classes. The French under de Gaulle began to fight back against the United States by exchanging the paper dollars for gold from the Us central reserves. The other European states started to join in May 1971 10 per cent of US gold reserves were removed in this way in a single week. These economic flicts, coupled to the massive political protests against the war inside the United States, were reasons why the US was forced to quit Vietnam.
After Vietnam The Vietnam war therefore accompanied, and deepened, an historic change in the relation between the United States and Western Europe. The US had been historically a force aiding and stabilising the West European economies. Now its decline had made it one disrupting and dragging them down. It was the combination of political and which explains the tremendous scope of the changes which the Vietnam war.
These economic trends were then which followed.
the US was government The first major 1971. Nixon dollars for gold, and in con- imperialist rivals.
among the fensive was the 1973 da, this Was nol United States and to bring about the increases.
shifts accompanied however also Europe and Japan.
given. missiles target first intensified much further by the events By the beginning of the 1970s the US domestic economy was in open decline. In this situation forced to strike back tion. against other economies with all the colossal resources still available to it.
attack came in ended the system whereby other states could exchange imposed • Import restrictions around the US economy and devalued the dollar to make US Is on goods more competitive against their the US was forced to strike back against other economies sive seas the 19930 oil unice inprice in. creases. Contrary to press propaganopposed by imposed on the world by "the Arabs'. On the contrary the United States government sought Hally.
They greatly aided the profits of the US dominated world oil companies and tion helped the US economy to open up new domestic sources of energy. They struck a tremendous blow against its 'allies' — Western Finally in the 1980s, Reagan, a new twist of the screw was Tremendously high rates in the United States sucked in ternational funds into the economy and helped maintain even longer the deep economic recession and the crisis of various governments in western Europe. Us Inel worsened the situation further by imposing import restrictions Ull from the EEC countries It is against this background that the significance of the new clash between the EEC and the United States over the huge Siberia to Western Europe natural gas pipeline can be seen. This will supply gas worth 4-5 billion dollars a year and will contribute in a significant fashion to the energy supplies of Western Europe. It will also give significant foreign funds o the Soviet Union, of which at leas art will go to buy West European in dustrial goods. For the United States, signeticantly delay the project, it wil • however, smash strike a significant blow against its West European allies.
The anti-missiles movement Once these underlying economic and political shifts are understood, the full significance of the present antiand anti-nuclear weapons movement in Europe becomes clear.
It nas, as with the earlier anti-Vietnam war movement, a specific of key importance for working class. But as with the Vietnam movement it is also a link in a fundamental historical trend the beginning of the move into opposition to US imperialism West European working class. The anti-Vietnam war movement was the great wave of Americanism' in Europe. The anti-missiles movement is the second.
Americanism' in Europe The underlying economic shifts, and the deepening crisis, are shown in the very different scope of the two movements. The anti-Vietnam war based and al best actively touched a movement essentially few other layers of youth. In the most important country Europe, West Germany, the student 'revolt' was totally isolated from almost all other layers of the populaThere was even a significant electoral revival of neo-ascal organisations accompanying it. The movement in that disintegrated amid the blind alley of terrorism and isolation.
The movement against the missiles incomparably larger scale. all The demonstrations on Vietnam were numbered tens thousands. Demonstrations against the missiles, nuclear weapons, and NATO now assemble hundreds of thousands. During the autumn of 1981, a million or a million and a half people participated demonstrations Western Europe against weapons in Spain and membership NATO. A million again participated in the demonstrations against Reagan's visit to Europe June 1982; including 250,000 in 500,000 in West GerBritain and The scale of these mobilisations is a real factor in world politics Furthermore the social composiof these actions, and their political integration with the workers movemenl.. incomparably deeper than the anti-Vietnam war ment. The very scale of the actions of course mean that very large numbers of workers participate in them. In Britain both the TUC and Labour Party interest Conferences, have been won to the demand for US unilateral nuclear Around 30-40 per cent of the W, German SPD has voted for positions rejecting the decision of its coalition government with the Liberals to accept the missiles. steel isolated TTOM various 'Green' and slates in West Germany, seen by the population as to the left of the SPD, have been regularly gaining 6-8 per cent of the vote in state elections.
In short the second great wave of opposition United perialism in Europe already has enormously greater Vietnam war the first. The changing economic and political relations between the United states and Western Europe make it absolutely certain that there will be a third and a fourth wave deeper social weight and political impact than that against the missiles -'and this is already the largest international movement the Second World War.
It is this working class opposition, and not the inter-imperialist economic competition, which is finally the most decisive part of relations Europe and the United States. Indeed it is this working class struggle which in the final analysis underlies the economic clashes.
West. European easily recoup the economic losses to This is the United States by imposing austerity cuts on their own working classes then they would not have to engage in such risky, and politically destabilising, manoeuvres as having conflicts with the US ruling class.
It is because they cannot, because austerity attacks on the West European working classes destabilise the political situation in their own countries that the West perialists are forced to intensify their conflicts with the United States.
The way forward Finally however these new conflicts show a decisive part of the strategic line of march of the West European, and classes. NATO, student Alliance' and all the rest are not just Many imperialist treaties. They are the central alliances Western around which its world system has been organised since Suralls clashes, these have a major effect in world politics For thirty years, precisely because of their centrality, these alliances apcountry nuclear against movethe United States for the first time ever, some strain.
countries.
Far from being population 'Alternative limit their scope development, form States imthis in practice. • weight than the antimovement which was far Schmidt, any issue since the pipeline. for between Western The West United If the imperialists could it is seriously plans against European imdemonstration working Illass 'Atlantic of 1945 Any tire or threats within greatest CONSIDER RANCE! ... now millions demonstrate on the streets of Western Europe against peared unshakeable. Now for the first time they are beginning to come under Anti-NATO, and 'antiUS' feeling has become a significant factor in a number of West European shown the economic and political developments mean that this is only going to deepen in the vears to come The West European imperialists are forced to engage in conflicts with the United States but they want to When for example Andreas Papandreou, in a significant won huge successes in the 1980 Greek elections on a plat which included withdrawal from NATO, he rapidly abandoned austerity attacks on the Western European work.
ing classes destabilise the political situation the Wes Germar Chancellor and leader of the SPD, opposes strongly, in action, the US attemot to prevent the construction of USSR-Western Europe gas But he fights equally hard NATO and NIOr the missiles to be brought into Europe European ruling classes want to confine the clashes with the States increased nationalism and to the working class accepting austerity policies to compete with US industry.
The dynamic of working class struggle however is quite different. It challenged the war in Vietnam. Now challenging military the Soviet Union in Europe. Its dynamic is to clash with the entire 'Atlantic Alliance' system created since the Second World War.
As yet many currents participating in that movement still have outlooks which are neutralist and pacifist. Only a small part as yet would agree one of the banners in the West Berlin against Reagan •Better gas from the East than rockets the objective role or NATO and ten West' alliance of Western Europe with the United States in world politics, that sentiment already plays tremendous progressive role It will deepen and clarify much further in the years to come The increasing clash of the West European working class with the ensystem of alliances with the United States is going to be one of the political developments of world politics in the 1980s. . it is one revolutionary socialists must fight to develop in every way
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