THERE is not the slightest doubt that Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden and Julian Assange have done a huge service to the whole of struggling humanity by revealing the mass murder, duplicity and the sheer scope of the spying both at home and abroad that is taking place, organised by the US ruling class, with its UK running dog as its essential helper.
Only yesterday, there was a massive drone attack on Pakistan with seventeen innocent people killed and many wounded as the US ruling class went about its daily business of mass murder of the oppressed.
After the imperialist slaughters and mass destruction of infrastructure carried out in Iraq, Libya and currently being carried out by imperialist surrogates in Syria, any popular poll would reveal that the mass of the people consider that it is Bush, Blair, Obama, and Cameron that should be behind bars and facing trial for mass murder and spying on a truly universal scale.
We have now reached the point where, in the hunt for a whistleblower, the Presidential plane carrying President Morales of Bolivia from an energy conference in Russia was forced down, by being denied air space by France and Portugal, on behalf of the US, and searched in Austria.
There is no doubt that if the plane had not complied with its instructions to land then it would have been assumed to be carrying Edward Snowden, and therefore in danger of being shot down.
This is imperialist piracy at work.
The determination to catch the whistleblowers, punish them and deter others from the same practices is rooted in the fact that the world crisis of capitalism is now so intense, with its economic and political collapses taking place on a daily basis, that all of the current spying and murder programmes will have to be expanded and extended for capitalism and imperialism to survive, and that the continuing exposure of these outrages is radicalising millions of young people in Europe and the USA who rightly regard the whistleblowers as heroes.
Youth know that in fighting the whistleblowers and seeking to punish them, or even execute them, Obama and Co are fighting the spread of world revolution.
One of the most noteworthy features of this crisis, as it has developed, has been that the Stalinist Bureaucracy led by Vladimir Putin has chosen to stand with its ‘US partners’ and both deny Snowden asylum in Russia, and insist that if he stays in Russia there must be no more revelations that would harm the interests of Putin’s ‘US partners’.
Snowden refused to give Putin the necessary assurances. There is not the slightest reason to think that the attitude of the Chinese Stalinist leadership is any different.
The position of Leon Trotsky was that the security of the USSR depended on the success of the world revolution and that the USSR, to further that strategic victory, would put the interests of the world revolution first, over the immediate diplomatic interests of the USSR.
Stalin took, and now Putin takes, the opposite approach.
To offer unconditional support to Snowden would bring universal popularity for Russia, but would also bring hostile words and actions from the US imperialists.
To get a few diplomatic concessions from Obama, Putin is willing to turn his back on Snowden, despite the fact that the extirpation of the whistleblowers would put Russia and China in much more danger, because it would strengthen reaction.
Socialism in a single country meant putting Russia first and using the world movement of the oppressed to make better deals with imperialism.
This tactic prepared the way for the Nazi invasion of the USSR. The same tactic today will speed imperialism towards Russia’s borders especially in central Asia.
The Bolshevik-Leninist policy that the security of the USSR was identical to the advance of the world revolution is as true today as when it was unveiled by both Lenin and Trotsky.
News Line urges the workers of Russia and the world to insist that Snowden is given unconditional asylum, as a step towards the defeat of world imperialism and the victory of the world socialist revolution.
