16 November 1984 countries, was and is, of course, deeply offensive school of European socialist parties the 'international of the white race' as Lenin put it. Nevertheless, history confirmed Lenin's analysis, and not those opponents analyses remained fixated on Europe.
It was the military power of the Soviet Union, not the working class of Western Europe, which proved capable smashing Hitler's despite the policies of Stalin. In Asia it was the long struggle of the Chinese Communist Japan opening a 'second front' in the East against the USSR during the Se cond World War, and which, in 1949, took China out of the world capitalist. system.
Three Since 1945 three enormous events, three gigantic trials of strength between the United States and the peoples of Asia, have shaped the fundamental course of post-war history. was the revolution in China itself. The second was the defeat by the Chinese workers state of the US invasion of Korea. The third was the victory of the Vietnamese over first the French and then the United States in Indochina.
It is these events, quences flow out into the entire world, that have provider framework of every other struggle The consequences of these struggles in Asia, United States and its allies, equally pro ceeded according Lenin outlined. Whereas in the United to those educated in the ties whose whole Germany which prevented countries States revolton The first tion.' whose conse- perialism the political violent , and their effect in defeating the to the framework States itself, in Western Europe, and in Japan, the US and its allies were able to utilise the role played by the reformist social democratic and communist parcontain the working Revolutionary victories in Cuba and Central America, as well as the post-war decolonisation of Africa and Asia, developed within a framework created by the military vic.
the United States and its allies in Asia Considered historically it is clear that throughout the post-war world the working class of the advanced capitalist found itself essentially situated within the framework of world politics created by the clash of United imperialism the The major working struggles which developed from 1968 to 1975 in Western Europe were not, many on the left believed at the time the harbinger of the 'European revoluTheir outbreak and initial rise, and then immediate decline after 1975, was closely tied to the economic conse quences of the rise and fall of the United States war effort against Indochina.
The centre the crisis of world imwas the economic contradictions Ine imperialist states themselves. But its most convulsions and manifesta. tions, the places where the actual over throw of capitalism took place, were in the 'periphery' of the system. The
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equivalent success was not possible in Asia or other parts of the semi-colonial
tory of the USSR in World War Il and of the three huge wars fought against
storm which developed in the was created by the situation in Detroit,