the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Jun 26, 2023
In 2021, Daniel Ellsberg was concerned over the U.S. threats against China over Taiwan. So, he revealed another classified government document that had never been published, about U.S. plans for nuclear war against China in 1958.
The Chinese Revolution in 1949 was a popular revolution that threw out the regime of Chiang Kai-Shek, a regime that was supported by the U.S. government but was hated by the Chinese population. After the revolution, the capitalists of the U.S. and other countries were no longer able to dominate the Chinese economy as they had for decades.
In 1958, fighting flared up again between the new Chinese government and Chiang Kai-Shek’s forces, who had retreated to the island of Taiwan and taken it over. The U.S. government, supporting Chiang Kai-Shek, drew up a plan to attack China with nuclear weapons. An attack against China would have risked drawing in the Soviet Union, which had developed its own nuclear weapons.
The U.S. was preparing to risk a nuclear holocaust, which would have killed millions of people. War was averted when the Chinese government withdrew its forces. The U.S. government has always kept quiet about how close it was to starting a nuclear war.