Introduction
Is there a likelihood of such wars recurring? Yes, there is. Are uprisings of this kind likely to recur? Yes, they are. But wars of this kind are popular uprisings. Is there the likelihood of conditions in other countries reaching the point where the cup of the popular patience overflows and they take to arms? Yes, there is such a likelihood. What is the attitude of the Marxists to such uprisings? A most favorable attitude.... These uprisings are directed against the corrupt reactionary regimes, against the colonialists. The Communists support just wars of this kind wholeheartedly and without reservations.*
Implicit is the further assurance that any popular movement infiltrated and captured by the Communists will develop an anti-Western character definitely tinged, in our own hemisphere at least, with a distinctive anti-American coloration.
This should not surprise us if we remember that several hundred millions less fortunate than we have arrived, perhaps reluctantly, at the conclusion that the Western peoples are dedicated to the perpetuation of the political, social, and economic status quo. In the not too distant past, many of these millions looked hopefully to America, Britain, or France for help in the realization of their justifiable aspirations. But today many of them feel that these aims can be achieved only by a desperate revolutionary struggle that we will probably oppose. This is not a hypothesis; it is fact.
A potential revolutionary situation exists in any country where the government consistently fails in its obligation to ensure at least a minimally decent standard of life for the* World Marxist Review, January, 1961.
