* knees.
tion. against the United States in Indochina itself which was the indispensible element without which victory would have been impossible, nevertheless it was the overall relation of forces internationally which finally brought the US to its Vietnam became inextricably linked to every other problem which the United States faced in the world. US was never able to disentangle Vietnam from its overall international posiThe first problem was that United States was itself unable to inseries of working class struggles which developed from 1968 to 1975.
Unable take political risk of taxing the American working class to finance the war the United States in effect exported a large part or lis American balance of payments deficits were run which were financed simpl by printing and 'exporting' dollars process creating worldwide inflation of the late 1960s The and early 1970s.
As US economic policy both placed the West European working class in a strong bargaining position the exports to the US spurred increases in output, while simultaneously the West European working class found its real income threatened by mixture provided a perfect economic background to the took place after 1968 Confronted with these rapidly rising class struggles in their own. coun tries the West European bourgeoisies, in turn, were unable to take the tolerant attitude to American economic policy they had pursued during the They instead began withdrawing gold from the United States to cover their dollar holdings. In a single week in May United 1971 West withdrew 422 million dollars in gold from the United States per cent of the entire US gold stock. These moves directly precipitated Nix on's announcement, in August 1971, that the US was suspending the postWell Coupled with internal wage controls Nixon's statement announced the open beginning of the post-war US economic which crisis.
an the domestic minimum cost to Europe. Huge rapid Vietnams.
stretched - because Wing inflation, this explosion which the other 1960s.
central banks Not 'detente' struggle, • almost nive struggle monetary system. government.
tral America, out of Indochina, it faced a disaster to its position on an international scale The US was forced to accept defeat in Vietnam in order to avoid an even greater disaster on a world level.
The fact that the US was able to ex tricate itself from Indochina with the possible loss by a turn to a policy of 'detente' with the USSR con stitutes another story The lessons of this defeat in In dochina are in fact exactly summed up in the title of Che Guevara's famou letter of Create Two Three, Man!
The United States wa unable to concentrate its forces agains Vietnam. It was bogged down, ano beyond its resources not simply by the international movement against the war itself but by the whole series of class struggles which were ris against lt on a world scale the struggle against Por tuguese colonialism, the general strike of May 1968 in France and its conse. quences, the anti-war movement in the United States itself were just some of "Vietnams' WHIC helped secure victory in Indochina itself. Vietnam The lessons of this struggle against the Vietnam war for the fight agains are evident. To defeat the United States it must be overstretched but international class international solidarity pushing forward to the maximum ever! struggle that erupts internationally, is the way forward in the internationa against the United State The people of Nicaragua and Cen to take just the most pressing example of the need for support, require for their victory both a massive direct solidarity movement on a world scale and the pressing forward of every class struggle which develops throughout the world. The anti-missiles movement in Europe, class struggle in the Phillipines, the rising black movement in South Africa the struggle against austerity wherever are the 'Vietnams' which can overstrain the American colossus and help ensure victory in Centra For Che Guevara posed the properfectly The power the United States is so great that it car destroy any of its opponents individually. The US economy is two and a hall times the size of that of the USSR -and far more technologically advanced States military budget alone, let alone its potential expenditure on arms, exceeds the entire industrial output of China. The direc and indirect military personel of the United States are larger than the whol population of Nicaragua The only way in which the United States can be defeated is if it can b concentrating its resources against a single enemy, if i: can be defeated by the whole range o class struggles it faces on an interna Building both a solidarity movement with Central America and these international struggles is the task facing To coin a phrase: Workers 2! i:
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