Although recent events in the Soviet Bloc are important, one can't help but be concerned about the degree to which hundreds of thousands are willing to abandon the Marxist ship-of-state.  Like sailors going overboard they seemed convinced the vessel is going down.  Caught up in the prevailing mood that capitalism is the wave of the future and all mankind seems destined to adopt the politico-economic structure of the United States, the famous statement by Santayana that "all mankind learns from history is that mankind doesn't learn from history" comes readily to mind.  The degree to which the trend of the moment overshadows the evolutionary tide of history is often a sight to behold.  People just can't seem to separate the ephemeral from the enduring, the temporary from the permanent.  Recent world events provide an excellent example.  Although the world's capitalists have their hearts set on obtaining Eastern Europe, that won't come to pass.  In fact, instead of adding countries to their stable, they have made a tremendous blunder exceeding that of the Vietnam involvement.  They spent billions of dollars trying to eradicate what they affectionately refer to as the "Iron Curtain" and succeeded, when they would have been far wiser to have continued using it as the major cornerstone of their propaganda war.  But, enrapped in their own indoctrination, they were determined to abolish it at all costs.  Fully believing that their system can defeat socialism in a competitive struggle on a level playing field, they finally managed to manipulate the contest into the arena of their choosing.  And that was a crucial mistake.  Their obsession demonstrated that they never really learned from history.  They didn't learn from post World War I events; they didn't learn from the World War II period, and they didn't really learn the central lesson of the Vietnam War.  What didn't they learn?  They didn't learn that, if after living under capitalism and then under socialism for a significant period of time, a large mass of people is allowed to choose between the two, the outcome is a foregone conclusion.  Socialism will always triumph, all other factors being equal.  Every time capitalists have tried to "roll back" well-established socialism, they have ended up getting "rolled over."  Nowhere is this more evident than in three crucial turning points in world history.
     The first and best example was during the Intervention of 1918 and 1919.  As the program of the Bolsheviks, the Marxist-Leninists, gained ascendancy in most of the current Soviet Union and the Soviet masses were able to see the improvements gained thereby, the socialist state was physically attacked by every major capitalist country in the world.  In conjunction with the former property owners of the Soviet Union and their accomplices (the Whites), they managed to reduce the area of Bolshevik control to a region not much larger than that between Leningrad and Moscow.  Surely the Bolsheviks were finished!  What could possibly save them.  In the areas seized by the invaders all of the usual trappings of a bourgeoise state were introduced.  People were allowed to own property and employ others; parties were legalized and elections were instituted; religious expression no longer had anything to worry about; the news media were allowed to operate as they desired, and "free" speech was allowed.  Surely, if there was a formula for victory, that was it.  But they lost!  The capitalists lost.  Despite incredible opposition and international financing of anti-Marxist activities, the Bolshevik program was accepted by the Soviet people.  In essence, they wanted one system and not the other after having experienced both.  Indeed, as the battles raged and control of village after village repeatedly changed hands, citizens were constantly under the control of one system and then the other.  As each side moved into a village or city, they would demolish the other side's system and institute their own.  Many towns, cities and villages changed hands 4 or 5 times.  So, there was little doubt the average citizen became fully aware of what each side had to offer.  The tide really began to turn when the Bolshevik armies no longer had to do what the citizenry were willing to do themselves.  When the people decided, after careful consideration, that their future lie with socialism and not capitalism, the outcome was sealed.  Of course, the property owning class is able to hide from the world what really occurred by claiming the Bolsheviks were better organized and more repressive.  And since the world's citizens weren't there to see what happened, what else can they believe but what they have been told by their governments.  What really occurred largely remains hidden.  When push came to shove and people had the facts that mattered, they chose the abolition of private ownership of the means of production.  The capitalists tried to "roll-back" socialism and got stung in the process.
     During the Second World War another major attempt was made to "roll-back" socialism by a large body of property owners.  The same fundamental error of the post World War I period was repeated.  Under the code name Barbarrosa (A German nobleman who led a crusade to free the holy land from the Moslem infidels) the German ruling class embarked upon a holy crusade of their own to free the Soviet Union from godless Marxism.  The fundamental tenet of Nazism was anti-Marxism, not anti-semitism.  The Nazis only sought to destroy the Jews because the majority of pre-war leaders of the communist and socialist parties throughout the world were Jewish (e.g., Rosa Luxemburg and Leon Blum) and a sizable percentage of the left's forces were Jewish.  Jews were viewed as the primary agents of Marxism.  As the Wehrmacht took over areas from the retreating Red Army, they, too, instituted free enterprise, unshackled religious expression and beliefs, allowed free expression for all ideas and concepts of a non-Marxist character and promised freedom from central control for various Soviet nationalities.  Eventually reaching the very gates of Leningrad, Moscow, and Stalingrad, the Germans had the Soviet Union on the ropes and felt victory was just around the corner.  The situation looked bleak, indeed.  Nazi propagandists put forth tremendous effort to convert those living in the areas overrun and people were free to choose an approach which is infinitely closer to that of Ronald Reagan than Joseph Stalin.  Indeed, siding with the Germans and their allies offered many advantages.  But although their appeal gained many adherents, the Germans confronted the same problem that faced the Interventionists of 1918 and 1919.  Try as they may, their property owning approach and all of the concomitant baggage just wouldn't sell.  Again, people who had experienced all of the economic, social, moral, cultural, and political ramifications of socialism were given an opportunity to adopt private ownership and everything that goes with it.  And, again, they chose the former.  The Germans were convinced that their victory over the loyalists in Spain during the Spanish Civil War of 1936 through 1939 assured their victory in Soviet Russia.  They failed to realize, however, that socialism was never really established to any meaningful degree in Spain.  The Spanish people were never given an opportunity to see the tremendous improvements socialism would bring.  Socialists were defeated but a socialist system was not.  In the Soviet areas they seized, the Germans established a system far closer to that of the United States than socialist Cuba.  Yet, it was rejected.  People had their opportunity, but those in the occupied areas of the Soviet Union stayed with the Bolsheviks and Joseph Stalin.  They weren't blind.  They were fully cognizant of what they were doing.  They were given both sides and freely chose.  So, again, the capitalists were victims of their own propaganda.  They actually believe that millions will opt for their system when fully apprised of all that each involves and given the choice to choose.
     The Vietnam involvement marks the third and most recent attempt by the capitalists to "roll-back" socialism.  Again, the same elements were present that led to the earlier failures.  Here, surely the capitalists could win a clear-cut victory.  Afterall, they had: overwhelming financial resources, complete military domination with total air superiority in the form of bombers and fighter aircraft, a monopoly of air mobility with helicopters, armor superiority in the form of tanks and artillery, domination of the waterways and a vastly superior communications network, including satellites.  And, instead of hundreds of millions of people as in the Soviet Union, a relatively small population of only 16 million were involved.  Except for better terrain, what more could be desired?  The United States could seize any village, hamlet, town, or city in Vietnam at anytime of its choosing and set up any kind of structure or institutions desired.  And, in fact, that is precisely what happened.  Communities were taken from NLF (the Vietcong in conjunction with the North Vietnamese) control on a regular basis and the institutions deemed "democratic" were created.  Security perimeters were created within which religion was allowed to spread unhindered, private ownership of the means of production was allowed, a non-Marxist press was fostered, multiple parties were permitted, people were allowed to elect their own leaders, and citizens were encouraged to participate in the electoral process.  What more could be needed or so the capitalists thought.  So what went wrong?  Why did they loose?  They lost for essentially the same reason they lost during the Intervention after World War I.  People were given a good strong dose of what each side represented.  There is no doubt about that.  As in the Soviet Union, many communities in Vietnam changed hands many times.  But nearly every time capitalist troops would enter a community and establish the institutions they deemed appropriate and arm their local "Whites" for defensive purposes, the system would be expunged by the majority of the community's inhabitants, along with roaming NLF soldiers.  Massacres such as Me Lai are the understandable by-products of a policy such as this.  Eventually, when frustration reached a boiling point because the villages wouldn't support the American model, the Americans adopted the approach the Germans used in the areas they seized in Soviet Russia.  They simply wiped out entire communities.  This was done on more than one occasion, especially following the Tet Offensive, when the American situation became desperate.  If 80 to 90% of the villagers had not sided with the socialist approach throughout nearly all of South Vietnam, there would have been little possibility of an NLF victory.  Too much superior material was put into the hands of Vietnamese who sympathized with the Americans and lived throughout the nation.
     So, now, at the beginning of the 1990's we have entered into another lesson that is about to unfold.  For the fourth time in the 20th Century, socialism is confronting a major attempt by world capitalism to "roll-back" the tide of history and re-institute the exploitation of man by man and all that that entails.  And, again, the situation looks bleak.  One can understand capitalists running up the victory flag, but even many "Marxists," who should know better, have either abandoned or "watered-down" their Marxist philosophy.  Parties are dissolving or changing their names; emblems are being removed, divisions are mutiplying, and cards are being burned.  Again, for millions it looks as if socialism is living on borrowed time.  One can't help but wonder how often a lesson has to be taught before the message sinks in.  But, then, what can you expect when people were never given the real reasons for the earlier defeats.  Capitalist historians, who are little more than mouthpieces, blame the Intervention's failure on corruption and disorganization of the White Russians along with poor coordination and lack of willpower on the part of the capitalist invaders.  They blame the German failure to reign triumphant in the Western Soviet Union on Nazi brutality, cold winters, racism and German belief in their superiority.  And they blame defeat in Vietnam on American failure to use greater force throughout the nation, especially in North Vietnam, and traitors in Congress and on the streets of America.  Of course, the real reason could never be exposed for that would also reveal the superiority of one system over the other.  Of crucial importance in all of the above is that the real reason can be hidden because hundreds of millions were not there and can only believe what they have been taught.  In Eastern Europe, however, the capitalists have made a royal blunder of the first magnitude.  The entire world knows that socialism (i.e, what they erroneously call communism) prevailed in Eastern Europe for more than 40 years.  The entire world also knows that political, economic, and social changes are currently taking Eastern Europe away from socialism and toward capitalism.  Each day additional examples of capitalist encroachment and socialist retreat are made evident to all.  So when ever greater numbers of East Europeans set out on the road back to unviatiated socialism, how are they going to rationalize this to the world?
     As of now, however, capitalist politicians and their lackeys, such as commentators and newscasters, can hardly contain their glee.  One of the most perceptive capitalist flunkeys alive, Richard Nixon, recently said the Cold War is over, except for the Third World.  One might just as well say exploitation is over or that the system giving rise to exploitation no longer exists.  One might just as well say that class struggle is a thing of the past.  West Germany's leader, Kohl, already has visions of presiding over the Fourth Reich.  Here, again, we see examples of capitalist politicians becoming victims of their own propaganda.  Having never really learned from history, the jackpot question becomes: What are they going to do when the people of Eastern Europe and Nicaragua begin to oppose the changes currently under way in ever greater numbers as they begin to see all of the ramifications of a full scale capitalist reascendancy.  About the only thing East and West Germany have in common nowadays is a language.  Neither side really comprehands the degree to which they have drifted apart since World War II.  There is virtually no possibility of a permanent and successful German reunification, although strong efforts will will be made by both sides to reunite.  Compromise is not a viable option.  If it were, there would never have been a Cold War to begin with.  Mao and Chiang, Fidel and Batista, Ortega and Somoza, Franco and Ibarrauri could have signed a love pact.  The class struggle continues unabated regardless of what happens in Eastern Europe, Western Europe or any other Europe.
     The major factor separating the people of Russia during the Intervention, the Soviet people during the German invasion, and the Vietnamese during the Vietnam War from the people of Eastern Europe is that millions of the latter have never lived under capitalism.  By 1990 most of the people living in Eastern Europe who had lived under the control of property owners had either died or become so aged as to be innocuous and sparse.  The acid test will come when the youthful millions of Eastern Europe begin to understand what they have been shielded from all their lives.  Stalin, Brezhnev, and other true Marxists are either deceased or no longer in crucial positions to protect the masses from capitalist elements.  The masses are on the own.  Gorbachov and his lieutenants have seen to that.  One can understand why his program is called "Perishstroika" because the current Soviet policies can only lead to eradication of the Soviet Union as a major world power if carried to their logical conclusion.  Socialism will not die but the Soviet Union as a major world power could vanish, if all, or even most, of the nationalities secede.  It does not require an astute political observer to see that.  At some point Gorbachov will have to adopt some of the policies of Stalin or witness the disintegration of the Soviet State.  One can't help but notice that Stalin led the Soviet Union during the post World War II period when destruction was greatest and shortages the most pronounced; yet, he had far less discontent under his leadership than now exists in a country that is vastly more wealthy than the one that existed in the 1945-53 period.  Currently, the dictatorship of the proletariat is being replaced by mensheviks and social democrats with wet fingers in the air testing the winds like true opportunists.  Now all the crackpot theories on how to run a nation are going to get a hearing and many will be adopted.  All the anti-Stalin, anti-socialist elements are going to have an opportunity to sell their wares and many will succeed.  And the people of the Soviet Bloc are going to learn what the people of pre-socialist Russia learned.  The latter tried the the Social Democrats, the Constitutional Democrats, the Social Revolutionaries, the Mensheviks, and other groups and only turned to the Bolsheviks when everything else had failed.  They turned to the Marxists only as a last resort because they learned the hard way that the others' theories didn't hold water.  When push came to shove reality set in, just as Gorbachov's social-democratic ideas are coming to a head in the Soviet Union.
     One can't help but think of a similar situation that recently occurred in the United States.  Ronald Reagan and his cronies were determined to forestall additional rises in the national debt by balancing the federal budget.  Their ridiculous ideas represented a naive concept of how capitalism operates and the critical roll played by federal deficits.  Immediately after coming into office in January 1981 they proceeded to slash federal expenditures.  As a result, unemployment quickly soared into double digits and public opinion polls, as well as the congressional elections of 1982, clearly showed the Reaganites were headed toward disaster in subsequent elections.  As theories were blown out of the water and reality set in, the policy was dramatically reversed.  Expenditures were not decreased, but drastically increased through borrowing by the federal government and a subsequent 200% increase in the national debt.  One can easily understand why the principal pointman for Reagan's obsession for a balanced budget, David Stockman, wrote a book entitled, The Failure of the Reagan Revolution.  He realized that theory had gone out the window when reality came in the door.  And that is precisely what is going to happen to the "revolution" in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union as dreams give way to fact.  With the lowering of the Iron Curtain a flood of capitalist slime will undoubtedly stream across the border and arise within.  From juvenile delinquency, pornography, prostitutes, gamblers, drug pushers, religious propagandists, criminals, con artists and sociopaths to bankers, investors, and exploiters out to use others for their own ends, the ooze will spread unhindered.  Still, although many leaders have changed as of early 1990, the real socialist structure of the nations involved has a long way to go before it is really dismantled.  One must separate theater from fundamental change and there has been a lot of the former and substantially less of the latter.  But the tide is flowing in and East European citizens will begin to feel the effects in the months and years to come.
     As East Europeans learned of West European wealth by way of television, radio, visitors, and literature and also learned of the "license," not "freedom," that exists in the west, they increasingly developed an unrealistic conception of what capitalism is all about.  Like a adolescent at the carnival, they were taken in by all the glitz, glamour, barkers, and hucksters, while not being cognizant of the underlying decadence.  Now they are going to start paying the price of their naivete.  And what will be the ultimate attitude of most people in the East to this influx?  One word is appropriate, Revulsion.  That will be their answer because the East European nations are not going to evolve in the direction their inhabitants have in mind.  Eastern Europe is not going to rise to the level of Western Europe economically, not while capitalism dominates the world.  Instead, it's going to endure Latinization and will become for Western Europe what Latin America is for the United States: a cheap source of labor, a cheap source of raw materials, and a region in which investments will only be made in those industries and countries which offer the highest rate of profit in the shortest amount of time.  Inflation, unemployment, imbalances, debts, lack of social concern by the government, and many other negatives will grow, along with an increasing differential in wealth that will be both noticed and resented by the citizenry at large.  The unavoidable outcome will not only lead to social discontent and violence but probable civil war.  As conditions worsen in East European countries, the most wealthy capitalist governments and financial institutions will be forced to increase the amounts of grants, loans, and investments, as in Latin America, to forestall a rising sentiment to return to the socialist path.  There is a major difference, however, between East Europeans and Latin Americans.  The former have experienced another system while the latter, as a practical matter, do not know there is one.  This means the Europeans will have a major advantage in the coming years.  For financial and propaganda reasons the capitalists cannot allow them to leave; so they will have to pump in more money faster to prevent the tide from turning against them.  In effect, instead of pouring vast amounts of weaponry into Eastern Europe as they did in Vietnam, they will be pouring vast amounts of money into a hopeless adventure.  And, as was true during the Intervention, World War II, and Vietnam, at some point they will have to cut their losses and get out either because of a conscious decision based on objective reality or their own deteriorating condition.  At some point successive capitalist governments will realize that the renewed rising tide of socialism will no longer be preventable.  If the United States couldn't win in Vietnam, there is no way they will be successful in Eastern Europe.  In Vietnam they could seize any community at will, silence all Marxist voices, create precisely the kind of system they desired, and address the needs of a far smaller number of people, while in Eastern Europe they will have to buy their way in, constantly contend with true Marxists, be satisfied with gradualism rather than abrupt and major changes, work with a population that is fully aware of what socialism entails, abstain from force, and satisfy the needs of 100,000,000 million people rather than 16,000,000.  East Europeans won't experience the massive improvements in economic conditions they expect, but they will get all the negative aspects of capitalism they don't expect.  In effect, what they want, they won't get; but what they don't want, they will get.  That's what the South Vietnamese discovered.  The latter's economic status did not improve marketly under the successive American puppets from Boa Dai onward, but the arrival of French and later American capitalism certainly brought everything else down.  Those few areas which will experience a rise in their standard of living will do so at the expense of just about everything else, including morality, human decency, social consciousness, and brotherhood.  In essence, the world is approaching a head-to-head showdown in Eastern Europe between capitalism and socialism in which 10's of millions will freely and openly make their choice and hundreds of millions throughout the world will be able to view the outcome.  The two major systems are now on a collision course and unlike what occurred during the Intervention, World War II, and Vietnam, the East European debacle is going to be far more difficult for the capitalists to conceal, explain or rationalize to the world at large.
 

     Capitalists and their spokesmen live under the strong belief that everything and everyone has its price.  Anything and anyone can be bought if you have enough money.  If you want it, you can buy it.  They just can't understand a person like Fidel Castro whom they have not been able to buy at any price.  Despite offers of bribes, kickbacks, payoffs, trade privileges, gifts, and other economic incentives, he has remained a man of principle for more than 30 years.  He has steadfastly refused to cease aiding the downtrodden of other countries, regardless of the cost.  A politician of character, such as he displays, wouldn't last a week in a capitalist political structure where governments are composed of the best people money can buy.  If this underlying belief of capitalists were true, they could have won the Vietnam War walking away.  That would have been no problem.  They could have simply bought the country.  They need only have gone in and paid for everything worthy of note.  They could have offered the landlords a handsome price for their landownings, i.e., made them an offer they couldn't refuse in true Godfather style, and distributed small plots to all the landless peasants.  For those living in cities and villages, they could have hired all those desiring employment to work on government financed works projects encompassing everything from building schools and roads to teaching and nursing.  Trained personnel could have been hired from outside Vietnam to keep the program rolling.  In order to minimize the costs to the American taxpayers, investments by private businesses could have been insured by the American government.  Moreover, the United States would only have needed to satisfy enough people to vitiate the revolutionary fervor.  Meeting the basic needs of the entire population would not have been necessary.  They need only have bought off enough people to reduce the revolutionary fervor to manageable proportions.  It seems reasonable to assume that of the 16,000,000 million people in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War approximately 8 million were either too old, too young, or too incapacitated to work.  They would not needed to have been employed nor would another 2 million private property owners and self employed petty bourgeoisie.  If the remaining 6,000,000 had been employed for $5 per day for a five-day week year around (which is a very high wage in the underdeveloped world) the total yearly cost in wages to the American taxpayers would have been a mere $6 billion.  If the United States had added an additional $10 billion for materials, equipment, fuels, and training, the total cost to the American taxpayers would have been $16 billion a year.  In effect, for $16 billion a year the United States could have bought-off South Vietnam.  (These figures are, of course, only approximations, but the principle is sound).  Instead, the American taxpayer spent over $160 billion in over 10 years of fighting and lost everything of importance.  As the American government is aware, all of these methods were employed in varying degrees.  But, what capitalists failed to realize is that even peasants, simple peasants, realize that there is a lot more involved in having a decent society in which to raise your children than just material possessions.
     While private property owners accuse socialists of being crass materialists, precisely the opposite is true.  They are the ones who feel that money is not everything; it's the only thing.  With all of its class divisions and the accompanying conflict, capitalist society can never provide security (whether in employment or walking down the street), brotherly love, social concern, or a meaningful existence.  They are antithetical to the system.  No life can be meaningful in which self-gratification and egotism, the very essence of capitalism, are the hallmarks of one's existence.  Is it any wonder that escapist drugs and philosophies are so prevalent in every aspect of capitalist society, including the most affluent.  Anyone who thinks the Vietnamese peasants didn't pick this up is only being deluded by subtle capitalistic propaganda.  Peasants may be poor; but they aren't stupid.  As was expressed earlier, they experienced both sides.
     Then was lowering the Iron Curtain in general and the Berlin Wall in particular a good idea?  No, it was not.  You simply don't mix oil and water, unless you want pollution.  And that is what is now spreading everywhere in Eastern Europe.  You don't compromise with sin, if you have any standards worthy of note.  Allowing pornography, gambling, prostitution, exploitation, decadent art and music, etc., to exist under the guise of free speech is absurd.  To say, "Who is going to decide what should be prevented" is to imply no one should decide in which case you will end up with what exists in the United States, a progressively degenerating moral sewer that is evident in every sphere of life.  Instead of lowering the barrier, East European leaders should have allowed discontented individuals to leave pursuant to a Mariel boat lift.  When capitalism is on a roll and increasingly attractive to larger numbers of people, the Cuban policy of allowing the most disruptive elements to leave is the only viable approach.  You simply have to take the loss.  It can't be avoided.  Lenin's booklet entitled, "Better Fewer, But Better" aptly summarizes the situation.  Keeping the essence of socialism intact during the lean years is of utmost importance.  Otherwise, you are in no position to act effectively when the tide begins to turn in your favor.
     Another major reason for not lowering the barrier is that a major function of government is to protect its citizens from negative influences, especially ones operating with a decided advantage.  It's analogous to having matches in your house.  You put them out of your son's reach and warn him of the horrible results that can occur if he plays with them.  Yet, he manages to surmount the barrier, ignite a fire, and sustain some bad burns.  He learned you were correct but will bear permanent scars as a result.  That's the price that will be paid by lowering the Wall.  Do you want a son whom you kept from matches or do you want one who was badly burned with ugly scars, but has learned his lesson?  To assume the average citizen who has been raised in a socialist society and has never experienced unleased capitalism can foresee the dangers of capitalist encroachment is to say he is as politically knowledgable as the Party.  Any socialist citizen who is not protected by the Party from the wiles of capitalism is like a babe before lions.  He won't have a chance.  That's why elections are shunned by progressive forces.  First, they always appeal to the lowest common denominator.  The higher you go in knowledge and education the smaller the number of people you are dealing with.  So the least educated, the least knowlegeable and the least progressive have a decided advantage in any election.  Second, money is an overriding factor in any election because it provides name recognition, media access, political access and submissiveness, etc.  And who has the most money?  There is little doubt that millions of dollars will flow from the West into East European elections, in much the same way the United States pumped millions of dollars into Italian and French elections following World War II.  Third, the capitalists have developed the manipulation of elections to a precise science.  They are past-masters when it comes to controlling voters and never hold an election unless they are sure the outcome will be contained within acceptable bounds.  That's why blatant fascist dictatorships are not used as much as before in Latin America, Africa, and Asia.  Fourth, holding elections is like a divorce in which the children are asked to choose between the two parents.  They have a father who says they will have to do their homework every night, avoid certain types of music and art, go to bed by 11, not associate with certain individuals, keep their room straightened up, stay clear of all drugs or other escapist material, avoid certain literature, and dress in a respectable manner.  Their mother, on the other hand, allows just about anything and engages in no meaningful discipline.  If given a choice, whom do you think the children are going to choose, especially when all those elements profiting from the negative factors are allowed to hawk their wares unhindered?  Are they going to select self-discipline or self-gratification?  To ask the question is to answer it.  As every parent knows, trying to keep your children on the straight and narrow when most of their peers are anything but straight or narrow is a horrendous job.  When all the other kids get to do it, you become Mr. Badguy.  And it's no less true in leading a political system.  One need only ask Nikolai Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, and Fidel Castro.  The party leadership, those who insist on maintaining decent standards, become the ogre to many.  Few people are sufficiently sophisticated or informed to make the right decisions to protect their own interests, especially when the negative elements have control of the media and sources of information.  The result is a foregone conclusion.  And, in large measure, this highlights the very essence of the Cold War and why Marxist parties are so hated by the property owners.
     Neither side allows everything.  Instead, one stops the corruption before it gets rolling while the other only steps in when the corruption has reached such a horrendous magnitude that stepping in can no longer be avoided.  Undoubtedly, the word thrown around most by capitalists and their spokesmen in this regard is "freedom."  Finding someone who does not have the word dripping from his lips is a sizable accomplishment.  In truth, capitalists are not the proponents of freedom, socialists are.  Unfortunately, the world's Marxists have allowed the property owners to expropriate a word that rightly belongs to socialism.  A socialist country allows anyone to do anything they want as long as they don't adversely affect or exploit others.  The only request socialists have is that you think about how your behavior affects others before acting.  On the other hand, capitalist countries don't have "freedom;" they have "license," which means you can do anything you want regardless of how it adversely affects others.  The only limits are those demanded by the persons being adversely and directly affected.  In other words, you don't have to think about others first or at all for that matter.  You do what you want, no matter how depraved, until someone who is adversely affected steps in.  You don't have to take action to police yourself.  Others do.  You don't have to police yourself as you should, others have to do it for you.  You don't have to critically analyze your behavior.  Others do.  That's not freedom; that's license.  "I," "me," and "mine," are the sole criteria.  Webster's Dictionary defines "license" as "Excessive, undisciplined freedom, constituting an abuse of liberty."  Is it any wonder that all capitalist public accomodations and facilities such as restrooms, parks, roads, libraries, and schools are vandalized and littered with graffiti?  Capitalist society develops no feeling of social responsibility, and since no one directly owns social goods or feels an obligation to protect them, the outcome is a foregone conclusion.
      A major lie of capitalist propaganda was vividly exposed when the Berlin Wall was recently lowered.  For over 40 years the world has been told Eastern Europe was nothing short of a prison.  Yet, the Wall was suddenly lowered and the prison did not empty.  In fact, over 99% of the massive flood of people who went to West Germany over the initial weekend last November returned.  How long would it take for Sing Sing, Leavenworth or Marion to empty if the inmates were free to go and how many would return after the weekend passed?  Most didn't even leave.
     One can't help but be repelled by the "Marxists" who supposedly defend "democratic socialism" by denouncing the deeds of Joseph Stalin.  They have little or no ability to see that there is nothing Joe Stalin did that was not done by the Vietnamese NLF, Mao Tse-Tung, Fidel Castro, Ho Chi Minh, and Nikolai Lenin.  The only difference is one of degree and not kind.  You can't condemn one while not simultaneously condemning all.  And as far as the force and violence is concerned, you can't condemn Joe Stalin without simultaneously condemning every major political or religious system that has appeared on the face of the earth.  The history of Christianity is a veritable bloodbath of aggressive wars, massacres, and executions; the English, French and German empires prior to World War I were based on aggressive wars, executions, assassinations, and slaughters and they are still reaping the benefits of their prior ascendancy; the United States became a world power by (a) nearly eradicating the Indians through imperialist wars, broken treaties, unprovoked massacres, and confinement to concentration camps euphemistically called reservations; (b) seizing a sizable portion of the Southwest from Mexico by war; (c) stealing the Philippines, Puerto Rico and other islands from weakened Spain by unprovoked imperialistic aggression; (d) and above all, by installing, training, and financing puppet governments throughout the world, especially in Latin America, who got a cut of the take by bribing, imprisoning, killing, executing, torturing, maiming, assassinating, and terrorizing anyone who dared challenge such an absurd arrangement.  For the capitalist powers to condemn Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, and Castro is nothing short of laughable.  At least the latter's acts were performed for the right reasons.  They were seeking to benefit the many at the expense of the few not the few at the expense of the many.
     In any event, Gorbachov lowered the Wall and it's not possible to reverse the policy at this stage of history.  But oddly enough, even though his policy is incorrect and is going to place irreparable physical, emotional, intellectual, and psychological scars on millions of people, there is one profound positive factor in his muddled thinking.  People will learn; they will get burned and out of this will come an indigenous socialist rebellion.  Unvitiated socialism will not return to Eastern Europe via the Soviet Army, but will return via the people themselves.  Like the Cubans, the Vietnamese, and the Chinese, they will feel a much greater stake in what is being created because it will arise from their own efforts.  Gorbachov's policies are like flying from New York to Baltimore by way of Los Angeles.  The plane will get there, but it will take longer; the cost will be higher; time will be wasted; risks will last longer and be more numerous, lives will be kept from meaningful activity, capitalists will reap more wealth from your stupidity, you'll see some reactionary movies and you might not even live till the landing.  But the plane will arrive, nevertheless.  Eastern Europe is not moving from socialism to capitalism; it's merely conducting a vast experiment in which millions will see the effects of creeping capitalism.  But as parents so often say about their children, "You can't tell them anything; they have to learn it themselves; they have to learn the hard way."  And make no mistake about it, East Europeans are about to learn the hard way.  Quantitative changes will occur in abundance, but a qualitative leap will not occur.  As was said earlier, if the United States couldn't triumph in South Vietnam, they might as well forget about Eastern Europe.  But you can't tell the American ruling class that either; they, too, have to learn the hard way.
  As of now, however, capitalism has the upper hand throughout the world for several major reasons.  First, capitalism is, above all, an economic system.  Making money, earning wealth, the satisfaction of one's hedonistic desires, is the overriding concern of all significant economic, political, social, and moral decisions.  Success is equated with wealth.  One is inseparable from the other.  Consequently, anything that fosters the accumulation of wealth is good and anything that hinders it is bad, although a pretense is made to the contrary.  Thus, because economic exploitation, gambling (i.e., investing, the stock market, loaning at interest, lotteries, etc.), pornography, prostitution, and a multitude of other nefarious activities generate wealth for their adherents, they are not only permitted but often encouraged by government and private agencies.  On the other hand, activities that are extremely important but do not produce wealth or actually hinder its creation are either underfinanced or not financed at all.  Conserving natural resources, such as trees, ores, wildlife, etc., before they enter the capitalist grinder or adequate disposal or reuse of natural resources after they exit from the capitalist grinder rarely produces significant wealth for anybody.  In fact, an expense is often involved, not a profit.  Even if a capitalist were socially concerned, he could very well lose the competitive edge if he tried to be responsible by diverting some of his profits to pollution abatement, for example.  That's inseparable from the very fabric of the system.  Consequently, the air, water, and land are increasingly stripped, polluted or destroyed.  Moral principles are also a positive hindrance to the accumulation of wealth.  As the amounts involved increase, the incentive to degenerate one's morality grows accordingly, with all the attendant rationalizations.  Because there is little or no wealth to be made in aiding the old, the infirm, the young, the injured veteran, the retired, the unhoused, the unemployed, and the arts, millions of people suffer, really suffer.  Because education is not an immediate money-maker, school facilities and supplies are inadequate.  Because employees are free to leave any place of employment, private employers are not inclined to engage in any significant education program, unless there is little chance of the employee leaving.  In summary, because of a complete overemphasis on creating wealth at all costs, society becomes tremendously out-of-balance.  Things do not rise in unison.  Instead, imbalances, i.e., contradictions, which can't possibly be avoided without centralized planning, become increasingly pronounced and more intolerable.
     On the other hand, capitalism has dramatic competitive advantages.  Because it is not concerned in any meaningful sense with morality, the environment, natural resources or the weaker elements of society and allows, indeed encourages, people to amass immense amounts of wealth through the exploitation of others, it can put more goods on the shelves in certain countries and certain areas of countries in the short run than a socialist system, other things being equal.  Because people are allowed to exploit others and immense fortunes can be gained thereby, the incentive to create something that will sell, regardless of its effects on others, is high.  If you want something, you must provide something in return.  To get what you want; you must have something to give.  The trick is to provide something of less value than what is received.  As long as sales, the competitive sales upon which capitalism is based, dominate the world scene, socialism will be at a distinct disadvange in world markets.  If all one is concerned with is amassing wealth and self-gratification through sales of anything, then capitalism is going to have an advantage over socialism.  Socialist expenditures to preserve the environment, aid the weaker elements of society, prohibit the exploitation of man by man, and preserve a moral standard are costly.  There is no doubt about it.  Capitalism has an advantage in this regard.
     Second, capitalism is currently dominating the scene because the capitalist nations have always had overwhelming control of the world's resources.  Nearly all of Latin America, Africa, and most of Asia are under their supervision.  You can't win the sales battle if you don't have as many resources to sell.
     Third, not only are capitalist nations far more numerous on this planet but they have systematically and methodically banded together with one overriding concern in mind: destroy the socialist economies.  In varying degrees and with some exceptions major capitalist states have agreed to many rules of which the following are prime examples.  Don't buy socialist products; don't sell to socialist states; if a socialist state is selling a product to a capitalist or socialist country (x), try to undermine the socialist state by selling the same product to country (x) at a lower price; if a socialist country is buying a product from a socialist country (y), try to undermine the socialist state by offering to buy the same item from country (y) at a higher price; don't loan money to or invest in socialist states unless they are amenable to instituting capitalist procedures, and take reprisals against capitalist states that deviate from the common strategy.  The competitive advantage enjoyed by the capitalists since 1917 has paid off.  The retreat of socialism will continue at a steadily decelerating pace after an initial period of rapid retreat.  However, as increasing numbers of people realize how they are being taken for a ride, opposition to the dismantlement of socialism will steadily grow and increasingly decelerate the encroachment of capitalism which will proceed.  Conflict between classes within formerly socialist states will escalate.
     Fourth, the United States came out of World War II as the overwhelming economic power.  With this economic might it was able to finance the post-war recovery of Western Europe, Japan and other capitalist states.  The Soviet Union and its allies, on the other hand, were barely able to make ends meet.  As a result, when capitalist Europe began competing with socialist Europe, the former had a massive headstart which the latter was never able to surmount.  In fact, as the years progressed, the East fell behind and the gap widened.  The Soviet Union was obligated to spend a higher percentage of its national wealth on the military to keep up with the United States.  That was a mistake.  They should only have tried to keep on a par in a qualitive sense, not quantitative.  When American military expenditures accelerated dramatically during the 1980's the Soviet Union fell behind.  They simply didn't have the economy to compete in military production.  As they tried to stay on a par, the living standards of the Soviet peoples declined to such an extent that rising discontent allowed social-democrats such as Gorbachov, Ryzhkov, Gerasimov, Shevardnadze, Posner, Arbatov, and Yeltsin to make their move.  Does that mean the Reagan policies caused the current retrenchment of world socialism?  Yes, it does.  But, that probably would have occurred regardless; Reaganism only accelerated the process.  But, this too, will turn out to be a blessing in disguise, although some may tend to remember the perceptive comment by one of capitalism's greatest propagandists, Winston Churchill, who said, "if it's a blessing in diguise, I must say it is well diguised."  While activating a substantial retrenchment of socialism, it is simultaneously early-on educating millions of people who have never witnessed creeping capitalism on a broad scale in a politico/economic experiment that is bound to fail.
   But all of this must be viewed in terms of what is occurring in the capitalist world, itself, because that is where the main event will occur.  Capitalism is a human jungle involving a war of all against all.  Competition is the name of the game, sales are the points scored, and the bottom line determines who wins, who survives.  And in any prolonged competitive struggle, the number of winners decreases and the number of losers increases.  One need only see how the competitive struggle has progressed in the United States since the Civil War to see the truth of that observation.  Years ago there were scores of companies competing in the production of cars, radios, cereals, light bulbs, typewriters and just about every other item one could name.  Today the number of dominant companies in the production of nearly every item has narrowed to 3 or 4.  In practical terms this means that in every capitalist country in the world, more and more wealth is being concentrated into fewer and fewer hands.  Polarization moves inexorably forward.  Those who like to think of themselves as members of a middle class are doomed.  A few will successfully rise into the ruling class, but the overwhelming majority will fall into the masses.  Capitalism is identical with a state lottery.  Everybody dreams he will climb to the winners circle but the overwhelming majority won't.  That fanciful dream is what keeps millions going and provides another advantage to capitalism.
     What is true within every capitalist country is also true between capitalist countries.  There are well over a hundred capitalist nations in the world and they all hope to rise to the economic level of the United States.  That dream is evident on the world scene today as never before, but it's not to be.  Just as the middle class within every capitalist nation is doomed, the middle class capitalist nations, such as Thailand, Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, Spain, Greece, Turkey and many others are doomed in the competitive struggle with such capitalist giants as the United States, Japan, West Germany, France, Canada, Great Britain, and Italy.  Within any capitalist nation 10% of the people own 90% of the wealth and that is no less true of capitalist nations as a bloc.  Ten percent own 90% of the wealth and have a decided advantage in the competitive conflict.  And as is true within every capitalist nation, as time progresses participants will become more and more spread out on the economic spectrum.  Sales is the name of the game and in order to survive in the economic struggle, nations will strip themselves of their natural resources and anything else that can be sold on the world market.  But, they won't be able to make it because wealthier competitors will devise methods to sell the same products at lower prices, in greater quantities, with better quality, and speedier delivery.  The upshod of the overall trend is that more wealth will be reinvested in the wealthier countries and the gap between the haves and the have nots will steadily increase.
     The crescendo will finally come over the horizon when the major capitalist countries begin to increasingly clash with one another.  The socialist bloc will no longer be a major competitor, the weaker capitalist states will be definitely out of the running, and only a few major capitalist states will remain.  That's when competition will really get nasty.  Some of the extremely wealthy powers and multinational corporations will realize that they, too, are about to join the vanquished.  Their substantial wealth will ensure a heightened level of intensity in the overall struggle.  The general agreement within the European Economic Community will progressively diminish, tariffs and quotas will mushroom, currency manipulations and devaluations will accelerate, and a philosophy of every nation and multinational corporation for itself will be more in vogue than ever.  As the weaker capitalist countries and formerly clearly socialist states are increasingly exploited by the major competitors who are trying to prevail in an increasingly ruthless world economy, they will increasingly look toward socialism as the only way out of the morass.  They will increasingly realize that no other option is available as the major capitalist countries seek to save themselves by stripping the weaker states of their resources.  The capitalist nations have run the world through the wringer three times in the 20th Century and there seems to be no way to avoid a fourth.  Despite two world wars and a great depression, an even more grandiose calamity is in the offering, assuming someone does not seek to save himself by nuclear attack.
     As far as when all the above will occur is concerned that is dependent on the financial decisions of millions of people and can not be reliably predicted.  Capitalist politico-economic leaders have become quite adept at postponing what lies ahead.  However, one can reasonably expect conflict of varying proportions to materialize throughout Eastern Europe within 5 years and certainly within 10.  The policies of people such as Walesa, Mazowiecki, and Havel will be increasingly discredited as growing numbers of East Europeans realize that they are not only losing the economic struggle with the capitalist West and failing to experience increases in living standards to the level of Western Europe but losing the tremendous benefits and decency of a socialist society.  Those people dismanteling the statues and pictures of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin throughout the Soviet Bloc would be well advised not to take them too far.

                                             Around April 1990