Workers World, Vol. 20, No. 30
July 21 – There are two charges made by the Chinese leaders against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) which have gone unanswered by those in this country who ought to know better.
One of these charges relates to the aid that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) gave to Vietnam over a period of many years. The PRC leaders say that China gave Vietnam aid which totaled more than $18 billion. Unquestionably, this is a considerable sum coming from a socialist country whose own economic problems have been enormous and where industrialization is still in its early stages of development.
What is pernicious about the way in which this is raised is that it seeks to present the SRV in the role of an ungrateful ally which, instead of being thankful for the aid, is pouring out vials of its wrath upon its benefactor.
The Chinese leaders also embellish their own role as donor of the aid. The way they present the question, one is led to the inescapable conclusion that the aid was granted strictly out of unilateral proletarian internationalist considerations.
There is, of course, no need to in any way impugn the motives of the PRC leaders who extended considerable material, technical, and military aid to Vietnam over the years, especially the very early years of the struggle first against the French imperialists and later against the U.S. But there is a conspicuous feature which the present PRC leaders, particularly Vice Premier Teng Hsiao-ping who brought the matter of Vietnam’s assistance to public discussion in an interview in Bangkok, neglect to mention and which rounds out the two-way character of the assistance. If we view it from both sides, rather than from just the Chinese side of giving assistance, we can easily see that in the final analysis Vietnam may have contributed much more to China’s defense against U.S. aggression than the $18 billion in material aid it received from China.
Vietnam, in fact, acted as a military buffer between U.S. imperialism and the PRC. One only has to look through the leading newspapers of the world, especially those in the U.S. – the imperialist press as well as the working class press – to readily see that China was the basic target of U.S. imperialist designs in Asia at the time.
In our own press, both Workers World newspaper and the Partisan, the magazine of Youth Against War & Fascism, we carried extensive articles during the early period of the Vietnam War which exposed and attacked U.S. imperialism for its designs against China. Our press graphically portrayed the maneuvers of U.S. imperialism as using Southeast Asia as a stepping stone in order to attack China.
This theme, namely that the predatory appetites of U.S. imperialism were not confined to Southeast Asia alone, was on the minds of many progressives and anti-war activists during that period. The defeat of Vietnam, it was often expressed in both print and in speech, would ultimately result in attack against the PRC.
The stubborn persistence and struggle which the Vietnamese put up against U.S. imperialism saved many lives for China – no one really knows how many. Such was the character of the valiant revolutionary struggle carried out by the Vietnamese against a seemingly omnipotent colossus. Vietnam held U.S. imperialism at bay and thereby thwarted an attack against China. This is absolutely incontestable. Much precious blood was lost in the struggle.
Therefore the efforts of China, Vietnam, and Cambodia (today Kampuchea), not to speak of the assistance given by the Soviet Union despite obstacles put up by the PRC leaders in the way of that aid, contributed tremendously to the victorious struggle.
Some Chinese leaders have frequently alluded to the tremendous aid they gave to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea by their revolutionary intervention during the U.S. aggression against Korea. They frequently say that it was their intervention that prevented a confrontation during the Korean War between the U.S. and the USSR. (See Han Suyin, “The Morning Deluge.”)
That may very well be: there is certainly no reason to doubt it. But just as the PRC acted as a buffer between U.S. imperialism and the Soviet Union during the Korean War, so Vietnam did the same during the aggression by the Pentagon in its war in Southeast Asia.
The other charge is made by the Kampuchean leaders, but is so often repeated approvingly by the Chinese press that one may fairly conclude that it is also a charge made by the PRC leaders. This is the one which refers to the “ambitions of the Vietnamese to create a federation” with Kampuchea and Laos and thereby swallow them all up, reducing them to the domination of the Vietnamese.
If one strips the allegation of the vitriolic rhetoric with which it is clouded, the charge in essence is that the Vietnamese favor or favored at one time a federation of the Indochinese people. Everyone knows that Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam were originally all together in the struggle against U.S. imperialism and that at one time there was an Indochinese Communist Party to which all three belonged.
But leaving all this aside, the issue that revolutionary Marxists must address themselves to is whether it is wrong or criminal to espouse a federation of socialist states.
Not according to Marxist-Leninist principles.
There is absolutely nothing wrong in seeking to establish a federation of the Indochinese people on a socialist basis, or for that matter a federation of Caribbean states. Domination, seeking hegemony, trying to subordinate one state to another is of course reactionary and must be vigorously fought to the end. But federation in principle, that is federation per se, does not necessarily lead to hegemony or domination.
On the contrary, the pursuit of world socialism dictates the need for greater and greater cooperation among socialist states. This is an elementary proposition of Marxism which can scarcely be denied by anyone who claims to be for the transformation of capitalist society into a socialist commonwealth of humanity.
It is an economic necessity.
It is imperialism which divides, splits up not only nations and whole countries, but hemispheres as well, and literally cuts them to pieces.
In the age of the atom and space satellites, the tremendous growth of the productive forces makes it not only possible but urgent for the cooperation of the socialist community on the basis of a federation. Not immediately, certainly not at a time when parts of the socialist community are in widely separate areas of the world, such as for instance Cuba and the USSR or Vietnam.
But there is no Marxist precept, no overriding economic or political basis for opposing a federation of the Caribbean states, for example, were they all socialist in character. Such a federation, were there no obstacles in the way, would not only be efficient economically but would be of tremendous assistance politically and socially.
A federation on a regional basis should be conceived if it is politically viable and acceptable by all on a fraternal socialist basis as a stepping stone to a larger federation.
Those who espouse world socialism could not possibly oppose a world socialist federation which is a stepping stone to a world socialist order, but must look forward to it. Federation and national sovereignty are not antithetical but complementary in character. What is needed is proletarian internationalism as the cement to weld such a federation.
When President Tito was still a revolutionary in the early 1940s he proposed a Balkan federation. Although it was opposed by the USSR at the time for other reasons there was no opposition among the communist parties to federation in principle. In fact, much good might have come out of it had it been carried out in the spirit of socialist solidarity and proletarian internationalism and not conceived of as an instrument directed against the USSR or any other socialist state, had it been done in collaboration with the USSR and moreover in a system of a socialist commonwealth which could also encompass the USSR and other socialist states.
It is instructive here to report on a statement made by Dimitrov, head of the Bulgarian party, which he made in an interview while on an official visit to Romania.
He was asked, “It is rumored that a federation of Balkan nations and a federation of the areas of Eastern and Southeastern Europe to include Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Poland is imminent. In the event of such a federation being created, will other countries from these regions also be able to join it?”
He replied, “The question of federation or confederation is premature for us. It is not on the agenda at present, and therefore this question was not a subject of discussion at our conferences. When this question matures, and it must inevitably mature, then our peoples, the nations of people’s democracy, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Albania, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Hungary, and Greece – mind you, and Greece! – will settle it. It is they who will decide what it will be – a federation or confederation, and when and how it will be formed.
“I can say that what our people are already doing greatly facilitates the solution of this question in the future. I can also emphasize that when it comes to creating such a federation or confederation, our peoples will not ask the imperialists, and will not heed their opposition, but will solve the question themselves, guided by their own interests bound up with the interests and international cooperation necessary to them and to other nations.”
This statement was made by Dimitrov in January 1948 and printed in Pravda.
Although Pravda on Jan. 29, 1948, reprimanded Dimitrov for this, it was clear that it was not because of opposition in principle to federation but due to the breach between the USSR and Yugoslavia.
Federation and national sovereignty or national independence are not polar opposites. The need to safeguard the national independence, the national integrity of small nations must be guarded at all times. But this does not at all exclude the growing need for cooperation and ultimately for federation in order to promote world socialism.
Last updated: 11 May 2026