Modern-Day M.A.D.-ness

by Noche Diaz, National Spokesperson for the Revolution Club

Permalink: https://revcom.us/en/modern-day-mad-ness

Updated November 30, 2021

Over the last week or more, there has been a lot of attention in this country’s major press being directed toward China’s recent military and nuclear buildup, and framing all this within the “concern” of the U.S., and how “we”—actually, the U.S. military and U.S. government—should see and respond to this “potential threat.”

It is beyond my intentions in this letter to analyze all the ways in which there has been a buildup of imperialist rivalry in the world, particularly between the U.S. and China. But, there are 3 things that jumped out at me that are TOTALLY MISSING from the picture being painted by what I have read in the major press on this.

1. Once more: this system needs to be overthrown.

While it’s true that any rivalry to build up nuclear arms, and the disaster for humanity that would come of a nuclear war, is a bad thing for all sane and decent people, it is BEYOND RIDICULOUS the way that the U.S. is being treated as the reasonable force in this equation, as if it were a “responsible actor” seeking to reduce such a threat.

First of all, let’s not forget that the U.S. is the only country that has every used nuclear weapons on people, and that the U.S. continues to utilize the threat of nuclear attack in its pursuit of “American interests” throughout the world. It also has to be said, the alarm being raised about China’s buildup is that it would involve China going from 200 nuclear warheads to 1,000 by 2030… MEANWHILE, the U.S. already has over 4,000 nuclear warheads, having one of the largest nuclear weapons arsenals in the world (a close second to Russia)!

In fact, the real fear seems to be that China’s approach to nuclear buildup might, in the coming decade, begin to mimic the approach of the U.S. Another fact is that, for decades now, a cornerstone of how the big-time imperialists have conducted their international relations and foreign policy has been on the basis of what used to be called Mutually Assured Destruction (M.A.D.), which is a much more accurate description than the modern dressed-up and prettified phrase being used in today’s articles, where they call this international understanding (of big-time gangsters holding nukes to each other’s heads) a “mutual vulnerability relationship.”

This M.A.D.-ness stands as yet another towering condemnation of this capitalist system’s barbarity, and the imperialist world order it maintains… another declaration of its bankruptcy… and another cry to the decent people of the world to overthrow and abolish all such systems that would play “chicken” with the lives of so many people, and the fate of humanity.

2. Once more: China is, in fact, a capitalist country.

There is more to say (and more that has been said by Bob Avakian and Raymond Lotta) about the way China, when it was revolutionary and genuinely socialist in the period of 1949-1976, approached and handled being surrounded and threatened by imperialist powers.

But it has to be said, what is happening today is yet another clear indicator of how far away China is from its days of being an inspiration and model to people of the world who hungered for liberation. As seen once again through these recent moves by China, its aim and priority is on becoming a growing and contending power in the CAPITALIST-IMPERIALIST world arena. They are only showing that even formerly oppressed nations, if left on the capitalist road, can aspire to and become big dogs in the dog-eat-dog arena of this system.

But we, the masses of people throughout the world of all nationalities, have NO INTEREST in playing that game. We need a REAL revolution, and a genuinely socialist state power based on the new communism of Bob Avakian—which charts a whole different path even beyond the best of what has come before.

3. Such a revolution, and exercising a genuinely socialist dictatorship, is NEEDED AND POSSIBLE.

Bob Avakian, in addition to authoring The New Communism, which can and needs to be taken up throughout the world, has also led in developing a strategy for how a revolution could actually be won, even in a powerful country like the U.S. There is fighting doctrine for how revolutionary forces, when there is a situation that makes it possible to go all out to overthrow this system, can fight “our (emancipating) way” and not “their (reactionary) way,” and this contrast is not only necessary to achieve our liberating goals, but it is also one of the strengths of the revolution up against a reactionary force with superior destructive power, including nuclear weapons. (See Part 2 of Why We Need an Actual Revolution and How We Can Really Make Revolution (video here; text here), and On the Possibility of Revolution.)

Bob Avakian has also authored the Constitution For The New Socialist Republic in North America, which would be established upon the victory of such a revolution, and which represents a concrete blueprint to establishing a radically new state power on the road to real emancipation. The necessary and far-seeing approach of this new republic toward nuclear weapons is spelled out in that constitution in point 3 of Defense and Security under Article 1, Section 2:

3. The New Socialist Republic in North America will not develop, and will not use, nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction. It will wage a determined and many-sided struggle to rid the world of all such weapons–and it will do this as part of the larger, overall struggle to defeat and dismantle all imperialist and reactionary states and forces and to advance toward the achievement of communism, throughout the world, which will finally make it possible for the desires and dreams of countless human beings throughout history, and the fundamental interests of humanity, for a world without war, to at long last be realized.

“The New Socialist Republic in North America will not develop, and will not use, nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction….”