[Marxism] Re: What will be effect of N Korea nuclear test?

[Walter Lippmann]

"In Defense of Marxism", the website based in the United Kingdom and 
whose links are periodically posted to Marxmail, is today circulating a
massive treatise around the Internet regarding the Democratic People's
Republic of Korea, the DPRK, popularly known as "North Korea". 

Using a boiler-plate, cookie-cutter method, in which whatever the facts
of a situation are, they just need to be inserted within a pre-existing
world-historical schema, and, voila, instant Marxist analysis appears.

Over five thousand seven hundred words of rhetoric notwithstanding,
the group "In Defence of Marxism" manages to disunderstand that is
happening with North Korea approximately 100%. Not misunderstand.
DISUNDERSTAND. The reality and the relationships involved are all
completely upside down.

Rather than assigning the responsibility to the capitalist government 
of the United States for the current situation, IDOM affixes the blame 
on Pyongyang for what today threatens a massive nuclear confrontation. 

According to the sages at IDOM, it's the DPRK, not Washington which is 
at fault, and the solution lies in a political revolution to overthrow
the government of the DPRK, not a mass struggle in the United States and 
elsewhere to stay the hand of the warmakers. 

The Cubans have a much better understanding of the situation. They have 
the right answer to the most basic question of all: "Which side are you on?" 

On Cuba's view (awaiting its Foreign Ministry statement) see:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/message/56046

Today's Los Angeles Times features three wonderful letters explaining how
the world has arrived at this conjuncture, including a terrific one by the new
president of the National Lawyers Guild, Marjorie Cohn. She explains thus:

"Suppose you were North Korea and President Bush put you into his "axis of evil,"
along with Iraq and Iran. You saw him invade Iraq, kill tens of thousands of its
people and change its government. Then he began following the same pattern with
Iran. Meanwhile, Bush refused to talk to you directly about your nuclear
program. Wouldn't you develop and test a nuke to defend yourself? Thanks to
Bush's dangerous policies, the chickens have come home to roost."

To read all three letters:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/message/56056

It's a shame that IDOM hasn't got the common sense its members were born
with to look at the situation as it really is, objectively, as Marxists are trained to
do, rather than from a topsy-turvy series of mistaken pre-conceptions.

WHICH SIDE ARE THEY ON? WHICH SIDE ARE THEY ON?


Walter Lippmann
Los Angeles, California
============================================

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/message/56054

"IN DEFENCE OF MARXISM" completely misreads the situation today:

Looking for bargaining leverage in its dealings with the West and
Japan, North Korea announced plans earlier this year to test nuclear
weapons. Then, on October 7, a handful of North Korean troops crossed
into South Korea, resulting in warning shots fired by the South
Koreans. The Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) dividing the two Koreas is one
of the most heavily militarized borders on the planet. Technically,
the two sides are still at war, as only a cease-fire, not a peace
treaty was agreed to in 1953 after the Korean War. Despite its
population of just 23 million, North Korea currently has the world's
5th largest army, with some 1.2 million troops. The South Korean
military is not quite as large, but it is arguably better equipped,
and it has the support of thousands of U.S. troops.

Now North Korea has raised the stakes further by carrying out nuclear
tests in an underground bunker, causing a tremor of 4.2 on the
Richter scale. Australia's Seismology Research Center estimated it at
about one kiloton, the equivalent of 1,000 tons of TNT. Russian
Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said it ranged between 5 and 15
kilotons. The bomb dropped by the U.S. on Hiroshima in 1945 was 12.5
kilotons.

---------------

What has failed in North Korea, once again, is the totally false
Stalinist theory of "socialism in one country", and in particular the
attempt to establish an autarchic regime, isolated from the rest of
the world, removing itself from the world division of labour. If
China could not maintain such a regime, how can little North Korea
hope to do so?

As revolutionary Marxists we have to point to another perspective.
The choice need not be between an oppressive Stalinist regime on the
one hand, and rampant capitalism on the other. The only road forward
is that of revolutionary proletarian internationalism, of genuine
workers' democracy both north and south of the border.