The People's Republic of China launched an attack on the Socialist Republic of Vietnam on February 17, 1979. By this act, it dealt a further blow to the new opportunities for the spread of the socialist revolution in Southeast Asia that were opened up by the defeat of U.S. imperialism in Indochina in April 1975.
The military offensive launched by the Chinese bureaucracy cannot be seen simply as a border incident. It is an act of war, the scope of which is shown not only by the number of troops deployed and by the duration of the conflict, but also by the targets chosen by the Chinese troops, which include urban population centers.
The Chinese intervention is a reply to the overthrow of the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia by the Vietnamese regular army and the Kampuchean National United Front for National Salvation. However, it falls within a broader political context that gives it its true significance and scope. It is the conflict between the Soviet and Chinese bureaucracies, for which the Kremlin bears the historic responsibility, that constitutes the framework for the clashes between the Chinese, Vietnamese, and Khmer Rouge leaderships. It was the Kremlin that initially mounted an economic blockade against China and massed an army on its frontier.
The debacle suffered by the U.S. forces in Indochina, and the weakening of imperialism's position in Asia, have made it harder for the imperialists to intervene directly, and have made it easier for conflicts between bureaucracies following an orientation of building "socialism in one country" to take a military form.
The Chinese bureaucracy, which is plagued by a grave internal crisis, is committed to a policy of peaceful coexistence with the imperialist powers. By this means, it hopes to be able to meet the needs imposed by the economic options it has taken, reestablish the status quo in the region, and limit as much as possible any spillover of the Indochinese revolution. The Soviet bureaucracy also seeks to uphold stability in the ASEAN zone [Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia], and at the same time extend its own influence by capitalizing on its ties with the Vietnamese regime. The Peking leadership is trying to weaken the Vietnamese regime and to undermine its influence.
Although Hanoi's aim is not to promote anti-imperialist struggles in the ASEAN countries, its objectives in Indochina, and its ties to the Soviet bureaucracy, represent a factor that may endanger the plans of the Chinese bureaucracy in this area, which Peking considers part of its sphere of influence.
Over the years, U.S. imperialism has deliberately sought to inflict the maximum destruction and slaughter on Southeast Asia in order to weaken the regimes that would emerge from the victory of the revolutions that it was not able to crush. Now it is doing its utmost to exploit these interbureaucratic conflicts in order to prevent the consolidation and extension of the Indochinese revolution in the region. This is why it is imposing an economic blockade of Vietnam and building up the arsenals of the reactionary regimes in Thailand and the ASEAN countries in general.
Today, Peking is objectively aiding these plans. Once again, the bureaucracy is showing its blindness, since in the medium and long term, such a policy can only work against the interests of defending the Chinese workers state from imperialism.
Thus, the infernal logic of interbureaucratic conflicts has prevailed, at the expense of the Indochinese and Chinese masses, who are locked in tragic, bloody clashes. This logic also furthers the betrayal of the struggles of the Southeast Asian peasants and workers against bloodthirsty dictatorships. It gravely disfigures the goals that the Chinese and Indochinese masses fought for over decades against the imperialist warmakers.
A bourgeois propaganda campaign has been unleashed. The imperialists, who for a century have caused wars costing humanity tens of millions of dead, have suddenly been transformed into "the world's peacemakers." The conflicts between bureaucratized workers states are said to involve the threat of a third worldwide conflagration. It is our duty to combat these claims, which are already being echoed by sectors of the international workers movement. We must denounce the continual threat of a world war that is kept alive by the imperialists, as well as their repeated aggression against the world's peoples. We must also explain the roots of the counterrevolutionary policy of the ruling bureaucracies.
The military actions taken by the bureaucratic leaderships are directly linked to the nature of these regimes, which deny the toiling masses an opportunity to participate directly in political, economic, and military decisions. Only the establishment of genuine socialist democracy in the course of a thoroughgoing struggle against the bureaucracy can eliminate the possibility of a recurrence of the present confrontations, and ensure the implementation of an international policy in the interests of the workers and peasants.
It is up to the international workers movement to do all it can to end the military conflicts between the workers states. It also has the task of mobilizing to defend the Indochinese revolutions, which are threatened by imperialist maneuvers at a time when they are being weakened by interbureaucratic conflicts.
Chinese troops must withdraw immediately and completely from Vietnamese territory! No Soviet military intervention against China!
For a united front of the workers states against imperialist threats and aggression! For joint aid by the workers states to the anti-imperialist struggle of the workers and peasants in Southeast Asia!