LaRouche Urges U.S.-Russian Cooperation Against British

A special report from Moscow about the April 1995 visit of Democratic Presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche. LaRouche's main activity in the Russian capital was a speech at an event sponsored by the Institute for Social and Political Studies (ISPI) of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Free Economic Society of Russia, and the Schiller Institute for Science and Culture. The subject was "Russia, the United States, and the Global Financial Crisis." While in Moscow, LaRouche urged U.S.-Russian cooperation against the British.

MOSCOW, April 29 (EIRNS)--Without common action by the U.S. and Russia, with cooperation of the Chinese, no significant economic recovery can be organized in any part of the world, American economist and Presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche told a round-table discussion in the Russian capital on April 24.

LaRouche was the main speaker at an event sponsored by the Institute for Social and Poitical Studies (ISPI) of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Free Economic Society of Russia, and the Schiller Institute for Science and Culture. The subject was "Russia, the United States, and the Global Financial Crisis."

Co-chairing the round table, Academician Leonid Abalkin welcomed LaRouche as a representative of "the well-known Schiller Institute" and thanked him for having proposed the session's topic, one "of great interest." "Many of us are familiar with the original ideas and approaches of LaRouche," said Abalkin.

Academician Abalkin heads the Institute of Economics of the Academy of Sciences. Co-chairing was Academician Gennadi Osipov, head of ISPI. Professor Taras Muranivsky, president of the Schiller Institute for Science and Culture (Moscow), introduced LaRouche to the round table.

The Financial Crisis

LaRouche established for the round table's approximately 60 participants, why "We are in the middle of the worst international financial crisis of this century," which he reviewed in the framework of the past 60 years of U.S.-Russian relations, since Franklin Delano Roosevelt extended U.S. diplomatic recognition to the Soviet Union. He focussed on the economic policy disasters that followed from the cultural paradigm shift of the mid-1960s, when a complex of social crises was used to induce the majority of university youth in the U.S., Western Europe, and elsewhere, to adopt new sets of values, directly contrary to the traditional commitment of modern society to increasing the productive powers of labor through investment in scientific and technological progress.

In the face of the resulting crisis, governments are acting like people having their last party onboard the Titanic, before it sank, LaRouche said. There are, he stressed, only four world powers capable of acting, independently of supranational authorities, to effect a solution. They are the United States, the British Empire, Russia, and China. Without common action by at least two such world powers, such as the U.S. and Russia, no significant economic recovery can be organized in any part of the world.

Cases of Mexico, Germany

Schiller Institute participants in the seminar presented how the collapse process is unfolding in two important countries: Mexico and Germany. Marivilia Carrasco, president of the Ibero-American Solidarity Movement in Mexico, documented the looting of Mexico's physical economy by International Monetary Fund-imposed measures during the country's financial crisis. She recalled LaRouche's policy intervention with "Operation Juarez" in 1982, when he warned that the consequences of choosing debt service payments over development would be disastrous. Carrasco's demonstration of EIR graphs of "banker's arithmetic," where the accumulation of debt through usury outstrips every attempt to pay it off, made a big impression on the Russian participants, several of whom came back to the theme of Russia's "being treated like Mexico." In the discussion, Prof. Muranivsky pointed out that Mexico has also become a very positive example--for the series of forums held in Mexico under the title, "There is life after the death of the IMF!"

Lothar Komp of EIR's European headquarters portrayed the demise of continental Europe's strongest economy, Germany, as a result of the shift to a "post-industrial" paradigm, especially in education and investment policy. He was followed by Dr. Jonathan Tennenbaum, of the Schiller Institute in Germany, who showed that no package of reforms for Russia can work, unless the international financial crisis be taken on, and highlighted Russia's special role in that battle, through the potential for building a Eurasian land-bridge and the surviving strengths of Russia's scientific-industrial sector, which could be brought to bear in the context of a global recovery.

Russian Participation

Joining in the discussion, which lasted five and one-half hours in all, were prominent Russian economists such as Tatyana Koryagina, former U.S.S.R. Prime Minister Valentin Pavlov, and banking specialist Vyacheslav Senchagov of the Institute of Economics, as well as economists from the Institute of the World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO) and the Africa Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The Free Economic Society of Russia will soon mark its 230th anniversary; it was founded in the reign of Catherine the Great. Since the tradition of the Free Economic Society was revived, a few years ago, transcripts of its round tables are customarily published in full, and made available to the Russian government, as well as the state Duma (Parliament).

The debate is particularly timely, inasmuch as Russia is on the edge of national elections, and the question of survival under IMF conditions is foremost in the minds of policymakers and people.

Lyndon and Helga LaRouche met with 70 members and friends of the Schiller Institute in Russia, at a lively get-together held at the Methodological University in Moscow on April 26. The presidents of the Schiller Institutes of three nations were there--Helga Zepp LaRouche, the founder of the Schiller Institute overall, and president of the Institute in Germany; Taras Muranivsky of the Russian Institute; and Marivilia Carrasco of the Mexican--as well as Schiller Institute activists from Ukraine, Georgia, Moscow, St. Petersburg, guests from Nizhny Novgorod and Rostov-on-Don, and Moscow scientists in fields ranging from physics to economics to music.

The audience listened intently to LaRouche's speech on what must be done to save each individual nation: Save civilization. LaRouche developed the importance of a cultural paradigm shift, with reference to the three postwar generations: the veterans of World War II, represented at this meeting by himself and by Russian space scientist Pobisk Kuznetsov; the children of that generation (such as one Russian chemist, who began his question saying, "I am a baby boomer"); and the youth of today. A dozen young students from the Methodological University were present.

Questions to LaRouche lasted late into the night. Many of them referred to points from his textbook ("So, You Wish to Learn All About Economics?") or other writings, which the questioners had already studied.