Chapter 83 Chapter 15 The Third World and Revolution 1

1 The phenomena of change and disintegration that took place in the Third World were fundamentally different from those in the First World.The former formed a worldwide region of revolution—whether its revolution had been completed, was under way, or was expected to come—while the political and social conditions of the latter were generally quite stable at the onset of the global Cold War.As for the Second World, the internal steam may be boiling, but the external world is strictly sealed off by the authority of the party and the possible intervention of the Soviet military.Only the Third World, few countries since 1950 (or since their founding) have not experienced a revolution, a military coup (the purpose of which may be to suppress a revolution, prevent it, or even cause it), or some other form of Internal military conflict.As of this writing, the only places that have escaped this fate are India, and a few former colonies under the rule of long-lived patriarchal authorities, such as Dr. Banda in Malawi— Formerly the colony of Nyasaland—and (until 1994) the seemingly immortal M. Felix Houphouet-Boigny of Ivory Coast.This kind of continuous political turmoil has become a common phenomenon in the third world.

This phenomenon is naturally seen by the United States.As the biggest protector of "maintaining the international status quo," the United States blames the Soviet Union for the seeds of turmoil in the third world; at least, it also regards this state of turmoil as a major asset of the other party in the struggle for global hegemony.Almost since the beginning of the Cold War, the United States has made every effort to fight against this threat, starting from economic aid, to propaganda, to formal and informal military subversion, and to waging a major war.The way it adopts is to cooperate with the local friendly regime or buy the local regime as the best policy, but if necessary, even if there is no local support, it will not hesitate to do so.As a result, when the first and second world wars ceased and the world entered the longest period of peace since the 19th century, the third world became a war zone.Before the disintegration of the Soviet system, it is estimated that there were more than 100 "major wars, military operations, and military conflicts" between 1945 and 1983, with a death toll as high as 19 million—perhaps as many as 20 million—almost all of which occurred In the third world region: 9 million of them died in East Asia, 3.5 million in Africa, 2.5 million in South Asia, and more than 500,000 in the Middle East.This does not include the brutal Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), which was just started; only Latin America had fewer casualties (UN World Social Situationm, 1985, p. 14). In the Korean War from 1950 to 1953, according to statistics, the number of victims was three to four million (the total population of the country was only 30 million) (Halliday/Cumings, 1988, pp. 200-?), and several wars that lasted 30 years The Vietnam War (1945-1975) was the deadliest of all.The Korean and Vietnamese wars were the only wars in which the U.S. military directly participated on a large scale, and 50,000 U.S. troops were killed in each of them.As for the loss of lives of Vietnamese people and other residents of the Indochina Peninsula, it is even more difficult to estimate, and the most conservative statistics should be more than 2 million.However, in addition to this, other wars indirectly related to anti-communism were comparable in brutality, especially in Africa.It is estimated that between 1980 and 1988, a total of 1.5 million people died in the anti-government wars in Mozambique and Angola (the two countries have a combined population of 23 million), and another 12 million people were displaced or threatened by starvation (UN, Africa, 1989 , p. 6).

The revolutionary potential of the third world also has the attributes of the Communist Party, not for other reasons. It can be seen from the fact that these colonial liberation leaders all consider themselves socialists. The liberation methods and modernization movements they are engaged in also use the Soviet Union as a teacher. , take the same route.These people, if educated in the Western style, might even consider themselves followers of Lenin and Marx.However, strong communist factions are relatively rare in the Third World, and, with the exception of Mongolia, China, and Vietnam, the communist party has not played a major role in the liberation movement in their own countries-however, after all, there are several new regimes that see Lenin The usefulness of traditional political parties, and borrow or transplant misappropriation, such as Sun Yat-sen in China after 1920.Some other communist factions that gained considerable power and influence either stood aside (such as Iran and Iraq in the 1950s), or were brutally poisoned. In Indonesia in 1965, some 500,000 communists or suspected communists were executed following a military coup said to have pro-communist leanings — possibly the largest political massacre ever.

For decades, the Soviet Union has basically adopted a fairly practical approach to its relations with Third World revolutionaries, radicals, or liberation movements, because the Soviet side does not intend, nor does it expect, to expand its existing The world's Communist Party territory, and the scope of China's involvement in the East (but its influence on China cannot be fully controlled).This policy has not changed even in the Khrushchev era (1956-1964).At that time there were many "domestic" revolutions everywhere, which came to power by their own efforts, in which the Communist Party did not play any important role. The most famous examples are Cuba (1959) and Algeria (1962).The African colonies became independent one after another, and the leaders of the local countries were pushed onto the stage of power one by one. Their ambitions were at most the titles of "anti-imperialist", "socialist", and "Friends of the Soviet Union".Especially when the Soviet Union extended a helping hand and provided technology and other assistance without the corruption of the old colonialism, it was more willing to be friendly with the Soviet Union.There are many people who lean towards this path, such as Nkrumah in Ghana, Toure in Guinea, Modibo Keita in Mali, and Patrice Lumumba in the Belgian Congo.Lumumba was unfortunately assassinated and died, so he became a martyr god in the third world. To commemorate him, the Soviet Union specially renamed the "People's Friendship University" (People's Friendship University) established in 1960 for students from the third world to "Lumumba University". ".Moscow sympathized with these emerging African regimes and offered assistance, but it didn't take long before it gave up its overly optimistic expectations of them.The sprawling former colony of the Congo, for example, was hastily granted independence and immediately headed for civil war.The Soviet Union provided arms aid to the Lumumba faction in the civil war against the proxy or puppet regimes of the United States and Belgium (the Congolese civil war also involved United Nations troops, disliked by both superpowers), with disappointing results.And when one of the new regimes everywhere, Castro's Cuba, unexpectedly officially declared itself a communist regime, the Soviet Union took it under its wing, but at the same time did not intend to permanently destroy its relationship with it. American relations.Until the mid-1970s, there was no obvious evidence that the Soviet Union intended to use the revolution to expand the Communist camp forward.Even after the mid-1970s, the actions of the Soviet Union indicated that it just planted willows unintentionally and just happened to benefit from it.Older readers may remember that Khrushchev was single-minded and only counted on the economic superiority of socialism to bury capitalism.

In fact, when the leadership of the Soviet Union in the international communist movement was challenged by China in the name of revolution in 1960 (challengers also included Marxist factions of various names), the political parties in the third world that followed Moscow’s orders also maintained their Deliberately correct the course.In countries of this type, capitalism - so far as it exists - is not their enemy, but the interests of pre-capitalism, and the imperialism that backs these evil forces ( U.S. emperor).Armed struggle is not a leap forward, but a broad popular or national front joined by the "national" bourgeoisie or the petty bourgeoisie.Put simply, Moscow's Third World strategy, along the lines of the Comintern in the 1930s, rejected all accusations that it had departed from the tenets of the October Revolution (see Chapter 5).This policy, of course, angered those who advocated a war with a gun, but it has sometimes worked quite well, as in Brazil and Indonesia in the early 1960s, and in Chile in 1970.But perhaps not surprisingly, once this strategy worked, it was immediately interrupted by the ensuing military coup, followed by a reign of terror. Brazil after 1964, Indonesia after 1965, and Chile after 1973 are proof.

Nevertheless, the Third World became the cornerstone of faith and hope for those who still believed in social revolution.It has the vast majority of the world's population. It is like a volcano all over the world, waiting to erupt at any time. It is an earthquake zone that trembles slightly, indicating that a major earthquake is coming.Even the scholar (Bell, 1960) who argues that ideology has come to an end in the golden age of the free and stable capitalist West admits that the millennium and the hope of revolution have not disappeared there.The importance of the Third World is not limited to the old October revolutionaries, or the so-called romantics who are discouraged by the prosperous but worldly mediocrity of the 1950s. The social democrats all need something to give them their ideals—just the legislation of the social security system and rising real income, where is it enough—the third world can preserve their ideals; and those who follow the great tradition of the Enlightenment Parties, as well as ideals, need practical politics in which to act.Without these, they cannot survive.Otherwise, how do we explain the non-revolutionary progressive models: the Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands, and the late 20th century (Protestant) World Concilof Churches, which amounted to the mission of the 19th century missions? ), all kinds of enthusiastic support for the third world?It was this enthusiasm that guided liberals across Europe in the late 20th century, supported and sustained revolutionaries and revolutionary activities in the Third World.