On January 31, 2024, a group of prominent Australians published a ‘great’ proposal for Detente between the US and China.
Detente has a recent history. It was invented by the Yanks to bring down the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s and they conned Soviet leaders Brezhnev, Gorbachev and Co to drop their guard, all the better to overthrow them. It marked a change of tactics by the Americans of trying to take their enemies head on, such as with China, Korea and Vietnam, all losses for the US between the the late 1940s and the 1970s.
After the death of Stalin in 1953, the Soviet leadership departed from a mass line of serving the people. Their revisionist ideology and politics led to their increasing isolation from the Russian, Soviet and Warsaw Pact peoples. Together with their crazy strategy to try and match the US in the production of armaments the Soviet Union became ripe for the picking.
Sensing the opportunity the US started their ‘let’s be buddies’ strategy otherwise known as Detente. At the same time under President Reagan in the 1980s the US increased military production to the maximum (remember the Star Wars missile defence umbrella) to get the Soviets to try and match them and put impossible strains on the Russian and associated Soviet and Warsaw Pact economies. And so move in for the kill by getting the Soviet Union to implode. Which is what happened in 1991.
With their triumphalism and their theory of being the ‘exceptional’ country the US moved to dominate the world and proclaimed their hegemony to all and sundry. In recent years they have targeted China, Russia, Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Venezuela, Yemen, Palestine and any other country that dares to struggle for independence.
The US military preparations for war and war rhetoric with China and Russia have increased and some people have become increasingly nervous.
In reality the Hawks have been rattling the cage and the Doves are cooing! And hence the call of a group of 50 prominent Australians (including Bob Carr, Gareth Evans, Bob Brown, John Menadue) for Detente between the US and China.
Of course they never mention the heart of the matter – the essential need to overthrow US Imperialism and the allied Australian monopoly capitalist class. The US multinationals and their billionaire owners are attempting to tighten their grip all over the world to strengthen their hegemony and domination. Resistance is building and struggle is intensifying all over the world. The main contradiction we have identified between imperialism headed by the US and the world’s people is becoming more antagonistic. The world is headed for great change and great movements are building for a new world order.
The best our ‘liberal’ section of the Australian ruling class can come up with is a rerun of Detente from the 1970s and 1980s! They dream on for their ‘place in the sun’ as Ted Hill Chairman of the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) called it, an ‘independent’ capitalist Australia. Which with the financial and military muscle of the imperialists is an impossibility.
Well it is necessary to build a United Front here in Australia of all who can be united to achieve true independence, consummate nationhood, and develop the productive forces for the benefit of the people. But we can be under no illusion of the essential character of our ‘liberal’ Australian ruling class. They are weak, vacillating and hopelessly compromised with imperialism and local monopoly capitalism.
We need to mobilise a United Front led by the workers and their allies for they are the only ones who are the most numerous, well organised, far-sighted and disciplined. We seek unity with a section of the Australian bourgeoisie, especially those who are true patriots, but it is essential that at the same time we struggle against their corrosive, weak and vacillating tendencies.
Furthermore with the Yankee and the Western European Imperialists there is an arrogance that goes like this: We brought down the Soviet Union in 1991 and we can do it again. The US is trying to strengthen its alliances all over the world and once again to outspend militarily its opponents and trying to damage them economically.
The big change since 1991 worldwide is the further development of independence for countries, consolidation of nationhood and the development of their economies generally (but not always) for the benefit of their peoples. It is no coincidence that these countries all suffered from and have deep experience of European, Japanese and US Imperialism and the plunder of their resources and people. This contradiction between the US Imperialists and the world’s people is becoming more antagonistic.
We can confidently predict this contradiction will develop further and be the great defining feature of the 21st century…..
