First Published: People’s Tribune, Vol. 6, No. 4, April 1974.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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In recent weeks, the controversy surrounding the possible impeachment of President Nixon has risen to new heights. Each day, the press and air waves are filled with “exposures”, attacks and counter charges. There is much talk of how the “battle lines are being drawn”, as Nixon prepares to fight the mounting and increasingly obvious proof that may possibly be used against him. His public supporters are seemingly deserting with the agility of rats from a sinking ship. Arch-conservative Senators, previously counted on for their rote support, are now making public pleas for resignation. Even top Republican leaders now speak of the “impending impeachment” proceedings, and ten of the eleven Republican Senators facing re-election have delicately refused Nixon’s offer to help them campaign.
As the proceedings rumble to the preliminary stage of the impeachment process, Federal Judge John Sirica has once more attempted to “bite the hand that feeds him” by issuing a new series of subpoenas to Nixon for evidence. As in the past, the most vital information has again mysteriously “disappeared” from guarded White House safes. Undaunted, Sen. Wilber Mills, head of the Powerful Ways and Means Committee, and member of a committee investigating Nixon’s tax returns, has confidently stated that even without Watergate, the President will be forced to resign because of the tax scandal that involves Nixon’s cheating on nearly $500,000 of taxes.
Nixon has countered these threats by a “public” speaking campaign to carefully chosen audiences. Nevertheless, the Gallup and Harris polls list Nixon’s real popularity at 25-26%, with over 60% of the population not only demanding impeachment proceedings, but trial by the Senate.
In order that we too do not get caught in the mire of Watergate as an isolated issue, and to avoid being snared into the worm’s eye view so carefully prepared by the bourgeoisie, we must place these events into the general motion of the class struggle. It is, after all, already certain that if and when the time comes for Nixon to step down, his hand picked replacement, Gerald Ford, is already waiting in the wings.
As we have pointed out in past issues, the Watergate situation did not arise and grow because of a system of checks and balances or from the eternal righteousness of bourgeois democracy, as the bourgeois politicians would have us believe. But instead it resulted from the overproduction crisis that marks the general crisis of imperialism. It is precisely the overproduction crisis that has fueled a struggle within the bourgeoisie. This struggle has become manifested in a battle over the tactics of imperialist expansion. In other words, we are not witnessing a fundamental, irresolvable split that characterizes the fall of a ruling class, but rather the inevitable process of the further monopolization of the means of production into fewer and more powerful hands.
One manifestation of this struggle has been a temporary detente with the USSR that has allowed for increasing penetration of USNA finance capital into the Soviet Union (whose trade minister announced 19 major deals in the works, not only setting up USNA banks in Moscow, but huge loans and credits and joint ventures with Kaiser, Phillip Morris and Lockheed). Detente has further strengthened the temporary world hegemony of the USNA at the expense not only of the colonies, but also at the expense of the less powerful European and Japanese imperialists.
But while the current detente temporarily allows for the expansion of finance capital and is needed politically by the imperialists to project an aura of “peace”, we can make no mistake that this detente is nothing but the preparation for imperialist war. The ever increasing crisis in overproduction is constantly pushing the imperialists towards war; war to “burn up” commodities, war to allow the great expansion.
In the Soviet Union, the detente deals have increasingly come under fire from sections of the Soviet ruling class. This section, led by the military, has been sharply criticised by the Brezhnev clique who need USNA finance capital to help restore capitalism in the USSR. This battle between opportunists within the USSR was recently expressed indirectly in a “criticism” of the Spanish Communist Party for speaking out against detente and calling for war against the USNA imperialists. It is important to note that they are not calling for revolutionary war, but war at the expense of the workers and toilers of the world, Brezhnev is certainly not against imperialist war, as can be seen from the rapid build-up of arms and troops along the Chinese border and in Eastern Europe. While cloaked in revisionist “Marxist” slogans, the Soviet opportunists know full well that detente is their best preparation for imperialist war.
The push towards war is not limited to the two superpowers. This ugly spector that spills the blood of the workers and oppressed people of the world is also rapidly brewing in Europe and Japan. The recent showdown over the control of the world’s oil is precisely the type of trade war and realignment of forces that preceeded World Wars I and II.
As Kissinger jets all over the world to maintain detente and USNA hegemony, the European and Japanese imperialists are being forced to realign and fight back. The French, who were temporarily stymied at the recent Washington “project interdependence” meeting (see Vol. 6 No. 3) lost no time in regrouping the Common Market countries to make further plans for independent deals with the oil producing countries. Britain, rocked by an economic and political crisis that brought the fall of the Tory government, continues to be squeezed by a towering inflation rate and a trade deficit reaching $1.01 billion. The situation is so serious that the Christian Science Monitor recently remarked that, “No democratic government has ever survived such a rate of inflation beyond a year or so...” (3/28/74) Japan is caught in an even greater economic crisis with an inflation rate of over 30% (higher than Britain) and a growth rate of less than 2%. (Christian Science Monitor, 3/26/74.)
It is clear that these lesser imperialists know full well that as long as they lack the military strength, they will continue to be dominated by USNA imperialism. The heads of governments in the European countries and Japan have launched fascist programs on their “own” working classes to prepare for wars of expansion.
It is precisely in this world wide crisis that is setting the stage for imperialist war that the Watergate fiasco finds its real meaning. The replacement of White House advisers with military and CIA agents, the recent series of decisions handed down by Nixon’s hand picked Supreme Court (including the preparation for the re-institution of the death penalty), the official furor to lock up Marxists during the current wave of “terrorism” are signs of the preparation of a fascist state. The working class is disgusted with imperialist war. We are being racked by an inflation rate now officially over 12%. Spendable income is down 4.5% this year and wholesale prices are jumping 5% every two months. The imperialists can no longer keep “peace at home” with their bourgeois democracy. In other words, the system of bribery backed up by terror no longer can keep the working class in line. What we are witnessing is the development of a system of terror backed up by bribery, as the means for rule of the Anglo-American proletariat.
We have said in the past that the imperialists need fascism to fight imperialist wars. No better example of this can be found than in the recent speech by Nixon concerning the plight of the Vietnam War veterans. Instead of speaking to the veterans, who are filled with anger and disgust at the way they have been cast aside with few benefits and little compensation (plus almost 200,000 who were given bad discharges that keep them from getting any benefits or jobs), Nixon spoke to the few loyal enlisted men he could find. The storm of anger from the veterans show quite clearly that USNA workers will no longer willingly go to war for the imperialists.
The bourgeois “opposition” to Nixon is working hard to defend their class interests at the expense of the working class Sen. Jackson tries to lead us with chauvinist calls for war. Hidden in his “defence” of Soviet Jews by blocking “most favored nation status” to the USSR is just this type of chauvinist call. George Meany also tries to lead us astray with open national chauvinism. He recently called for an “America First” trade policy, wishing to impose stiff trade tariffs of foreign goods. In line with the “America First” policy, plans are currently being made to “close” the USNA-Mexico border in California to Mexican workers. These workers have historically been a reserve of cheap labor for the imperialists. As conditions worsen for the Anglo-American working class this program to close the borders is an attempt to split the working class by putting the blame for the economic crisis on the Mexican workers. Many unions are now supporting this program.
In the many organizations that have formed to demand impeachment and new elections, our efforts must go to exposing the real nature of the Watergate situation. The bourgeois “opposition” is trying to control the broad based hatred for Nixon and for rising fascism for their own ends. But these politicians and union mis-leaders only represent the other side of the fascist coin. We must fight in our unions, and political and community organizations for working class leadership free from ties to the interests of the fascists.
Our only real defense against rising fascism is the United Front of the working class, fighting to expose and oppose the dirty plans of the imperialists. We must work to turn the push towards fascism into a strong defense of the working class. We must work to turn the drive towards imperialist war into revolutionary war. Our interests do not lie in the ugly designs of the bourgeois opposition to Nixon. The banner of proletarian internationalism can and must replace the blood soaked swastika that is being dangled in our face.
The fate of Nixon is not the issue. His defense has been and will continue to be the mounting of one crisis after another to disarm and confuse the working class. It is with this knowledge that all efforts must be turned to build a working class opposition, not to Nixon alone, but to the spector of fascism that both he and his bourgeois “critics” represent.