which opposes it, has produced a massive literature. Unfortunately much of this literature has been of either a technical character outlining the horrors of war, or of protest and moral indignation.
Few works of detailed analysis and explananon have appeared, the DeSI •them like Marv Kaldor's Baroque Arsenal nave nor been maxist. u deed EP Thompson in his celebrated essay on Exterminism (1) rejects the search for the origins of the cold war divisionarv. saving it leads to pointless attempts to apportion blame between the 'super-powers'.
Reviewed by Phil Hearse Marxists in the peace movement have argued for ine neca lo unaelstand tic cold war in order to combat it and the need to identify our enemies, their projects and alliances, so as to prioritise our activities and slogans.
Fred Halliday's
book starts out with the injunction to combine moral outrage with analysis cold war published. It comones amass or a d historical material, WILD MALOU is, in many ways, a typical contemporary German film. It is obsessed with history and the way that history interwines with, up people's lives. It is also a very political film, dealing with racism, fascism and the oppression of women.
Reviewed by Chris Bertram Hannah, married to a successful architect West Germany, determined not to lose her own identity to a man, like her mother. LAIS she must come to terms with the past and with the 1mage of Malou, her mother.
Crisscrossing both frontiers and time we are taken on a lournev Alsace to Argentina, from Hannah's relationship with Martin Malou's love for Paul. We see how Malou gives up her identity; her life as a singer, her religion anne several naavoid pat answers and simple formulae. Halliday has handbood for those produced invaluable WIlU fight to build a wing of the with an peace anti-imperialist and anti-Stalinist understanding.
He identifies five factors which led to the breaking of detente — tne rise of third revolutions, the decline of US military superiority, the rise of the new right in the United States, the exacerbation of inter-imperialist contradictions, and the crisis of the postCapitalist slalks He takes exceptional pains not to exonerate the Soviet Union from responsibility for fuelling the cold war (2), but his list of factors leads to an inevitable conclusion about where the prime responsibility for Tne breakdown of detente lies — he says 'it in the USA, not in the was USSR, that the sharp changes of mood Pale 19has can be seen.
1970s can seen. And it is the USA which then sought through the tionalities to follow Paul, German Jew, into exile. When Paul leaves her for another woman her is shattered. dies, broken alchoholic, South America.
just getting through the dominance over the USSR, its capitalist allies, and the third world'.
Halliday integrates into his analysis the explanation Lne millaryfunction of nuclear superioritv of the United States suggested by Mike Davis (3).
as is col way in which the United States USCS nuclear superiority nuclear field of conven tional military political operations, par ticularly in the third world, and to pressurise economically and ponuically Ine non-capitalist world.
In this scheme, quest for nuclear superiority, far from being as some in the peace movement would have it, an irrational or lunatic' preoccupation is in fact perfectly explicable rational calculation by US imperialism. evitably contrasts Halliday's search for LUll prehensible policies of imperialism to EP Thompson's half-despairing cry of outrage against an infernal and untathomable war-machine Malou directed by Jeanine Meerapfel, distributed by Cinegate.
The Nazis, who pull down the Jewish homes contrasted with the present day bureaucrats who oppose the building of a cultural centre for the astardenter leviathans' The Making of the Second Cold War is anything but despairing. While investing great hopes in the European peace move ment, it correctly points to some problems - namely the concentration on the issue of the weapons per se, at the expense of attacking the framework in which these weapons are wielded.
This manifests itself for example in a lack. of canva me brush Deact movement on the question of NAlU and a lack of COLICCIlE for the governmental forms which would assure steps towards Naturally a book with such a wide-ranging review of world politics calls forth some disagreements. The HOSI important Halliday's review of the different 'monocausal theories of cold war - for example 'US imperialism theories' theories' 'NorthSouth' theories - indeed, he identifies eight theories or unls kind.
He says thạt each of these theories may contain some truth, but theory of the new cold war must identify and integrate I was struck by the contrasts Malou a It is more accessi • images ble than much contemJUl aly German cinema, although I doubt it will get the wide distribution it cerSkinningrove, with 60% coasta town unemployment.
programme revolves around poems written local people describing life in what is industrial wasteland. A group of organised the whole Britain in the Thirties Thursday 23 June, BBC2 country, A pise into country' programme in the interesting series on life in the Thirties looks at the growth of country houses Labour was cheap at the time and while the rest of all the relevant factors, Halliday identifies five, listed above. So far so 'partial' Incorle. polemicised against conflict theories' which says understate the importance of the impact of states and the extent to which nuclear weapons has altered unt post-war politics. tainly deserves.
Go to see it, and tell your friends about it. found the film ended on a slightly unsatisfactory note, but the getting there was worthwhile.
languishing under the the ruling ucession. class were enjoying their weekend bartle the country. Seems like life in the eighties' isn't very different.
Wimbledon Monday 20 June for two weeks, BBC 1 + 2 THE tennis set are back for the annual perfofe mance, complete with ike that upstart tood that McEnroé.
Any self-respecting socialist will be supporting McEnroe against super-whimj Jimmy Connors, if only on the gre Wimbledon estays Wimbledon establishment.
This seems a curious polemic for a Marxist to make, and in contradiction to much of the rest of the If we look at each _ || Halliday's five 'factors' each are crucially determined and limited by class conflict.
For Marxists, it isn't only imperialism the 'history of class struggles' Halliday's typically understated tone, , and his self-denial of the • tern 'imperialism', in essence the book is saying that the cold war response of United States imperialism challenges ainst it in the third world mounted and by the post-capitalist states.
It is Halliday's open of this (page 204) which draws togethe allalysis of 'factors and gives them coherenc The laws of motion whic connect up the five factors are those of the joint crisis imperialism bombs and states notwithstanding But this is a minor quibble. you want understand the configuration of world politics to day, the Making of the Second World War is essen. tial reading 1. Exterminism Cold war in me annoy on same name. (Verso 1982) 2. In particular it attempts to match UNA each wean Exterminison.
Exterminism and Cold War (ibid).
The Making of the Second World War Fred Halliday Verso £4.95.
The fifth of Channel 4's twelve-part documentary Vietnam from communism, whether they wanted it or not. 'If they were not prepared to fight for their Johnson echoed his words with: 'The enemy was not yet beaten OHI knev • he had met his master?.
- Westmoreland spoke more truly than he knew But the end was not to be that which he thought. Vietnamese forces were now fighting Saigon. There were snipers in the US embassy itself Key targets throughout were hit cluding Saigon radio sta LON TV newsreels of the offensive, , and especially the picture of a South Vietnamese colonel shooting a prisoner In Ine head point-blank range with Americans standing by, galvanised the opposition to the war in the States Among arrivals of troops , from the anti-war sentiments were rite Officers were attacked Black GI's WCIC asking themselves 'Why are we fighting here in Vietnam when we are not free at home and have a war to win over there?' In their pockets they • carried the writings of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King South Vietnamese conscripts were deserting to the NLF at the rate of 2000 a day.
The eighth instalmen:
showed the war spreading allu Cambodia Rodgedender Pol Pet Roug under PoI entering Phnom Penh They received a rapturous reception and then pro ceeded systematically depopulate the capital and institute a regime of terror and genocide. It is one of the most bizarre and inex plicable episodes the tragic history of Indo
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Scheme the
on Vietnam opened with an American officer bragg- ing that the United States was determined to save