Top Russian Website Interviews LaRouche
For two days in a row, May 17 and 18, the popular Russian web portal KM.ru posted excerpts from an interview with Lyndon LaRouche, including a video of the conversation. LaRouche was interviewed in Moscow May 15 by correspondent Tamara Miodushevskaya.
A first installment ran in print on May 17, under the headline "American Economic Guru Forecasts Crisis in U.S.A." The next day, the site put the whole interview online as the lead item at the center top of the KM.ru home page. It was illustrated by a picture of a nuclear mushroom cloud and carried the headline, "World War III To Start In September," which is not something LaRouche said in the interview, but serves as an attention-getter.
Our transcript of the English original is published by permission of KM.ru, while Miodushevskaya's questions are shown as translated during the interview by Rachel Douglas of EIR.
KM.ru's introduction: The major American economist and political figure Lyndon LaRouche is in Moscow for a short visit. He was one of the first to launch a fight against the global financial oligarchy and its chief financial institutions the World Bank, and the IMF. His forecasting track record is unparalleled. He gave us an exclusive interview about the future and present of the world economy.
KM.ru: Many people believe that there's a very serious economic-financial crisis in the United States. The U.S. has the largest debt in the world, and there's some belief that this could lead to a collapse of the dollar, and that the dollar could even stop being traded on international exchanges. How do you see this?
LaRouche: That's often said, but it's an inaccurate picture. The dollar has to be seen as the world's reserve currency, still. If the dollar were to collapse, the Russian assets abroad would collapse. China would collapse. India would go into a major crisis. The entire world economy would go into a dark age.
The orchestrator of the problem is the British Empire. It's the financial interests associated with Britain, which are the main enemy of the world today. Also, Russia, China, and India are enemies of Britain. These financier interests believe that they can sink the United States, and, by doing so, bring the rest of the world under British control. Actually, we're on the edge of the threat of a new world war.
Therefore, just to give an indication, which may involve other questions: The only solution to keep the world from disintegrating now, is a very quick change in the composition of the government of the United States: It must occur this year. Beyond this year would be too late. And it must be on that basis, that the United States must make an offer to Russia, first, China and India, to agree to set up a proposal for an immediate new, world monetary-financial system. And to bring other nations into that. But without the United States, Russia, China, and India, it's not possible. That's our situation.
KM.ru: At what point of decline of the dollar, what rate does the dollar have to hit, for it to be critically fatal for the whole world system.
LaRouche: It's already ready to fall. The condition already exists. All it would take—it's like a big balloon ready to explode. You prick the balloon, it goes. The greatest danger, is that the British interests will prick the balloon. The combination of financial interests which are controlled from London, and from the Cayman Islands, have the ability to blow the bubble any time they want to. There are a number of things, that could blow it: For example a war against Iran could blow it. It would start a chain reaction. Or, there are a number of other conditions that could blow it. The global warming policy of Gore could blow it. For example, if the United Nations group got through a resolution in support of Gore's policy, it would blow the system.
This is a moment, where an entirely voluntary element in history is the crucial, deciding thing.
KM.ru: What are the prospects for the euro and the ruble on the world financial market?
LaRouche: The euro should die. The sooner it dies the better. If the dollar goes down, the world goes down. If the euro goes down, the world does not go down.
We have to be realistic: Every government in Europe, from the border of Russia and Belarus, is presently an ungovernable state. Poland, bankrupt; Bulgaria, bankrupt; Slovakia's sick; Balkans, bankrupt; Germany, bankrupt. Italy is bankrupt, but that doesn't count.
France: France is ready to blow. The newly elected President is a fascist, but he is not going to have an easy time. Sarkozy is Vichy. It is a break with Gaullism; it is the end of France.
Internally, Britain is bankrupt. The government of Britain is now unmanageable, since the last elections. Belgium is unmanageable.
So, Europe is, at this moment, as the nations of Europe, Western and Central Europe, now bankrupt. They've already been globalized: The power does not lie with the governments, it lies with a supranational financial interest.
KM.ru: In that kind of situation, you could see the euro being destroyed?
LaRouche: The euro is a destruction. It was created by Thatcher and Mitterrand to destroy Continental Europe. It has destroyed Germany. It's now virtually destroyed France. Every former Comecon nation, except Czechia, is bankrupt, and is ungovernable. And the governments are impotent. That's why Europe is not strategically significant.
It's the international financial interests; Russia, China, India, and the United States: That's it. The rest of the world is not deciding anything. If they don't work together, then the chain reaction of financial collapse will finish off the world. And after that, nobody knows.
KM.ru: So, as far as I understand what you're saying, is, if there's not very rapidly a change in the U.S. government, then the whole crash is going to just blow up. In your view, who could become a candidate? How would it work?
LaRouche: It's not important. You have a situation, in which a combination of forces in institutions inside the government will decide what will happen. There are powerful institutions, political institutions, inside and associated with the U.S. government. One part of it is fascist, already, including Al Gore and his friends. Another part is the opposition, of which I'm a part. We are mobilizing to try to do something. Throw Cheney away, put the President under supervision, and do what has to be done.
The discussion is around my proposal for the United States to approach Russia, China, and India. Our approach is based on President Putin's and others' statements on the subject of Franklin Roosevelt. That is the only way we'll make it, by having the United States adopt the image of Franklin Roosevelt in the last Depression for dealing with the present crisis. We're in a desperate crisis, where such kinds of sudden changes can be made.
KM.ru: Your views are very much respected and followed in Russia amongst economists, as well as politicians. Can you tell us the kind of discussions you are having, if it's not a secret? Or at least, what you're advising?
LaRouche: Well, the key thing, as I said, the solution is to go back to the philosophical basis and approach of Franklin Roosevelt. This was well known under the Stalin government. Because Roosevelt had a plan for the post-war world, to eliminate colonialism. When Roosevelt died, financial circles in New York and London destroyed Roosevelt's policy.
As a veteran of World War II, I considered Harry Truman a pig.
We had a chance to bring together nations which did not agree with each other, to eliminate colonialism, and to organize an economic reconstruction of the world, and to use the United Nations as a vehicle for organizing sovereign nation-states to cooperate, and to assist nations which would be freed from colonialism. The world has changed, but the principle remains the same. And I believe that Russia, in its present situation, would accept such a policy. Therefore, that discussion is what I'm pushing. It's the only solution we have. Either that, or chaos.
KM.ru: Does there exist, or do you have a specific strategy for the development of Russian-American relations?
LaRouche: Yes, I do. But also, global.
There's a very specific problem—maybe I should explain this: Globalization is a fraud. Since 1989, you've had the destruction of the economy of Russia, deliberately. The greatest looting operation in history was run, up to the end of Yeltsin. Russia is, actually, organically, traditionally, what it is: It has its own culture. Russia has essentially an advanced European culture. It also is a Eurasian nation, by its recent history of the past four centuries. The great problem is typified by the problem of relations between Russia and the United States, on the one side, and China and India, on the other. The development of the natural-resources potential of Siberia and Central Asia is the key to the solution.
What's happened, is the destruction of Russia, and Western Europe, and the United States economies. The destruction of industry, the destruction of the standard of living of the lower 80% of family-income brackets. Then you have the fraud, which is typified by the case of China and India. India and China are the two nations which are most characteristic of the export of industrial production and so forth, out of Europe and the United States. But actually, China does not really benefit from this: China has billionaires, Communist billionaires. But the condition of the people is worse: The interior is collapsing. This is a colonial model! This is the British colonial model! You drop the price of production, by moving production into poor countries. You create a relatively wealthy class in a poor country, but you condemn the majority of the country to poverty. This is the globalization model.
China has achievements of some kind, which is very useful. But! China by itself would die, for lack of internal development of its whole population. India has a different, but similar situation. All of South Asia has the same problem. Africa is a disaster.
We've taken the industries, we moved them out of the formerly advanced countries, to poor countries, and we created the colonial model of Britain.
What you need is a 50-year agreement for high-technology investment. Europe and the United States are countries which have a high-technology culture, but they have been stripped of the ability to use it. Other countries have been given the technology to produce, but they haven't the culture to sustain it. It will take 50 years to fix that.
We must have a protectionist policy, worldwide: a fixed-exchange system, and a combination of 25- to 50-year, long-term agreements for high-technology development for the whole planet. It means that Russia, for example, has to change its ways and go in a high-technology direction for the whole population. And the high science culture of Russia is most important, especially in raw-materials development. Then we can solve the problem, if we get that agreement. Otherwise—pfft!
KM.ru: Can you say in a little more detail, what would you identify as genuinely positive factors in Russia, that the West lacks?
LaRouche: Vernadsky. Mendeleyev and Vernadsky. Look at the area of what was formerly the Soviet Union in Siberia. Look at the Arctic, the sub-Arctic region of Siberia. Under the tundra, you have vast valuable resources. You have to have the knowledge that the Vernadsky Institute, for example, in Moscow typifies, in its archives. In the Academy of Science, you have buried talent and knowledge. Nobody, no other country but Russia knows how to develop that area in a rational way. And with the most populous areas of the world typified by China and India, 2-1/2 billion people, who are hungry for technology and for raw materials. Without a cultural revolution toward high-technology in China and India, the world can not survive.
You can not have this area looted, you have to have it developed. You have nations like Russia, Kazakstan, and so forth, which have this territory. You have knowledge in Russia, that goes from Peter the Great, with the development of mineralogy, to the end of the Soviet period. The other parts of the world would go into that territory and loot it, which would be a catastrophe for all Eurasia, if they did that. You can't go in the area to loot it, you must develop it.
So, we have a lot of work in that direction—we know how to do it.
KM.ru: Since you're speaking of the question of economic development policy, how do you see your cooperation with Yuri Krupnov and the Development Movement?
LaRouche: We've had discussion. We haven't had enough discussion. This involves a much deeper level of scientific and related discussion than we've had so far.
KM.ru: I want to return to the smaller question of the position, or fate of the ruble in international markets. And if you would have any advice for Russian citizens on what currency they should keep their savings in?
LaRouche: No currency is safe in the world, as of now. It is possible to make the situation worse than it is, but it's not, under the present circumstances, to make it better.
What you have to have, is, as I said, an initiative from the United States, to Russia, China, India. That would mean a long-term agreement, treaty agreements, of these four nations, plus others, to force the world into a fixed-currency system: the one crucial thing that almost no one in Europe understands has to be done. The advantage of the United States, the United States is by Constitution, a credit system, not a monetary system. Under the European system, especially the British system, governments are controlled by money, money is not controlled by governments. Under the U.S. Constitutional system, the only one in the world that's got it, the U.S. dollar is controlled by the government, not the government by the dollar. See, under every U.S. President, we have a fixed-exchange-rate system and a protectionist system.
The point is the monetary interests would have to accept the fact that they have been defeated. You have to force a fixed-exchange-rate system on the world. Put the present world banking systems and monetary systems into receivership, for reorganization in bankruptcy. It's the American System: How can anybody complain, it's our system! The Constitutional system, not the one they have now. [laughing] It takes nerve, but you've got to do it. Everything else would be a waste of time.
KM.ru: Some of our experts advise citizens to put their savings in physical gold, instead of securities. What do you personally do with your financial investments?
LaRouche: I don't have to worry about a problem like that. [Laughter] I'm free of that option. Besides, it won't work anyway.
Governments must assist their people and protect them. Protectionism. We don't want social chaos. We want people to have their own independence. Not just the millionaires, but also the poor people. The primary thing is we must protect social stability. We must protect the poor people. If we don't protect essential industries, and the majority of the population is poor, around the world, 80%— You have to protect the stability of the family, protect the people, of the essential industries. You must have stable conditions for 50 years to come.
It's a matter of attitude: The people have to be convinced, justly, that the governments, together, whatever happens, the governments will work to come to the rescue of the people. The people must trust the governments, and the governments must be trustworthy. And the nations must be able to trust each other. We have to create that kind of system again, on this planet.
KM.ru: So, there's been discussions in Asia about the creation of the Asian currency unit, by analogy with the euro. So, you think it's fate will be the same as the euro?
LaRouche: That would be suicide. It's a delusion which would kill the people who enter into it. The problem is, people who think like this, are thinking in terms of monetary systems, not the human systems. They believe in money, not in people! My money! My money! My money! What about the people?
Money has no wealth! People are wealth! Their productive powers. Their education, their development. And you have to build a system, where the currency is used by governments to assist these moral objectives. The most important thing, is the difference between the Asian model of poverty, and the European model, which is development. It's the development of science and competence in science in the people. Technological competence, innovation competence. And to promote small entrepreneurs, who are technology-oriented small entrepreneurs: physicians, scientists, and so forth. This is the secret of society.
I know how to design laws to make monetary systems overnight, eliminate all systems, make new ones—that's no problem. You can not invent people. You must develop the people that you have. And control the monetary system, so that it serves the people.
See, the thing is, Europe had a great revolution which was made in the 15th century, which resulted in the modern nation-state. Up to that time, in all known history, society was dominated by the so-called oligarchical model, in which the majority of the people were kept ignorant and treated as slaves, like cattle. The advantage of European civilization, which is lacking in Asia, is freedom. We have oligarchical models, but, our culture is not oligarchical, although we've had oligarchical systems in it. Asia is cursed by oligarchical culture. We must eliminate the practice and tradition of oligarchical culture. We can not have 80% of the human race treated as cattle.
KM.ru: What do you think about the retirement of Tony Blair?
LaRouche: Well, I think he should not have existed, rather than retire.
He's a personal enemy of mine. He's also a personal enemy of the human race. He was the controller of the Iraq War policy. It was the British. Margaret Thatcher organized the first Iraq War. She destroyed Europe with the euro. With the euro system, she destroyed it—she and Mitterrand.
Blair is a typical representative of one of the most evil things on this planet, as a movement, the Fabian Society. You see that in Russia most clearly: The British organization is the one that's trying to get a war going involving Russia. What you see in Estonia, what you see in Lithuania, and so forth? That's London. That's the evidence.
Blair has been used up. He's ruined a lot of things. He's completely evil. But the time has come for him to go. And that's what you have to look at: He's being retired after winning a war, by causing one.
KM.ru: If the Democratic Party wins, how will Russian-American relations move?
LaRouche: I don't know if the Democratic Party going to continue to exist. If they go with the early primary elections, in February, this round, in that case the Democratic Party will break up. After February, if the Democratic Party goes with these primaries, the way they're doing, after February, by about March or April, you'll find a lot of independent candidates running for President, that could take between 10 and 20% in a general election. The present party system would disintegrate.
But before then, before the end of the year, the major, present crisis will come to a head, this year. I'll be 85 in September. I expect a great crisis for my birthday. [Laughs] I'm celebrating the birthday of a Russian of 80 years, today. I'm thinking of inviting him to come celebrate my birthday in September: Professor Menshikov. By that time, we may have a new world, of one kind or another, to celebrate!
No major dates are necessarily inevitable in history. But you can pick a date to indicate the area in which a great confrontation could occur. The world strategic volcano is going to erupt some time earlier than September, or some time later than September, either one. The present world system, the present parameters, cannot survive. The present system will never get better: It will get worse. There are no solutions within the framework of the present system. The party is over! Gone! My birthday will come; maybe we'll have a world around still. But, to think about the year 2008 as big events, that's too late! It's coming now.
KM.ru: Thank you for the interview.
