The Kremlin Neo-Colonialists Oppress and Plunder the Peoples

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From Albania Today, 1975, 1

The Kremlin Neo-Colonialists Oppress and Plunder the Peoples

Article from “Zeri I Populitt”

U.S. imperialism and Soviet social imperialism are today the most savage enemies of the freedom and independence of the peoples and the greatest oppressors and exploiters. A long time ago, alongside the USA, another neocolonialist power, the Soviet Union, appeared in the international arena. The socialist masks and the deceitful slogans of “aid and collaboration” cannot deceive the peoples, who clearly see that Soviet social imperialism is as dangerous and cunning an enemy as US imperialism. “The two superpowers, the United States of America and the Soviet Union”, comrade Enver Hoxha pointed out in his speech on October 3, to his electors, “are aggressive imperialist powers. They are dividing the world into spheres of influence, and are proceeding to divide and occupy world markets. Their ultimate aim is to dominate the entire world, all the peoples and all the states”.

The methods used by the new Soviet colonialists are very diverse, but their essence is one and the same – oppression and exploitation of other peoples and countries, the brutal plundering of the natural resources and labour power of other countries and the exploitation of their strategic positions for expansionist aims. This oppressive, predatory policy is being pursued by the Kremlin chieftains both towards the peoples of the Soviet Union and the other revisionist countries, and towards those of the developing countries.

In the Soviet Union itself, with regard to the non-Russian nationalities, the Brezhnev clique is applying the same policy applied by Catherine II or Nikolai Romanov. The peoples of the Baltic Republics, Central Asia, etc., are denied their national rights. A systematic plan for .their russification is being carried out there by sending in Russian settlers, ignoring the national language and culture, replacing it with Russian culture, etc. The Russian metropolis is turning these republics into sources of raw materials, fuels and agricultural products for the industry of the Russian Federation. From these republics, labour power is recruited and sent to the most distant regions of Russia, to erect new industrial projects there. With the creation of so-called “economic regions”, which do not conform with the borders of the non-Russian republics, these have been deprived of the right to manage their own economies. This is done by the managers of the “regions”, which are under the direct control of the Russian centre; they are super-republican organs which have seriously violated the autonomous rights previously belonging to the leading organs of these republics. The official Soviet statistics show that in these republics, the native population is steadily declining as a percentage of the total population; this is a distinctive sign of their russification. For example, in 1970, as compared with 1959, according to the review “vaprosi Ekonomiki”, the native population had perceptibly diminished in all the non-Russian Republics. In Uzbekistan, Gruziya [Georgia], Moldavia, Turkmenistan and Esthonia, the autochthonous population now represents less than 70 per cent, in Tadjikistan and Latvia less than 60 per cent, in Khirgizia less than 50 per cent, and in Kazakistan less than 33 per cent. In Khirgizia there are now more Russians than Khirgiz or Kazaks. Such a policy of denationalisation is justified by the Moscow chieftains from the “theoretical” viewpoint; claiming that “in the framework of the Soviet Union, national borders are steadily losing their previous importance”.

The new Kremlin czars are implementing their colonialist policy with savagery and violence in the countries they call “fraternal” countries, in some East European countries, and in Mongolia. By including these countries in the Warsaw Treaty, COMECON and other forms of agreements and treaties, the Soviet revisionists have turned them into provinces of their own. They have occupied these countries, and have created military bases there. These countries cannot act in any important question of foreign or internal policy without Moscow’s approval. The ill-famed Brezhnevian theory of “limited sovereignty” is applied toward them. Their economy in fact is managed according to plans worked out in Moscow, according to the needs of the Soviet economy and market. By means of bipartite or multipartite contracts, the Soviet Union compels these countries to place at its disposal their productive capacities, natural resources, the technical abilities of their workers and their labour power. The Soviet Union compels these countries to develop those branches which produce goods the metropolis is interested in and to build up those projects which will process Soviet raw materials. This has resulted in the economies of these countries taking on a one-sided development and this has caused great damage to the peoples of these countries.

With the markets of these countries, as well as their productive branches, under its control, the Soviet Union compels them to purchase Soviet raw materials at high prices, and sell their goods to it at low prices. By means of these price “scissors”, the Soviet Union gets billions upon billions of rubles profit from these countries. Within 15 years alone, it has in this way ensured from these countries over 15 billion rubles. According to the official statistics, the Soviet Union sells iron ore to its satellite countries at a price 80-100 per cent higher than to the German Federal Republic. It sells oil to them for 25-36 per cent more than to Japan and Italy, and for up to 100 per cent more than to the German Federal Republic, Switzerland, France, Spain, etc.

The Soviet Union exploits the productive capacities of some of these countries to process Soviet raw materials, and equip its economic branches with the most up-to-date machinery and equipment. This is done with regard to the steel industry in Czechoslovakia, the engineering plants and the shipyards of the German Democratic Republic and Poland, etc. In five years alone, Poland was obliged to build for the Soviet Union ships with a total tonnage of over 260,000tons. During three years, over 230 ships of various kinds went to the Soviet Union from the GDR. Thus, a large number of ships in the Soviet merchant fleet is built in the shipyards of satellite countries, while the Soviet shipyards are building warships. The Czechoslovak uranium industry and the Hungarian aluminium industry are in the hands of the Soviet social imperialist bosses.

The most eloquent example of Moscow’s neocolonialist policy towards the “community” countries is seen in Mongolia, to which the Soviet revisionists have assigned the task of supplying Soviet tables with meat and some other agricultural and livestock products. The share of industry in the creation of Mongolia’s national income has hardly reached 20 per cent. Even those industrial units that have been erected are in fact in the hands of the Soviet revisionists, and work for them. There are some factories producing animal feed, but after being fattened, the animals are sent almost without exception to the Soviet Union. The copper and molybdenum deposits are ostensibly controlled by the joint Soviet-Mongolian company “Erdent”, and the production of some other non-ferrous metals by the “Mongolsovcvetmet” joint company, but in fact they are controlled by the Soviets, who take 100 per cent of the products of these enterprises.

The Soviet Union, as a neo-colonialist power, draws cheap labour from the satellite countries. Today, tens of thousands of workers from satellite countries are working on various projects in distant regions of the Soviet Union, e.g. near Archangel, in the Komi Autonomous Republic, on building the metallurgic combine in Kursk, etc. For example, in the “Turkmenneftstroi” enterprise in Nebit-Dag, one third of all the construction workers are Bulgarians, who are building houses, hospitals and other buildings for the Moscow chieftains.

The developing countries are an important object of the neo-colonialist aims and actions of the Soviet social imperialists. Under the guise of aid, trade development, granting credits, technical scientific and cultural cooperation, the creation of joint enterprises, and in many other ways, Moscow is striving to penetrate the regions of the Middle East, Southern Asia, Africa and Latin America. The entire activity of the Kremlin chieftains in this direction has been directed toward plundering the raw material and fuel resources of the developing countries, and exploiting their geographical positions for further expansion.

In order to realize their aim of neo-colonialist penetration more easily the Moscow revisionists are collaborating with the darkest forces in these countries, jointly with them, they participate in exploiting the workers and natural resources of the broad regions of Asia, Africa and Latin America. They are making every effort to liquidate the liberation struggles in these countries (in the Philippines, Brazil, Indonesia, Burma and elsewhere), which they consider as an obstacle in their neo-colonialist path. For this reason they claim that “in these countries there are no material and social conditions for a liberation struggle”, that in these countries the centre of the struggle has shifted to the economic field, and that this struggle can be won only if those countries attach themselves to “their natural ally”, as the Moscow revisionists call themselves.

They exploit these countries through unequal trade, the manipulation of prices and the rate of exchange etc. They seek to shift on to them the burden of the current great economic difficulties. According to the official data, in 1972 the Soviet revisionists fulfilled about three quarters of their import needs for agricultural products and raw materials from the developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. In ten years they have taken from these countries goods of this type cotton, natural rubber, nonferrous metals, food articles, etc., to the value of about 7 billion dollars. A spokesman for the Soviet revisionists has admitted that “the foreign currency incomes resulting from the settlement of the loans granted to developing countries are growing with every passing year, and this is an important contribution to balancing Soviet overseas income and expenditure”. Precisely from this export of capital, and from unequal exchange, the Soviet leaders realize large profits, with these they improve their adverse balance with the main capitalist countries. According to official data, in 1972 they caused the developing countries a deficit of 702 million rubles, at a time when they themselves had an adverse balance of 912 million rubles with western countries. In 1973 the Soviet shifted a deficit of about 1 billion dollars which they incurred in their trade with the USA alone, almost onto the shoulders of the developing countries.

Let us see, through some concrete facts, how the Soviet social imperialists behave with the riches of the peoples in the developing countries, and how they implement their colonialist laws and customs there. Moscow frequently boasts about the unsparing “aid” it has given to India. The facts show that this is not aid, but wanton plunder. According to figures in the Indian press, India’s debt to the Soviet Union stands at over 10 billion 200 million rupees. For every 100 rupees it receives as “aid” and “loans” from the Soviet Union, India has to repay 160 rupees in the same year. The Soviet Union has lowered the purchase prices of goods imported from India to 20-30 per cent below the world market prices and has raised the prices of its exports to India to 20-30 per cent more than world prices. “The Times of India” points out that “Soviet exploitation is merciless”.

Thus, under the cloak of friendship and aid, the Soviet revisionists get their clutches into other countries and peoples, using so-called aid to suck the blood and plunder the riches of other countries, so as to lord it over these countries. The Malaysian newspaper “Sihau Daily News” has written in this connection: “The Soviet Union’s common practice, and unchangeable principle, is now this: first, friendly contacts with a neighbour country, then entering into alliance with it and finally turning it into a slave and a colony”.

The Soviet Union resells to the western world, at up to three times the original prices the oil, cotton and other goods it has bought cheaply from the Arab countries. The Arab press has written that the Soviet Union enters the markets of third countries, and competes with the Arab countries in selling the same goods, previously imported from them. The Soviet Union got oil from Iraq for a sum of 6 million pounds sterling and sold it for 18 million pounds sterling or three times as much. It bought natural gas from Iran, as repayment for “aid” given to construct a gas pipeline, at a price of 30.7 cents a cubic metre, but it resold the gas to western countries for up to 5 times as much. The Soviet Union sold its ammonium nitrate to Iran, at the beginning of the year, for 75 dollars a ton, but now it gets 240 dollars, or over 3 times as much, it sent rails for 6 dollars a piece, but they are now 23 dollars; formerly it exported timber for 50 dollars a cubic metre, now it is 230 dollars. The Kremlin chieftains are implementing a similar policy towards the other countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Some time ago the Guinean president Sekou Toure, in a radio speech, said that the Soviet Union had raised the price of the oil it supplies to Guinea by 350 per cent. According to his statements, Guinea now has to spend 4.8 million pounds sterling more annually to pay for the needed quantity of oil it receives from the Soviet Union. At the same time in 1969 the Soviet Union used to get two tons of cocoa beans for a truck, but two years later it was 6 tons, while at present it gets still more. In 1965 it used to give 6.39 tons of paper for one ton of natural rubber, but in 1972 it gave 2.13 tons only a third as much.

The Soviet Union is effecting unrestrained neo-colonialist expansion with regard to the seas and oceans. Together with the USA and other colonialist powers, it is opposed to every effort made by independent countries to preserve their sea riches, and have their state sovereignty respected. The Caracas conference quite clearly showed that the Soviet neo-colonialists now speak the same language as the US imperialists, and that they have both rushed to plunder the fish resources and other sea products around the shores of other countries, far from the borders of the Soviet Union. Their warships, fishing trawlers, spy ships and other vessels have spread far and wide across the seas of the world, flying the flag of neo-colonialism.

The implementation of neo-colonialist plans is also served by so-called scientific and technical assistance, cultural relations, etc. The Moscow chieftains have sent to many countries of the world a large army of agents, passing as specialists, advisers, instructors, etc., who, on the example of American “peace corps” members, engage in espionage and subversion, deception and sabotage, with the sole purpose of blazing the trail for the neo-colonialists.

Thus, as shown by the facts, the Kremlin chieftains, do not lag behind their overseas partners in exploiting other countries or in their neo-colonialist and expansionist aims. But this policy has exposed them still more in the eyes of the peoples. In various international forums, they often find themselves in the dock, together with the US imperialists and other reactionary forces. The peoples are steadily becoming better acquainted with their real nature, and are exposing and opposing them more resolutely, as dangerous enemies of freedom and independence.

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The Kremlin Neo-Colonialists Oppress and Plunder the Peoples