Date: Thu, 3 Apr 1997 11:42:20 +0200 (MET DST)
Subject: M-G: UNITE! Info #4en: 1/2 A barbaric anti-industry attack 


UNITE! Info #4en: A barbaric anti-industry attack 1/2 
[Posted: 21.03.96]

[Note, on re-posting to M-G list 03.04.97: The 2 appendices 
mentioned below will not be reposted here. One of them, "The
Heidelberg Declaration", appears in "Info #27en", which I
shall likewise re-post today.]

Note / Anmerkung / Note / Nota / Anmaerkning:
On the UNITE! / VEREINIGT EUCH! / UNISSEZ-VOUS! / !UNIOS! / 
FOERENA ER! Info en/de/fr/es/se series:
See information on the last page / Siehe Information auf der letzten
Seite / Verrez information a* la dernie*re page / Ver informacio'n en
la u'ltima pa'gina / Se information paa sista sidan.

As Info #4en, I bring in 2 parts an article on a new anti-industry attack 
which just now is developing in Sweden, and on some of the political 
and historical background of the entire present international syndrome 
of campaigns against industry, technology, science and economic 
growth. As complements are posted, separately: 1) A translation of a 
brief article by another writer in Sweden (whom I haven't yet made 
contact with), Martin Stroemberg. 2) The text of the important 
Heidelberg Appeal, which was signed by many well-known scientists 
immediately before the so-called "Earth Summit" in Rio de Janeiro in 
1992. See subjects "Save nuclear power now!...." and "The Heidelberg 
Appeal".


                A BARBARIC ANTI-INDUSTRY ATTACK   

Last Saturday, 16.3.1996, the party congress of the social democratic
party in Sweden, which is the party in government here, scandalously
decided on advocating, and later proposing to parliament, that one of
the 12 well-functioning large nuclear power reactors in this country be 
closed and destroyed before the next election, in 1998.

This is a very serious attack indeed, spearheaded directly against the
industrial workers, above all, and threatening vital interests of more
than 99% of all people in this country. Even the traditionally rather 
docile leadership of the union of blue-collar trade unions here, the LO,
has protested against this decision, calling it "incomprehensible".

In Sweden, today already 550 000 people, 12% of the workforce,
are unemployed, mainly because of the reactionary anti-industrial
offensive here, and the standard of living for most people is not
improving any more but is constantly deteriorating.

This latest attack concerns, indirectly and in part even directly, the 
great majority of people also in other countries. I therefore call for
international solidarity against it. Please support the struggle, which 
is only just now beginning and which so far is hardly organized at all, 
to beat back this new assault on the entire industry in Sweden!

One but not the only way you can make your protest known is by
e-mailing the government here, c/o:

statsministern-AT-sb.gov.se

with in that case please also a Cc to me, and with (only) subject line:

strongly protest against plans to close one of well-functioning reactors

The present assault in this country directly concerns people in several 
other European countries as well, since these of course are connected
to the same power grid as is also Sweden. Only a couple of years ago,
for instance, a so-called Baltic Cable was completed, capable of
transferring the current of one reactor from Sweden directly to 
Germany or vice versa. The workers, the unemployed etc in Germany, 
too, are under direct fire here, as are others.

In Europe and of course in all countries, the machinations and the 
terror of the present-day, "green", international inquisition must be 
countered! People of different social strata and of different political
persuations should form a united front to do so, which is in the
interest of all except some extremely small, though today
extremely powerful, cliques of ultra-reactionaries. 

Earlier this year, when there was cold winter weather in Sweden as
elsewhere, electricity rationing was imposed on some vital industries
- a phenomena earlier unheard-of here. The utilization of chemical-fuel 
reserve power plants and the importation of electricity from as many as four 
neighbouring countries still failed to meet all needs. The rabid 
anti-industy, anti-technology, anti-science and anti-growth forces already 
have managed to impose the beginnings of "East European" or "third 
world" conditions in certain respects in this country. This as you can
see by no means has satisfied their lust for destruction. 

Precisely concerning of nuclear energy, precisely Sweden has long 
been a particular example to all countries. This at first, during a 
certain period, in a positive sense, in later years however, above all 
in exactly the opposite direction, in a very negative sense. In our small 
country with less than 9 million people, a quite important battle has long 
been raging in what is actually a *"green" stealth world war* waged by 
the main forces of the international bourgeoisie against the people in 
all countries. The new reactionary offensive here in Sweden therefore
merits international attention.

This war is not only over nuclear energy, altough this energy source
has long been a particular target of attack, precisely because it's such
an important factor in all modern development. The international 
ultra-rightist  forces, quite often operating under a camouflage of 
"leftism", of "Marxism" even, since 20 or 30 years back in fact are 
attacking the development of industry as a whole, particularly in the 
more developed countries and particularly in Europe. This mainly out 
of an increasing fear that the workers, if "allowed" to grow "too" many 
and "too" strong, will eventually team up with the oppressed peoples 
of the third world, together with them make revolution and smash the 
entire long obsolete system of capitalism and imperialism in the world,
which is turning more and more completely into an enormous obstacle
against the productive forces of today, a giant Berlin wall against the
progress of all mankind.  

In Sweden, beteween the years 1970 and 1985 a nuclear electricity 
generating capacity of 10 000 MW was installed, in four power
plants totalling 12 reactors. This means that today appr. 50% of all 
electricity in Sweden comes from nuclear energy. Some countries,
notably France, has a higher percentage than that, but in overall
nuclear-generated electrical energy per inhabitant, Sweden is - still -
the internationally leading country. 

There is of course great need for energy in such a country, too, with
its comparatively cold clima and long transportation distances - the
area of Sweden is bigger than that of Germany with its 80 million
people.

However, in the early '70s, the international campaigns against
industry, technology, science and economic growth were stepped-up
enormously, as a reactionary counterattack against the radical youth 
and student movement in many countries developing from 1967-68
on, which in  France and West Germany also came to embrace
many young workers, and indirectly as a counterattack against the
then very massive national liberation struggles in many third world
countries as well, all importantly inspired and supported by the Great 
Proletarian Cultural Revolution in then socialist China,1966-76.

These reactionary anti-industry etc campaigns were stage-manged
above all by the main forces of U.S. imperialism. In 1972 there was
published, for instance, a neo-Malthusian anti-progress book
entitled "The Limits to Growth" by the U.S.-based so-called "Club of
Rome", a kind of embryonic propaganda organ for an international
"green" inquisition. In the West European countries, also those 
superpower lackey forces which at that time mainly favoured Soviet
social-imperialism, such as the openly revisionist parties and, more
importantly, most of the recently emerged small parties which, in
words, supported Mao Zedongs criticism of "modern" revisionism,
started with increasing fanaticism to support the rabidly anti-Marxist
anti-proletarian anti-liberation-struggle "green" ideology.

Among the second world countries, Sweden was an early victim of 
this escalated international stealth warfare. All second world 
countries in fact were, and are, more or less prone to the infection 
of the "green" disease emanating above all from the superpowers and
their lackeys, for since they participated and still participate in the 
exploitation of the oppressed peoples and receive(d) part of their 
riches from this, they also were - and still are, even in the somewhat 
different international situation of today - more or less dependent on 
the superpowers in the capacity of the latter as "world gendarmes" -
a role which today of course is taken up mainly by the USA.

For Sweden, which had earlier prospered, in part because it had been
in some respects a "canary" of both superpowers, this dependence
>from the mid-'70:s on started to have exactly the opposite effect 
economically. In 1972, the first UN so-called conference "on the
environment" was held in Stockholm. It was in fact, on the part of the 
main international bourgeois forces including the revisionist ones, a 
conference on the strangulation of industrial development - as was, 
even more so, the big "follow-up" event in Rio de Janeiro 20 years 
later. 

In early 1973, initial decisions were taken by the Swedish parliament 
to cut down the nuclear-energy programme and to curtail other industrial 
development. This was even before the international so-called "oil 
crisis" of 1973-74, which was in part likewise caused by intentional 
efforts by the imperialists to strangle industrial growth. From 1974 on, 
no further permits were given by the government here for the 
construction of nuclear power plants. The propaganda of the 
bourgeois  mass media in the '70:s became increasingly "green" 
and neo-Malthusian.  

>From late 1976 on, when the imperialists started hoping that they 
would get the situation in China "under control", that is, when they 
saw reason to hope that the rule of the proletariat in China was being 
overthrown and that thus they needn't fear public counterattack against 
their plans from that country, they escalated their international "green" 
stealth warfare even more. In Europe, in particular the masses of West 
Germany and Berlin(West), a potentially important factor in the entire 
international proletarian revolution because of some obvious 
geographical and historical facts, were doused with great amounts of 
"Agent Green" propaganda. Ignorant or reactionary strata of society 
were moved to take part in public anti-nuclear-energy and other anti-
industrial campaigns supposedly directed "against" those very 
international reactionaries who in fact were orchestrating them. In 
Sweden, there was an equally sharp conflict over nuclear energy in 
particular, resulting in the fall of one government in 1978.

In Germany however there at the time was also, as probably in no 
other European country, a genuinely Marxist-Leninist party, the 
KPD/ML(NEUE EINHEIT), which (until approximately the late 80:s) 
continued to adhere completely to Mao Zedong's correct line. (See 
Infos #1en and #3en.) It counterattacked against the "green" 
campaigns, exposing the motives behind them. Although this party 
was very small indeed, the correct propaganda emanating from it in 
Germany and in Sweden (here in my rendering), which was based on 
some important findings by Marx 100-120 years earlier, spread like 
wildfire among the masses and in early 1979 had already achieved 
considerable results against the counterrevolutionary "green" public 
campaigns. We publicly "cut the throats" of some ultra-rightist 
phoney"Marxist" forces of that time, who functioned as a certain 
"ideological core" in them.

[Continued in part 2/2]




   








   









  



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