ABSTRACT: It is not so much missiles themselves that threaten security, but the existence of totalitarian regimes which can decide to use them or to destroy them, ignoring the opinion of their own citizens. "There can be no peace while millions of people are deprived by hunger of the right to live, and other millions deprived, by dictatorships, of the right to freedom of speech".

("Single issue" booklet for the XXXV Congress of The Radical Party - Budapest 22-26 april 1989)

Written on the eve of the European demonstrations against the installation of the "euromissiles" on October 22, 1983, Marco Pannella's article which we are again proposing on this page (To help Andropov or to build peace?) is not only a historical document on the antimilitarist rather than "pacificist" thought of the Radical Party. In particular, it is an extraordinarily up to date text precisely because it anticipated events which five years ago the prevalent culture could not even guess at.

"At the drop of a hat, Andropov can cause the USSR to swerve in its foreign, military and social policy, with sudden tactical and even strategic changes", Marco Pannella wrote in August 1983. "Military investments could soar dizzily or drop at the expense of social funds, without institutional opposition, without the great mass of workers and citizens being able to approve or disapprove or demonstrate", and these are the "huge advantages" of dictatorial governments as compared with those which are more or less democratic. The latter must debate at length with the parties of the opposition, with the social and economic sectors as well as with public opinion, before being able to propose a change of course. "Andropov knows...that the information of the western mass-media, however adulterated or untrue it may be in many cases, is such that it may be also directly or indirectly used as the vehicle for its reasons and proposals". This is why we are warning "our comrades, our pacifist brothers and

sisters in the world"..., "Against the risk that the various 'Comisos', the various '22 Octobers' might represent no more than traps, grounds for the defeat of the common hopes and desires".

Almost a prophecy. Andropov died a few months after the important pacifist demonstrations. And Gorbachev, after the brief and insignificant reign of Chernenko, undertook those "tactical and strategic conversions" which astonished and disoriented the world with a speed that would be inconceivable in the countries of political democracy. Gorbachev makes as much use as he can of western mass-media to repeatedly bombard the west with constant new proposals for peace and disarmament, to which the western governments only succeed in stammering "No" in embarrassment. Gorbachev's image as the leader of peace and reasonableness, is becoming engraved on international public opinion.

Again it is always Gorbachev who dropped the accusation of America wanting to gain military superiority over the USSR with Pershings and Cruises, agreeing to dismantle his nuclear SS20 missiles thereby recognising that these, and not the Cruises, had changed the nuclear balance in Europe. The pacifist movement which had adopted Andropov's accusations, was denied by the Kremlin itself. The winners were shown to be the "Hawks" which had justified the installation of the Pershings and Cruises as a response to the SS20's and as the only means of constraining the USSR to the "zero option".

Those who were not able to foresee these events as structurally possible within a totalitarian regime, in the same measure as they were and are possible indications of an opposite trend, and therefore the aggravation of the USSR military pressure on its bordering countries and on Europe and the corresponding internal police and ideological pressure, must now speak of a second Soviet Revolution marking the end of the era of Communist expansion.

Yesterday as today, they do not understand the nature or the strength of totalitarian regimes, they do not perceive the real threat to security which lies not so much in the quantity of missiles, more or less nuclear, that are pointed at all of us, but in the existence of regimes which can indifferently decide on disarmament or rearmament, on peace or war, without their own citizens, world public opinion, and the international institutions being able to have a significant influence on either choice.

This is why, on the eve of that 22 October, which saw millions of Europeans demonstrating against the Cruises but not for an alternative defence policy, we warned our "pacificist" comrades that the only opposition to American missiles was a lost cause that the Soviet politicians could manipulate if it was against the SS20s, since they were easily wielded by Soviet policy if not accompanied by a strong denouncement of the impossibility of demonstrating in Moscow, against the SS20s. We said that the great powers had every interest in reaching an agreement on euromissiles, and not on the other hand, on the problem of political rights in the East, or on that silent war which is produced by the extermination by hunger of millions of human beings in the southern hemisphere. We repeated that whoever opts for peace cannot remain neutral: he must line up on the side of justice and democracy against violence and dictatorship, he must combat whoever threatens security and not only proclaim brotherhood. We said,

not only to pacificists but also to the ruling classes of the democratic West, that merely to take up the position of balanced disarmament, without planning a more ambitious strategy for a new world order founded on "the right to life and the life of rights" and therefore on the affirmation of values concretely antagonistic to those adopted by the dictatorial regimes, would have represented a weak point rather than strength or reasonableness at the negotiating table to reduce nuclear and conventional weapons. For this very reason we needed the strength to prepare the conversion of all the military industrial structures to make them available for fighting the war against hunger and `underdevelopment'. Certainly, Gorbachev is different from Andropov, but the totalitarian nature of that regime which can indifferently express Stalin, or Kruschev, Breznev or Gorbachev remains unchanged; it can decide to invade Afghanistan and then withdraw without having to pay the price of the great protests which accomp

anied the American tragedy in Vietnam.

On the contrary in the West, all the questions asked by the "left" as to whether Gorbachev will manage to impose democracy on the internal Stalinist forces, and by the "right", as to whether Gorbachev is a trustworthy spokesman, and above all, whether he will be able to do good business, thanks to the opening of the immense USSR market, are ignored, not in words but in behaviour.

This is the point on which governments and opposition forces, "hawks" and "pacificists" risk being defeated in the long run. The first because they undervalue the price that the democratic world should pay in exchange for the new "order" that Gorbachev seems to be able to assure the Soviet empire. This is an "order" which is no longer exclusively founded on the brutal use of force and tanks sent to safeguard Communism in the socialist countries. It is an "order" which takes it for granted that the same totalitarian regime can show a more up to date and reassuring face.

The objective can be reached by an increase in the population's well-being, by the transfer of resources from military structures to civil needs, by enlarging private initiative to deal with the chronic inefficiency of the state apparatus and by a moderate relaxation of police pressure on the citizen.

The West is invited, even with the enticement and promise of good business, to relinquish its inclination to export the democratic example into the Soviet empire, in order not to compromise the "openings" and the promised "reforms".

The price to pay is renunciation of the affirmation of the universality of the principles of democracy. As always, there is a high price to be paid for the renunciation of such ideals . In fact to presume that the peoples of the Soviet empire, from Eastern Europe, whose numerous nationalities and identities have so far been brutally suffocated can resign themselves for ever to accepting the conditions of subjects without rights, is a gigantic mistake.

This is what is happening: while the crisis of the Soviet regime produces more and more solid and organised forms of dissidence which allow "other Europe" to emerge arrogant, which in The East, in Prague as in Warsaw, do not agree to exchange bread with freedom, the western governments seem more preoccupied with protecting the stability of the regimes in Eastern Europe in order not to disturb the business of large industrial groups, than in supporting the liberation of Eastern Europe from 40 years of dictatorship.

Gorbachev does not want, and cannot since the "left-wing" feels that support of the "revolution" is a priority even gradually transform the Soviet regime into a State of Rights, a pluralist and parliamentary democracy above all other options . Gorbachev is the expression of a single party and knows that his power, the very possibility to carry out the economic reforms he announces, to impose his new "order", depends on himself, on his own capacity for the iron control of the State and society, and especially of his opponents.

But without democracy, the violent contradictions of Soviet society and its empire become progressively more explosive and cannot be resolved by means of those adjustments and reforms, all within the Soviet system, which have been announced by Gorbachev.

Democracy is not in fact an end, or an ultimate objective, but the indispensable means of guaranteeing justice, well-being and security.

So Marco Pannella's question of 1983 is still highly topical should we be helping Gorbachev or constructing peace?

Another prophecy, whether it is true that pacifist movements in Europe have disappeared into nothing, having opted for the defence of Gorbachev, obviously satisfied by his 'pacificism' and the elimination of nuclear medium-range missiles.

For twenty years, the duty of contributing to building peace and security, has been assumed by the Radical Party, remembering, especially when it was unpopular with regard to the prevalent culture, that there can be no peace while millions of people are deprived by hunger of the right to life, and other millions deprived by the dictatorships, of free speech.