For half a century since then, the U.S. invaders have rejected the DPRK’s repeated proposals to negotiate a peace treaty. This fact alone testifies to Washington’s unceasing military, economic, and political efforts to maintain the unjust division of Korea and to roll back the gains of its socialist revolution.

Most recently, the U.S. government has announced plans to redeploy its 2nd Infantry Division from the Demilitarized Zone separating the two halves of Korea to bases 75 miles to the south. The purpose of this action is ominously clear: in the event of an imperialist assault on the DPRK, the U.S. rulers want their troops out of range of its army’s defensive artillery.

Washington has also enlisted other imperialist governments, as well as the UN International Atomic Energy Agency, in its propaganda campaign to deny the DPRK its sovereign right of defense against military attack. The atomic butchers of the Japanese and Korean people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki—the imperial power that leveled north Korea and slaughtered literally millions of Koreans during the 1950-53 war—now has the insolence to accuse the DPRK of being a nuclear threat! Meanwhile, the U.S. Congress has given its blessing to research on nuclear “bunker-buster” bombs aimed at destroying the defenses of the DPRK, Iran, and other sovereign governments and peoples.

Orchestrated by Washington, the imperialist governments are also drafting a pact granting them free reign to engage in high seas piracy by interdicting north Korean and Iranian ships suspected of carrying “banned” weapons technology.

The U.S. rulers, however, will not embark lightly on a military attack on Korea. They have not forgotten their military defeat of 50 years ago, and know the defensive capacities of the DPRK’s armed forces and militias. U.S. military action would also spark explosions of protest among workers, farmers, and youth in south Korea. Millions across the peninsula oppose the presence of the 37,000 U.S. troops, support national reunification, and desire peaceful conditions of life and work.

Meanwhile, an increasingly crises-ridden world capitalist system is sharpening Washington’s conflicts with its imperialist rivals and impelling its aggressive military and foreign policy in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and elsewhere. These policies are a naked extension of the U.S. rulers’ war against workers and farmers on the home front.

But the capitalists’ imposition of speedup and cuts in wages and social entitlements —along with the lynchings and other brutalities carried out by their cops and rightist forces—continue to spark resistance among working people and youth. A decade of ruling-class attacks on workers rights and democratic liberties is running up against some limits, as shown by recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions on affirmative action, the right to privacy, and the rights of the accused. These court rulings register the concern among some in ruling circles that going too far too fast in their assaults could engender dangerous social and political resistance at a time when U.S. capitalism is sailing in rougher and rougher uncharted waters.

Union fighters and youth repelled by the inhuman face of capitalism’s present and future will be open to learning the truth about its past, including working-class battles and anti-imperialist struggles around the world. Like earlier generations, they will be inspired by the example of determination and struggle set by Korea’s workers and peasants for a century and more.

On this historic anniversary, we pledge to continue getting out the truth about the Korean people’s ongoing fight for national reunification and social justice, as well as about Washington’s unending threats and pressures against the DPRK. The demands raised by James P. Cannon—Socialist Workers Party national secretary at the time of the Korean War—in a July 1950 open letter to President Harry Truman and the U.S. Congress remain pressing today:

“Withdraw the American troops and let the Korean people alone!”
 
 
Related article:
Korea: U.S. imperialism’s first major defeat  
 
 
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