Anti-Imperialism Part I Introduction

PERHAPS it is because U.S. air force bases from Spain to Thailand seem so remote from this country's shores.

Perhaps it is because most Americans have never seen their homes, school, hospitals and churches gutted by falling bombs.

Perhaps most Americans do not and cannot realize the magnitude of suffering endured at American hands by peoples whose skin is not white, whose language is not English, and whose political traditions derive from sources other than Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and John Stuart Mill.

Perhaps it is simply that the arenas in which foreign policy decisions are made are so far from the everyday decision-making experience of most Americans.

Perhaps these reasons explain why popular notions of U.S. foreign relations are so fogged over by lies, misconceptions, and myths.

Only the Vietnam experience successfully demonstrated to most people that the United States's "destiny" to implant its system of liberal capitalism in any "underdeveloped" foreign nation was no longer "manifest." But Vietnam still failed to create any popular recognition that America's foreign policy is shaped within parameters set by the economic and political interests of this country's capitalist class. It failed to convey the fact that the Second Indochina War was more than the unfortunate mistake of otherwise good-hearted liberals, and that U.S. capitalists, as partners in international development agencies and multinational corporations, intend to continue their attempt to direct South Vietnam's resources, government, and economy for American benefit.

This Dump Truck, and a second part to follow on December 12, will outline the dimensions of what the editors consider to be a necessary popular debate on the question of imperialism. The two supplements will try to clarify the direction of multinational economic expansion and the aims of movements and countries struggling to resist or overthrow such domination.

Such a discussion requires consideration of the experiences of large and small nations on both sides of the globe. Although the United States is currently the world's most powerful and most active imperialist, it is entering a new stage of imperialist partnership with Japan, Germany, and perhaps the Soviet Union.

This first supplement will concern itself with the historical and theoretical dimensions of super-power imperialism, including some indication of what the future of Vietnam holds in store.

Dan Swanson and Peter Shane provide introductory investigations of theories of imperialism, and the history of U.S. expansion abroad.

The growing hegemony of U.S. culture is discussed by Richard Shepro.

Steve Reed outlines the history of Soviet imperialism, and Mark Penn provides background information on the U.S.-Soviet wheat deal of 1972.

Jim Blum explores the prospects for Vietnam's future.

Finally, an article on Hawaii by Richard Sia demonstrates the federal government's willingness to treat even areas of the Union as parts on an empire rather than as co-equal partners.

It is crucial that these discussions be pursued among the American people and especially on the Left. As economist Harry Magdoff has pointed out, misunderstandings concerning the nature of economics and U.S. politics have led some radicals to believe U.S. capitalism could survive in a healtheir state without imperialism. These articles show that particular forms of expansionism represent necessary outgrowths of certain kinds of economic development and that anti-imperialism must lie at the heart of any overall anticapitalist strategy.

Next month's Dump Truck will supplement this discussion with a review of Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the politics of oil.

The editors of this Dump Truck hope to establish two points: that a radical tactical program cannot be divorced from an understanding of imperialism, and that only a discussion of imperialism in the broadest possible context with the strictest attention paid to different movements and to factions within the international capitalist class can lead to such understanding.