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

The leaders of the CPSU hold that with the appearance ofnuclear weapons there is no longer any difference betweenjust and unjust wars. They say that “the atomic bomb doesnot draw class distinctions” and that “the atomic bomb doesnot distinguish between imperialists and working people, itstrikes at areas, so that millions of workers would be killedfor every monopolist destroyed”. 1They hold that with the appearance of nuclear weaponsthe oppressed peoples and nations must abandon revolutionand refrain from waging just popular revolutionary wars andwars of national liberation, or else such wars would lead tothe destruction of mankind. They say, “. . . any small ‘localwar’ might spark off the conflagration of a world war” and“Today, any sort of war, though it may break out as an ordinarynon-nuclear war, is likely to develop into a destructivenuclear-missile conflagration.” 2 Thus, “We will destroy ourNoah’s Ark — the globe”.The leaders of the CPSU hold that the socialist countriesmust not resist but must yield to imperialist nuclear blackmailand war threats. Khrushchov said:There can be no doubt that a world nuclear war, if startedby the imperialist maniacs, would inevitably result in thedownfall of the capitalist system, a system breeding wars.But would the socialist countries and the cause of socialismall over the world benefit from a world nuclear disaster?Only people who deliberately shut their eyes to the factscan think so. As regards Marxist-Leninists, they cannotpropose to establish a Communist civilisation on the ruinsof centres of world culture, on land laid waste and contaminatedby nuclear fall-out. We need hardly add that in thecase of many peoples, the question of socialism would be1Open Letter of the Central Committee of the Communist Partyof the Soviet Union to All Party Organizations, to All Communists ofthe Soviet Union, July 14, 1963.2N. S. Khrushchov, Radio and Television Speech, June 15, 1961.243