Workers World, Vol. 11, No. 1, January 16, 1969
Once again, as so many times in the past, the Soviet leadership is resorting to the type of sordid diplomacy which is sure to deal a heavy blow to the cause of the Arab liberation movement, strengthen the hand of imperialism, damage the standing of the Soviet Union as a socialist state in the eyes of the oppressed in all Asia, Africa and Latin America, and in the end even prove self-defeating for the narrow, conservative interests of the current Soviet leadership.
When the Israeli Armed Forces carried out the attack against the Lebanon airport, the U.S. puppets in Tel Aviv had hoped, by this monstrous act of unprovoked aggression, to dampen the revolutionary spirit of the Palestinian guerrilla movement. Instead, however, it provoked a revolutionary storm of such dimensions that it has literally awakened millions on the Arabian Peninsula who had hitherto been submerged in only passive resistance.
This barbarous act of aggression by the Israeli regime would have scarcely created even the mildest protest in the Western capitals had it not really been for the powerful movement that the Israeli attack had evoked. For it is fear of the Arabian revolutionary masses – fear that they will suddenly take destiny into their own hands and sweep away the reactionary obstruction of imperialist domination altogether – that is the key to the current series of maneuvers by Washington, London and Paris. The fact that the Lebanon regime was one of the friendliest to Wall Street’s interests is not what really produced the consternation and rebuke in Washington to the attack by the Israeli regime.
It must be stressed over and over again that the attack on Lebanon brought to the surface a revolutionary renaissance which in depth and momentum surpasses the great upsurge following the French-Israeli invasion of 1956.
Furthermore the current revival has all the earmarks of a fresh, independent movement of the masses, developing apart from the old constituted authorities in the Arab regimes and, in a large measure, in revolutionary hostility to them for their failure to throw off the yoke of the foreign oppressor for so long a time. In this respect the mass movement differs markedly from the period which began with the Suez crisis. At that time, the movement was solidly behind the established nationalist leadership, particularly that of Nasser.
That is not so today, for the reality of the situation is that these is developing a form of dual power, although still in embryo form, between the popular masses having arms or seeking them and the old constituted authorities which at present hold the reins of political power. The rise of the Al Fatah liberation movement is only the most dramatic expression of this. Such a situation can exist only because the entire Middle East has been in the process of transformation into a vast revolutionary cauldron. The attack on the Lebanon airport really only set the fires off.
It follows from this that the fortunes of finance capital and the entire position of Western imperialism in the Mediterranean are in imminent danger. Probably more than anywhere else in the world, the U.S. along with Britain and France urgently need the aid and cooperation of a Big Power that has friends, allies and prestige in the Middle East. For nowhere else are the imperialists as isolated and bereft of any reliable tools, save for Israel, as they are in the Arab lands. Hence, their great need for aid and cooperation from the Soviet leadership. But they are at the same time maneuvering and plotting by every foul means possible to confine, restrict and combat the interests of the Soviet Union as a great socialist state and as a fortress from which the liberation movements the world over, and the liberation movement of the Arab lands in particular, can get both abundant military supplies as well as revolutionary and fraternal political support and solidarity, let alone industrial and technical assistance.
It is on the axis of this crying fundamental contradiction between the class interests of the USSR and narrow caste-like interests of the neo-bourgeois aristocracy in the Soviet leadership which the imperialists are trying to balance themselves. On the one hand, the imperialists dread the growing might and influence of the Soviet Union and would like to keep it out of the Middle East and the Mediterranean area as a whole. On the other hand, they welcome with open arms collaboration with the Soviet leadership in efforts in the Middle East “to stabilize the situation and insure the peace.”
What concretely do the imperialists mean when they ask the Soviet leadership to help them “to stabilize the situation and insure the peace”? They want the Soviet leadership to help them stem the revolutionary tide of the Arab liberation movement. They want them to use their influence with the conservative Arab leaders to repress the rebellious masses. They want the help of the Soviet leaders to extort from the Arab leaders some sort of an agreement which would be palatable to all the imperialist powers and be sanctified by a United Nations resolution which would permit the stationing of foreign troops under the flag of the UN. The purpose of this foreign expeditionary force ostensibly is to ensure that there be no hostilities between the puppet state of Israel and the Arab countries. In reality, however, it would serve as an instrument to quell the insurgent Arab masses.
Moreover, it aims to make the Arab leaders act as mercenary agents to carry out the will of the imperialists under the mast of the UN. That basically is the purpose of the so-called Jarring mission, the supposed mediator between the Israelis and the Arabs, between Washington and Moscow.
There are many variations to this malodorous scheme, and scarcely a day passes that some new version of the same old idea pops up again and again. Most of these schemes are calculated to becloud the real issue. Invariably the way the issue is posed is to convey the definite idea that the struggle is between Israel and the Arab countries and that the imperialists are drawn into it by their overwhelming concern for the spreading development of a war in which they have no great stakes.
This perfidious aspect of imperialist propaganda must be thoroughly unmasked. That Israel was specifically created for the purpose of diverting the wrath of the Arabian masses from the imperialists to a puppet creation is rarely properly stated.
The Soviet Union as a socialist state had no progressive basis for helping the imperialists to legalize the existence of the State of Israel and now has absolutely no reason whatever, from the viewpoint of the interest of the world liberation movement, and socialism generally, to help the imperialists maintain the puppet state in the name of “stability, peace, and humanitarianism.”
Hence, when the Soviet leader present their own version of substantially the same scheme that the imperialists have, except that they would roll back the Israeli forces to approximately the 1967 position territorially, they are in effect trying to stem the tide of revolution and adapting themselves to the needs of imperialist power politics.
This policy cannot succeed for long. It not only discredits the Soviet Union, strengthens the hand of world reaction, but, as we said above, is also self-defeating as the long revisionist adaptation in Czechoslovakia only too clearly proved. For the appetite of predatory imperialism is utterly insatiable. No sooner do the imperialist extort one compromise from the Soviet leaders than they are strengthened to carry out their next and absolutely inevitable demands for more. And this at a time when the Arab masses are most ready, most resolute and in a most favorable condition to fight back while U.S. imperialism is still mired down in its hopeless adventure in Vietnam.
When imperialism was the dominant factor in world politics as well as economics and didn’t have to reckon with a whole group of socialist states and worldwide rebellion, it was intransigent not only insofar as the Soviet Union as a socialist state was concerned, but also in its attitude toward the Soviet leaders. Today, when the sphere of imperialist domination has shrunk, it has of necessity had to climb down from its previous, arrogant position and has been forced to resort to a tactic of accommodation with the Soviet leadership. In the course of their dealing, they could not but become aware of the glaring contradiction between what the power of the Soviet Union as a socialist state can do and what a neo-bourgeois aristocracy is inclined to do in the interest of the status quo.
Yet the status quo is anything but stable. Class antagonisms are everywhere sharpening. The collisions between the oppressed and the oppressors are becoming ever more widespread, and the desperation of the imperialists becomes more evident every day as they sink more and more of the national income into truly fantastic arms expenditures.
This indicates more than anything else that the basic trend in the imperialist establishment is toward war – not peace – that all their sanctimonious phrases about a “stable, durable peace” are merely camouflage. And to the extent that it has substance to it, it is meant to be a short-range scheme calculated to give the imperialists a breathing spell so they can prepare more efficiently and expeditiously for a larger and more decisive war.
It is in the interest of their short-range scheme that the imperialists urgently need to enlist the aid of the Soviet leaders and the Arab conservatives.
But the tied is running heavily against the success of such a plan. And the recent experiences of the Israeli attack on Lebanon and the revolutionary response that followed fully confirm this.
Last updated: 11 May 2026