First Published: The Call, Vol. 8, No. 22, June 4, 1979.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
Copyright: This work is in the Public Domain under the Creative Commons Common Deed. You can freely copy, distribute and display this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line as your source, include the url to this work, and note any of the transcribers, editors & proofreaders above.
Sumitted by C.D.
When a mass struggle develops among the American people, you can be sure that the revisionist Communist Party U.S.A. will try to turn it in a reactionary direction.
Such has been the case with today’s anti-nuke movement, which has grown dramatically since the accident at Three Mile Island directly endangered the lives of tens of thousands of people. More than 100,000 people marched on Washington May 6 to express their outrage over the dangers of the government’s nuclear energy policies.
But what has been the response of the CPUSA to this movement? The revisionists first tried to attack it, then to steer it into harmless reformism and, finally, to make it serve the war preparations of Soviet social-imperialism.
It has not been easy going. Just days before Three Mile Island, for instance, an article appeared in the March 31 issue of the People’s World, the CPUSA’s West Coast newspaper. It was entitled “A Reply in Defense of Nuclear Power” and written by Victor Perlo, a leading Party spokesman.
Said Perlo, “There is no significant emission of radiation from nuclear power plants.”
Since radiation was hitting Harrisburg about the same time the People’s World hit the streets, the CPUSA was, needless to say, in an embarrassing bind. As one reader wrote to the editor:
“Publishing Victor Perlo’s ’Defense of Nuclear Power’ on the heels of the Three Mile Island disaster was certainly a grotesque way to celebrate April Fool’s Day.”
The revisionists tried hard to cover their tracks as the crisis developed. Over the next few days the CP’s newspaper, the Daily World, was full of rhetoric against the energy monopolies and their drives for profits as the cause of unsafe conditions in nuclear plants. At the same time, however, they ran an article praising the Soviet Union for its nuclear policies and for building a huge plant in India.
But this led to double jeopardy. It seems that the Soviet revisionists had their own view of the Harrisburg disaster. Anatoly Aleksandrov, president of the USSR’s Academy of Sciences, declared in the April 10 issue of Izvestia:
“Coverage by the Western press of the accident at the nuclear reactor in Harrisburg, in which some basically minor unpleasant consequences were described in an extremely exaggerated manner, was an extension of the campaign against atomic power.”
This campaign, Aleksandrov claimed, was being instigated by “fuel monopolies” fearful of losing profits from a shift from oil to nuclear energy. This is an interesting proposition, considering that it is the same financial interests who control the oil monopolies that also own and profit from much of the nuclear power industry!
The Daily World’s response came a week or so later after a meeting of the CPUSA’s Central Committee. It took the form of an interview with Gus Hall, General-Secretary of the CPUSA, entitled “Political Meltdown From Nuclear Power.” While not mentioning Aleksandrov by name, it seems that Hall had to put some distance between his party and its Soviet mentors.
“Characterizing Three Mile Island,” said Hall, “as a ’minor leak of radioactivity with insignificant consequences’ either reflects a total lack of knowledge of the concrete circumstances, or an attempt to ignore the real problem.” Also: “Any idea that this broad movement is ’masterminded by oil monopolies’ is not only false, but a slander.”
But even this minor protest was essentially a coverup. For in the same interview, Hall also suggested that those criticizing Soviet nuclear policies were managing to “cover up for capitalism and slander socialism.”
Again Hall had the rug pulled out from under him. Within a few days, Pyotr Neporozhniy, the Soviet Minister of Power and Electrification, told Rep. Robert H, Michel (R.-Ill.) that several accidents had occurred at nuclear power plants in the USSR. Based on the information given, the events were quite serious. U.S. intelligence sources, moreover, claim that a major disaster took place in Siberia some years back with an explosion at a nuclear waste dump, even though it has not been publicly admitted by the Soviets.
Of course, Hall might have a point if he were talking about a genuine socialist country where, as he puts it, “there are no profit pressures that are in contradiction with working for a liveable environment and the health and safety of people.” Even under socialism, however, nuclear energy still presents unsolved scientific problems and any program for its development should proceed with great caution and restraint.
But Hall is not really defending socialism. He is trying to whitewash the reactionary nuclear policies of the Soviet Union with the false claim that it is not an imperialist power with the drive for profits in command of its economic life. A bigger threat than Soviet power plants, moreover, are Soviet nuclear weapons. Hall would undoubtedly defend these as instruments of peace.
What is Hall’s program for the anti-nuke movement here in the U.S.? It has three parts, each of which contains a snare to mislead and wreck the struggle.
First, Hall proclaims: “The nuclear plants should be shut down and never opened again until People’s Commissions, with veto power, agree to their reopening.”
But what is a “People’s Commission”? The CPUSA’s Central Committee defines it as a “Nuclear and Energy Regulatory authority manned with experts and scientists” who would be nominated by and from the labor movement and scientific societies, and subsequently voted on in open elections.” The Authority would have the power to close all unsafe installations immediately.
It seems that the CPUSA has “forgotten” one minor point. The American people live under a dictatorship of the capitalist class. Under today’s conditions, rank-and-file workers have to wage tremendous struggles simply to elect their own shop stewards or minor local union officials. The trade union leadership is presently firmly in the hands of the capitalist political parties. The bulk of that leadership, moreover, has been uncritical of U.S. nuclear policy.
As for “scientific societies,” who are we talking about? Aren’t the energy monopolies sponsoring many of these as well? And as for “open” elections, how “open” should they be? As “open” as those in Chicago? Or Jackson, Mississippi?
Electoral tactics, of course, are a valuable weapon in the arsenal of the working class and can be employed in the anti-nuke struggle. Hall’s scheme, however, has nothing to do with this. It is reformism, pure and simple; it is a ploy to turn the anti-nuke movement over to the labor bureaucrats and Democratic Party liberals, to turn it away from the tactics of mass action, where it is presently gaining some strength.
The second plank in the CPUSA’s anti-nuke program calls for the “nationalization” of nuclear power and the energy industry in general. For Hall, it seems that “nationalization” has more uses than aspirin.
But what does “nationalization” mean under imperialism? The state would own and control the industries. This only begs the question, however, since the next thing to ask is who owns and controls the state, if not the capitalists? Also, would it mean that the nukes would be as “efficient,” as “safe” and “well-run” as, say, Amtrak or the Post Office?
No, Mr. Hall and Co., this is just another reformist diversion. It would only take the nukes out of the hands of private monopolies and place .them in the hands of the collective representatives of the private monopolies.
Hall’s third plank is especially dangerous. It calls for the anti-nuke movement to make one of its main demands support for the SALT II treaty between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. It takes advantage of the fact that there is a debate going on in the anti-nuke movement. One side wants to limit the struggle to the question of nuclear power plants. The other side wants to link up with the struggle against nuclear weapons and the danger of a new world war.
It is entirely correct to link these struggles. Both would be vastly strengthened and the anti-nuke movement could develop as a powerful component of a united front against superpower hegemonism and war.
Support for the SALT II treaty, however, would do just the opposite. Its provisions do not restrain the superpowers’ arms race. In fact, once the treaty goes into effect, both sides will increase their nuclear arms buildup beyond what now exists, including the development of entirely new weapons systems.
The CPUSA glosses over this fact. It might be difficult to get a “No Nukes” movement to openly support “More Nukes!”
SALT, moreover, is more than a smokescreen for a superpower arms buildup. Support for the treaty would bring the anti-nuke movement under the wing of the Soviet social-imperialists’ aggressive war plans, as well as under the wing of those forces in the U.S. who are appeasing that aggression.
History has shown that the policy of appeasement does not prevent, or even delay, the outbreak of war. It actually brings the war on faster, a prospect that is completely opposed to the aims of the anti-nuke struggle.
The anti-nuke struggle is a new and growing movement. As with other struggles, it faces many twists and turns, setbacks and advances, on the road ahead. What is more, it has posed many new and difficult questions, both political and scientific.
Nuclear energy, for instance, has been developed under the conditions of the anarchy and crisis of capitalism. The existing installations are unsafe and the demand to shut them down is just and correct.
At the same time, it would be a mistake to abstain from any struggle to improve the safety of nuclear plants or to demand further research and development of means to dispose safely of nuclear wastes. To capitulate to the bourgeoisie in this area of struggle, on the grounds that nukes are inherently unsafe under any and all circumstances, is Utopian. It would isolate the movement from millions who are concerned for their safety and also dependent on energy derived from nuclear power.
But one thing is certain. The revisionists have only bankrupt and dangerous solutions to any of these problems. This is evident from their reliance on the liberal bourgeoisie, the capitalists responsible for nuclear dangers in the first place. It is evident from their whitewashing of the Soviet Union and its nuclear accidents.
And finally, it is evident from their coverup of the Soviets as the main source of a new world war, an approaching disaster far greater even than a nuclear meltdown. The revisionists must be isolated and defeated in the anti-nuke movement.