VIETNAM RECEIVING FROM CHINA AND THE USSR?
In a rather extensive article in the February 14 Wall Street Journal, which clearly reflects briefing sessions at the State Department and the Pentagon, Frederick Taylor, a staff reporter of the New York business daily, assesses the impact of the Sino-Soviet conflict and the political crisis in China on the flow of aid to the Vietnamese. Taylor's conclusion is that shipments of arms and other supplies are being impeded.
The U.S. "strategists" are even speculating on the possibility of a shutoff on supplies shipped through China, "whether that came about by decision of Peking's rulers or through unplanned breakdowns of Chinese transport." :
If this should occur, the Soviet Union would have to depend on sending heavy equipment by sea. This would mean a considerable increase in traffic flowing through the
port of Haiphong.
Taylor professes to believe that this might increase the chances for a clash between American and Russian forces, since there would be a strong inclination among the war hawks in the U.S. to bomb Haiphong under the general excuse advanced by Johnson for bombing north Vietnam -- to cut off supplies to the National Liberation Front.
Without indicating his specific sources, Taylor cites the following figures on the amount of aid that has been going to Hanoi:
"Mere's no question that the Soviet Union is the primary supplier of war goods to North Vietnam, even though rival China loudly disputes that fact. U.S. intelligence experts estimate that the Russians have supplied North Vietnam with more than $600 million in military aid, including $500 million in arms alone, since 1954; of that total, 85% has been sent since August 1964, when North Vietnamese ships attacked U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin [this version is part of the official war propaganda of the Johnson administration. -~ W.0O.] and the Vietnam war began heating up rapidly. Since 1953 the Chinese have given Hanoi only $150 million in military aid, 65% of that since August 1964. ~ ;
"The Soviet arms aid, according to U.S. estimates, has flowed like this: Before 1964, $50 million; in 1964, $25 million; in 1965, $200 million to $225 million; in 1966, about $200 million. Analysts figure Chinese military aid in 1965 was about $35 million and rose to $50 million or $60 million last year, most of it in small arms such as rifles and mortars that play a major role in the war in the south.
"Until 1964 the Soviet arms shipped to North Vietnam consisted mainly of artillery, armored vehicles, some 75 airplanes of all types, 20 naval patrol boats and small arms, mostly rifles. From then until mid-1966, the Soviets supplied 20 to 25 battalions of SAMs, each with six missile-launchers, radar equipment to operate them, and several thousand light and medium antiaircraft artillery pieces, much of it radar-controlled. Since mid-1966, most of the equipment sent has been radar, antiaircraft guns, trucks and other vehicles.
"In addition, North Vietnam has been slowly building up its air force, primarily with Russian-supplied planes, until it now has a total of about 220 aircraft. Included are about 115 jet fighters, 15 to 20 of them late-model MIG~-21s and the rest Korean War-vintage MIG-15s and MIG-17s. Hanoi also has 8 light jet bombers, 50 light transports, 40 trainers and 20 helicopters....
"Back in 1955, the Chinese and the Soviets promised North Vietnam $1 billion in economic aid, but up through 1964 they had delivered only $600 million to $750 million, it's estimated. Of this total, some $250 million to $300 million to #400 million came from Russians, $400 million to $400 million from the Chinese, the remaining small portion from the Communist East European bloc. Since 1964, there's been $400 million to #500 million more in economic aid delivered, 75% or more from the Soviets.
" "The economic aid. has consisted mainly of machine tools, generators, road-building equipment and complete small factories to make plastics and textiles. But since 1964, the Soviet assistance has concentrated on products useful for war as well as peace: Tractors and trucks, wire, all kinds of spare parts, steel rails to repair bombed railroad lines, medicine, blood plasma and, of course, oil and gasoline. Some medicine and machine tools, the latter described as good quality but not highly sophisticated equipment, have come from East Europe. Most Chinese economic aid in the same period has been rice: China is the biggest supplier of food to North Vietnam. ‘
"Last October Russia promised an additional $800 million in material and money, with $200 million more to come from its East European allies. But sq far as U.S. officials can determine, there's no time limit on that aid and based on past experience it could. take years for the full amount to be delivered, if it ever is."
At first glance it might seem that rather substantial sums are involved. However, the total military aid furnished by the Soviet Union since August 1964 (85% of $600 million) averages out to about $17.6 million a month, The total military aid furnished by China during the same period (65% of $150 million) averages to about $3.4 million a month. The total from the two sources equals $21 million a month.
Even if the current estimate is taken as a base; the outcome is not much better. The rate of aid from the Soviet Union has declined to $16.7 million a month; aid from China has increased to $5 million a month, making the combined total $21.7 million a month. .
By way of comparison, the Johnson administration is currently spending $2,000 million a month for its war of aggression in Vietnam.
The figures on Soviet and Chinese aid to Vietnam must be viewed with reserve in view of the source. Even if they are considerably ibelow the reality, however, it is clear by merely looking at the struggle to see what enormous disparity there is in the military means available to the Vietnamese people in their defense against the mightiest military colossus in all history. Their capacity to hang on in the face of such an attack as the one mounted by the Johnson administration will go down as one of the most heroic pages in all history.
AMERICAN MAOISTS URGE CHINESE WALL FOR NORTH VIETNAM
The February issue of Challenge, the monthly newspaper of the American Maoist group, the “Progressive Labor Party," carries an editorial that should be of special interest to the international antiwar movement, to socialists and all those in every country who stand on the side of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
The editorial offers hard evidence on how Mao's rejection of a united front with the Soviet Union in defense of the Vietnamese Revolution has been developed inside the imperialist United States into an ultraleft sectarian position highly injurious to the Vietnamese cause. .
According to Challenge, the trip to Hanoi made by Harrison Salisbury, assistant managing editor of The New York Times, “America's version of Pravda," was “part of the United States and Soviet Union's attempt to crush the revolution in Vietnam." The purpose of Salisbury's trip was "to help arrange phony negotiations between U.S. aggressors and the Vietnamese."
"A central aspect of Salisbury's reportage concerns U.S. bombing of north Vietnam," continues Challenge. "He is dwelling on the horrors of bombing to feed the Soviet Union's tactic of obscuring the basic demand of U.S. GET OUT OF VIETNAM NOW. In its place the Soviets would like to see the terms to negotiate pivot around ending the bombing of north Vietnam. This slick U.S.-Soviet gambit has sucked in a good deal of the anti-war movement around the world and particularly in our country. The central demand of the anti-war movement in the U.S. is now 'stop the bombing.' This switch from 'GET OUT OF VIETNAM NOW' has been carefully guided by the Communist Party and their Trotskyite allies who dominate peace offices in many cities around the country."
In consonance with this thesis, Challenge finds it convenient not to mention what a bombshell Salisbury's. report was in the United States as an exposure of the lies of the Johnson administration. The White House,. the. Pentagon, the State Department, the war hawks and fascist-minded "anti-Communists" were enraged at Salisbury. Some of them, too, claimed to see the hand of the Kremlin in his trip. The series of articles which Salisbury wrote, together with his interviews on radio and television, also had the effect of arousing a fresh wave of sympathy among the American people for north Vietnam. This was the main source for the broadened protest against the war which Challenge deplores inasmuch as it centered around "Stop the Bombing."
"Salisbury's mission, far from being a mission of 'good will' or his being a man of 'good will,' is designed to strengthen the ‘trojan horse' tactic of 'aid' from the Soviet Union. Soviet ‘aid,' like these phony 'good will' missions, is designed to lull the Vietnamese and betray the revolution. These acts are aimed at winning the confidence of the Vietnamese -in order to cut their throats. The U.S. and the. Soviet Union would like. the Vietnamese to enter negotiations and surrender the revolution."
It is quite true that the New York Times wants negotiations. This influential daily considers Johnson's escalation of the war to be too dangerous and the concomitant losses to American imperialism in other areas to be too great to justify continuation of ‘the bloody conflict. The New York Times does not stand alone but represents a sector of the American ruling class. In other words a rift -- not a big rift, but a rift just the same -- exists in the American ruling class over Johnson's war in Vietnam. —
Challenge, like its Peking mentors does not choose to see this rift, still less try to take advantage of it. Their view is a logical continuation of the still grosser error of refusing to see any difference between the Kremlin and Washington and refusing to press the Soviet government for a united front against the common danger and in behalf of another workers state -~ the Democratic Republic of Vietnam -- not to mention the mutual defense of China and the USSR against imperialisn.
Thus we come to the remarkable policy proposed by Challenge to counteract the . imperialist game. The first bit of advice is that "The Vietnamese people would be better off without Soviet ‘aid.'" Yes, that is actually what the editors of Challenge wrote. "The Vietnamese people would be better off without Soviet 'aid.'"
. -The same goes for Salisbury, and, for that matter, anyone who values the worth of peace. "The Vietnamese people need Salisbury and his ilk in their country like they need a hole in the head," declares Challenge. "At this moment Vietnam is being flooded by scores of half-baked and outright phony 'peace missions.'" To believe Challenge, "Most of these people are not men of ‘good will.' Most are agents of the U.S.! The few who go as well-meaning anti-war forces from the U.S., are sucked into the U.S.-Soviet scheme. The U.S. and Soviets know that these people are pacifists, and viewing the horrors of war will intensify their pacifism."
Thus we come to another prize proposal of these