Since Reagan's election the rearmament campaign of imperialism initiated by Washington has taken on gigantic proportions. It is combined with the capitalists' general austerity offensive against working people. These are the responses that North American imperialism, its Japanese, and above all its Western European allies mean to give to the crisis of capitalism and the continuing revolutionary processes, especially in the semicolonial countries. By favoring a reinforcement, reorganization, and redeployment of its military resources, imperialism wants to try to stop the erosion of its positions, launch new attacks against working people, and prepare, in the long term, the reconquest of those parts of the world it has lost. Within this framework the North American citadel is playing the main role. It was on its initiative that the arms race had been relaunched on an enlarged basis in 1978-79 under the presidency of Carter, which reached a first peak with the NATO decisions of November 12, 1979, which envisaged the deployment of the second-generation Pershing and Cruise missiles. Reagan's decision to put the neutron bomb into production marks a new and very serious acceleration of imperialist war preparations. Without underestimating the importance of the redeployment of conventional military resources, it is undoubtedly the accumulation of new nuclear arms stocks that represents the principal danger.
After having mounted an intensive propaganda campaign on the supposed superiority of Soviet military potential, particularly the medium-range nuclear arsenal (SS-20), Washington adjusted its military language to its warmongering aims. Firstly, by the adoption of an "antiforce" strategy, which aims to destroy the military and economic potential of the enemy, as opposed to an "anti-city" strategy of de stroying the urban centers. Secondly, by replacing the search for "approximate parity" current under Nixon and Carter with the concept of looking for "a margin of security."
Nuclear war not inevitable
Faced with the eventuality of a nuclear war, which according to all probabilities would result in a general holocaust, the strategic aim of the world workers movement cannot be a "conjunctural" victory in an atomic war. To build communism, humanity must exist. The aim must therefore be to prevent nuclear war. Such a war is not inevitable. But it would be illusory to expect a solution of true disarmament from a negotiated process; for as long as capitalism survives the risks of war will remain. The realistic alternative is to disarm imperialism by overturning it in its main strongholds. In the last analysis, only the victory of the proletariat in the most developed imperialist countries, in particular the victory of the American proletariat, can definitively save humanity from the nightmare of nuclear annihilation.
The Fourth International has always counterposed the revolutionary solution to the Utopian illusions of "peaceful coexistence" or "victory" in a nuclear world war. This is why it attaches particular importance to the mass antiwar mobilizations that are gaining ground in the whole of capitalist Europe, North America, and Japan. These mobilizations are even more decisive, since everything indicates that we are not in the final phase preceding the outbreak of a third world war. The principal political and social preconditions for triggering a cataclysm of this significance do not at all exist. The proletariat in the West has not suffered a decisive defeat. The working masses of these countries are neither demoralized nor incapable of acting. They would not tolerate the insanity of collective nuclear suicide organized by their ruling classes.
People who talk about the inevitability of a third world war frivolously underestimate what is at stake for the whole of humanity; and, in a no less irresponsible way, they consider that a vital battle for the world proletariat has already been lost, even before the struggle has been really engaged. The Fourth International's objective in participating in the antiwar movement and in stimulating it, is to increase the anti-imperialist and anticapitalist consciousness of the masses, strengthen their increasingly broad capacity of mobilization, and to score the first victories, in order to facilitate a generalized victorious assault against bourgeois state power. Only the disarmament of capitalism and the overthrow of its state power will once and for all put an end to the threat of war.
Imperialism's rearmament campaign
The new course of American policy, which has been unambiguously affirmed since Reagan's election, is evidence of the resolution of the U.S. leaders to reestablish the political, military, and economic superiority of the principal imperialist power. This political resolution amplifies the tendency to the growing militarization of the crisis-ridden capitalist economy, characterized by the diversion of research towards military ends, by an unprecedented growth in military spending, and by a considerable extension of commercial transactions relating to military material. Certain neutralist currents, while understanding this tendency of the capitalist economy to transform itself into a gigantic military-industrial complex, underestimate the political will that is part and parcel of it, and therefore only partially grasp the meaning of the capitalist's remilitarization effort. It is really a question of the global reorientation of U.S. imperialism and its allies to confront developments in the economic crisis and in the anti-imperialist and class struggle. This is a reorientation that tends to break with a period (1975-79) of partial paralysis on the international level for the United States, which recovered with difficulty from the "Vietnam syndrome."
The key leaders in Washington, aware of the repercussions of the insurrectionary overthrow of the dictatorships of the shah in the Middle East and Somoza in Central America, drew an obvious conclusion: any revolutionary breakthrough, including the colonial revolution, directly threatens their "vital interests." The result of this is a "globalization" of the defense of imperialist interests, which is the basis of the interventionist course of action that Washington intends once again to follow. It is with this objective that the U.S. military apparatus is in the process of being reorganized in order to take on armed interventions of all types and dimensions anywhere on the globe. Within this framework, the perspective of eventually firing nuclear weapons is outlined. This explains the decision to start production of the neutron bomb, which is not a new weapon, but has never been deployed because its use did not figure in the scenarios of the general-staffs of the counterrevolution.
Today it is quite a different story, with the concrete content NATO strategists give to the doctrine of "flexible response" based on a willingness to adapt possible responses to all types of possible threats. In fact within this framework they envisage what they call both "vertical" and "horizontal" escalation. By "vertical" escalation, they reveal their determination to add another rung to the ladder of escalation of terror. The neutron bomb, for instance, tends to reduce the qualitative difference of the passage from the "classical" arsenal to firing tactical nuclear weapons through the reduction of material destruction caused by the bomb, but not the number killed. By "horizontal" escalation, they envisage displacing the zone of a limited conflict towards other zones, based in advance on a terrorist policy of reprisals. In this way they are endeavoring to avoid getting automatically caught up in "an escalation to extremes" (die use of the intercontinental nuclear strategic arsenal), while making possible the recourse to short- and medium-range nuclear arsenals.
Neutronic charges, the product of a growing miniaturization of nuclear munitions, coupled with technological innovations in the use of vectors (penetration, accuracy against the target, hardening up and independent guiding of the multiple heads of the same warhead cone) — all these characteristics of the new generation of nuclear £ums systems contribute to making the possible use of the atom to maintain "imperialist order" a dangerous reality.
After SALT agreements, a more direct confrontation with USSR
This turn in American policy affects global East-West relations just as much as interimperialist relations and the way that imperialism reacts to developments in the colonial revolution.
The previous decade of East-West relations had been marked by the SALT process — negotiations concerned with the limitation of strategic nuclear arms. Inaugurated in 1968, this process continued up to the signing of the second agreement in 1979, which the U.S. Senate refused to ratify. The SALT talks in no way represented a progression towards disarmament. The astronomic ceilings fixed at each stage, far from putting a brake on the arms race, has in fact relaunched it. This is less from a quantitative point of view, it is true, than a qualitative one, which is where American imperialism excels, given its technological lead.
Both imperialism and the Soviet bureaucracy, in fact, periodically need a certain degree of control over the escalation of the arms race, since it imposes a heavier and heavier burden on the economy, especially for the Soviet Union, whose productive power is still substantially less than that of American capitalism.
In this sense SALT represented a negative factor just before imperialism's present campaign of rearmament. At one and the same time, it permitted Washington to work as it pleased on the development of more and more sophisticated arms, while spreading the illusion among the masses that a lasting peace could result from an agreement between the two main nuclear powers, guaranteed by the "equilibrium of terror" and a peaceful confrontation in the arms race. U.S. imperialism placed its policy towards Moscow in this framework because it judged that the common defense of the world status quo conformed to the defense of its essential interests. But recognizing the impossibility of heading off new revolutionary developments purely through bloc-to-bloc relations and opting for a global strategy of counteroffensive, it aims to subordinate the pursuit of bilateral negotiations to its rearmament effort. It committed itself from then on to the perspective of a more direct confrontation with the USSR, aiming to make it pay an exorbitant economic price for following the military program it has committed itself to. In addition Washington intends to "cover up" in advance its counterrevolutionary deeds by the return to a certain cold war atmosphere, which is supposed to allow it to carry out its crimes at the smallest political and social cost in the imperialist centers.
Nevertheless the opening of negotiations on the control of the nuclear arms race between Moscow and Washington always remains possible. The bureaucracy is a ready applicant. Imperialism, based on its conjunctural interests, even if only to assuage the feelings of its allies, can in fact accept this in principle. However it is probable that this will not be a determining feature of American policy towards Moscow in the immediate period.
The programs underway or in study with regard to the intercontinental nuclear arsenal (new strategic bomber, underground or airport MX bases, arming submarines with Trident II, etc.) will not be affected. These programs, which represent the main motor of the arms race due to the heavy investment involved, are ne going to further accentuate the superiority of U.S. military potential in the strategic arms sector.
Arms buildup in Europe
The decision of NATO in 1979 to install 108 Pershing II and 464 Cruise missiles in Europe between now and 1983 does not open up a perspective of direct or indirect disengagement of U.S. imperialism from Europe. The latter is too vital to U.S. imperialism. The hypothesis of a nuclear war in the European theater without either side using its strategic arsenals, is too illusory for the U.S. to envisage even an indirect disengagement. Finally, U.S. imperialism would not be able to carry out a nuclear war limited to Europe while "reasonably" hoping its territory would remain outside the battlefield, because it is protected by an intercontinental arsenal whose triggering would be synonymous with a general holocaust. We have to conclude that those who speak in such a way have motives other than those they invoke.
For some it is a case above all of putting pressure on the European bourgeoisies so that they participate more significantly in the rearmament decreed by Washington. For others it is a case of justifying their desire to see the birth of an "independent" imperialist Europe equipped with nuclear or conventional defense systems. In both cases the direct consequence of these types of political positions is the reinforcement of the military potential of the bourgeois armies.
In reality American imperialism, through the combination of its central strategic arsenal and its arsenal in the European theater (which would result from the installation of middlerange weapons), demonstrates that it does not have the objective of a nuclear war limited to Europe.
Its policy has its roots in the very logic of the development of a capitalist arms economy, which must profitably use its technological innovations. At this stage there is a close relationship between the various programs it is carrying out within the intercontinental or European arsenals. With the decision to deploy these arms, the objectives of the American leaders only become more clear:
A. In the framework of East-West relations, Washington discounts reinforcing its territory as a "sanctuary," banking realistically on the impossibility for the Soviet economy to compete in all domains in the arms race (strategic, tactical, eurostrategic, and classical arms). Imperialism can only take advantage of an undeniable superiority in the essential sectors in order to obtain substantial political concessions from the bureaucracy.
B. In the framework of interimperialist relations, the installation of euromissiles can only accentuate even more the political dependence of the European bourgeoisies on Washington. The former, with the exception only of France and to a lesser extent West Germany, are obliged to be clients of Washington as regards military materiel. They will pay a good part of the bill for these new arms, whose operation will remain entirely at the discretion of the United States. It is therefore also a good means for U.S. imperialism to reinforce its military leadership with less expense. On this basis we can expect a new and more vigorous offensive of Washington towards the European bourgeoisies to get them to respect their 1977 commitment, renewed in 1979, to increase their military spending by at least 3 percent a year.
New interimperialist contradictions are appearing inside the counterrevolutionary North Atlantic alliance, despite the success that the effective return of Greece and the probable entry of Spain into NATO represent for imperialism. These contradictions are the result of a combination of several factors: the central role of NATO as a military bloc for all that directly concerns East-West relations; the willingness of Washington to carry out, parallel to NATO, unilateral actions as a function of its dominant position. The different level of the class struggle on opposite sides of the Atlantic does not permit the homogenization of the military policies of the different imperialist powers, whatever may be the proclaimed intentions, as the question of military budgets illustrates.
Imperialist war preparations cannot be reduced to Reagan's policies. The European capitalist governments take their full place too.
In the field of nuclear arsenals France already possesses a strategic and tactical strike force and envisages equipping itself with neutron weapons. It occupies a first-class seat in the present rearmament campaign. Britain is also reinforcing its nuclear arsenal.
As regards conventional military resources, Paris and Bonn have considerable means at their disposal, including for intervention outside the European theater in the Gulf, Mediterranean, or in Africa — resources which are being rapidly developed.
Finally their respective places in the top league of arms-exporting countries testifies to a growing militarization of their economies. For France this reaches a point of exceptional hypertrophy if one considers its arms production sector in relation to the rest of its economic and industrial potential. Mitterrand's election will not modify this tendency; under certain conditions it can deepen it even further.
In the Gulf, Central America, and throughout the world
To the extent that its change of course is the direct consequence of the defeats inflicted on it by the rise of the colonial revolution — mainly in the Middle East with the loss of the Iranian stronghold and in Central America with the fall of Somoza — North American imperialism deploys its forces to hold back any new revolutionary progress in this sector. First of all there was the setting up of the external intervention force in 1979 under Carter's administration. This is the reason for Reagan's decision to reorganize the general staff of this force to bring it up to the rank of one of the four big command staffs of the U.S. military apparatus. This is also the justification for getting a program of naval re-equipment underway which should bring the U.S. Navy up from some 450 units to 600 combat ships.
The combination of these elements, Rapid Deployment Force and naval superiority, indicates that imperialism has drawn the lessons of its recent setbacks. While massively arming a series of dictatorships as "relays" for its domination in every comer of the world, it knows that these regimes do not offer it sufficient guarantees for a counterrevolutionary intervention of sufficient breadth and duration. This is why Washington is equipping itself with the broadest possible conventional means to maintain imperialist order. Not only is U.S. imperialism not allowing the extension of new revolutions without a military response, but it is also looking to directly and massively intervene because it does not have confidence in its auxiliary "policemen." This is the clear conclusion based on the redeployment of its military apparatus to build a network across the globe with the greatest possible number of naval and land support bases.
It would however be dangerous to see counterrevolutionary imperialist intervention in this or that region of the world against new developments of the colonial revolution only in terms of conventional arms. In fact the neutron bomb, due to its characteristics which permit relative control of the nuclear explosion, could be used for antisubversive purposes — that is, against a mass uprising.
It would certainly not be used in the first phase of an intervention, where classical methods are generally more appropriate; but to exclude a priori such a possibility would be to seriously underestimate the criminal cynicism of Washington. U.S. imperialism used the "lowest cost" argument to justify the 1945 atomic bombs. It does not argue differently today, particularly since the neutron bomb offers it new possibilities. Washington can also count on the "support bases" of European, and even Japanese imperialism in the years to come to aid its effort to maintain imperialist order — particularly in Africa where France has strong positions. Washington will also rely on a certain number of countries on the "periphery" who are equipped with considerable military resources and an already significant arms industry. This is especially the case for Israel, Brazil, Argentina, and South Africa.
In this framework we have seen a permanent and systematic military network set up in the Gulf and Middle East area because it is decisive for the supplies of oil products for the whole capitalist economy. Here the American imperialists are backed up mainly by French and English imperialism, and secondarily by German and Japanese imperialism.
This is the situation because the lesson the imperialists' chiefs of staff have drawn as a result of the fall of the Pahlavi dynasty in Tehran is that the hypothesis of a "raid" — necessarily limited to the oilfields of the Middle East — would not be sufficient to dam up revolutionary developments in the region. It was the "raid" hypothesis that was the basis in 1979 of the setting up of the Rapid Deployment Force — an American and a French one was formed. Since then imperialism has completed its preventive defense systems, notably with the permanent stationing of a good part of the West's naval forces in the Indian Ocean close to the Gulf. At the same time, aid in overarming the "client" countries of imperialism in the region has increased to very large proportions as demonstrated by the extremely significant case of Saudi Arabia. Reagan has delivered several AWACS, while France is supplying it with considerable army and naval military resources. In this region, in addition to Saudi Arabia, imperialism has its main strongholds in Egypt and Israel. Furthermore the missiles to be stationed in Sicily turn this Mediterranean island into a bulwark against the Arab revolution.
In the Far East, the counterrevolutionary network is based on three poles: Japan, which in turn has committed itself to a considerable arms program; the Philippines, notably with the U.S. Subic and Clark bases; and South Korea.
In Africa the specific role devolved to South Africa is complemented by a significant presence of imperialist forces in many states on the basis of cooperation agreements and military aid accords concluded mainly to the benefit of London, Paris, and Washington.
In Central America, El Salvador has the unfortunate privilege of being, for the moment, the key place where imperialism's counteroffensive, with the direct intervention of Washington, is being outlined.
The dead end of the Soviet bureaucracy's policy
It is not possible to fight against imperialism's remilitarization drive without taking into account the essential characteristics of the Kremlin bureaucracy's military policy, especially insofar as the imperialists' leaders justify their policy to the masses by referring to the existence of a so-called Soviet threat, which supposedly results from the superiority of the latter's military potential.
The bureaucracy's military policy is only one aspect of its international policy — an essential one. Due to its socially conservative character, it wants to avoid both any brutal rupture of the world's key equilibriums and any internal threat against the bureaucratic dictatorship which would wear away the bases of its power. These are the two preoccupations which fundamentally determine its defense policy. To this extent its policy has to be judged by its practical consequences and its relation to the concrete developments of the situation. For revolutionary Marxists who have always been intransigent on the unconditional defense of the social base of the workers states (even if they are degenerated), while at the same time carrying out an unflinching struggle for the revolutionary overthrow of the bureaucracy, the following question is posed: Is this or that action of Moscow necessary from the point of view of the defense of the USSR and the other workers states against imperialism? What are the effects on the world revolution, whose development is the only long-term guarantee for the existence of the workers states?
When the USSR in 1949 equipped itself with a nuclear capacity, our position was to defend its right to an independent defense policy — faced with the threat represented by U.S. imperialism in sole possession of an atomic arsenal. In the same way we recognized the right of the Chinese workers state in 1964 to do so. From a revolutionary point of view these means of nuclear self-defense were necessary to dissuade imperialism from using aggression in the short term with nuclear weapons against those territories where the capitalists had been thrown out. It has to be reaffirmed that without the existence of Soviet and Chinese nuclear arms, imperialism would have probably used atomic bombs against the Chinese, Indochinese, and indeed Cuban revolutions.
However the bureaucracy's defense policy pursues contradictory objectives as a result of the social nature of the former. Thus, constrained to face up to imperialism's threats, it rejects the correct policy of encouraging mass mobilizations in the main imperialist strongholds. It holds back and tries to break revolutionary processes in numerous countries. The result is a situation where fundamentally it responds to imperialism's arms race only by increasing its military potential — at an exorbitant cost.
Therefore, in the area of nuclear weapons, an effective defense policy would combine providing the country with the most sophisticated capabilities, along with dramatic disarmament initiatives involving previously stockpiled nuclear materiel — for example, armaments in excess of the already existing ability of the United States and USSR to destroy the whole human race. The accumulation of nuclear warheads without any other objective than to appear not to lose face in relation to imperialism is unjustified from a revolutionary, internationalist, and proletarian point of view.
In the same way, the deployment of arms such as the SS-20, aimed at China and Europeand incapable of reaching the United States, is albeit not founded on the point of view of the defense of the USSR and provides an excellent pretext for imperialism to justify its rearmament drive among the masses in the West.
The truth is that it fears above all the anti-capitalist, revolutionary, mobilizations of the masses and prefers bargaining with imperialism in SALT or MBFR (Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions) conferences. The bureaucracy has a defense policy that is exceptionally costly for the Soviet masses and in the end not very effective from the point of view of defending the workers states themselves. To this extent it facilitates the permanent pressure imperialism imposes on the Soviet economy. It also aids, if not provokes, the development of neutralist currents which lump together Soviet nuclear defense policy with that of imperialism. But the bureaucracy prefers that to the emergence of mass revolutionary currents that threaten the world status quo, and through that even its own existence.
The utopian and suicidal position according to which the "socialist" countries have to be able to win — in the event of a nuclear war — flows from the same orientation.
On the contrary it is necessary to make it impossible for imperialism to use its formidable nuclear arsenal by intervening at two levels: by developing the mobilization of the workers in the imperialist countries against their own bourgeoisies; and by maintaining sufficient means of self-defense and dissuasion which are worked out and presented as such. An effective policy of defending the workers states cannot leave out the national and international mobilizations of the masses. The nature of the bureaucracy prevents it from having such a revolutionary policy because it would erode the bases of its power. In this sense the military propaganda and practice of the bureaucracy are also obstacles in the struggle for the disarmament of imperialism.
However, Moscow's military policy is not limited to participating in the arms race in the wake of imperialism. It also includes an openly counterrevolutionary dimension of maintaining the bureaucratic dictatorship in the "socialist camp." The quantitative development of the Soviet conventional arsenal, in particular its navy and army, does not only correspond to the necessity of defense against imperialism. It also directly threatens the development of the political revolution in the USSR, as well as in the other workers states in Eastern Europe. This is furthermore the basis of the Brezhnev Doctrine of "limited sovereignty," which regulates relations between the USSR and the other workers states that are members of the Warsaw Pact.
The Kremlin's military policy is also characterized by a total secrecy that leaves the door wide open for the West's manipulation of public opinion. A policy of secrecy is absurd today when technological progress in the field of observation, detection, and surveillance by spy satellites permits imperialism's leaders to know more or less precisely the quantitative and qualitative value of the USSR's real potential. The example of the recent "relevations" of the Pentagon on the evolution of the size of arms production centers in the USSR proves this.
On the other hand the masses in the West and the East are left in the most absolute ignorance and are at the mercy of Western militarist propaganda campaigns. The consequence is that each time the bureaucracy sees imperialism grant it an overvalued military capacity, Moscow, fearing to lose face, is careful not to deny it. A real alternative would be an open policy on the actual levels of arms stocks, with the aim of winning the masses' confidence in order to put imperialism on the spot — including through bold proposals for international control. Such an orientation implies abandoning all secret diplomacy within the revolutionary perspective of the disarmament of imperialism. The bureaucracy would never decide to do that.
The struggle for peace and socialism
New develpoments in the world revolution help make the necessary struggle for peace and socialism relevant on a mass scale. This slogan, taken up by broad anticapitalist .currents in the present context of the general remilitarization offensive of imperialism, can take on its full internationalist and proletarian significance. Faced with imperialism — a synonym for murderous wars, indeed of the threat of the nuclear holocaust for all humanity — only the expropriation of capital in the main developed countries, the establishment of a world socialist federation, and the banning of the manufacture of large arms can guarantee peace through disarmament. The international policy of the bureaucracy represents an obstacle on this road 'through the objective support it gives to imperialism's attempts to reinforce its own bases. But the bureaucracy is no longer capable (unlike in the fifties) of channeling and disorienting the antiwar movement, which is growing today in the whole of Western Europe and will develop tomorrow in the United States.
Mass campaigns, which vary according to the precise themes taken up in each country as a function of their particular situations, are beginning to be set up just about everywhere. Revolutionary forces that participate have the duty to bring them together on one objective that is also now central within the workers movement: to hold back imperialism's war preparations; to stop its criminal rush to war by weakening it in a decisive way and then overturning it. These growing mobilizations are of great importance, with young people in general playing a frontline role. They are provoking differentiations inside the traditional forces of the workers movement. These are already very deep and will become more profound. There are many reasons that justify the support and participation of the Fourth International in this movement.
Within these mobilizations, which bring together the most diverse political currents, it is important to draw out a series of key axes that unify over and beyond the national situations, the struggle against imperialism, its austerity and remilitarization policies. It is only through such an approach that we can lay the political basis for an advance of the antiwar movement toward international coordination, at least on the level of Western Europe as a whole.
The situation from one country to another is very different as concerns the objective place of each national military apparatus in the global imperialist network. But above all the traditions and level of consciousness of the masses with respect to military questions are very unevenly developed.
The situation is most favorable in Britain, where the workers movement has taken up in a mass way the slogan of unilateral disarmament.
In West Germany and in the majority of North European countries, neutralist perspectives of bilateral disarmament generally dominate the mass movement.
In France and Italy the situation is more complex due to the role that the CPs tradition-'ally have in the antiwar movements. In France the mobilizations are still smaller than in other European countries. This poses a problem since this country is the second military power of the Atlantic alliance after the USA.
In North America the emergence of a significant current of opposition to U.S. intervention in El Salvador and the mobilizations against the "draft" (the preparations for establishing obligatory military service), indicate the main lines along which the resurgent antiwar movement will proceed.
The breadth of the antiwar movement forces the CPs and the SPs to develop their own political positions faced with the problems raised by the remilitarization drive. Although their positions generally flow from a similar preoccupation with eliminating the anticapitalist dynamic from the mobilizations, they vary from country to country. The French social democrats remain attached to the development of a French nuclear defense system. The Italian social democrats are the least critical tendency of the workers movement towards the installation of the new Pershing missiles in Europe. The German Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Belgian and Dutch SP, as well as the British Labour Party right wing, are trying to fight against the pressure in favor of unilateral disarmament of their respective countries (already the latter position has won a majority inside the Labour Party) by demanding a parallel reduction of American and Soviet nuclear weapons in Europe. The CPs generally focus the mobilizations on the struggle against the new escalation of rearmament, but are much more discreet on the question of unilateralism or on the necessity to disarm imperialism in order to eliminate the danger of war, given their general orientation of "peaceful coexistence."
It falls on the revolutionary forces, and especially the sections of the Fourth International, to do everything possible to show the objective necessity of coordinating these mobilizations on an international scale, while adapting the tactical slogans and alliances to the concrete situations of each country (traditions and strength of the movement, level of consciousness, etc.). The Fourth International can play an essential role in this framework, and will develop the political responses that the situation requires.
The Fourth International calls on the workers, youth, and all peoples, especially those of Western Europe and North America, to mobilize against imperialism, militarism, austerity, and for peace and socialism.
A. It declares itself against the production and deployment of the neutron bomb, for the universal banning of this weapon, which tends to make possible the eventual use of the nuclear arsenal against peoples struggling against imperialism.
It will fight against the NATO decisions to install Cruise and Pershing II missiles in Europe. It is in favor of unilateral nuclear disarmament by the halting of production and the destruction of "A," "H," and "N" bomb stocks.
B. It denounces NATO and the Atlantic alliance as being against the interests of the working class and fights any enlargement of this counterrevolutionary bloc. In particular it is in solidarity with the workers and peoples of the Spanish state who are against the entry of their country into NATO. In each country its sections will put forward the necessity of leaving NATO, and in France will demand a break with the Atlantic alliance. They will struggle for the dismantling of all the "advance bases" of U.S. imperialism in Europe or nearby, in particular in the Mediterranean.
C. The Fourth International calls for the rejection of war budgets, which are the source of immense wastage of humanity's resources, especially given the fact that the elementary needs of three-quarters of the population of the globe are not satisfied and that austerity policies are imposed on the workers of the imperialist centers. It is in favor of a massive and immediate reduction in unproductive military expenditure, for the satisfaction of workers' social needs and demands in the developed countries, and a very substantial increase in aid to the developing countries. Jobs, not bombs! Social spending, not military spending!
D. It is against the generalized militarization of the economy, the deviation of research towards military ends, the development of the production and sale of arms. It also supports the nationalization without compensation and under workers control of all industries involved in such production, and their reconversion in the framework of a democratically elaborated plan, in which the masses' social needs will determine the choices of production and not the reverse.
E. It opposes any limitation of workers' trade-union and political freedom. This is particularly valid for workers in the arms industries, who are often submitted to police control when hired and whose rights are significantly limited compared to workers in other industries (right to strike, legal status at work, and freedom of expression and organization).
F. It calls for a struggle against civil war preparations — the adoption of legislation envisaged for "crisis periods" and the preparation of bourgeois armies for the maintenance of imperialist order in Europe itself. It rejects ODT measures (operational defense of territory), free-range maneuvers, civil defense; and is opposed to the militarization of civil populations and their territories. It supports the Irish and Turkish masses, who are victims of particularly odious repression from NATO-member armies.
G. The Fourth International supports the struggles of conscripted or professional soldiers who are fighting for the full exercise of democratic rights (right to information, expression, and organization) inside the barracks. Soldiers must be able to organize on a trade-union basis completely independently from the military hierarchy. It is against the professionalization of bourgeois armies, which makes them more apt to intervene against workers, to break strikes, and to enforce requisition orders.
It fights for the reduction of the length of military service and for the right of all men and women to have real arms-training without assignment to barracks. It recognizes the democratic right of conscientious objection.