34

[introduction.]

The interrelation between politics and war is not immutable. As all the connections and relations in nature and society this interrelation, too, changes, develops, grows more complicated and acquires new forms. An analysis and account of these changes is of enormous theoretical and practical importance because of the threat of a world thermonuclear war, and also in connection with the numerous limited, local wars the imperialist aggressors are unleashing in different parts of the world.

The Constant and the
Changeable in the
Interrelation
Between Politics
and War

p As we said above, as regards their essence, all past and present wars were a continuation of the policies of definite classeg or states by means of armed force. Two interrelated aspects should be discerned in that proposition.

p First, the interrelation between politics, the political content, and armed force is a stable one. This law all wars have in common, it comprises their basis, their backbone. To use 35 Lenin’s words, it “holds firm" and is “deep-seated”. Therefore, no matter what war we take, even a possible thermonuclear one, as regards essence, they all were and will be a continuation of politics by means of armed force.

p Secondly, the interrelation between politics and war is changeable, because both elements involved in this relation are subject to change. That is why the essence of war is not immutable. Lenin emphasised that “the recognition of immutable elements, ’of the immutable essence of things’, and so forth, is not materialism, but metaphysical, i.e., antidialectical, materialism".  [35•1  According to him not only phenomena are transient, mobile, in state of flux, and only conditionally divided, but also the essential nature of things.

p Hence, the immutability of the Marxist-Leninist proposition on war as a continuation of politics by violent means does not mean that the essence of war, as expressed in the proposition, remains immutable. For various reasons certain changes take place within the essence of war itself, within the correlation between its political content and armed force.

p That the interrelation between politics and war is both constant and changeable is due to the fact that in the course of socio-economic development, the advanced, progressive classes replace the reactionary ones, the class structure of society and the relations between classes, nations and states change. As a result, politics undergoes substantial changes, acquires a qualitatively different class content in different social formations. In their turn the radical changes in policies tell on the essence, content and character of the war. Such changes make it possible to distinguish between the wars in one epoch and those in another, provide a basis for a scientific classification of wars, for a definition of the attitude towards them by the people, for working out the strategy and tactics of the Marxist-Leninist Parties.

p In his remarks on Clausewitz’s book On War Lenin wrote out, underlined and marked “correct!" a proposition important to an understanding of the influence politics exerts on changes in the essence of war: “... war itself in its essence, in its forms has also undergone considerable changes . . . these changes emerged not because the French Government 36 emancipated war, so to say, released it from the leash of politics—these changes emerged from the new politics that emerged from the womb of the French revolution not only for France, but also for the whole of Europe."  [36•1 

p Particularly deep changes in the interrelation between politics and war were introduced by the October Socialist Revolution, which overthrew the exploiter system in Russia, put an end to the policy of social and national oppression which the exploiting classes were implementing, replaced it by a fundamentally different policy, by the qualitatively new political relations that emerged with the triumph of socialism. The revolutionary changes in politics had a major impact on the essence, content and character of the wars the Soviet state had to wage in self-defence. These wars were a continuation of the political struggle which the working people were waging for liberation from the capitalists in their own country and throughout the world.

p Simultaneously with the changes in politics, and under the impact of the latter—as a result of the development of the productive forces and the advance of scientific and technological progress—the means, methods and forms of the armed struggle improved and wars assumed a wider scale, they came to embrace greater territories, armies began to use more complex military equipment and weapons, more people were drawn into war, wars became more destructive, more far-reaching social consequences ensued, and the feedback effect of war on politics and on all aspects of the life in the warring countries and their peoples was considerably intensified. This too is a manifestation of the changes in the essence of war, in its content and character.

p The fundamental social changes in the world today—the transformation of the world socialist system into the decisive factor in human development, the loss of this role by imperialism, the greater aggressiveness of the latter; the giant scale assumed by political relations, which now embrace the struggle not only of classes, nations, and states, but also of military-political blocs, of opposing world systems; the drawing into politics of millions of people in every corner of the globe; the rapid development of the productive forces, of the scientific and technological revolution, which has 37 provided politics with a powerful material and technical basis, and the enormous revolution in military affairs in the most advanced industrial states—all this has complicated the interrelation between politics and war, and introduced new elements into it.

The deep changes in politics and in the means used to conduct war will of necessity have a telling effect on the essence of the possible thermonuclear war the imperialists are preparing against the USSR and other socialist countries.

Distortion of the
Essence of
Thermonuclear War
by Bourgeois
Philosophy and
Sociology

p Bourgeois sociological and philosophical thought is unable to resolve so complex a proijlem as the essence of the nuclear war. It distorts the essence of nuclear missile war in many ways and consequently distorts also its content and character. These distortions take many forms. One of them is the distortion of the essence of politics, the isolation of politics from economics, from the activity of the masses, of classes, the removal from it of its objective content, the reduction of politics only to the subjective schemes of individuals.

p The reactionary US senator Barry Goldwater, for example, wrote: “The principles on which the Conservative political position is based have been established by a process that has nothing to do with the social, economic and political landscape that changes from decade to decade and from century to century. These principles are derived from the nature of man, and from the truths that God has revealed about His creation."  [37•1  R. Aron, a French sociologist, in his book Peace and War. A Theory of International Relations defined politics as “the total consideration of all circumstances by statesmen".  [37•2  An idealistic interpretation of politics, intermingled with elements of religious mysticism and vulgar materialism is characteristic also of other bourgeois ideologists.

p At the same time the bourgeois ideologists artificially set up domestic policy in opposition to foreign policy and maintain that foreign policy decides domestic policy and thus 38 attempt to prove that war is the product and continuation only of the former.

p The imperialists and their ideologists attempt to pass off the class essence of their politics and their anti-popular aims as a “supraclass” and “supranational” policy, which they claim to conduct in “defence of a united Europe and of the entire Atlantic community”. They say that in the nuclear age politics on a class and a national scale has exhausted itself, has begun to hamper the development of the Western world. In this connection they propose to throw overboard class and national institutions and state sovereignty, and to replace them by a “supranational structure”, to carry through a “total integration”, that is, a political, economic and military union of the imperialist states for a “crusade” against the forces of peace, democracy, socialism and communism.

p The bourgeois ideologists falsify the essence of politics and assign it an absolute role. According to some bourgeois ideologists mankind has entered a new political age, in which, as the NATO journal General Military Review wrote, politics has become superpowerful.  [38•1  Therefore, the journal says, in addition to the “nuclear missile wall”, a “political wall" has to be raised against the socialist countries, and a constant violent “political war" has to be waged against them in order to change the relation of forces in the world in favour of the Western countries, to disunite the socialist countries, to weaken and destroy them. These designs are built on shifting sands and are inevitably doomed to failure.

p This assigning of absolute, unlimited possibilities to politics leads to a false understanding of the interrelation between politics and war, to a disregard of the qualitative difference between them, makes for an identification of politics and war. Small wonder, therefore, that the formula “politics is a continuation of war by other means" is being disseminated in the capitalist countries, a formula that puts the cart before the horse in the relations between politics and war.

p The essence of nuclear missile war is also distorted by assigning absolute importance to armed violence. This method is not novel. The reduction of war to armed 39 struggle alone, the thesis that during military actions war is completely independent of politics was used in the past by extreme aggressive forces in attempts to substantiate the theory of the “supremacy” of the military leadership over the political leadership, to prove the need for the concentration of the entire state power in the hands of a military leader, that is, to prove the necessity for the setting up of a military dictatorship even before the outbreak of war.

p This fetishism of armed violence and its isolation from politics has assumed a new “nuclear” form in contemporary conditions. Some bourgeois ideologists maintain that nuclear missile weapons, like the sorcerer’s apprentice’s broomstick, have freed themselves of the control of politics, have made war a technological combat on a global scale, a physical force of destruction free of any class-political content.

p The West German sociologist G. Siebers wrote that the “demon of technology" had upset all traditional concepts of a politically planned war, had disrupted its interrelation with politics and technology. “The interaction between politics and strategy, on the one hand, and between politics and technology, on the other, have been eliminated by atomic power,” he says.  [39•1  This leads to the conclusion that the connection between nuclear missile war and politics has been disrupted.

p Thus, in the matter of the interrelation between politics and nuclear war bourgeois sociologists and military theoreticians, on the one hand, exaggerate the importance of politics, identify it with war and, on the other, make a fetish of armed force and its means, reducing war to armed struggle alone. Both these extremes prevent a correct understanding of politics and war, and of the essence of the latter.

p The above is confirmed in the article “On Understanding War" published in the journal United States Naval Institute Proceedings. It says that in considering the interrelation between politics and war, one group of modern authors, consisting mainly of “hawks”, extols armed violence, that all the research conducted by them deals solely with military strategy in the narrowest sense. The other group is made up of the pacifists, the “doves”, who overestimate the role of 40 politics and belittle that of the element of violence in war, in fact, fully reject it. “In their failure to understand war,” the journal stresses, “the Hawks and the Doves are equally at fault. They favor (or oppose) war—either war in general or some particular war—on doctrinaire grounds without really understanding what it is, why it occurred, or what role it is playing."  [40•1  The journal notes that neither group really understands war. This failure to understand war and the erroneous definitions of the essence of war are a product of the idealistic world outlook, a result of methodological helplessness, of the contradictory class positions held by imperialist theoreticians.

p Bourgeois ideologists intensify their attacks against the Marxist-Leninist definition of war as a continuation of politics by violent means. These attacks take mainly one of two forms. One part of the bourgeois ideologists eulogises Clausewitz as “a great classicist" whose theories are applicable to all times, extols his merits in every way, calls his book On War an unsurpassed military-theoretical “bible” and thereby distorts historical truth.

p The West German philosopher W. R. Schramm, for example, said: “We too must develop Clausewitz’s theory into an instrument of world political and philosophical controversy. This is essential if we are to cross our spiritual swords with the East and vanquish it ideologically."  [40•2  Bourgeois ideologists aver that there is nothing new in the Marxist-Leninist teaching on war and that it has been fully and wholly drawn from Clausewitz, a representative of bourgeois military-theoretical thought.

p In extolling Clausewitz and ignoring historical experience, the ideologists of the reactionary bourgeoisie, especially those closely connected with the top brass of the aggressive NATO bloc, make it appear that no changes have taken place in the interrelation between politics and war. They justify the policy of nuclear blackmail, insist on keeping thermonuclear war in their political arsenal, advocate the thermonuclear and conventional arms race, and close their eyes to the danger of a new world war.

41

p H. Kahn, an ideologist of US imperialism, who has been named the “Clausewitz of the nuclear age”, develops in his books the idea of the “admissibility” of thermonuclear war as a political instrument. He says that “war is a terrible thing, but so is peace"  [41•1 , believes that after a third world war with its use of weapons of mass destruction, with its colossal destruction and enormous toll of victims there will be “... normal and happy lives for the majority of survivors and their descendants."  [41•2 

p H. Kahn demands that thorough preparations be made for the world nuclear war, that atomic shelters be built, that industry be hidden underground in order to ensure the “ nuclear survival" of the USA. H. Kahn’s morbid misanthropic books, he himself admits, have become manuals for Pentagon’s military planning.

p The ideologists of US imperialism are particularly fond of applying Clausewitz’s erroneous propositions for their selfish ends, notably his view on the unlimited use of armed violence in an “absolute war”. General Dale 0. Smith, for example, frankly said: “The roots of the policy of a massive retaliation go back a long way.... The Clausewitz conception of war emphasised massive attack, instantly, at the critical point of enemy strength."  [41•3 

p The US Professor H. Speier, an expert on international affairs, deliberately adapts his aggressive doctrine to some of Clausewitz’s propositions. He writes that total war, which had in the past formed the foundation of the nazi doctrine and is now being made much of by the American doctrine, is essentially unlimited war or, to use Clausewitz’s expression, “absolute war".  [41•4 

p Other bourgeois ideologists, realising that a thermonuclear war will be fatal to capitalism, have fallen into the other extreme, and declare that the former view on the interrelation between politics and war is outdated and has lost all significance. These ideologists endeavour to prove that 42 nuclear missile weapons have consigned the formula that war is a continuation of politics by violent means to history.

p US Senator James William Fulbright said in one of his speeches that “ there is no longer any validity in the Clausewitz doctrine of war as a carrying out of policy with other means. Nuclear weapons have rendered it totally obsolete. .. ."  [42•1  Such views are propounded also in The Nuclear Strategy by Claude Delmas, a French sociologist and historian, who says that in the nuclear age Clausewitz’s definition of war is outdated.  [42•2  Such statements abound also in the works by many other Western sociologists and writers on military matters, including in those by Edger J. KingstonMcCloughry, Ferdinand O. Miksche, Stephen King-Hall, Fritz Sternberg and others.

p The main argument against the definition of war as a continuation of politics by violent means builds on the fact that nuclear war actually abolishes the distinction between front and rear and threatens both belligerents with catastrophic consequences. Undeniably, these arguments of Western sociologists and writers on military matters, holding different philosophical views and standing on different political positions, contain “an iota of truth”. This shows that they are aware of the enormous danger constituted by nuclear war as an instrument of aggressive imperialist policies. Yet, despite all that their arguments are one-sided and untenable.

p This is because, firstly, in criticising Clausewitz’s theory and the formula that war is a continuation of politics by violent means, the bourgeois writers offer no solution for the problem of the interrelations between politics and war themselves, do not help to clear up the problem, but only confuse it.

p Secondly, bourgeois sociologists and writers on military subjects use the pretext that the formula of war being a continuation of politics by violent means is outdated as a basis for their attempts to discredit the most important component of the Marxist-Leninist teaching on war and politics, and aver that it is inapplicable in the nuclear age. This is 43 the latest variant in the many attempts to refute the MarxistLeninist view on politics and war, on the interrelation between the two, a variant which they, for reasons of camouflage, sometimes try to pass off as love of peace.

p Thirdly, Western sociologists and authors on military subjects confuse two closely interconnected yet different questions, namely, the theoretical question of the essence ( content and character) of nuclear war and the practical question of whether it can serve as an effective instrument of policymaking.

p Fourthly, their arguments are erroneous and one-sided because they attempt to gloss over the role aggressive imperialist policies play in the creation and development of new weapons. Nuclear missile weapons are not simply the result of scientific and technological progress in the USA. They are the embodiment in “hardware” of the aggressive anti-socialist policies of US imperialism.

p Fifthly, the main fault of these arguments is that they mask the predatory nature of US imperialism, belittle the danger of its aggressive policies, and its ability to unleash a new world war. The proponents of these arguments forget the fate of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A monster created by imperialist policies, nuclear missile weapons have in their turn begun to exert an enormous influence on the policies of the US ruling circles, have made them even more reactionary and adventuristic.

The attacks bourgeois ideologists mount with increasing frequency against the proposition that war is a continuation of politics by violent means do not pursue the aim of gaining a deeper understanding of the truth, but intend to distort this complicated question. By their arguments the bourgeois theoreticians, consciously or unconsciously, attempt to divorce the nuclear missile war under preparation from the aggressive policies of imperialism. They deceive the people as to the essence, political content and class character of a probable war (and its causes), want to disarm them morally and politically, to keep them from using correct tactics, from adopting a correct orientation and line of action, suggest the idea that in case of a world war the population and the armed forces of the NATO countries will fight not for the political interests and aspirations of monopoly capital, but to save their lives, and to escape physical destruction.

44

On the Essence of
the Possible Nuclear
Missile War

p Marxist-Leninist methodology makes it possible to solve the question of the interrelation between politics and armed force in the possible nuclear war in a consistently scientific way. As regards its essence such a war would also be a continuation of the politics of classes and states by violent means. Politics will determine when the armed struggle is to be started and what means are to be employed. Nuclear war cannot emerge from nowhere, out of a vacuum, by itself, without the deliberately malicious politics of imperialism’s most aggressive circles. As the First and Second World Wars, which were products of the aggressive, predatory policies of the imperialist states, as also the numerous limited, local wars, unleashed by the imperialists after 1945, a nuclear missile war, if it is allowed to come to a head, will also be a product of the aggressive policies of US imperialism and its partners in various blocs.

p The social, class content of nuclear missile war and its aims will be determined by politics. The new world war will be, on one side, the continuation, weapon and instrument of criminal imperialist policies being implemented with nuclear missiles. On the other side, it will be the lawful and just counteraction to aggression, the natural right and sacred duty of progressive mankind to destroy imperialism, its bitterest enemy, the source of destructive wars.

p Hence, the nuclear missile war will also be a continuation of politics, although some ideologists of imperialism deny this; in fact, it will be even more “political”. In his remarks to Clausewitz’s book On War Lenin stressed the idea that “war seems the more ‘warlike’, the more political it is.. ,".  [44•1  This emphasises the growth in scope and depth of the influence politics exercises on war, expresses a certain regularity—the “politisation” of war in step with its industrialisation and mechanisation. Armed struggle with the use of nuclear missiles and other weapons will ultimately be subordinated to the interests of a definite policy, will become a means of attaining definite political aims.

p However, the fact that nuclear war, should the imperialists unleash it, will be a product and continuation of their mad policy by means of armed force, does not mean that there will be no changes in the essence of war. On the 45 contrary, the changes will be more important and significant than those of the past.

p The deep qualitative changes in modern politics, on the one hand, and the revolution in the means and methods of the armed struggle, on the other, of necessity affect the essence of the possible nuclear missile war and make it different from the essence of past and present wars waged with conventional weapons.

p The differences in the essence of the possible world nuclear missile war will be determined, first, by its concrete political content and by the depth, volume and scale of the political aims. It will resolve not specific limited political interests, but a crucial historical problem, one affecting the fate of all mankind. Never before has such a colossal problem formed the political content of war. This is one of the radical differences between the essence of nuclear missile war and that of all past and present wars.

p The difference in the essence of nuclear war will depend, secondly, on the qualitatively new ways of achieving political aims. Whereas in conventional wars political aims are realised mainly by destroying the enemy’s armed forces and by imposing on him the victor’s will, in nuclear war it will be attained by crushing the enemy’s armed forces and nuclear power, as well as his economic, scientific and moralpolitical potential.

p The essence of the new world war will probably differ, thirdly, in specific military and technical respects, that is, qualitatively new methods, means and forms of armed struggle will be used as compared with those applied in the past. The war will draw many countries and peoples into its orbit, will become a coalitional world war.

p The difference in the essence of nuclear missile war will be due, fourthly, to its possible consequences. The documents of the International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties say: “Today, when nuclear bombs can reach any continent within minutes and lay waste vast territories, a world conflict would spell the death of hundreds of millions of people, and the destruction and incineration of the treasures of world civilisation and culture."  [45•1  Such a war, if it is not averted, will be disastrous for the imperialists.

46

p In the new war, if it should be allowed to happen, victory will be with the countries of the world socialist system which are defending progressive, ascending tendencies in social development, have at their command all the latest kinds of weapons, and enjoy the support of the working people of all countries. The balance of forces between the two systems, the logic of history, its objective laws, prescribing that the new in social development is invincible—all this predicts such an outcome. The might of the Soviet state, of the entire socialist community, which possesses the economic, moral-political and military-technical preconditions for utterly routing any aggressor, substantiates this view. Other factors and forces which will inevitably spring into action as soon as war breaks out must also not be thrown off the scales; they will include decisive anti-imperialist actions by the people, political, diplomatic, international legal, ideological and other actions against those responsible for unleashing a nuclear adventure.

p In their analysis of the possible changes in historical development and the consequent difference between the essence of nuclear missile war and that of conventional wars, of the interrelations between such a war and politics, Marxists-Leninists do not confuse this issue with other issues that are closely connected but not identical with it, such as whether or not thermonuclear war is admissible as a political means, whether or not it is rational to use weapons of mass destruction, and whether or not it is possible to preserve peace. Marxists-Leninists decisively condemn nuclear war, consider it the heaviest crime that could be committed against humanity, and stand for the complete ban and destruction of all weapons of mass annihilation, for the prevention of a nuclear catastrophe and for the preservation of world peace.

p The above shows that the accusation that Soviet Marxists have abandoned Lenin’s proposition on war as a continuation of politics by violent means, brought by the “Left” revolutionaries, is slander of the vilest kind. They repeat this proposition dogmatically and ignore the specifics of nuclear weapons and the dangerous consequences their use will entail. The sectarians attempt to use the proposition on the interrelation between politics and war as proof of the inevitability, and even of the desirability, of nuclear war as a 47 means of politics, as a means of accelerating the world revolutionary process. Such views play into the hand of the imperialist aggressors.

p The possibility of changes in the essence of war, in its interrelation with politics has also influenced the position of some imperialist theoreticians and statesmen. Their position with respect to nuclear missile war is a dual and contradictory one. On the one hand, they regard nuclear missile war as a means of struggle against socialism and communism, but, on the other, fear the ruinous consequences a thermonuclear war would have for capitalism. Morton H. Halperin, an American writer on military problems, for example, says that the “. . . central paradox of the Nuclear Age" is that, “total ideological conflict plus total means of destruction have produced a situation in which a total solution is impossible".  [47•1  But, the most aggressive imperialist statesmen and ideologists, who are closely connected with the aggressive imperialist blocs, close their eyes to the thermonuclear peril’ and insist on an unlimited arms race, on the unleashing of military conflicts, of small and big wars, which are fraught with the danger of a nuclear missile war.

Thus, a Marxist-Leninist analysis of the interrelation between politics and nuclear war provides a deep understanding of the essence of the possible new world war, helps to reveal what it has in common with the wars of the past and present, and to determine the specific features distinguishing it from all other wars.