National divisions grow in -S.E. Asia
Socialist Press1978 1978-12-13Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 2 →
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The history of troubled relations between Stalinist states took a new twist last week with the decision of Vietnam to sponsor an alternative 'Government of National Salvation', pledged to overthrow the present Stalinist regime in That this is no propaganda exercise but a firm commitment is shown by the concentration of 120,000 Vietnamese and 20,000 rebel Cambodian troops along the border.
The programme of the United Front for National Salvation is for a neutral, non-aligned Cambodia with the re-establishment of banks and money, abolition of the compulsory work system, freedom of movement and association, and rebuilding of Cambodian family life.
Peasant communism:
The development of the Cambodian revolution since the overthrow of Lon Nol's UȘ puppet regime has up to now seemed to follow ideas of peasant primitive communism much more than Stalinist doctrine.
This is perhaps due to the feudal structure of prerevolution Cambodia where both the working class and the professional middle class were almost non-existent.
Thus the social layers from which the bureaucracy of most Stalinist states is drawn did not exist.
What concerns the Vietnamese "is the extreme Khmer nationalism of the regime, which claims large areas of Vietnam as part of the former Khmer empire, and appears to use the war against Vietnam as a means of justifying further sacrifices by the Khmer peasants.
The support of the Cambodian government by China makes the situation one of great danger for the masses in South-East Asia who may well find themselves once again the unlucky pawns in a power conflict-this time between rival "Communist" bureaucracies. whose loyalty armies supplied with Soviet weapons and trained by Soviet and Cuban advisers.
Soviet pilots
in this latest assault, Soviet troops manned the Soviet tanks, Cuban troops moved forward with their heavy artillery, and it was Soviet pilots who flew the MiG bombers to strafe the EPLF's positions and the refugee camps, to drop napalm and destroy the crops.
By these criminal and barbaric acts, the bureaucratic leaders of the Soviet Union and Cuba are fulfilling their pledges to the reactionary and bloody dictatorship of the Derg.
Once again they have announced to the international 757s.