On the brink (1962)

From the December 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

The world has probably never held its breath so painfully hard as it did during the Cuba crisis. In some ways life went on as usual. Buses and trains ran, people went to work, played games, looked at television. A West End tobacco store announced that it had already imported its Havana cigars and that supplies would be undisturbed for Christmas. But it all happened under a cloud of unreality. Everyone knew that we stood on the edge of an overwhelming nightmare, perhaps the ultimate in capitalism’s upheavals. One newspaper published a cartoon in which a typist confided to her companion that she would scream if her boss, grinning, greeted them again in the morning with the observation that we were still here. Very funny. But a lot of people didn’t expect to be still here a few days after Kennedy’s broadcast and the point is that if the crisis had developed much further they might have be en proved right.

At the time, it seemed rather pointless to speculate upon the background of the affair. Now that the heat is somewhat off, we can take time to look around us.

Was it all a put-up job? Some of the missiles were carried quite openly on the decks of Soviet ships and their launching pads were put down in clearings with no attempt at camouflage. This seems to contradict Kennedy’s assertion that the missiles were sent clandestinely to Cuba. Because of this, and for other reasons, there was some speculation that the Russians were openly moving their rockets to Cuba so that they could use them to bargain with an alarmed American government.

Because (and who isn't relieved at this?) the two great powers of contemporary capitalism are still at the bargaining stage. The Russians might have wanted to use their Cuban bases to get the Americans out of Turkey and Iran. Or at least they might have been able to use them to force Washington to talk about the American bases and to discuss whether they should have them so near to Russia. This would have been a unique situation. Whoever heard of one capitalist power negotiating with its enemy over bases which are designed to attack them?

Another possibility which was bandied about was that the Russians were trying to persuade the Americans to accept the existence of an unfriendly Cuba. This would give the Soviet Union more than a toehold in the Caribbean. Kennedy has, of course, agreed that if the missiles and the nuclear bombers leave Cuba he will guarantee not to invade the island. This presumably means that he will leave it in the “imprisoned” condition which he ascribed to it in his broadcast. Or is that too risky a presumption? Capitalist politicians have broken promises before and there is no reason to think that they will not break them in the future.

Or was Cuba a blind? Was Kruschev trying to create a disturbance at one end of the world while the real dirty work was done at the other? Many eyes were turned to Berlin during the Cuban crisis and there was some fear that the Russians would at least make a definite hostile move there. If that had happened the propaganda machine of Western capitalism was ready. Kennedy mentioned in his broadcast that the Russians were not to interfere with the “brave people” of West Berlin.” How short a time ago was it that we were being encouraged to hope that the Russians would do just that, and with a vengeance ? Or does the world forget so easily the lies of yesterday, only remembering those of today?

All these speculations—and some of the others which were in the air at the time—must have a chance of being near the truth. It has been a feature of Russian tactics in the Cold War that they suddenly create a tremendous racket which convinces half the world that war has all but started. Each year, for example, Moscow seems determined to sign a treaty with East Germany and so provoke a really serious crisis over Berlin. Then just as suddenly they take the heat off and get everyone sighing with relief. But when the dust has cleared it can be perceived that the Russians have advanced their cause somewhat. Last year the Berlin Wall seemed a temporary irritant. Now it is permanent, well guarded. This could have been the tactic which Moscow were playing in Cuba.

Rocket bases

There might of course be a simpler explanation, one which does not rest on the assumption that capitalism's international dealings depend upon the suave, tricky diplomat who does his job as if he were a top-notch poker player. Perhaps the Cuban bases were a purely offensive move by the Russians, intended as a pistol pointing at America's heart. This would have put the Russians on something like an equal footing with the United States, whose overseas rocket bases are about as far from Moscow as Cuba is from Washington. The rockets in Cuba outflanked the elaborate and expensive early warning system which the Americans have built up. They reduced the time which a missile attack would give the American people to wind up their affairs, patch up their quarrels and kiss each other goodbye to the more hurried three or four minutes which we would have in England.

In at least two ways this was an ironical situation. Capitalist nations, whose experts assure us that they know what they are doing, have always spent a lot of effort in building a static defence system for use in wartime. In the days of more leisurely, more personal wars they built systems like the Hindenburg and Maginot Lines and the heavy fortifications at Singapore. Very often, these defences have been useless because the enemy has simply come in the other way—which is what the Russian missiles would have been able to do from Cuba. Which shows, once again, how fallible are the people whose reputation rests upon their being infallible.

There is irony, too, in the American refusal to accept parity with the Russians in missile and nuclear resources. Both sides in the Cold War argue that such things are necessary as a deterrent. But the most effective deterrent is surely one which is equally available to both sides, so that they can frighten each other equally. We need not point out—but we will—that neither America nor Russia ever takes the deterrent theory to these lengths. They are both too busy fighting out the race for bigger and more terrifying weapons. The fact is that the deterrent theory, just like the rest of capitalism's war propaganda, is a lie. Capitalist powers like the USA and the Soviet Union do not develop weapons to keep the peace. They make them so that they can wage war more effectively—more destructively—than their rivals.

If Kruschev was in fact trying to outflank the American defensive system, he has obviously failed. For him, personally, this could be a serious matter. There is ample evidence that the Russian government are deeply divided over the method of sparring out the Cold War and that Kruschev has had some narrow squeaks in these internal disputes. A diplomatic defeat in Cuba might mean the end of him—literally the end, because nobody can be sure that in Russia political defeat does not still mean execution.

These speculations are interesting, but that is as far as they can go. Only a very few people in the world know what was behind the Cuban affair. The international disputes which capitalism is always putting us on edge with do not lend themselves to open and honest dealing. Secrets must be kept and each side must try to hide its intentions from the other. Only now are we learning something of the truth about events which died fifty years ago. Only now are we beginning to learn some of the detail of what was behind the First World War. The 1939 war is still shrouded in official secrecy, although sometimes drops of horrible truth trickle out. Not for a long time will the facts on Cuba come out into the open. Not for a long time will the world know fully of the lies and double dealing, the threats and the power and the fearful, insane risks that were taken.

Secrets

Because in these disputes ordinary people do not seem to count. They are only the people who run capitalism, who keep the system working and who design, make, transport and finally fire off the missiles which all the fuss was about. They are only the people who are essential to the war effort which rounds off the fuss. For who was it who Kennedy and Kruschev called upon at the height of the crisis? Who did they mobilise into their armed forces? Who did they try to persuade, with their propaganda? The ordinary people. The working class.

The working class do not share in the secrets which pass between their leaders. Kennedy refused to publish the vital part of the correspondence between himself and Kruschev—the part which possibly explains the whole thing—for the reason that it was a letter which was addressed to him personally. But that is too transparently fatuous to need further comment. The working class are not asked for their opinion in these matters. Krushchev did not ask the Russian working class whether he should risk all their lives by sending missiles to Cuba and Kennedy did not consult the American workers about starting a war over those missiles. Neither, for that matter, did Macmillan ask English workers whether they agreed that they were behind America—to the death, if need be.

Conditioning

The working class are not asked—and do not expect to be asked—about these matters. They only expect to work, to fight and if necessary to die for capitalism. And, of course, to vote for it as well. Apart from that, they do not seem to count.

Or do they ? What if Kennedy’s call to mobilise bad been met with a blank refusal? What if American workers had refused to man the ships in the blockade? if Russian workers had said no to shipping the missiles? The leaders of capitalism would have been powerless. They could have exchanged insults or compliments for as long as they liked. In the end it would have been the workers, and not the leaders, who counted.

Capitalism's wars are fought because of the economic clashes of its opposing powers. But these wars can only be organised, supplied and fought by the very people who have nothing to gain—and everything to lose—by fighting them. That is why there is such a careful propaganda campaign, all the time, to condition the working class to accept the latest line-up in international capitalism. That is why the workers in this country are now taught to hate the Russians and to love the Germans, when a few years ago we were taught the exact opposite. Yes, workers do count.

Because they could stop capitalism's wars. They could do more than that. They could stop capitalism itself. Not, this time, by refusing to take part in it; but by understanding it. By taking the trouble, to start with, to remember and to put Cuba—and Korea, Formosa, Berlin and the rest—into perspective.

Capitalism marches to chaos upon the ignorance of the people who keep it in its miserable existence. Cuba was only one step along this unhappy road. But who dare say where it will end, if the march and the ignorance continue?

Ivan