth in the USA is 22%, more than double the national average. For black youth it is greater than 50%-five times the average. In Britain the youth unemployment rate is 25% for 16-25 year olds: half of the country's under 18s are out of work. Black workers in Britain are twice as likely to be unemployed as white workers, and black youth four times as likely as white youth. Youth unemployment is greater than 30% in Italy and Spain. Imperialism offers the youth and oppressed workers no future whatsoever.

There is no prospect of any significant recovery and the deep and prolonged world recession will continue with no end in sight. Industrial production in most countries has fallen to the levels of 1976-7, falling 4% in 1982, and total output in the major capitalist industrial countries fell in 1982 for the first time since 1975. Certain industries have been devastated. Most EEC states and the USA have unemployment rates of between 20% and 30% in the construction and steel industries. The European steel industry alone shed 213,000 jobs between 1977-1982.

In Britain manufacturing output is at its lowest level for 16 years and investment in manufacturing industry has declined by 28% between 1979 and 1983.11,131 companies went bankrupt in 1982, a rise of 35% on the previous year and 63% on 1980. The productive capacity of British industry is being destroyed. The Midland Bank warned in September 1982 that 70 medium to large companies were in 'intensive care'. The debts of these companies were 350 million pounds and 11 of them have no prospect of improvement at all. Their closure would see the loss of more than 35,000 jobs.

The industrial recession has led to a fall in world trade. Between 1948-1973 world trade increased by 7% a year. In 1981 it stagnated growing less than 1% and in 1982 it fell by nearly 2%. The prospects are bad. The imperialist countries' squeeze on the oppressed nations threatens further dramatic falls in world trade. In 1981 the oppressed nations took some 26% of the exports of the OECD industrial countries. In the case ofthe USA $90 billion of its exports, 38% of all USA exports, went to oppressed nations with 17% going to Latin America alone. The growing indebtedness ofthe oppressed nations resulted in the volume of their imports declining by 7% last year. In the case of Brazil the fall was 10% while in Mexico and Argentina the reduction was in the region of 30%.

The present capitalist economic world crisis, in terms of output, unemployment and trade, does not yet match the severity of the Great Depression of the 1930s. From the autumn of 1929 to the lowest point of the recession in 1932 manufacturing production fell by nearly 50% in the USA, 16% in Britain, 40% in Germany and 26% in France. The volume of world exports fell by 26% from 1929 to 1932. Unemployment in the USA increased to 22% of the workforce in 1933. In Britain the rate was 15%, in Germany 17% (1932). However, the signs are that the present crisis of imperialism is moving that way and threatening the working class in the imperialist nations with levels of unemployment, poverty and deprivation not experienced for over 50 years.

INTER-IMPERIALIST RIVALRIES

As the crisis of profitability deepens each imperialist nation attempts to protect its own economic interests at the expense ofother nations. Trade wars develop. As Marx once said, when it is a question of sharing out profits competition is a practical brotherhood of the capitalist class. But when it becomes a question of sharing out losses it turns into a fight of hostile brothers. Each ruling class tries to make sure that it is not their nation, their banks, or their companies which make these losses.

With the stagnation of world trade (it actually fell in 1982) a fight over spheres of influence, trade, tariffs and import quotas has begun. The main areas where the battles are being fought at present include:

• STEEL - the EEC is now excluding steel produced by oppressed nations which will now be diverted to the US. The US is protesting.
• SANCTIONS AGAINST SOCIALIST COUNTRIES - the US is calling for trade and credit curbs while the European imperialists eye $lbn worth of contracts on offer for the new gas pipeline.
• AGRICULTURE - the US denounces EEC subsidies to agriculture, which cheapen European exports to markets outside Europe and the USA.
• TEXTILES - the oppressed nations' largest export after oil - are under attack from the EEC.
• CARS AND MACHINE TOOLS - the US and European imperialists are attacking Japanese imports to their countries.
• SHIPPING - recent US measures threaten to squeeze out 'cross trading' - ships from one country carrying between two others - threatening British shipping which gets two thirds of its revenue from cross trading.
• DISC - a tax concession enabling US exporters to defer taxes. Worth $2bn a year, it has been condemned by the EEC as an illegal subsidy.

In short, the stage is being set for an international trade war of gigantic proportions.

Economic rivalry which begins as a dispute over trade and spheres of influence can easily develop into military confrontation and war. Each ruling class fosters the rise ofnationalism and chauvinism in the imperialist nation to draw its people behind the ruling class. The imperialists are quite prepared to use military might to defend their economic and political interests. So Britain went to war in the Malvinas to show the rest of the world how it would deal with any challenge to its interests and the United States crushed tiny revolutionary Grenada. Imagine what would happen if a major oppressed nation defaulted on its debts to the imperialist banks either through impoverishment or the coming to power of a revolutionary government. The imperialists would not hesitate to use their military might to occupy the country and seize its assets. The rapid growth of military expenditure in all the imperialist nations in the middle of this deep crisis exposes their plans.

THE POLITICAL CRISIS OF IMPERIALISM

The economic crisis of imperialism undermines the social and political stability of the old order. It creates a political crisis of the imperialist system. It sharpens the conflict between oppressed and oppressor nations, and it increases the division between the ruling class and the working class in all capitalist nations. Finally once again the fundamental antagonism between socialism and capitalism becomes the central political issue facing mankind. Political instability, uprisings and revolutionary wars draw millions and millions of people into struggle to destroy the imperialist system. And imperialism faced with this challenge has responded with terror and barbarism threatening to engulf the whole world in nuclear war.

In the present period imperialism faces three major political threats:

the growing strength and extent of anti-imperialist struggles; the existence of the socialist countries and the People's Republics, and their determination to defend their revolutionary gains; the growing split in the working class movement with the start of the disintegration of those bourgeois labour parties in the imperialist countries which have up to now tied the working class to imperialism, and alongside this the emergence of new revolutionary forces in the major imperialist countries themselves.

GROWING ANTI-IMPERIALIST STRUGGLES WORLDWIDE

The oppressed have always resisted imperialist domination of their nations. Over the last ten years mass revolutionary struggles have achieved victory against the armed might and terror of imperialism. In Vietnam, Laos, Kampuchea, Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Nicaragua imperialism suffered major defeats. In each of these countries the struggle to build a new social system free of imperialist domination and control has reached a different stage ofdevelopment. In Vietnam, for example, the socialist forces are dominant. In the Peoples' Republics of Mozambique, Angola and Nicaragua imperialism is financing and arming counter-revolutionary forces in an attempt to regain control. And in Zimbabwe imperialism still has a great deal of influence and economic power. The outcome of these developments will be critical for the struggle to destroy imperialism world-wide.

In other areas the anti-imperialist struggle has suffered setbacks. The Grenadian revolution has been defeated. The Iranian revolution has been halted by the usurpation ofpower by the reactionary Khomeini regime. The Palestinian revolution received a terrible blow in Lebanon at the hands ofthe US-backed Zionist forces. US imperialism and reactionary Arab regimes have used this defeat to create civil war within the PLO and thus threaten the very existence ofthe PLO as the united revolutionary leadership of the Palestinian masses.

As one struggle temporarily ebbs another advances. Despite the wholesale slaughter of tens of thousands of people by US-backed fascist murder squads in El Salvador, the liberation movement under the banner ofthe FMLN is making massive gains and has over 200,000 people living in the liberated zones. In spite of the setbacks suffered by the revolutionary movement in Guatemala following the March 1982 US-backed Rios Montt coup, the revolutionary forces have reorganised and are once again posing a serious threat to the regime. In the summer of 1983, after a military coup, the Rios Montt regime was replaced by another, even more trustworthy, pro-US regime.

In South Africa the arrogance of the British and US-backed racist apartheid regime has been severely shaken by Umkhonto we Sizwe bombings, which have struck military targets at the very heart of the South African state in Pretoria. In Ireland the revolutionary forces of the Republican Movement have held at bay the armed might of British imperialism for over 13 years. During this period the revolutionary forces in the Six Counties oflreland have won greater and greater support from the nationalist people. The 1983 election successes show over 40% of the nationalist minority supporting the revolutionary struggle to drive British imperialism out of Ireland.

In Brazil the IMF-imposed austerity measures are now meeting resistance by the impoverished masses. Even in Chile ten years after the US-organised fascist coup the people are once again, with great courage and determination, taking to the streets. Everywhere imperialist terror breeds resistance.

The revolutionary forces in the oppressed nations are in the vanguard of the struggle against imperialism. They understand that imperialism is the barrier to social and economic progress. They have seen that when poverty, illiteracy, starvation have been combatted by revolutionary regimes in Cuba, Nicaragua, Grenada, Mozambique and Angola, British and US imperialism wants these regimes destroyed. They recognise that to win the right to freedom, to win the right to feed and clothe and educate their people they must take up arms and destroy imperialism and its puppet regimes.

The poverty in the oppressed nations is the source of super-profits, riches and privileges for a minority in the imperialist nations. The imperialists will stop at nothing to prevent these nations from freeing themselves from imperialist exploitation and oppression. Since 1960 there have been 65 major wars fought in 49 countries representing two-thirds of the world's population. At least 11 million died as a result of these wars. Thatcher and Reagan's statement, in support of nuclear weapons, that no wars have been fought in Europe or North America since the Second World War, shows the barbaric mentality of the imperialists. For most of the wars since 1960 are the result, either directly or indirectly, of the imperialists defending their interests outside their own countries.

THE SOCIALIST COUNTRIES

There are now whole areas of the world that are no longer open to imperialist exploitation and profit-making - the Soviet Union, China, German Democratic Republic, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Albania, Cuba, North Korea and Vietnam. This represents almost one-third of the world's population. Socialism has brought economic and social advance to countries previously impoverished by imperialism. They stand in stark contrast to the imperialist world.

The imperialists recognise that one possible solution to their crisis would be the reconquest and impoverishment of the socialist countries. That is why they have begun an anti-communist crusade, a new cold war. At at time when the world capitalist crisis is driving millions more into poverty, the imperialists are determined to prevent other countries following the example of the socialist countries. They know that the support the socialist countries give to the liberation movements fighting imperialism represents a major obstacle to continued profitable capitalist exploitation of vast areas of the world. Never has it been more clear that the world is divided between those forces fighting for freedom, democracy and socialism and those wealthy imperialist nations intent on crushing them.

Imperialism will stop at nothing to smash and undermine the socialist countries. This includes a massive build-up of offensive nuclear and non-nuclear weapons, the use of the imperialist banking system to impose unacceptable political conditions for further loans, trade boycotts and other economic sanctions, and support, financing, and in some cases, arming ofreactionary anti-socialist forces to attack these countries.

The October 1917 Russian Revolution was a great victory for the working class and oppressed people throughout the world. It was vigorously and brutally opposed by the imperialists and their social democratic supporters in the working class movement. A total of 14 countries led by the largest imperialist powers Britain, France, Japan and the USA intervened to crush the Soviet regime. They invaded the territory of the Soviet Union in the North, Far East and Soviet Central Asia. The intervening powers often with the aid of the Mensheviks (social democrats in Russia) established colonial terrorist regimes in the seized areas. Communists and trade unionists were subject to arrest and torture and placed in concentration camps; many were executed. A notorious example is that of the summary execution ofthe 26 Commissars who were the leaders of Soviet power in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. The Baku Commissars were seized by the British, and without trial or investigation were taken away and shot in a remote desert. The imperialist powers, in the words of that arch-reactionary and brutal imperialist Winston Churchill, wanted to strangle the Soviet regime at birth. They were directly responsible for a lengthy civil war and for the decimation and destruction of whole areas of what became the Soviet Union. It was precisely because communism offered a life free from the brutal oppression and exploitation of imperialism for the vast majority of mankind that the imperialists and their supporters wanted it to be destroyed at birth.

Since then the imperialists have continued their aggression against the socialist countries. Fidel Castro, in 1978, pointed out some of the consequences of this:

'The first socialist state did not declare war on nations with different social systems; the imperialist powers were the ones that decided to use intervention and blockade to do away with the first workers' and peasants' state and, at the same time, crush the revolutionary movement throughout the world. This policy produced fascism and World War II. The crusade against the Soviet Union waged by Hitler's Germany, armed with the collaboration of the other imperialist powers, cost the first socialist state the lives of 20 million of its finest sons and daughters. The peoples of the imperialist countries also had to pay a high price for their governments' rash anti-communist, pro-fascist adventurism.'

Fidel Castro and the Cuban people know only too well the attempts of the imperialists to destroy socialism in Cuba. Socialist Cuba was not only attacked by US-controlled mercenary gangs in the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion but also has been subject to US economic and trade boycott and blockade for most ofits existence. Socialist Cuba is a threat to imperialism precisely because ofthe enormous social and economic advances made for its people since the revolution in 1959. Cuba's economy has grown at twice the rate of almost all other Latin American countries since 1959. Furthermore the benefits ofthis effort are shared by the whole people and are not stolen by tiny elites as they are in the imperialists' favoured states. Before the revolution Cuban peasants had no land, a third ofthe workforce were unemployed and a sixth of the people were illiterate. Today in Cuba the numbers in higher education have multiplied fifteen-fold since 1959, unemployment and poverty are eradicated and life expectancy has grown by twenty years with a health service to rival the best in the world.

AFGHANISTAN The socialist countries have every right to defend the gains of their revolutions by whatever steps they consider necessary. The Soviet Union, at the end of 1979, agreed to the Afghan government's request to send Soviet troops into that country and give other economic and military support to the government. The uprising in April 1978 against a feudal and backward dictatorship had brought the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan into power. In 1979 this revolution had come under internal and external threat from reactionary counter-revolutionary forces backed and armed by the imperialist powers led by the USA. The Soviet Union took the steps it did both to defend the progressive measures taken in Afghanistan by the government and to defend its own border against imperialist advance. The imperialists, needless to say, whipped up a frenzy of anti-communist propaganda accusing the Soviet Union itself of 'imperialism'.

They choose to forget that it is the US imperialists which have 1,500 overseas bases and have used their armed forces on 282 occasions since the Second World War to pursue their imperialist interests. Whereas the Soviet Union has only intervened to protect economic and social progress, the imperialists protect fascist regimes like those in El Salvador and Guatemala where thousands are murdered every year by fascist government-backed death squads. It was US imperialism which destroyed the people's revolution in Grenada and is determined to do the same in Nicaragua.

POLAND An even more serious threat to socialism has arisen in Poland. For a whole period oftime the imperialists have been actively fomenting pro-capitalist anti-Soviet forces in Poland. Whilst hypocritically demanding that the Soviet Union 'keep out of Poland' the imperialists have for years past interfered in the political and economic affairs of Poland. They have used Poland's crippling indebtedness to the imperialist banks as a means of exerting greater and greater control over Poland's internal economic affairs. Today the expansion of industry, the building of houses, the standard of living of the Polish masses are held to ransom by the massive interest payments - $200m per month - that Poland has to pay to the parasitic, blood-sucking imperialist banks.

Not content with bankrupting the Polish economy the imperialists have actively aided the anti-Soviet opposition in Poland. The imperialists have found a willing tool for their schemes in the pro-imperialist trade union movements in Europe and the USA. The latter have channelled large amounts of equipment and other aid to Solidarity, the Polish trade union that has rapidly become the major instrument of counter-revolution in Poland. Organisations like the virulently right-wing and racist US trade union, the AFL-CIO, set up a fund of $200,000 for Solidarity. Other countries' unions have followed suit including the reactionary British TUC. These unions joined with the neo-fascist Franz-Josef Strauss who donated DM 1 million (nearly 250,000 Pounds) to Solidarity through his front organisation, the Hans-Seidel-Foundation. So much for 'non-intervention' by the imperialists.

It is a strange trade union which argues for a programme which would lead to unemployment. Yet Solidarity, with massive Western support, has put its weight behind measures which if implemented would lead to an end to full employment in Poland. Solidarity has a petty bourgeois programme for the restoration of a kind of 'welfare capitalism'. Central planning is to go. Workers in every firm will compete with workers in other firms. Capitalist enterprise should be allowed to compete with socialism. Private farming is to be encouraged. Firms can hire or fire workers according to free market criteria. Little wonder that the imperialists and their Polish allies, with the support of the Vatican, see Solidarity as the means to destroy the Polish state and implement their own programme for the restoration of capitalism.

The imposition of martial law in Poland on 13 December 1981 was undoubtedly a blow to imperialist plans against the Polish socialist state. But that such steps had become necessary raises an important question. How was it possible for KOR and right-wing Solidarity leaders to use the legitimate grievances of the Polish workers for their own counter-revolutionary ends? This is a question for the Polish Communists to resolve through dialogue with the Polish people when the immediate threat to the Polish state is at an end. General Jaruzelski has accepted that the failures, mistakes, and in some cases the personal corruption of leading Communist Party members over the past decade have contributed to the crisis and to the Communist Party's disastrous divorce from the trade union movement encompassing millions of working people. It is this divorce which has allowed bourgeois and petty bourgeois influences like KOR to masquerade as the friends of the Polish workers. The Communist Party failed to overcome this divorce by politically winning the workers so that they, together with the Communist Party, could confront the problems faced by the country. Instead, it took to borrowing massively from the imperialist banks in a vain attempt to buy itself out of the crisis.

Fidel Castro in 1981 clearly pointed to the dangers ahead:

'Especially in Poland, imperialism is orchestrating a sinister act of provocation directed against the socialist camp. The success that reaction has had there is eloquent testimony to the fact that the revolutionary party in power cannot deviate from Marxist-Leninist principles, neglect ideological work and divorce itself from the masses; and, when the time for rectification comes, this should not be done on the basis of concessions to the class enemy, either inside or outside the country.'

The Pope's visit to Poland in June 1983 shows concessions are still taking place and it gave the opportunity for Solidarity once again to raise its reactionary banner. The Polish socialist state still faces a serious threat from imperialist backed forces in Poland. A defeat for socialism in Poland would be a disastrous blow for socialist and progressive development throughout the world.

The socialist countries have been forced to divert massive resources to defence in order to meet imperialist aggression. This has prevented the realisation of the full potential that the socialist system offers humanity. For socialism, whose basic economic objective is the development of the productive forces and the equitable distribution of the fruits of labour, has absolutely no need for wars, for carving up the world, or for an arms build up. The planned development of the economy and basic human requirements in no way necessitate the investment of enormous human and material resources in a sterile arms race. Only when imperialism has been destroyed will the threat of war be ended and humanity be able to use its resources to build a socialist society for all.

THE GROWING SPLIT IN THE WORKING CLASS MOVEMENT IN THE IMPERIALIST COUNTRIES.

The economic crisis of imperialism threatens to undermine the control which the organisations of the labour aristocracy have over the working class in the imperialist countries. The first signs of this in Britain are the disintegration of the Labour Party and the fact that millions of oppressed and unemployed workers, particularly the youth, did not bother to vote in the 1983 General Election.

The attack on living standards, the growing unemployment and poverty is destroying those conditions of prosperity which allowed the pro-imperialist Labour and trade union leadership to control the political activity of the working class in the post-war period. In the prosperity of the post-war boom, the rising standard of living and pvileged status of large sections of the working cl{ass led to their greater integration into the capitlist system and, in particular, into its state apparatus. Trade unions were increasirigly drawn into government committees and other bodies and increasingly collaborated with government and the representatives of business. The evolution, growth and 'success' of the trade union movement in the imperialist countries has been closely linked with the strength of imperialism. They have therefore supported to the hilt their own imperialist ruling class in the super-exploitation of oppressed nations. A share in the profits of super-exploitation have been the foundation of the massive funds and apparatus that are the dominant characteristics of the trade unions in the imperialist countries. Little wonder that they have consistently refused to fight for the interests of the unemployed and oppressed sections of the working class in the imperialist countries themselves.

The first stage ofthe imperialist crisis has led to a growing polarisation of the working class. In Britain those sections of skilled and better-paid workers, which the Labour Party and trade union movement have always represented, have shifted to the right, many of them voting Tory or SDP/Liberal Alliance in the 1983 General Election rather than Labour. Meanwhile growing numbers of poor, unemployed and oppressed black and Irish workers have rejected the imperialist Labour Party which has never fought for their interests.

In Britain, the organised trade union movement has accepted four million unemployed without fighting. It has accepted the dismant- ling of the health service, closure of schools, rundown of public transport, reduction in social security benefits, reduction in unemployment benefits and the enactment of the 1980 Employment Act without fighting back. All the elaborate machinery of compromise and arbitration upon which the trade union movement's traditional methods depend is being destroyed. And when battles have taken place each has been conducted in an isolated and sectional manner leading directly to defeat.

The threat of growing unemployment has dramatically curbed the power of traditionally militant sections of the working class. They have chosen to hang on to the jobs they have rather than fight for the jobs that will almost certainly go in the future. Their relatively high pay and immediate stake in the system dictated this.

In contrast to this the poor and oppressed sections of the working class are increasingly forced into confrontation with the British state, its police, courts and prison system. These are the emerging forces of revolution in Britain. Imperialism can offer them nothing. And as the crisis has deepened they have begun to organise the fightback.

During the post-war boom many imperialist countries brought in workers from their colonies and ex-colonies to do low-paid and menial jobs. And it is black and immigrant workers who now are leading the fightback. In Britain, 1981 saw uprisings in many major cities led by black youth drawing in sections of white working class youth. The uprisings conclusively demonstrated that forces exist in Britain which are instinctively anti-imperialist and capable of the dedication and sacrifice that is necessary in the struggle against imperialism at home.

These oppressed sections of the working class have nothing but contempt for the Labour Party and the leadership ofthe trade union movement. They reject their constitutional and parliamentary cretinism and instead have taken a revolutionary and insurrectionary road. It is this polarisation in the working class which constitutes a serious threat to the stability of imperialism. The imperialists can no longer be assured of peace at home while they conduct their imperialist excursions abroad.