Workers World, Vol. 12, No. 6, April 15, 1970
In his celebrated work, “The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte,” Marx said that great historical personalities frequently appear on the historic stage, once as a tragedy and once as a farce.
U Thant, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, is not likely to go down in history as a great personality. His career, however, as the nominal chief of the world organization he allegedly heads, has been characterized both by tragedy and now, as we shall presently see, by farce.
When U Thant became Secretary-General of the UN, it was observed in all the world’s newspapers that this was the first time that a non-European and an Asian was elevated to this post. He became the focus of world attention because at the time when he took office, revolutionary developments in Asia and in Africa had reached a climax. The Indonesian people were in the throes of revolutionary upsurge. So was most of Africa.
The split between China and the Soviet Union, although ideologically definitive, had not yet fully reached the level of struggle between the two states. Indeed, it appeared that the role of U Thant would be that of a helping hand to restore to the People’s Republic of China its rightful place in the UN and the ouster of the Chiang Kai-shek clique. But it soon became obvious that far from being able to play any role independently, U Thant was in fact a puppet of the imperialists and in particular of the U.S.
As a result of the outbreak of the Vietnam war of U.S. imperialism and his failure to condemn U.S. aggression, U Thant became a despicable hated figure in practically all parts of Asia. And not only in Asia, for the longer he stayed on as so-called Secretary-General, the more it became obvious that his role was merely to run errands for the State Department or act as an intermediary between the U.S. and the Soviet leadership. The face is Asian, but the politics and diplomacy are strictly Wester and imperialist. So many times has U Thant been humbled by the character of the errands he has to run that it is a wonder he still holds on. Therein lies the tragic aspect of U Thant’s career.
But there is still the aspect of the farcical side of his career as UN Secretary-General. This aspect is not made and fashioned in Washington, but in Moscow. In preparation for the centennial of Lenin’s birth, the Soviet leadership must at all costs tie in the immortal revolutionary contributions of Lenin with their revisionist politics, above all utilizing the centennial to embellish their own bureaucratic careers and more securely safeguard their social privileges.
In doing this they employ every means possible. It would be strange indeed if they overlooked the UN as a possible vehicle for just such purposes. It is utterly impossible, it seems, for Soviet diplomacy to ever get an arm of the UN to do anything of a progressive character, but to get them to do something of a reactionary character, that’s not too hard at all.
Thus, the Soviet diplomats were able to arrange a symposium on the centennial of Lenin’s birth in Tampere, Finland, entitled “V.I. Lenin and Questions of Development of Science and Culture,” sponsored by UNESCO (United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization), with U Thant as the would-be master of ceremonies.
A more ludicrous role for U Thant is scarcely conceivable. But the Soviet diplomats don’t think so at all. In the eyes of the Soviet hierarchy it’s just another achievement of “international significance.”
The Soviet leaders couldn’t, of course, get U Thant to preside over a UN Human Rights Commission to hear evidence on U.S. attempts to commit genocide against the Black peoples, as evidenced by the Panther trials and other atrocities.
They couldn’t get him to preside over a UN commission to hear the war crimes of Johnson and Nixon in Vietnam, so perhaps the next best thing is to trot out U Thant in a role of a Leninist, who will preside over a motley crew of international charlatans from many parts of the world gathered at Tampere, Finland, fare and expenses paid, with meals, hotels and all the paraphernalia that goes with that.
But who will be influenced by this crude comic opera attempt to show off Soviet influence? Does it even serve the interest of the bureaucracy? Certainly none of the revolutionary youth throughout the world have anything but contempt and hatred for the UN. And trotting out U Thant to mouth phrases about Lenin is simply revolting. Fortunately for the working masses of the world, for the oppressed everywhere and the youth in particular, there are millions of people now who know enough about Lenin, and what he stands for, that any kind of attempt by the revisionists and the bourgeoisie to co-opt Lenin into the camp of reaction will fall flat on its face.
Lenin is the symbol of world proletarian revolution. He regarded the League of Nations, of which the UN is merely a space-age version, as a den of thieves, of robbers and imperialist exploiters who main function was to camouflage imperialist wars in the name of peace, promote the counter-revolution in the name of freedom and disseminate imperialist lies and slander as “eternal truths.”
The younger revolutionaries throughout the world know this well, and they also know on the basis of Lenin’s teachings how great revolutionaries throughout history invariably get their teachings falsified by the ruling classes, their agents and minions and all who are interested in maintaining the old order against the rising tide of revolution. As Lenin himself said, in “State and Revolution”:
“What is now happening to Marx’s teaching has, in the course of history, happened repeatedly to the teachings of revolutionary thinkers and leaders of oppressed classes struggling for emancipation. During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their teachings with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to surround the names with a certain halo for the ‘consolation’ of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time emasculating the essence of the revolutionary teaching, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it.
“At the present time, the bourgeoisie and the opportunists within the working-class movement concur in this ‘doctoring’ of Marxism. They omit, obliterate and distort the revolutionary side of this teaching, its revolutionary soul.”
Indeed, that is exactly what the Soviet bureaucracy has done.
Last updated: 11 May 2026