r

A BRIEF HISTORY

of the

UNITED STATES

Shih Chan

$t

A BRIEF HISTORY

of the

UNITED STATES

Shih Chan

translated by

the Chinese Translation Croup

Shih Chan's Brief History of the United States is onepamphlet in a series of "Readings for Historicar Under-

reference. Explanatorys otherwise noted. Thedid not appeiu in the

TRANSLATORS' FOREWORD

Chinese Translation GroupP.O. BoxBerkeley, Ca.August, 1976

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. The Colonial Era

II. The North AmericanWarof Independence ....... g

III. TheCivilWar ....10

IV. The Rise of United States Imperialism . . . . . 16

V. The U.S. From World WarItoWorldWarII ...... 23

VI. ClimbtothePeak. .....31

VII. The Decline of U.S. Imperialism . . . . . 38

Footnotes ...... 40

I. THE COLONIAL ERA

The Indians were the original masters of the NorthAmerican continent, working and living there for generationupon generation. In L492 the navigator Columbus (14b1-1506) discovered the American continent, which "opened upfresh ground for the rising bourgeoisie." I The mystical powerof gold urged Europe's greedy colonialists of Spain, Holland,France and England across the Atlantic, crowding in oneafter the other.

The various colonial countries launched fierce struggles tograb North American colonies. By 1733, England had alreadyoccupied a narrow strip from the Atlantic Ocean west to theAppalachian Mountains. The Seven Years' War2 of themid-18th century ended more than a hundred years of warbetween France and England, both contending for hegemonyon the North American continent. Canada and the broadexpanse of territory west of the Appalachian Mountains tothe Mississippi River fell into English hands. Nevertheless, themost important part of the English colonies in NorthAmerica were the 13 colonies along the Atlantic coast.

These 13 colonies were: Virginia, Massachusetts, NewYork, New Jersey, Delaware, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania,Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Connec-ticut and Rhode Island. England established a provincialassembly in each colony and raised a colonial army. Due tonatural conditions, and for social, economic and otherreasons, the economic development of the colonies graduallymoved in different directions: the northern seacoast becamethe center of a fishing and shipbuilding industry; the centralpart fostered a small agricultural economy; and the southdeveloped a relatively advanced plantation economy. Thecapitalist economic system in England's North Americancolonies, and especially its rapid growth in the northeasterncolonies, inevitably led to the North American colonies'final desire to proceed toward political independence.

Britain's North American colonial society was like apyramid: at the pinnacle were foreign merchants and alandlord class; at the bottom were the exiles from Europe's

wars, the poor, those people of va-rious strata who sufferedreligious persecution, black slaves transported from Africa,and the Indians. From the moment the European colonistsset foot on the North American continent, they forciblyoccupied Indian land and carried out brutal treatment andgenocide against them. The colonists also fostered a barbaricslave system. Many poor immigrants sold themselves intoslavery. The system of black slavery, beginning when the firstblack Africans were brought to Virginia in 1619, was espe-cially widepsread. By the beginning of the 18th century,there were altogether 60,000 black slaves in the 13 colonies;by 7775, they had increased to 500,000 and comprised 20percent of the total population. The slave owners treatedthese black slaves as beasts of burden and could sell or kitlthem at will. The major sources of primitive capital accumu-lation3 in the colonies were pillaging and slaughteringoppressed Indians, selling blacks and forcing black and whiteslaves to perform hard labor. The North American socialpyramid was nothing more than the heaped up bones of thepeople of the colonies.

Wherever there is oppression, there is resistance. In 7676, apeasant uprising led by Nathaniel Bacon broke out inVirginia. In 1689, a people's uprising led by Leisler in NewYork held political power for two years. Although thenumerous people's uprisings and peasant struggles of theseyears suffered defeat, they nevertheless dealt a profoundblow to British colonial rule and shook Britain's hegemonicposition in North America, pushing forward the wheel ofhistory.

II. THE NORTH AMERICAN WAROF INDEPENDENCE

Britain's cruel exploitation and oppression of the NorthAmerican colonies was intended to make the coloniescompletely dependent on the metropolitan country and tomake the colonial economic system entirely serve its interest.Economically, the British colonialists controlled the com-merce, suppressed the industry and restricted the territory ofthe North American colonies. This kind of repressive colonialpolicy not only dealt blows against the working people of thecolonies, but also harmed the interests of the commercial andlandlord classes, pushing them to join in common oppositionto British rule. The natidnal contradiction between thepeople of all strata of the colonies and the British rulers grewsharper. The whole society was like a tinderbox whichneeded only a spark to set the fire roaring.

After the Seven Years'War, the British treasury was nearlyempty, and the British government attempted to pass itsnational debt onto the backs of the people of the colonies bysqueezing them even more oppressively. The British govern-ment announced restrictions on the colonists' movementwest of the Appalachian Mountains, levied heavy revenuestamp taxes and passed a series of other statutes to oppressthe people of the colonies. This aroused even greater angerand hatred. They strongly demanded the breaking of thechains that the British mother country had imposed on them,and resolved to fight for national liberation and in-dependence. The waves of the movement quickly engulfedthe thirteen colonies.

In March, L770, the British colonialists perpetrated theBoston Massacre, opening fire on a totally unarmed massdemonstration, and relations between the colonies and theBritish mother country became even worse.

In 1774, the British rulers announced five new decrees inan attempt to intensify the suppression of the people of thecolonies. The new high-pressure policy mobilized colonists ofthe various classes. The internal contradictions within the

colonies tended to slacken, gradually approaching unitytoward the outside, and an anti-British front gfaduallyformed.

In September, t774, representatives of the North Ameri-can colonies convened the First Continental Congress inPhiladelphia. At the Congtess, Patrick Henry, a delegate fromVirginia said that Britain's tyrannical rule had obliterated theborders between the colonies. "Henceforth we are no longerVirginians, but Americans," he said. With popular support,the progressive delegates defeated the conservatives. Thepeople of Boston had already organized armed groups, andthis gave even greater support to the progressives'arguments.The anti-British front was consolidating.

On the night of April 18, L775, the armed people ofLexington and Concord fired the first shot in the War ofIndependence, raising the curtain on the anti-British revolu-tion. The sound of guns in Boston aroused patrioticenthusiasm; the people of various areas fought shoulder toshoulder, took up weapons in droves, organized people'smilitias, and hastened to the battlefield. Within a few daysmore than 200,000 people's militia had gathered on theoutskirts of Boston. In May, the Second Continental Con-gress was held in Philadelphia. The bourgeois democratsThomas Jefferson (7743-L826) and Benjamin Franklin(1706-1790) were both delegates. Urged by the masses of thepeople, this Continental Congress decided to raise a volunteerarmy, issue paper money and purchase munitions fromabroad as well as reorganize the people's militia into a"Continental Army" commanded by the wealthy Virginiaplantation owner George Washington (L732-1799). He madecontributions by his leadership of the revolutionar5r war forNorth American independence.

In the course of the people's struggle, it was extremelynecessary to create revolutionary public opinion to unite thepeople, smash the enemy, clear away ideological obstaclesand achieve a revolutionary victory. Thomas Paine (1737-1809), a cultural fighter and the son of an indenturedservanta in exile from Europe, published a small pamphletcalled "Common Sense" in January, L776. He said provoca-

The Green Mountain Boys of Vermont were one of many guerrilla

bands who fought in the War of Independence.

tively that the time for discussions was already over and theissue could now be settled only with weapons. His declara-tion was directed against contemporary conservative ele-

ments, and it powerfully promoted the fighting will of thepeople to strive for independence and freedom.

The revolution progressed toward high tide. On July 4,7776, the Continental Congress passed the Declaration ofIndependence, which was drafted by Jefferson and his group.The Declaration held that all people are born equal, withinalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness;that the power of rulers comes from the consent of the ruled;that the overthrow of an old government and establishmentof a new one is a legal process for which arms must be usedwhen necessary. This was the first call by the bourgeoisie fornational independence and democratic freedom, and Marxcalled it "the first Declaration of the Rights of Man."5 Byformally announcing to the whole world that America wouldleave Britain and become independent, the Declaration oflndependence marked a new stage in the North AmericanWar of Independence. The original 13 colonies in North

6

America became at that time the first 13 states of the UnitedStates of America, and July 4th became the national day ofthe United States.

After the Declaration of Independence the United Stateswas "independent" only on paper. The North Americancolonists went through five years of bitter and bloodywarfare before they forced Cornwallis, the commander of theBritish colonial ilffiy, to surrender at Yorktown on October19, 1781. The formal establishment of the United States ofAmerica came only when England recognized the in-dependence of the 13 North American colonies in a treatysigned between the two countries in Paris in 1783.

The North American War of Independence was a war inwhich a weak country defeated a strong one, a small countrydefeated a big one. At that time England occupied thesuperior position as the world's first great industrial nation,with a population of 30 million; the armies they sent toAmerica were 90,000 men strong, all equipped with fineweapons. The North American colonies were in a completelyinferior position, with a population of only three million anda backward economy. With only a few muskets, a fewguerrilla bands and a few militia units, at first they lost manybattles and much territory. But because it was a just war, thebroad masses of the people mobilized and expanded theguerrilla war. Not fearing the British ruthlessness, and holdingfast to the end, the colonists finally defeated the BritishEmpire and created the first independent bourgeois republicin America.

The victory of the North American War of Independencecannot be separated from the sympathy and support ofpeople throughout the world. Many progressive Europeansspontaneously organized armies of volunteers to help, andthe colonists sent Benjamin Franklin to Europe as a specialenvoy to carry out diplomatic activities. Carefully using thecontradictions between other nations and England, heelicited expressions of sympathy for the colonists' revolu-tionary struggle from France and other countries, whichcreated international conditions favorable for the victory ofthe war for independence. As Lenin pointed out:

In their arduous war for freedom, the American people alsoentered into 'agreements' with some oppr,essors against others forthe purpose of weakening the oppressors and strengthening thosewho were fighting in a revolutionary manner against oppression,for the purpose of serving the interests of the oppressed people.The American people took advantage of the strife between theFrench, the Spanish and the British; sometimes they even foughtside by side with the forces of the French and Spanish oppressorsagainsi the British oppresso.r . . .6

This passage strongly affirms the revolutionary historicalexperience of the American people.

The North American War of Independence was a greathistorical event. It overthrew Britain's colonial control overNorth America and established the American bourgeoisrepublic, liberating the forces of production in the UnitedStates and clearing the road for the development of capital-ism. Lenin pointed out, "the history of modern, civili,zedAmerica opened with one of those great, really liberating,really revolutionary wars . . .7 Internationally it stimulatedthe bourgeois revolution in France, promoted democraticreforms in England and influenced the bourgeois revolutionsin all the countries of Europe, leading Marx to write inCapital, "in the 18th century, the American War of In-dependence sounded the tocsin for the European middle-class." 8 The War of Independence also provided greatinspiration to national independence movements throughoutthe Americas.

Laboring people, including workers (mainly workers inhandicraft industry), farmers and the urban petty bourgeoisiewere the fundamental force which brought'victory in thiswar. U.S. independence was achieved by the selfless sacrificesand bitter struggles of the masses of the people; and whilethey also participated, the bourgeoisie and the landlordsvacillated. The democratic faction of the bourgeoisie, repre-sented by such men as Jefferson, Franklin, Paine andWashington, led the war; but the fruit of the revolution wasseized by the bourgeoisie and the slave owners. With the landproblem and the slave problem left unsolved, working peopleencountered brutal oppression and exploitation. As classcontradictions became steadily sharper, their lives grew more

8

bitter and they even gradually lost the democra{ic rights theyhad won in the war. In 7786, under the leadership of DanielShays (1748-7825), a hero in the War of Independence, thefarmers of Massachusetts staged an armed rebellion whichwon sympathy from the common people of the cities. Theyorganized an enormous army of farmers, surrounded the statelegislature and attacked the armory, posing a serious threat tothe state government. Even in the face of brutal repressionorganized by the merchants and landowners, Shays held outfor several months of fighting. This farmers' uprising struckat the reactionary faction of the landlord capitalist class andstimulated the struggle of the broad people and the demo-cratic faction of the bourgeoisie for democratic freedom.

After the War of Independence, and particularly afterShays' rebellion, the bourgeoisie felt more and more stronglythe need to further consolidate their position and protect thefruit of the victory. For this purpose they launched aconstitutional movement, calling a constitutional conventionin Philadelphia in May 1787, where they ratified a federalconstitution. The constitution made the separation ofpowerse the basic organizational principle for the state. Thepresident controls all executive powers and has authorityover the military, becoming commander-in-chief in wartime;he also has veto power over the legislature. The Congress isthe legislative organ and is composed of the Senate and theHouse of Representatives. The Supreme Court is the highestjudiciary organ. Adapted to the needs of the bourgeoisie forconditions favorable to their control, the constitutionnaturally could not reflect the needs and demands of thebroad working people. Jefferson and others from thebourgeoisie's democratic faction opposed this constitution.Under popular pressure and influenced by the Frenchrevolution, ten amendments concerning human rights wereadded to the constitution in September, 1789, guaranteeingsuch rights as freedom of speech, press and assembly. Theamended U.S. constitution was more progressive than before,but this could not change its fundamental nature as the legaltool of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.

In 1789 Washington took office as the first president ofthe United States.

From 1801 to 1808, the third president, Thomas Jeffer-son, was in power. He developed bourgeois democracy andstimulated the expansion of U.S. capitalism. Because hecarried out an independent foreign policy, relations betweenthe U.S. and England worsened steadily, until war finallybroke out between the two countries in June, 1872. This wasthe United States'second war for independence from Britain,and final victory was won in 1815. Through this war, theU.S. threw off all economic dependence on England, trans-forming its economy from a semi-colonial one into anindependent and autonomous one. From this point on, theU.S. entered the period of developing capitalism.

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Mary Ludwig Hays ("MollyPitcher") looh her hus-band's place as a cannoneerin the Battle of Mon-mouth, N.J. (1778)

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TII. THE CIVIL WAR

U.S. capitalism developed continuously after the War ofIndependence.

In 1807 the U.S. began its industrial revolution, takingadvantage of new technical achievements from the advancedEuropean capitalist countries and introducing newly devel-oped means of production. This caused the cotton textileindustry to develop first, followed by the coal industry andby some development in the machine, vehicle building andleather industries. In 1860, the year before the Civil War, thevalue of U.S. industrial production reached $1,885 million,nearly ten times more than in 1810 and ranking fourth in theworld after England, France and Germany.

To cope with the requirements of rapid capitalist develop-ment, the U.S. began early in the 19th century to carry outtenitorial expansion to the west. Driving out and slaughteringthe native Indian peoples, the U.S. used force and guile toacquire huge temitories from the hands of others. In 1803,the U.S. took advantage of Napoleon'sro setbacks in hisaggressive wars and "bought" the Louisiana territory fromFrance for $15 million, acquiring an area of approximately2.15 million square kilometers. In 1810 the U.S. sent armedsettlers to occupy the Spanish colony in western Florida andin 1818 sent troops to take eastern Florida. In the next yearSpain was forced to accept $5 million "compensation," and"cede" this territory to the U.S.

The Monroe administration (1817-1825) made muchheadway in capitalist development and territorial expansion.In 1823, President Monroe proclaimed the "Monroe Doc-trine," which opposed intervention by members of theEuropean "Holy Alliance"ll in Latin America's internalpolitics. It introduced the slogan "America for the Ameri-cans." At the same time this revealed the expansionist designsof rising U.S. capitalism. In 7846, the threat of war was usedto force England to give up the Oregon Tenitory south of the

49th parallel. In order to gobble up Mexican territory, theU.S. provoked war with Mexico (1846-1848). Through thiswar, the U.S. took a large piece of Mexican territory,including the areas of Texas, New Mexico and Califomia. In1853, the U.S. "bought" the Gila River basin area on thesouthern edge of Arizona for $10 million. In this manner, itstemitory increased from an area of approximately 2.3 millionsquare kilometers in 1785 to over 7.7 million squarekilometers. Territorial expansion brought the U.S. bourgeoi-sie larger markets and sources of raw materials and food,stimulated advances in industry, communications and trans-portation, and in general provided favorable conditions forthe uninterrupted development of capitalism.

Within a few decades, the U.S. economy underwent a trulyastonishing transformation. Yet the development of theeconomies of the North and South ran progressively counterto each other. In the north a capitalist system based on \Mage

labor took shape; in the south, however, there was a slavesystem based on slave labor. As capitalism developed, theconflict between the two kinds of social systems intensified.The slave system was an obstacle to developing capitalism,and the growing contradiction between the two kinds ofeconomic systems led to political conflict and finally to theoutbreak of the civil war. Marx pointed out:

The present struggle between the South and North is, therefore,nothing but a struggle between two social systems, between thesystem of slavery and the system of free labor. The struggle hasbroken out because the two systems can no longer live peacefullyside by side on the North American continent. It can only beended

-by the victory of one system or the other. 12 '

It is significant that as capitalism developed, a labormovement gradually arose. From its beginning, the U.S.proletariat suffered a miserable life under bourgeois exploita.tion. At first the young proletariat was under the influence ofthe utopian socialists. In 1825, Robert Owen13 personally setup the village of New Harmony in Indiana. In the 1840'sfollowers of Charles Fourierla set up about 40 "phalanxes,"the most famous of which was Brooks Farm near Boston.The German utopian egalitarian communist Weitling, the

13t2

"true socialist" Herman Kriege and others also carried outpropaganda and experiments. Although these utopianschemes went bankrupt in the midst of capitalism, the U.S.proletariat never ceased its struggle against the bourgeoisie.After Weydemeyer, a close comrade-in-arms of Marx andEngels, brought Marxism to the U.S., the proletariat becamesteadily more conscious. Weydemeyer arrived in 1851 and inJune 1852 set up the Proletarian League in New York, thefirst Marxist organization in the United States. In October of1858 he established the Communist Club, which later enteredthe First International. As the U.S. proletariat graduallybecame an independent political force and entered thepolitical a.rena, the struggle against the bourgeoisie expandedfurther.

Before the war, blacks in the South numbered 4.2 million,and the question of whether to abolish or preserve blackslavery was a burning issue in the political struggles of thattime. U.S. working people, farmers and progressive intellec-tuals were resolutely opposed to the evil slave system.Beginning in the 1830's, they launched a widespread aboli-tionist movement and organized an "underground railway" (asecret transport network) to help slaves escape. In 1851 and1852, two famous novels were published exposing the slavesystem. One was Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet BeecherStowe. Even though the novel shows feelings of bourgeoishumanism and is colored by religion, it nevertheless describesto a certain extent the inhuman life of the black slave. Thebook expresses true sympathy with black people and fierceopposition to slave owners, and had a profound influence inarousing public opinion. The other novel was White Slaue byRichard Hildreth, which definitively exposed and castigatedthe system of racial prejudice and warned the ruling class:"Day by day, and hour by hour, as the chain becomesweaker, so the disposition and the power to snap it becomestronger." ls During this period there were repeated uprisingsagainst the slave system, of which the best known was the1859 uprising of black and white people led by John Brown(1800-1859). But the badly outnumbered band was defeated,and Brown was wounded and captured. Before his executionhe wrote: "I, John Brown, am quite certain that the crimes

Escaped blachs defended their freedom during passage on the

Underground Railroad. (From an uctual euenl in Virginia,

December I 855. )

of this guilty land will never be purged away but withblood." l6

The Republican Party was established in 1854 on thefoundation provided by the growing abolitionist movement.It represented the interests of the industrial bourgeoisie andheads of agricultural enterprises in opposition to the Demo-cratic Party (established in 1828), which at that time servedthe interests of the slavemasters. Its founding stimulatedcontemporary struggles against the slave system. The Repub-lican Party's most famous activist, Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), had already declared his opposition to slavery in apublic speech. In 1860, as a candidate of the RepublicanParty, he was elected the 16th president. Viewing Lincoln,spresidency as against their interests, the southern slaveowners caused a split and launched an insurrection. At theend of 1860, South Carolina left the union, and soon, oneafter the other, 11 southern states announced their secession.

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organized a confederation and set up a new government.They elected a large slave owner, Jefferson Davis, as Presidentof the Confederacy and set the capital at Richmond, Virginia.At that time there were two presidents in the United States,two congresses and two armies. Soon a large-scale civil warbroke out.

In May, 1862, the Lincoln government promulgated theHomestead Act, which allowed farmers who had plowedunowned western lands continuously for five years to receive160 acres of land free. In September the EmancipationProclamation was issued, which provided that from January7, 7862, all slaves within the states who had left the Unionwould be considered free and could join the Union army.Within a short period over 186,000 Black people had joinedthe Northern combat troops. They fought bravely andsacrificed greatly: on the average one out of every three blacksoldiers sacrificed his life for liberation. The United Statesproletariat played an outstanding and positive role in thiswar. According to incomplete statistics, between 500,000and 750,000 Northern working people were enlisted in theilDy, half of the total number of working people. Thefamous labor leader Weydemeyer personally participated inthe war as a leader.lT The great revolutionary leaders of theproletariat Marx and Engels paid close attention to this war.Due to the wide support of the broad working people and theencouragement of the international proletariat, the Northernarmy achieved final victory in the summer of 1865.

The Civil War of 1861-1865 was the second bourgeoisrevolution in United States history.

The authors of the Marxist classics gave a very highassessment of the United States Civil War. Marx said: "As inthe 18th century, the American War of Independencesounded the tocsin for the European middle-class, so in the19th century, the American Civil War sounded it for theEuropean working-class."l8 The Civil War crushed the powerof the slaveholder, put the industrial bourgeoisie in adominant position and opened up a vast road for thedevelopment of U.S. capitalism. The Civil War not onlycreated the conditions for national unity but also swelled the

tide of the labor movement and raised the level of organiza-tion and consciousness in the working class. Trade unionorganizations were rapidly established during the Civil Warperiod, raising such slogans as the "eight-hour day" and"equal pay for equal work." Internationally, the war causedthe European working class to recognize the necessity forestablishing an intemational organization to carry on politicalas well as economic struggles. The working class of allcountries upheld the slogan, "Workers of the world unite!"by which they declared: struggles for freedom and for workare the same throughout the world. The First Internationalpinned its hopes on the Civil War, believing that only thedestruction of the slave system would lead to the expansionof bourgeois democracy in the United States and Europe.Only then could the whole world labor movement befurthered. Lenin pointed out that the Civil War had an"immense world-historic progressive and revolutionary sig-nificance."le However, after fulfilling its democratic revolu-tionary role, the U.S. bourgeoisie soon discredited thepeople's revolutionary victory, betraying the revolutionaryprinciples of the Civil War so that black people wereprevented from being truly liberated. After the war, blackpeople did not receive land, but were forced to work thefields for the slaveholder or to labor for factory owners. Theplantation owners also implemented so-called "Jim Crowlaws."20 Severe racial prejudice and oppression still existed.Thus Lenin said:

. . . the American bourgeoisie . . . having "freed" the Negroes,took good care, under "free," republican-democratic capitalism,to restore everything possible, and do everything possible andimpossible for the most shameless and despicable oppression ofthe Negroes.2r

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IV. THE RISE OFUNITED STATES IMPERIALISM

After the Civil War, U.S. industrial productionexpanded rapidly, developing especially fast around the tumof the 19th century. At this time, the U.S. began to movefrom "free" capitalism toward the stage of imperialism.

After the end of the Civil War U.S. capitalism developedrapidly in agriculture and industry as follows: during the 40years from 1860 to 1900 the total area under cultivationdoubled; the number of capitalist farms also doubled. From1860 to L894, the total value of U.S. industrial productionincreased four times, moving in one jump from fourth to firstplace in the world, producing one-third of the world'smanufactured goods. Production and capital rapidly becameconcentrated; factory workers increased by 23 percent, yetthe number of factories only increased by one percent. In theprocess of passing through the brutal capitalist competitionand the economic crises of 1873, 1883, and 1893, middleand small enterprises continually went bankrupt, and wealthand capital ended up in the hands of a tiny number offinancial groups. Thus the railroad king Vanderbilt, the oilking Rockefeller, the steel king Morgan, and the automobileking Ford monopolized over 80 percent of the production inthese four key industries, some even reaching 95 percent. TheRockefeller group's Standard Oil Company, founded in 1870and reorganized in 1879 as a trust, controlled almost all ofthe American oil companies. It also possessed railroad,steamship, coal mining and coke making firms. Such hugetrusts made up only one percent of the nation's businessenterprises in 1909, but they actually controlled one-half ofthe gross national product. Lenin therefore considered theUnited States the prototype of trust imperialism.

Not only industry but banking as well developed towardconcentration and monopoly. Banking and industrial capitalcombined to form finance capital, producing a financialoligarchy. At the beginning of the twentieth century eightlarge financial groups had already appeared: the MorganBroup, the Rockefeller group, the Kuhn-Loeb group, the

Mellon group, the DuPont group, the Chicago group, theCleveland^ group, and the Boston group. There were 60families.23 Together they literalty manipuiated the economiclife of the whole country, controlling the government anddetermining both its external and internal policies.

The two-party system arose during this period. TheRepublican Party, capitalizing on their leadership in the CivilWar victory, remained in power for 24 years, until GroverCleveland of the Democratic Party became president in 1ggb.All later U.S. governments were formed from these t\voparties in alternation. Engels had already pointed out:

The two-party system is only a method of protecting thedictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Both parties in politicalpower ruled by violence, brutally exploiting and oppressing

18

workers, black people, and the broad laboring masses. Thiscould only provoke the development of internal class

struggles.Monopoly capitalism is plunder. By the mid-nineteenth

century, the U.S. had largely reached the end of its territorialexpansion on the mainland, so it turned the spearhead ofaggression overseas. The U.S. was a latecomer as an imperial-ist country; so, when it began to intensify its efforts toexpand and to seize colonies and spheres of influence, itfound the rich banquet table of capitalism already crowdedwith all sorts of jackals and vultures. American imperialismbided its time, waiting for the moment to move and begin thewar to redivide the world. In 1867, the United States tookadvantage of Russia's weakness as a result of the CrimeanWar2s and the tension between Russian and England to"buy" Alaska and the Aleutian Islands from the czat for$7,200,000. It also occupied Midway Island. In 1898, theU.S. chose to fight Spain, the weakest among the old colonialempires, beginning the first imperialist war, the Spanish-American War. After Spain was defeated, the U.S. seized thePhilippines, Puerto Rico and Guam, and also annexed Hawaiiin the same year. Spain recognized the independence ofCuba, but in reality Cuba became a protectorate of theUnited States. The Spanish-American War expedited thecompletion of the monopolization of U.S. capitalism, andwas the beginning of large-scale U.S. imperialist aggressionabroad.

In Latin America, the Monroe Doctrine became thesignpost for U.S. monopoly capitalism's colonial expansion.In 1890, the U.S. imperialists organized the Pan-AmericanUnion, hastening the transformation of Latin America intothe "back yard" of the United States. Theodore Roosevelt(president from 1901-1908) brandished his "big stick" toobtain sole rights to develop the Panama Canal; then, in1908, he instigated a coup, resulting in Panama's secessionfrom Colombia, and the U.S. occupation of the PanamaCanal. In 1911 Taft (1909-19L2), using dollar diplomacy,signed a loan agreement with Nicaragua and Honduras,seizing the rights to customs duties, railway and steamshiptransportation.

19

The combined armies of lhe Sioux and Cheyenne defeated Custer at the

Little Big Horn, Montq,na on June 25, 1876.

By conquest and purchase-paying only about $87 millionin "compensation"-the U.S. acquired 7.07 million squarekilometers of land in one century, more than three times itsterritory at the time of the Revolutionary War. By 1912there were already 48 states, and the addition of Alaska in1958 and Hawaii in 1959 brought the number to the presenttotal of 50.

But let us return to the past. In the Far East, the spearheadof American aggression was aimed at China. In7844 the U.S.forced the Ch'ing government to sign the Wanghsia treaty-the first unequal treaty between the two countries-by whichit seized many special rights as an invader. In 1899 the U.S.imperialists proposed the infamous "Open Door Policy" tothe other major powers, demanding that they open theirspheres of influence in China to the U.S., and in 1898 U.S.troops were part of the eight-nation army which suppressedthe Boxer Rebellion. Around the time of the Russo-Japanesewar, the U.S. plotted to seize the rich resources in thenortheastern part of our country, shifting from support ofJapan against czarist Russia to competition with Japan after

2120

the war. The 1908 agreement between the two countriesdealt with the question of aggression toward China by leavingboth free to plunder.

The rise of U.S. imperialism brought serious hardships tothe working class and other working people.2 6 Each daymarked the further impoverishment of daily life and erosionof political rights. As capitalism advanced to the monopolystage, the ranks of the proletariat grew rapidly in size andconcentration, and a broad and vigorous labor movementbegan. Marx's comrades-in-arms Sorge and Meyer otganizedthe American branch of the First International in 1867,stimulating the working class movement as they spreadMarxism, struggled against every kind of opportunism, foughtfor the eight-hour day and expanded the strike movement. In1869 workers organized the Knights of Labor, considered byEngels to be the first nationwide organization established bythe U.S. working class. The great Pennsylvania railroad strikeerupted in 1877 as the first large-scale strike movement inU.S. history. On May 1, 1886, several hundred thousandworkers struck and demonstrated in Chicago, Washington,New York and many other large cities, achieving a greatvictory in the struggle for the eight-hour day. Meeting in Parisin 1889, the second congress of the International resolvedthat, beginning in 1890, workers around the world woulddemonstrate and commemorate May 1st as InternationalWorkers' Day. Hearing of the strike wave in the U.S., Engelsgrew very excited, believing that the outbreak of class strug-gle in the U.S. had shaken the main pillars of the entire worldbourgeoisie. He wrote:

. . . our-and your-bourgeois thought that America stood aboueclass antagonisms and struggles. That delusion has now brokendown, the last Bourgeois Paradise on earth is fast changing into a

Purgatorio, and can only be prevented from becoming, likeEurope, an Inferno by the go-ahead pace at which the develop-ment of the newly fledged proletariat of America will takeplace.27

The U.S. labor movement developed day by day during thelate nineteenth and early twdrtieth centuries. It-t 1905 thewell-known labor leaders Eugene Debs, Daniel Deleon and

e

I

rl

I

In 1909, garment worhers in New Yorh City rose up and demandedbetter unges and worhing conditions.

Bill Haywood organized the Industrial Workers of the World,and in 1909 working class leader William Z. Foster engaged inrevolutionary activities while in prison, giving direction to theworkers' movement. Fighting for equality and freedom,Chicago working women staged a magnificent strike andprotest march on March 8, 1909, achieving a response fromwomen all over the country. In the following year the secondInternational Congress of Socialist Women designated March8 as International Women's Day. In 1912 Foster led theorganization of the Trade Union Educational League'topromote the growing workers' movement.

Near the turn of the century, many progressive writersappeared in the U.S., with Mark Twain (1835-1910) and JackLondon (1876-1916) as outstanding examples. Mark Twainwas typical of the American critical realists, using his pen as aweapon to criticize the U.S. political system sharply, attackracial prejudice toward and oppression of black people andanalyze the aggressive character of U.S. imperialism. Charac-terized by humor and ridicule, his art combined an excellentstyle with astute political analysis. His famous short stories

22 23

include "The Celebrated Frog of Calaveras County," "Jour-nalism in Tennessee," "Running for Governor," "Goldsmith'sFriend Abroad Again," "The Man that Corrupted Hadley-burg" and others, and his best known novels are TomSawyer, Huchleberry Finn, The Prince and the Pauper and AConnecticut Ysnhee in King Arthur's Court. Born to a poorfarm family and having to support himself from an early age,Jack London continued in the excellent realistic tradition ofMark Twain. He was an active participant in the revolution-ary workers' movement in the U.S., and his short stories andpolitical writings relentlessly exposed the American bour-geoisie's parasitic life, lambasting them for poverty of spiritand insatiable greed. His famous works include Call of theWild, A Daughter of the Snows, The lron Heel and MartinEden.

V. THE U.S. FROM WORLD WAR ITO WORLD WAR II

World War I broke out in July 7974 between twoimperialist blocs-the Allied Powers (England, France andRussia) and the Central Powers (Germany, Italy and Austria)

-all scheming to redivide the world. Although it firstdeclared its "neutrality," the Wilson government (1913-7927) in the U.S. was actually "sitting on the mountaintopwatching the tigers fight," letting the two sides slaughter andexploit each other so that it could get the spoils. When thebelligerents had fought to the point of exhaustion and thewar was drawing to a close, the U.S. saw its opportunity, toreoff its mask of "neutrality," and in April 1917 declared waron Germany, thus becoming a victor in the war at very littlecost. It took advantage of the deadlock between the twoimperialist power blocs in Europe to drive British andGerman influence out of Latin America and secure its own"back yard." Twice, in 1914 and in 1916, the U.S. senttroops to intervene in the Mexican revolution, and in 1915,1916 and l9l7 the U.S. invaded Haiti, Nicaragua, theDominican Republic and the Virgin Islands in succession.During the war, the U.S. used its "neutrality" as an excuse todo a lot of business in arms with both sides, reaping a hugewindfall profit of $38 billion. The U.S. changed rapidly froma debtor to a creditor nation; by the end of the war thenations of Europe owed it more than $10 billion.

After World War I, the U.S. position in the capitalist worldrose to unprecedented heights; not only did its share of worldindustrial production increase, but in export of goods andcapital it jumped to first place. Stalin pointed out,

The center of financial power in the capitalist world, the centerof the financial exploitation of the whole world, has shifted fromEurope to America. Formerly, France, Germany and Britainusually formed the center of the financial exploitation of theworld. That cannot be said now without special reservations.Now, the center of the financial exploitation of the world ismainly the United States o[ America.2$

24

Taking advantage of its expanding economic power, the U.S.monopoly capitalist class began openly trying to establishworld hegemony for itself.

In January 1918, toward the end of the war, PresidentWilson put forward his "Fourteen Points" to lay the"cornerstone of world peace." The "peace" he advocatednaturally could be only an imperialist peace, and, as Leninsaid,

an imperialist peace . . . will bring the peoples the greatestdeception in th^e^ form of pious phrases, semi-reforms, semi-concessions, etc.29

And it was true. Wilson's "Fourteen Points" were a schemeto smash Soviet state power under Lenin's leadership,transforming it into a bourgeois parliamentary government.Thus in April 1918 he viciously sent troops and arms tointervene in Soviet Russia. At the same time, he wanted touse the U.S. economic domination established during the warto usurp political dominance of the world as well. Theestablishment of the League of Nations was a means to thisgoal.3o

However, Wilson's wishful calculations fell through. Fromthe beginning, control of the League of Nations fell into thehands of England and France, and as a result, the U.S. Senaterejected membership in it.

At U.S. initiative a conference was convened in Washing-ton in 7927-L922 at which a 4-nation treaty, a 5-nationtreaty and a 9-nation treaty were signed.

The 4-nation treaty (U.S., Britain, France, and Japan)provided that the signatories would secure each other's rightsand interests in the Pacific and declared that its ratificationwould nullify the Anglo-Japanese alliance.

The 5-nation treaty (U.S., Britain, France, Japan and Italy)provided that tonnage ratios for battleships and cruisersamong the five nations would be: U.S. and Britain 5, Japan 3,France and Italy .75. From this it is clear that U.S. navalpower had already equalled that of Britain.

The 9-nation agreement (U.S., Britain, Belgium, China,France, Italy, Japan, Holland and Portugal) nominally "res-pected China's territorial integtity" but in reality was an

imperialist agreement to partition China. Using the aggressiveprinciples of the "Open Door," consistently pushed by theU.S., and of "equal opportunity" for all nations' industryand commerce in China, the U.S. broke the temporaryposition of dominance over China which Japan had gained inWorld War I. Our gteat leader Chairman Mao said,

ln t922 at the Washington Nine-Power Conference called by theUnited States, a treaty was signed which once again placed Chinaunder the joint domination of several imperialist powers.3l

After the Northern Expeditionary Army occupied Nan-king, the U.S. imperialists along with British, Japanese,French and Italian naval forces shelled the city on lVlarch 24,7927. On April 72, they instigated Chiang Kai-shek to launcha counter-revolutionary coup and supported the Chiangclique, a dictatorship clo'se to the U.S.

In Europe, the U.S. actively nurtured German imperialism.ln 1924 it announced the Dawes plan, which provided $200million in credit from U.S. capitalists to stabilize the Germanmonetary system. This allowed U.S. capital to penetrateEurope and built up Germany as an outpost against theSoviet Union.

U.S. imperialism everywhere extended its grasp, carryingout aggression and putting down national liberation move-ments while intensifying its arms buildup and preparationsfor war. But U.S. Secretary of State Kellogg proposed a"disalmament pact" in 1928, hypocritically declaring "re-nunciation of war as an instrument of national policy." Thiswas nothing but U.S. imperialism up to its old tricks-usingtalk of peace to conceal its war preparations and its crimes offoreign expansion.

In the period 1929-1933, economic crisis broke out in theU.S. Spreading quickly to the nations of the capitalist world,it grew to a world economic crisis of unprecedented severity.

Under the onslaught of the crisis, the U.S. economy lapsedinto a state of paralysis. Industrial production declined byabout half, and exports fell from $5.2 billion to $1.6 billion;130,000 industrial and commercial corporations went bank-rupt, 10,000 banks closed their doors, and huge quantities of

26

unsold goods were destroyed. By the fall of 1988, 1T millionworkers were unemployed, and 11 million suffered cold andhunger.

Facing this situation, the U.S. monopoly capitalists desper-ately needed a change from the Republican Party, already inpower over 10 years, to make it easier to devise a newstrategy and get through the crisis. This ruling class needmeant that "President Hunger"-Republican presidentHoover (in office from 1929 to 1932) could only lose theelection, and in 1933 a Democrat, Franklin Roosevelt(1882-1945), became the 32nd president.

Within three short months of entering the White House,Roosevelt had submitted more than 70 bills to Congress todeal with the disaster. Among these were the Banking Act,the National Industrial Recovery Act, the AgriculturalAdjustment Act and the "Good Neighbor" foreign policy. Healso established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.This was the so-called Roosevelt "New Deal."

The main financial measures of the New Deal were toexpand the jurisdiction and functions of the Federal Reserve,supply the necessary federal legal and administrative powersto support large banks, squeeze out middle and smaller banksand strengthen the base of monopoly capital. At the sametime Roosevelt temporarily suspended foreign exchange,went off the gold standard and devalued the U.S. dollar tomake U.S. goods more competitive on the world market. Inaddition, he implemented a policy of inflation, raisingdomestic prices to stimulate production and increased invest-ment.

Among the main industrial measures of the New Deal weregovernment support of monopoly capital in swallowing upsmall and medium-sized firms and the use of large federalloans to help big companies get through the crisis. Further-more, under the banner of "reconciliation" between laborand capital, the New Deal established the National LaborRelations Board, destroying the unity of the workers'movement and subduing the strike movement. Social welfareregulations drafting the unemployed into low-paid work onfederal engineering projects were passed to reduce thepressure of the huge ranks of the unemployed.

The New Deal's main agricultural program was to legislatea way of reducing farm production and destroying agricul-tural commodities, thus raising prices and overcoming thecrisis of surplus production. This provided that all whosubstantially reduced the area they had under cultivation andcut back livestock herds would be eligible for a governmentsubsidy or bonus. As a result, at a time when millions ofworkers were cold and hungry, large amounts of wheat wereburned, milk was poured into the sea and potatoes weresprinkled with poison to make them inedible. In 1933 alone,23 million head of livestock, 6 million hogs, 10 million acresof cotton and 7.5 million acres of wheat were destroyed. Thereduction in cultivated acreage hurt most small and middle-sized family farms. Big farm owners, on the other hand,obtained large subsidies and bonuseis and used new machines,fertilizer and other methods to compensate for cuts inacreage, seeking windfall profits from the rise in agriculturalcommodity prices.

In foreign policy, the New Deal's main action was to adoptthe "Good Neighbor" policy toward Latin America. The U.S.concluded trade agreements and reciprocal tariff agreementswith various Latin American nations, exporting capital anddumping commercial goods there. U.S. investment in LatinAmerica increased rapidly, reaching $1.54 billion and makingup 35 percent of total U.S. foreign investment in 1936. Whileit was intensifying its economic aggxession, the Rooseveltgovernment never let up its armed intervention in LatinAmerica. Shortly after his inauguration in 1933, Rooseveltsent 30 warships to Cuba to stage a military threat; in 1937he slaughtered Prlerto Ricans who demonstrated against U.S.authorities; in 1938 he interfered militarily in Mexicangovernment affairs; and he supported fascist dictators in theDominican Republic, Guatemala and Nicaragua. This fullyexposed the true imperialist nature of the "Good Neighbor"policy.

Another manifestation of New DeaI foreign policy was theestablishment of diplomatic relations with the Soviet Unionin November 1933. This was the result of a long period ofstruggle by the Soviet people under the leadership of Stalin

28

WS

Blach and white worhers in Harlem, New York, demonstrated insupport of a 1931 strike in Kentuchy.

At the same time, America has become one of the foremostcountries in regard to the depth of the abyss which lies betweenthe handful of arrogant multimillionaires who wallow in filth andluxury, and the millions of working people who constantly liveon the verge of pauperism.32

[. . . what do we find?] The brazen rule of a handful, not even ofmillionaires, but multimillionaires, while the people are in slaveryand servitude. 3

The sharpening of class contradictions within the U.S. stirreda rising workers' movement. In 1919 a total of 3,577 strikesoccurred, involving 4 million workers. The Great Steel Strikefrom September 1919 to January 1920, involving 365,000workers in 10 states and 50 cities under the leadership ofWilliam Z. Foster, was one of the greatest and most heroic ofU.S. working class struggles in the post-World War I period.At the high tide of the workers' movement, and under theinfluence of the October Revolution, in September 1919 thevanguard of the U.S. working class-the U.S. CommunistParty-was born in triumph. In L92L Foster joined the Party

,rvgRsLMOAcand marked the complete bankruptcy of U.S. imperialism's16-year policy of isolation and embargo of the Soviet Union.For Roosevelt it was also a means of handling the fight forsupremacy among the imperialist powers, which was growingsharper than ever.

As the world economic crisis broke out, Japan invaded andoccupied China's Northeast (Manchuria) in the "September1Sth Incident" of 1931, initiating a war to redivide Asia; Hitlertook power in Germany in January 1933, and the countrywithdrew from the League of Nations in October. Armed tothe teeth, Germany and Japan entered the world arena tojoin the struggle for Europe and Asia and for worldhegemony. In the battle for domination between the U.S.,Britain, France, Germany, Japan and Italy, the Rooseveltgovernment attempted to take advantage of contradictions,sacrifice the interest of other nations and keep its diplomaticrelations with the Soviet Union, thus strengthening the U.S.position in the contest for Europe and Asia.

To encourage a Japanese attack on the Soviet Union in thenorth, New DeaI policy toward China tolerated the Japaneseoccupation of Manchuria. At the same time, it placed somelimitations on Japan's advances in the south, where U.S.imperialism had its privileges and a sphere of influence toprotect.

Roosevelt's New Deal was definitely effective in easing theU.S. crisis and reviving capitalist production, but it wasunable to eliminate the roots of the crisis. The years 1934-36were marked by stagnation, and in 1937-38 a new economiccrisis broke out. Only the outbreak of the second World Warand conversion to a wartime economy made it possible toshake off the crisis that had been going on since 1929.

Between the wars U.S. monopoly capital had becbme morearrogant in its ruthless oppression of the working class andother working people in order to reap vast profits and shiftthe burden of the economic crisis. The U.S. had alreadybecome a nation where the gap between rich and poor wasvery great.

29

30

and worked tirelessly to make it Marxist-Leninist. In 1929the Communist Party expelled the opportunist leader JayLovestone and others, and Foster became head of theSecretariat of the Central Committee.

In the following years the CPUSA and the revolutionarymovement developed greatly. In March 1930 the Party led ahistorically significant nationwide march of the unemployedto demand unemployment relief and unemployment insur-ance. It also stressed the demands of black people as well as

opposition to wage cuts and to fascist war. Those taking partin the protest numbered 1,250,000. A great coal miners'strike began in May 1931 and continued for four months,involving 42,OOO workers. From 1929 to 1933, more than3.5 million people took part in strikes, and during 1934-36,workers opposed the New Deal,3a soaring prices and decliningwages. The tide of the strike movement rose higher, with thenumber of strikers reaching 3,390,000 and the strike move-ment breaking into steel, smelting, shipbuilding, shipping andother "trustified" areas of industry. During the economiccrisis of 1937-38 and until the eve of the second World War,great numbers of U.S. workers and the broad masses oflaboring people opposed monopoly capital, reactionary influ-ences and wars of aggression. In September 1937 alone therewere 3,000 strikes involving 1.5 million people. The people'sspirit of struggle was rising high.

Roosevelt was elected President three times in succession,in 1936, 1940, and L944, occupying the White House beforeand during World War II and carrying out domestic andforeign policies that met the wishes of the U.S. monopolycapitalists. Up through the early days of the war, theRoosevelt administration pushed a policy of appeasement inthe name of "neutrality," trying to repeat President Wilson'strick at the beginning of World War I: to sacrifice theinterests of other countries, tolerate fascist aggression, andincite war against the Soviet socialist state in order to expandthe influence of U.S. imperialism and gain world hegemony.

When Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935 and Germany andItaly intervened militarily in Spain in 1936, Roosevelt issuedthe "Proclamation of Neutrality" declaring that the U.S.would not supply arms to either side. But in reality the U.S.provided large quantities of war materiel to Germany andItaly through other European nations. And when Japanlaunched its full-scale war of aggression in 1937, Rooseveltsupported Chiang Kai-shek's one-sided resistance, hoping totie down and weaken Japan's military forces and avoid unduedanger to U.S. interests in China. On the other hand,however, the U.S. provided Japan with a large quantity ofstrategic materials, such as ammunition, oil and steel, tryingto incite the Japanese to invade the Soviet Union andencouraging them to suppress the Chinese revolution to clearthe way for its own further aggression against China.

In 1938 Germany invaded Austria and prepared to occupyCzechoslovakia; Roosevelt supported the sigrring by Britainand France of the Munich Agreement with Germany andItaly, sacrificing the interest of small and weak countries inorder to satisfy the designs of fascist aggression. He hoped tomend the rift in the reactionary imperialist camp and toencourage Germany and Italy to make war on the SovietUnion.

The German fascist army invaded Poland in September1939. Seeing a serious threat to their interests in Europe and

VI. CLIMB TO THE PEAK

33A,Z

to their own security, Britain and France were forced todeclare war on Germany. This was the beginning of WorldWar II.

With full-scale war in Europe, the Roosevelt administrationcontinued its so-called "neutrality" policy, actually a policyof appeasement, in the hope that the two warring imperialistgroups (the "Allies" Britain and France, and the Fascistcountries of Germany, Italy and Japan) would weaken eachother. At the same time the U.S. would reap huge profits byselling arms to both sides. In the meanwhile, in the name of"neutrality," the U.S. sent envoys to various parts of Europeto carry out activities aimed at gaining the leadership of thecapitalist world in accordance with its plan to form a frontagainst the Soviet Union.

In Asia, Roosevelt and the British came to terms with theJapanese, further selling out Chinese interests by using Japanto suppress the Chinese revolution and to make war on theSoviet Union. This was known as the "Munich of the FarEast. "3s

But the international situation developed contrary to thesubjective desires of the U.S. The law of uneven capitalistdevelopment meant that conflict of interest between theimperialist powers was basically unavoidable. The imperialistalliance against the Soviet Union and an anti-Soviet war-which the U.S. imperialists badly wanted and worked hard torealize-never materialized. Instead, fighting among theimperialist powers grew more and more intense. By MayL947, the iron heel of Hitler's fascist aggression had trampledmost of western and southeastern Europe, and Germany wasmaking threatening noises toward the U.S. In the Far Eastand Southwest Pacific, Japan tried with all its might to grabU.S. possessions. Surrounding the U.S on two sides, theGerman, Japanese and Italian fascists became U.S. imper-ialism's most direct, real and dangerous rival for worldhegemony.

In June 1941 Hitler's Germany launched a sudden attackon the socialist Soviet Union, led by Stalin, provoking warbetween the two countries. The world war entered a newstage, as the people of the world fought against fascist

aggression. In this situation, Roosevelt had no choice but todeclare U.S. support for the Soviet Union's war againstfascism. On December 7, L94L, Japan suddenly attacked theU.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands. Thedamage to the U.S. was disastrous; almost half its Pacific fleetwas blown up. Only then was the U.S. forced to join the fightagainst fascism.

During the war, the Roosevelt administration used variouschannels for continuous and urgent attempts to openseparate and secret peace negotiations with the-German,Japanese and Italian fascists, still hoping that the anti-fascistwar could one day be turned into an anti-Soviet war.

Collaborating with Britain, the U.S. adopted a policy ofdelay and reconsideration toward the opening of a secondfront in Europe.36 In fact, they still could not abandon theirdesire to weaken the Soviet Union, but because of the valiantstruggle of the people of the Soviet Union, China and theworld, the anti-fascist war quickly developed and spread. Ledby Stalin, the Soviet Red Army counterattacked on a largescale and entered the Eastern European nations of Poland,Bulgaria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. The Japanese aggres-sors also suffered severe blows from the people of China andAsia. Only when victory in the war against fascism was insight did the U.S. and Britain finally proclaim their agree-ment to open the second front, and landed in France in June7944. On the eve of the Japanese surrender, the U.S.imperialists dropped atom bombs on densely populatedHiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and August 9, 7945,killing over 200,000 peaceful civilians. The U.S. imperialistshoped to use the atomic bomb as an asset to blackmail thepeople of the world in the postwar struggle for worldhegemony.

During the whole of World War II not a single bomb wasdropped on the American continent or on its cities. Hidingunder the signboard of "the arsenal of democracy," the U.S.did a great deal of arms trade and got rich from the war,making more than $110 billion in profits. Total U.S.production almost doubled between 1939 and 1944, withgteat increases in steel, coal and crude oil production.

34 35

Monopoly capitalism became more powerful, and statemonopoly capitalism also developed further, with tremen-dous expansion in the influence of the Rockefeller, Mellon,DuPont, Cleveland and other financial groups closely con-nected to the weapons industry. The power of the Kuhn-Loeb and Boston financial groups, whose main strength lay inrailways and light industry, declined, while the Californiafinancial group, developing aircraft, space, electronics andother military supply industries, and the First National CityBank financial group, controlling guided missiles and relatedmilitary industries, rose in influence.

After World War II, U.S. imperialism replaced Getman,

Japanese and Italian fascism. The U.S. used its influence as

the victor and took advantage of a defeated Germany, Japanand Italy and a wounded Britain and France to carry outfeverish economic expansion and military aggression throughthe Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan. During the earlypostwar period, U.S. imperialism concentrated in its handsmore than half the capitalist world's industrial production,one-third of its export trade and two thirds of its goldreserves. U.S. imperialism had finally reached a position ofdominance in the capitalist world.

Brandishing H-bombs in one hand and clutching dollars inthe other, U.S. imperialism extended its aggression every-where. Not only did it plunder and enslave the nations andpeoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America, but, as ChairmanMao pointed out,

Even towards its own allies in Western Europe, North Americaand Oceania U.S. imperialism follows the policy of the law of thejungle, trying to trample them underfoot.3T

Planning to establish a global empire such as had never beenseen before, the U.S. supported reactionaries everywhere,patched together various aggressive alliances, built militarybases in every corner, sent thousands of troops abroad andpushed its policies of aggression and war throughout theworld. Thus it had become the main bastion of moderncolonialism and the center of world reactionary power. TheU.S. imperialists used the dollar as the instrument of power

politics and hegemonism, taking advantage 6f others' diffi-culties to rob and blackmail other countries under thepretense of "aid," and becoming the world's biggest ex-ploiters. For a time the U.S. ruling class was so elated that itwas even bragged that the twentieth century was the"American century." The pinnacle of conceit!

During World War II the U.S. Communist Party led thevast majority of the people in support of the anti-fascist war.As early as 1936-39, three thousand of the finest sons anddaughters of the people of the United States went to Spainand joined the anti-fascist international brigade to fight theGerman fascists'armed intervention in the Republic of Spain.Staunch and courageous in battle, 1500 of them gave theirlives in the cause of liberation for the Spanish people. Afterthe outbreak of war in the Pacific, the American peoplethrew themselves into the anti-fascist war, and the Americanproletariat endured such hardships as inflation, a wage freezeand a declining standard of living. But they persisted inworking to support the anti-fascist war effort. Great numbersof young people went to the front lines, fighting to wipe outthe German, Italian and Japanese fascist gangsters. Thepeople of the U.S. contributed their share in the world waragainst fascism.

In 7943, the renegade Browder pushed his line ofsurrender in the U.S. Communist Party, selling "peacefultransition" and other revisionist contraband. In 1944 heactually dissolved the Party. Browder's revisionism nearlybrought the revolutionary endeavor of the American prole-tariat to the brink of disaster, as well as spreading the pois.onof liquidationism to proletarian political parties in othercountries. As Chairman Mao pointed out,

Browder's whole revisionist-capitulationist line (which is fullyexpressed in his book Teheran) in essence reflects the influence ofreactionary U.S. capitalist groups on the U.S. workers' move-ment.38

Headed by Foster, many American Comrnunists opposedBrowder's revisionist line, and many fraternal parties alsoresisted and criticized it. In 1945 the U.S. Communist Partywas re-established with Foster as its general secretary.

36

Chairman Mao expressed warm congratulations and strongsupport for this victory.

Headed by Foster, the Party led the American people tocontinued new victories against U.S. imperialism. The periodimmediately after the war witnessed an unbroken struggle byworkers to improve working and living conditions, despitethe anti-labor Taft-Hartley law,3e McCarthyism- and sabotageof the workers' movement by yellow-dog labor leaders in theA.F. of L. and the C.I.O. (merged in 1955). In 1946 thenumber of strikers reached 4.6 million, with eight strikesinvolving more than 100,000 strikers and representing thepeaks of the union movement. Moreover, during the U.S.imperialist war of aggression against Korea, the Americanpeople started a "hands off Korea" movement. Unfortun-ately, Foster fell ill and died in 1960, and the opportunistswithin the U.S. Communist Party usurped its leadership, so

that the Party degenerated into one of the modern revisionistparties. Although the path is uneven, not smooth but windingand tortuous, this cannot stop the mass movement of theAmerican people from rolling onward.

Beginning before World War I and working until theconclusion of World War II, the well-known Theodore Dreiser(1871-1945), a critical realist writer, put his pen to work inthe struggle. Born in a poor family, he had only a high schooleducation and worked as a newspaper reporter. He took partin the American workers' strike movement and, just beforehe died, joined the U.S. Communist Party. His many works,including novels, short stories, poetry, plays, essays, politicalcommentary and autobiography, contributed to the develop-ment of progressive literature in the U.S.

Dreiser's major achievements were his long novels. Raisingmany social problems in his writing, he protested stronglyagainst capitalist exploitation and against the evils of capital-ist society and exposed the ugliness and pettiness ofbourgeois morals. His Trilogy of Desire (including threenovels, The Financier, The Titan and The Stoic) is a vast epicdepicting the U.S. capitalists' plunder of the people'spossessions and their decadent private life during the last halfof the 19th century and the beginning of the twentieth. Hismost famous work was his long novel An American Tragedy.

The nove thereality of og,,landscape s ofAmerican bedthe comedies of religion. Dreiser raised the proposition thatAmerican bourgeois politics were an out_and_out fraudleading the^country to collapse and making it into ,,a tragicAmerica."4o

37

3938

VII. THE DECLINE OF U.S. IMPERIALISM

As early as 7947 Chairman Mao had already clearlyindicated:

The economic power of U.S. imperialism, which grew duringWorld War II, is confronted with unstable and daily shrinkingdomestic and foreign markets. The further shrinking of thesemarkets will cause economic crisis to break out. The war boom inthe U.S. was only temporary. The strength of the U.S. is onlysuperficial and transient. Irreconcilable domestic and inter-national contradictions, like a volcano, menace U.S. imperialismevery day. U.S. imperialism is sitting on this volcano.al

The development of history has proved the correctness ofChairman Mao's insightful words. Climbing to a position ofhegemony in the capitalist world after World War II, U.S.imperialism soon fell from its peak. Even U.S PresidentNixon did not deny this fact. He once commented that notlong after World War II the U.S. no longer held a "whollyprominent and completely commanding position" and wasno longer "the world's number one country from aneconomic point of view. "

U.S. imperialism has declined, but there is hope for theAmerican people. Lenin remarked,

The American people have a revolutionary tradition . . . thattradition is the war of liberation against the British in the 18thcentury and the Civil War in the 19th century.a2

The U.S. was the original home of May Day, InternationalWorkers Day, and March 8, International Women's Day, andthe people of the U.S. can certainly achieve their own full,liberation and play a new and active role in the progress ofworld history.

4140

FOOTNOTES

1. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Communist Manifesto- Peking:Foreign Languages Press, 1972, p. 31.

2. Between 1756 and 1763, England, Prussia, and others fought a

war with France, Russia, Austria and others in America, Europe and

India to divide colonies and seek hegemony in Europe. Once the warbetween England and France ended with France's defeat, the "Treatyof Paris" was signed in 1763, and England took France's NorthAmerican colonies and India, thereby gaining mastery of the seas.

primitive capital accumulation.- 4. Indentured servants were America's earliest white slaves. The

into debt and couldn'tidn't have the fare foridnapped beggars andhe indenture contract,

they became slaves for from five to seven yeats.5. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Worhs. Moscow:

Progress Publishers, vol. 2, p. 23.-0.

V. t. Lenin, "A Letter to American Workers," in CompleteWorhs. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1965, vol. 28, p. 68.

7.Ibid., p. 62.8. Marx, Capital. New York: International Publishers, 1967, vol. 1,

country are all in the hands of the bourgeoisie, and the so-called

division of powers is merely a formal disguise for the dictatorship of thecapitalist class.

i0. Napoleon I (1769-1821), or Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1799 he

carried out the Thermidor coup d'etat, and in 1804 proclaimed himselfemperor. In 1803, the U.S. took advantage of war between England and

France and the utter defeat of his army by oppressed blacks in Haiti tobuy Louisiana.

11. In 1815, after the empire of Napoleon I collapsed, the monarchsof Russia, Prussia and Austria came together in Paris and formed areactionary alliance with the great majority of European monarchies.Its purpose was to maintain the "order" of feudal control, suppressingrevolutionary and national independence movements.

12. Marx and Engels, The Ciuil War in the lJnited States. New York:International Publishers, 1961, p. 81.

13. Robert Owen (1771-1858), an English utopian socialist. Hesharply criticized the capitalist system and advocated the establishmentof a kind of communist "new farm." He mistakenly thought that onthe basis of abolishing private ownership of land and the means ofproduction and forming a group on the principle of universal friendshipand harmony, capitalism could peacefully change into an ideal socialistsystem. In 1825 he experimented with a communist new village knownas New Harmony. He placed his hopes on the benevolence of rulers anddid not advocate workers taking up political struggle. As a result, all hisexperiments collapsed.

14. Charles Fourier (1772-L837), a French utopian socialist. Heexposed and attacked capitalism and pointed out that the capitalistsystem would inevitably be replaced with another kind of new idealsystem. He had the illusion that he could establish a kind of socialistsociety with "phalanxes" as the primary unit. He repudiated classstruggle and advocated that capitalists and workers establish phalanxestogether. Phalanxes were bodies which combined agriculture andindustry, were self-reliant and shared labor and social income incommon.

15. Richard Hildretir, Archy Moore, the White Sloue. Reprinted 1969by Negro Universities Press, a division of Greenwood Publishing Corp.,New York, p. 405.

16. W. E. B. DuBois, John Brown New York: International Pub-lishers, 1962, p. 365.

17. Entering the army as a captain, Weydemeyer was promoted tocolonel for his work in recruiting an entire regiment of German-American workers. He also became commander of the Military Districtof St. Louis. ITranslators'note]

18. Capital, v. 1, p. 9. (Note that a portion of this same quote wasused on p. 7.)

19 Lenin, "Letter to American Workers," in Collected Worhs, v.28,p. 69.

20. "Jim Crow Laws" were racist and terrorist laws used in the U.S.to oppress black people. Enacted in the southern states by farm owneraat the end of the Civil War, they deprived black people of all politicaland civil rights.

21. Lenin, "New Data on the Laws Governing the Development ofCapitalism in Agriculture. Part One. Capitalism and Agriculture in theUnited States of America," in Collected Worhs, v. 22, pp. 24-25.

42 43

Williams, caused workers to rally against it. It became known as the"National Run-Around," and labor threatened to withdraw support forRoosevelt in the 1936 election. ITranslators'note.]

35. This refers to the period up to summer 1940, during which theU.S. appeased Japan, continuing to sell strategic war materials whilehoping to find a compromise with Japanese imperialism. Supported bythe U.S., the heads of the French and British governments negotiatedwith Hitler and Mussolini in Munich, Germany, hoping to get a fascistinvasion of the Soviet Union in exchange for the betrayal ofCzechoslovakia. The agreement forced Czechoslovakia to cede toGermany the Sudetenland and a southern region bordering Austria.Britain, France, Germany and Italy guaranteed that the rest of thecountry would not be invaded. In November German troops occupiedthe Sudetenland, and in March 1939 they invaded and occupied all ofCzechoslovakia. In September Germany invaded Poland.

36. This referred to the opening of a West European front againstfascist Germany during the latter part of World War II. When fascistGermany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, their battleground becamethe scene of the main struggle against German fascism. In May and June7942 the Soviet Union negotiated with the U.S. and Britain for theopening of a second front that year, but they repeatedly reneged ontheir commitment, hoping that the Soviet Union and Nazi Germanywould weaken each other. Not until the victory of the Soviet army overthe German army became apparent in June 1944 did the U.S. andBritain send troops to land in France's Normandy region.

37. "Statement Supporting the Panamanian People's Just PatrioticStruggle Against U.Sl Imperialism," in Mao Tse-tung, People of theWorld, Unite and Defeat the U.S. Aggressors and All Their Lackeys(Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1967), p. 9.

38. "Telegram to Comrade William Z. Foster," in Selected Worhs ofMao Tse-tung (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1967), vol. 3, p. 287.

-40. The "tragedy" referred to in the tiile of Dreiser's book actually

refers to the personal tragedy of Clyde Griffiths, the book's centrilcharacter, who was electrocuted by the state of New york for

22. Trusts are a high form of monopoly organization under capital-ism, made up of many enterprises which produce similar commoditiesor enterprises which produce closely related commodities. The aim is tomonopolize the market, seize sources of raw materials and areas forcapital investment, and strengthen competitive power in order to gainhigh monopoly profits. Once in a trust, firms lose their independence inproduction and sales, as well as their legal independence.

23. See Ferdinand Lundberg, America's Sixty Families, New York:Vanguard Press, c. 1938. (Translators'note)

24. Engels, Introduction to Marx's The Civil War in France, inDngels: Selected Writings. Baltimore, 1967, p. 309.

25. The war (1855-1856) for expansion of power and division of theOttoman Empire which erupted between Russia and Turkey, England,France and others, resulting in Russia's defeat and the signing of thePeace of Paris.

26. The Chinese make this distinction because of the large number ofpeasants whose economic and social roles are different from those ofthe working class. In America at this time there were large numbers ofsharecroppers and tenant farmers who were later Eadually forced offthe land. ITranslators' note]

27- Engels to Mrs. Florence Kelley, 6/3/1886 in Marx and Engels,Letters to Americans, 1848-1895: a Selection. New York: InternationalPublishers, 1969, p. 157.

28. "The Fourteenth Congress of the CPSU(B). Political Report ofthe Central Committee," in Works of J. V. Sfolirz (Moscow: ProgressPublishers, 1954), vol. 7, p. 27 2.

29."A Turn in World Politics," in V. I. Lenin, Collected Works(Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1964), vol. 23, p.262.

30. The League was founded at the Versailles Conference in 1919-20and disbanded in 1946. The U.S. was the nation that originallyproposed its establishment, but after losing to France and England inthe struggle for its leadership the U.S. did not participate. It was inreality a tool for the policies of aggression and war of England, Franceand other imperialist countries.

31. "On Tactics against Japanese Imperialism," Selected Worhs ofMao Tse-tung (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1967), vol. 1, p. 153.

32. Lenin, "Letter to American Workers," in Collected Worhs(Moscow: ProEess Publishers, 1964), vol. 28, p. 63.

33. Lenin, "speech at a Meeting at the Former Michelson Works," inCollected lTorlas (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1964), vol. 28, p. 90.

34. The heart of the original New Deal was the National RecoveryAct, which guaranteed minimum wages and the right of collectivebargaining, but allowed company unions, individual bargaining and theopen shop. Workers at first supported the NRA and joined unions bythe thousands. However, later interpretations of the NRA by theSupreme Court and by its last, anti-labor administrator, S. Clay

orlglnally

* rA ifr*-

by ilbh

publlshed by Commerclal Press, PeklngPeoplers Republlc of China

L97 2

Translated and publlshed by theChLnese Translatlon Group

Flrst Prlntlng: September L976

@copyrlght L976 by theChinese Translatlon Group

Berkeley, Callfornla