Introduction
On January 28, 1979, China's Deputy Premier Deng Xiaoping arrived in Washington for a nine-day visit that was to consummate a counter-revolutionary alliance between the leaders of the world's most populous socialist state and the biggest imperialist power.
Just 12 days after Deng left the U.S. Chinese troops poured across the border into Viet Nam in a full-scale invasion. While the official posture in Washington was to deplore the invasion, concrete moves by the U.S. government -- such as sending Treasury Secretary Blumenthal to China to discuss trade at the very height of the war -- showed that the Carter administration's pose of neutrality was a legalistic cover intended for world public opinion. In fact, the invasion had actually been discussed during the Deng-Carter meetings.
The articles in this pamphlet, written both before and after the invasion, are much more than mere commentary on these events. They alert the progressive forces to the full magnitude of the betrayal by China's leaders by placing it in its historical perspective. Yet they go beyond recrimination of the individuals involved, examining the class forces at work and reviewing the preceding developments which led up to this momentous turning point.
Sam Marcy, the chairman of Workers World Party, wrote the first two articles in this pamphlet as discussion material for an imminent plenary session of the National Committee of the Party. Given the critical world situation, the meeting had been expanded to afford a fuller participation by the Party membership. News of the invasion came February 17 as the session was opening, and the Party that day issued a public statement condemning the attack and linking it to the alliance that had been reached between the Deng leadership of China and the imperialist powers.
This pamphlet answers the immediate questions that confront all activists in the anti-imperialist struggle: Which side is progressive in this war? Who do we support and who condemn? But it also explains what criteria to use in arriving at a position that will conform to the historic interests of the working class, the national liberation movements, and all progressive humanity.
The line of thought on which these articles are based concerning the mutual relations among the socialist countries, and how they have been affected by the reciprocal relationship of each with imperialism, flows from an analysis that has been developed by Sam Marcy in several earlier pamphlets. These include China: the Struggle Within, China 1977: End of the Revolutionary Mao Era and The Class Character of the USSR.
Deirdre Griswold