Tariq Ali
There are several things to be said on this. First, it is not like the Vietnamese movement and the solidarity movement with Vietnam because that movement for most of us who participated in it had a very clear social content. It was not just for national liberation. However faulty, it was led by a communist party whose central leader was a Comintern guy, Ho Chi Minh. That had a big impact all over, especially where there were mass communist parties. It created tensions within these parties, with the leaderships who were saying, “We support the Vietnamese, but don’t say it too loudly.” It was [a conflict of] “peace in Vietnam” versus “victory to the Vietnamese.” That enabled us to divide these parties, in particular their youth wings, all over Europe.
Here, in Britain, the far left combined was larger than the Communist Party’s youth wing. The far left and its periphery hegemonized the youth very quickly. That’s why we organized university occupations. The SWP [at the time, called International Socialists] and the young International Marxist Group played a big role in that, even if numbers were small. It varied from country to country, but it happened at the height of the twentieth century.
The way the Vietnamese called for internationalism was absolutely crucial.
Then, the way the Vietnamese struggle was carried out, the way the Vietnamese called for internationalism, was absolutely crucial. I recall once in North Vietnam, when I was with the North Vietnamese prime minister, Pham Van Dong, I said, in front of lots of people, “Comrade, time for International Brigades.” He took me aside and said, “Look, I’ll tell you what the problem is. This isn’t Spain, which is part of Europe. This is a country far away. So, just transporting you guys over for political propaganda would cost us a lot of money, and we don’t have…
Auteur: Tariq Ali
