Polemic on General Line of International ... - From Marx to Mao

is the representative of U.S. monopoly capital, can expressitself only in a more cunning use of these two tactics.Violence is always the main tactic of reactionary rulingclasses. Priest-like deception plays only a supplementaryrole. Imperialists always rely on positions of strength tocarve out their spheres of influence. Kennedy has made thispoint very clear. He said, “In the end, the only way tomaintain the peace is to be prepared in the final extreme tofight for our country — and to mean it.” 1 Since Kennedytook office, he has followed the “strategy of flexible response”,which requires the speedy building of “versatile militaryforces” and the strengthening of “all-round power” so thatthe United States will be able to fight any kind of war itpleases, whether a general war or a limited war, whether anuclear war or a conventional war, and whether a large war ora small war. This mad plan of Kennedy’s has pushed U.S.arms expansion and war preparations to an unprecedentedpeak. Let us look at the following facts published by officialU.S. sources:1. The military expenditures of the U.S. Governmenthave increased from 46,700 million dollars in the fiscal year1960 to an estimated 60,000 million dollars in the fiscal year1964, the highest total ever in peace time and greater thanduring the Korean War.2. Kennedy recently declared that in the past two yearsand more there has been a 100 per cent increase in thenumber of nuclear weapons of the U.S. strategic alert forcesand a 45 per cent increase in the number of combat-readyarmy divisions, the procurement of airlift aircraft has beenincreased by 175 per cent and there has been an increase bynearly five times in the “special guerrilla and counter-insurgencyforces”. 21J. F. Kennedy, Speech at the Eighth Annual Veteran’s Day Ceremony,November 11, 1961.2J. F. Kennedy, Speech at a Democratic Party Fund-Raising Dinner,October 30, 1963.233