1. Why are the U.S. rulers going to war against Iraq now, rather than, say, in 1994, or 1999? What changed in the second half of 1997?

2. Someone at the Seattle conference asked why the pope went to Cuba, considering that he got such a poor response from the Cuban working class. The answer given was essentially the point that was made in the February 9 Militant editorial. Imperialism has a hard time understanding that "Cuba is not and will not be another Poland or Russia. There is a world of difference between the Bolshevism of the Cuban leadership - its confidence in the capacities of workers and peasants to transform society and themselves - and its counterfeit, Stalinism." This answer seems incomplete to me.

First, it's not clear that the pope wanted to go to Cuba in the first place. The Cuban government invited him, something he probably wasn't expecting. A refusal would have been hard to explain, especially in Latin America.

Second, the pope's audience wasn't restricted to the Cuban working class. It included other social classes, and other countries. Some of the pope's remarks seemed like an example of another phenomena that was discussed at the conference: the growing tendency of rightist figures to adopt a leftist coloration and reach out to disenchanted middle class layers.

I think the pope was more out of alternatives, than out of touch. He was defending an out of touch social system against competent representatives of the working class, on a level playing field, and he suddenly sounded like what he really is.

Dave Morrow

Oakland, California

Call it what it is
This is a word of advice on terminology relating to he footnote to Fidel's welcome address to the Pope [Militant February 9 issue no. 5] in which it stated:

"Oswiecim (also known by the German name of Auschwitz), Poland, was the site of one of the most infamous Nazi concentration camps during World War II."

I think it is better to refer to Auschwitz as a "death camp," as opposed to a "concentration camp." This might seem like a minor detail, but it is worth some consideration. In death camps, people were gassed on arrival. In the concentration camps, people were kept indefinitely, but not necessarily killed. The death camps were the ones specifically designed and used by the German Nazi government for implementing the "final solution," while the concentration camps were not used for this purpose.

There were six death camps, all in Poland. They were: Auschwitz, Treblinka, Belzec, Majdanek, Sobibor, and Chelmno. The death camps are also sometimes called "annihilation camps" or "extermination camps."

Jim Miller

Seattle, Washington

The letters column is an open forum for all viewpoints on subjects of general interest to our readers. Please keep your letters brief. Where necessary they will be abridged. Please indicate if you prefer that your initials be used rather than your full name.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home