Editorial: Nuclear Waste (1965)

Editorial from the August 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

It was 20 years ago this month that the world witnessed the terrifying spectacle of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Twenty years of gradually mounting evidence to help piece together like a jigsaw, a background of cynical and calculated brutality that is almost without parallel. Twenty years in which the soundness of the Socialist Party’s stand on the whole question of war in all its forms has been again and again vindicated.

This will no doubt be a month of commemoration and protest. From statesmen and politicians of every variety we may expect the usual tired platitudes, lies and hypocrisy as they spuriously talk about peace and prepare for another war. CND will be well to the fore, attempting to deal with nuclear weapons in isolation from their root cause – Capitalism. But society cannot put the scientific and technical clock back. From this time forward man’s ability to manufacture nuclear weapons is here to stay. The only truly reliable way to “Ban the Bomb” is to establish a society where human relationships could not possibly cause war or call nuclear weapons into use. Only world Socialism really guarantees that Hiroshima or Nagasaki could not happen again.

We have felt it important to return to the question again this month because apart from the threat to humanity’s existence in a world armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons, it illustrates well a point we have made many times― the shocking wastefulness with which Capitalism not only squanders society’s material resources, but squanders humanity itself.

We live in a world capable of a tremendous productive effort. The work that went into the first atom bombs must have been colossal, yet it pales into insignificance when compared with the picture today. America’s defence expenditure (never “offence” expenditure) last year reached the staggering estimated figure of $54,000 millions. Comparable figures for Great Britain were ￡2,043 million, West Germany 20,929 million Deutschmarks, and France 23,485 million Francs. The U.S. contribution alone to NATO forces included eight hundred intercontinental ballistic missiles (nuclear if necessary) and over three hundred Polaris submarines. At the beginning of last year, Soviet defence minister Marshall Malinovsky was boasting of Russia’s hundred megaton bomb and the missiles that were available to carry it to any part of the globe.

And this is the spectacle which has been the curse of the capitalist world, to come into still sharper focus in the post-war years. Millions go ragged and hungry and badly housed, while unsaleable food piles up in the warehouses and backwater barges, and vast resources of human ingenuity and productive effort are squandered in turning out yet bigger and more destructive weapons. Not only that. There are now five runners in the nuclear arms race with at least two more – W. Germany and India – thinking of entering the slips.

Even whilst CND have been campaigning, more nations have entered the nuclear field. The bombs are bigger, and there are more of them. CND have protested against one aspect of capitalism’s wastefulness. They will miss the important point until they realise that the need is to remove Capitalism itself. Gigantic waste which is horrifying in its effects is synonymous with Capitalism in every direction, from nuclear terror, to world hunger. The campaign against these problems outside the context of the demand for Socialism cannot carry the prospect of success.

It is when we realise this that we see the urgent necessity for the removal of capitalism and its replacement with a world of common ownership, for this is the only way to tackle such a problem. Only then could we be sure that society’s resources would be harnessed to serve human needs instead of the requirements of the profit motive. In a Socialist system there would be abundant wealth to meet everyone’s needs, but waste would be anathema – a thing of the past. Such conditions would make possible the development of human abilities on a scale undreamed of today, for the concern of all would be to produce and distribute the very best of which they were capable. Certainly a goal worth striving for; but more than that, one which becomes a matter of greater urgency with the passing of each day

Remember Hiroshima? (1965)

From the August 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

When the aircraft carrying the atomic bomb appeared above Hiroshima early in the morning of 6lh August 1945, the people of the city were not especially alarmed.

They assumed that it was the reconnaissance ‘plane which every day reported on the weather over a nearby lake, used as a rendezvous point by the American bombers. For months, the B-29’s had been hammering at one Japanese city after another; in August 1945 there were only two of any importance which had not suffered a heavy raid. One of these was Hiroshima.

Uneasily, the city was organising its defences. Every home was required to have a concrete water tank readily accessible for fire-fighting. Many houses were being torn down to make fire breaks. But the Super-Fortresses kept roaring past to the lake, and swung away to other targets. The people of Hiroshima became convinced that the Americans were saving something especially horrible for them.

All these fears came to a head, at eight-fifteen that morning, when the bomb flashed in the sky and the blast roared down and out and eighty thousand human beings died in a way which nobody had ever known before. More than four square miles of Hiroshima was destroyed; within a year the death roll had reached one hundred and forty thousand.

The effects of the bomb were gruesomely strange, and this gave rise to panic rumours about what had happened. Some people said the Americans had sprayed petrol over the city and set light to it. Others thought that a cloud of magnesium had been dropped, and ignited by high tension wires. Unfamiliar and menacing things were happening to the survivors of the bomb. Their hair fell out, their gums bled, trifling cuts stayed open and festered for weeks. Pregnant women suffered miscarriages and premature births; countless babies were born dead. People who had no visible injuries or burns quietly and simply died. And as if in mockery at this, weeds and wild flowers of all sorts flourished under the bomb’s rays and grew in profusion over the wreckage of the city.

President Truman announced that the weapon he had launched against Hiroshima had “. . . more power than twenty thousand tons of T.N.T. . . . more than two thousand times the blast power of the British Grand Slam, which is the largest bomb ever yet used in the history of warfare.” Although the people who were dying and suffering at Hiroshima did not appreciate it, history had been made at their expense.

In the United States, the New Yorker added its own little bit of history by devoting its entire edition, for the first time in its life, to a single feature. This was a report by John Hersey on the experiences of six people…..a German Catholic priest, an office girl, a Protestant Minister, two doctors and a windowed housewife—who had lived through the destruction of Hiroshima. Hersey’s story was immediately famous, and in November 1946 it was published in this country as a shilling Penguin (Hiroshima, by John Hersey—Penguin Books).

Here was the reality behind the politicians’ statements and the statisticians’ tables and the scientists’ measurements. These people had been crushed and wounded and frightened by the bomb. They had seen inexpressible horrors. Hersey told their story with restraint and sympathy, leaving the enormity of Hiroshima to speak for itself. Only once did he stand in judgement, and that was when he was telling what happened to the office girl when the bomb went off:

“. . . the bookcases right behind her swooped forward and the contents threw her down, with her left leg horribly twisted and breaking underneath her. There, in the tin factory, in the first moment of the atomic age, a human being was crushed by books.”

For the rest, the tragedy of Hiroshima is laid out in clean and compassionate English. All the horror is there, in the description of the wounded peoples’ macabre procession into the Red Cross Hospital:

“Dr. Sasaki worked without method, taking those who were nearest him first, and he noticed soon that the corridor seemed to be getting more and more crowded . . . Before long, patients lay and crouched on the floors of the wards and the laboratories and all the other rooms, and in the corridors, and on the stairs, and in the front hall, and under the portecochere, and on the front stone steps, and in the driveway and courtyard, and for blocks each way in the streets outside. . . . Dr. Sasaki lost all sense of profession and stopped working as a skilful surgeon and a sympathetic man; he became an automaton, mechanically wiping, daubing, winding, wiping, daubing, winding.”

The twenty years which have gone by since that nightmare have been full of the lies and evasions of the official propaganda machines. The allied governments excused Hiroshima on the grounds that there was no other quick way of ending the war. They have never successfully explained why it was necessary to show the bomb’s power on a virtually undamaged city, when there were plenty of other places where it could have been demonstrated without killing over a hundred thousand people.

Then they fed us with the deterrent theory, which began with the argument (remember?) that so long as the United States was the only power to have the secret of the Bomb no other country would dare to start a war. The other capitalist powers, however, did not see it in this light; many of them said that the best way to preserve peace was for them also to have the Bomb and so restore the balance of power in the world. And while they have been arguing, and while the disarmament conferences have been droning on, and while the official lies have been flowing out, nuclear weapons have spread and become more powerful. If one of today’s hydrogen bombs had been used at Hiroshima, none of Hersey’s six people would have lived to tell their stories; they would all have been well inside the first fireball.

The important question now is what effect the establishment of nuclear armaments has had on the world. There is no evidence that the six people of Hiroshima, among the luckiest alive, learned anything from their experiences. The widow, for example, descended into destitution, and placidly accepted it. The office girl relapsed into bewildered despair. The priest had his own consolations:

“If your God is so good and kind, how can he let people suffer like this?” She made a gesture which took in her shrunken leg, the other patients in her room, and Hiroshima as a whole.

“My child, Father Kleinsorge said, “man is not now in the condition God intended. He has fallen from grace through sin.”

And of course there were always the delusions of blind patriotism:

“. . . I never heard anyone cry in disorder, even though they suffered in great agony. They died in silence, with no grudge, setting their teeth to bear it. All for the country!”

This was not unusual. In every city and in every land, in 1945 the war-weary working people could see no reason to abandon their support of the social system which had brought them to atomic warfare. All over the world, capitalism ruled on. Eventually there came the anti-nuclear movement, but that was a protest not against capitalism, nor even against war, but against a particular method of waging war. The nuclear disarmers were no different from the other movements which have protested against capitalism’s problems without understanding why they exist.

The atomic bomb was a refinement of the high explosive bombs—like the Grand Slam—which were becoming increasingly cumbersome, because the only way of stepping up their destructive power was to increase their size. High explosive bombs were an extension of the artillery shell, which in turn was a development from small arms fire. The refinement and the increase in the power of armaments is a continuous process, spurred on by, and inseparable from, the ever-present possibility of war.

All the time, the powers of capitalism are in conflict—over the right to exploit the places where they can sell goods and over access to the places where they can find the raw materials to make the goods. Singly or in alliance, they dispute over oil, tin, rubber—which means that they dispute over the Middle East. Malaya, the Congo. They dispute over trade routes and the ports and bases which serve and protect them—which means over Suez, Cyprus, Gibraltar. Here is the basic reason for armed forces, for the arms race and for the build up in weapons which now holds the possibility of a future too terrible to imagine.

It is time now to remember Hiroshima, but not in protest against the Bomb, nor against the men who made it or who dropped it, nor even against the men who sanctioned its use. The only effective protest is against capitalism, against the social order whose conflicts have brought us to the stage where human society can almost wipe itself out. Remember, then, Hiroshima—but not as a beginning nor as an end, only as an incident in a terrible story.

Ivan

20 years ago (1965)

From the August 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

One August morning twenty years ago an atom bomb exploded on the town of Hiroshima. It was shortly after 8 o’clock local time that a U.S. bomber dropped the new weapon. An estimated 80,000 people died; and more than that were injured. Together with the attack on Nagasaki a few days later, about six square miles of built up area were completely destroyed. President Truman mentioned the figure of 2,000,000,000 dollars spent on the research and production involved in the manufacture of the bomb.

Despite six bloody years of mechanized slaughter, the devastation resulting from this single raid was on a sufficient scale to penetrate the minds even of those resigned to a world constantly racked by war. Throughout the capitalist press the need for a new morality was preached and, here and there, voices were raised in humanitarian protest,

To consider the protests first; these generally took the line that the atomic bomb was such a terrible weapon that it should never have been used. But the A-bomb is just as “legitimate” as any other weapon. There is no distinction between methods of warfare which are “acceptable” and others which are not. If the stakes in any capitalist dispute are sufficiently high then every available resource is thrown into the struggle, and pious condemnation of this makes not one iota of difference.

Yet this emotional reaction to nuclear war still finds its adherents in CND and similar organisations. It is based on a refusal to face up to the reality of this capitalist world where brute force is a not inconsiderable factor in securing and maintaining a share in the world’s markets. When the permanent bickering over trade periodically flares up into open warfare no power is prepared to fight with one hand voluntarily tied behind its back. Speaking three days after the Hiroshima bombing, Truman’s double-talk made quite clear the purpose of the second world war, which culminated iu the use of a nuclear weapon:

“The U.S. wants no territory or profit or selfish advantage out of this war; we are going to maintain the military bases necessary for the complete protection of our interests and of world peace.” (Our emphasis).

However, in August 1945 the bulk of the press was unanimous in its support of the allied bombing but cautioned its readers on the threat involved to mankind. This took the form of sermonising on the “new world” which was to be ushered in with the coming of “peace” and which had to be a world free from the danger of war. The Daily Express advised:

“Everything turns on the wisdom and goodness of the peoples and their rulers.”

The Daily Telegraph felt that:

“Unless we now so bear ourselves that the power of war-making is stamped out and peace among men of good will is securely established, the human race must go down to ghastly ruin.”

The pacifist Peace News cried from the heart:

“The latent moral crisis of the world has now become evident and palpable. The invention of the atomic bomb imposes upon mankind the necessity of a new behaviour-pattern.

Henceforward, there is only one form of security for Russia or any other great power. That is moral security.”

The Daily Mirror took refuge in the thought:

“Basic power is moral power.”

Originality seemed to have gone by the board. The sum total of this wisdom amounts to this: that wars in the past have been the result of the wickedness of men but if mankind now decides to embrace the good, wholesome life than (God willing) we can all live in peace and plenty.

In Britain, amid this deluge of rubbish, Socialists raised their voices in a common sense analysis of the situation. They explained that man is not innately evil and warlike and that, in a world dominated by production for profit, it is the mad scramble for economic advantage that causes war. Conflicts between nations are the result of friction between their rival economies in the struggle to obtain or keep foreign markets and supplies of raw materials, trade routes and spheres of influence. The decision before mankind of war or peace presents itself as the wider choice between capitalism or socialism.

J. B. S. Haldane, writing on nuclear energy in the Daily Worker, had the cheek to declare:

“Marxists should be the first to realise that with a complete revolution in war and production the principles of politics will also change. What was right last week may be disastrously wrong this week.”

On the contrary, Marxian socialists realise that as long as capitalism: lasts nothing fundamentally changes in the relationship between the property-owning class and the working class; the class struggle continues. The advent of nuclear energy is no reason for socialists to desert their principles. The only effect of nuclear weapons is that the task of the working class—to establish socialism—is now even more urgent. As the Socialist Standard pointed out in October, 1945:

“Your choice is as simple as it is vital! On it rests the future of humanity.” 

If this were true in 1945, how much more so these twenty years later?

John Crump

Hiroshima and After! (1945)

From the October 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

Another date has been added to History’s gruesome chronology of horror. Hiroshima, August 5th 1945, marks the application of a new technique in the sordid science of slaughter. In one catastrophic flash a city has been destroyed and “all life seared to death”. While the monument of dust still towered above the ruins, the news was released upon a world almost satiated with carnage.

Yet it is significant to observe that although the use of the atomic bomb hastened the end of the war in the East, the announcement was received with little popular enthusiasm.

Before 1939 it was comparatively easy for the ruling class to convince the workers of the need for a large navy, army, and air force. Armaments, they maintained would ward off would-be aggressors and thereby ensure peace. Their solicitude for our safety seemed almost genuine. Years of grim experience, however, have proved the Socialists’ contention that armaments are no insurance against war. New methods of persuasion will be needed next time to herd the population into the future shoddy equivalents of Anderson shelters, particularly since we are told by the US War Department that “an atomic bomb could be made 1,000 times more powerful than the type used on Japan”. (Sunday Despatch, August 12th, 1945). There will be very few near miss stories!

The reaction of the military mind is summed up by General Ismay, who in 1941 stated on behalf of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, “although personally, I am quite content with the existing explosives, I feel we must not stand in the path of improvement”. (Times, August 7th, 1945).

Let there be no mistake! The disastrous effect of this latest device to uplift humanity will in no way prevent its use. In fact because of the power of destruction, it becomes obvious that the element of surprise will be a major advantage in war. It may well be that a matter of hours will decide which group of capitalists will emerge victorious from the next edition, which gang will be jet-propelled on the next Crooks Tour, to sit at the fleshpots of some future Potsdam Conference.

Unfortunately for the British and American capitalistic class it will be impossible to monopolise the development of nuclear power. Sir James Chadwick, chief scientific advisor to the British members of the Combined Allied Policy Committee in Washington, has admitted that any nation with reasonable industrial facilities could start now and produce an atom bomb in 5 years’ time, without assistance from Britain and the USA. Its antecedents are the past ages of patient research. From the 1890’s when the Curies conducted experiments in radio-activity, up to the recent perverted achievement, the efforts of such scientists as Professor Rutherford of Manchester, Niels Bohr of Copenhagen, Dr Lawrence of California University, Professor Joliot of France, and others in Germany, Japan, Russia and elsewhere, prove indisputably that in the modern world production is a social function. In brief, as reported by the US War Department the bomb was created “not by the devilish inspiration of some warped genius, but by the arduous labour of thousands of normal men and women”. (Sunday Despatch, August 12th, 1945), i.e., members of the working class.

Needless to remark the news has produced a spate of advice, comments, explanations, warnings, and prophecies from people qualified and otherwise. Among the latter, Mr G. B. Shaw, in the Sunday Express, August 12th, 1945, unable to explain, yet urged to say something reverts to hollow flippancies, and reminiscences of childhood days. Dr Joad, emulating Churchill thanks God, “for one of the innumerable dispensations of Providence by which this country has been preserved”, and asks querulously, “Will nobody stop these damned scientists, put them in a bag, and tie them up! Or into a lethal chamber?” (Sunday Despatch, August 12th, 1945). Although goaded to repeat the question when we see such waste of print, or hear his brain storms distorting the ether waves, we know that the fault lies not with the scientists, but with the system of society which corrupts their discoveries.

General Fuller in the Sunday Pictorial, commenting on the cause of war, says “there are several . . . but in the economic age in which we live, the one which seems to me to tower above all others, is the ‘profit motive'”. To socialists the profit motive is the only explanation of war in the modern world.

As long as Capitalism remains, there will be no slackening of research for even “better and more beautiful” methods of destruction, no tightening of the purse-strings which have already disgorged £500,000,000. Meanwhile the producers of wealth will be sampling the elusive fruits of rationed victory amid Portal shanty-towns and unemployment queues.

There is no need to enlarge on the physical results of atomic warfare. Combined with jet-propulsion, mass-murder is possible by remote control.

It is, however, relevant to examine a few of its effects on the current political fallacies of the defenders of “private enterprise”.

The USA is now as vulnerable to attack as the rest of the world. Geographical situation offers no advantage, and in consequence the last crumbling bastion of isolationism is breached. This is clearly demonstrated by her policy of expansion especially in the Pacific.

All ideas of warfare are obsolete, or at least require drastic revision, and already, at the end of the worst war in history, the spectre of the next conflict haunts the celebrations of peace.

Sooner than we realize nuclear power may be harnessed to industry. In the inevitable scramble for production and profit gluts, slumps and unemployment figures will reach new levels and defy solution by the obsolete plans of the Beveridge type.

These are just a few of the problems of Capitalism: that Hydra-headed system which the Labour Party now administers in Great Britain; but will never control. Many supporters of the Labour Party are still deluded by the idea that Nationalisation is a major step in a policy of gradualism which will “reform capitalism out of existence”. The sledge-hammer blows of events will nail this tragic error!

Wars are inherent in the private-property system itself, and are likely to wipe millions of workers out of existence, while the futile pin-pricks of reform leave its structure untouched.

Who can now suggest that the policy of the Socialist Party of Gt. Britain, though correct in theory, is one for application only in some remote future? Who would question the practicability of our case?

There is no time for complacency! Let us face the fact that time is on our side only if we seize it by the forelock and use it to our advantage.

Socialism, the only solution to the problems which confront us, is the need not of the century, but of the hour!

Sympathisers, men and women of the working class, we urge you to join with us in the struggle for emancipation.

You have but two alternatives! Either the poverty, servitude and degradation of Capitalism, culminating in war, or Socialism in which the inventive genius of man will be used for the welfare of all society.

Your choice is as simple as it is vital! On it rests the future of humanity!

R. V.

Power ! Atomic or Political? (1948)

Pamphlet Review from the March 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

The charge is made in certain quarters that, since the dropping of atom bombs on Japan, there has been deliberate damping down on discussion, particularly of the danger to life and health of the workers in the atomic plants. One of those who make the charge is Mr. J. C. Thomson, of Edinburgh, who puts in strong terms his own views and those of writers from whom he quotes. If there is an answer to his charges we do not know it.

“Our Expanding Atomic Stupidity” is a sixpenny pamphlet by James C. Thomson of the Kingston Clinic, Edinburgh. It is a strongly-worded exposure, not only of atomic bombs, but also of its extravagant promises for use in industry and therapy. Mr. Thomson collects a mass of evidence to show that the production of atomic energy in nuclear plants is, in itself, a menace to all forms of life, animal and vegetable. As a matter of fact, it would appeal from the statements of those intimately acquainted with the subject, that the rot has already started and is well on the way, that the radio-active material released by bombs or escaping from factories, has got beyond the control of man.

On the bomb tests at Bikini he quotes Vice-Admiral W. H. P. Blandy, U.S.N., who witnessed the tests, as saying: “The atomic bomb is a poison weapon.”

Mr. Thomson says that the ships from Bikini are still contaminated, the Atoll remains uninhabitable, and the radio-active cloud blown into the upper atmosphere still coheres and continues to move around the world. Early in May, 1947, it was claimed that the “death cloud” was circling the world for the sixth time. According to Dr. Rebman of the University of California, “The danger from the cloud was so great, that during its passage over U.S.A. planes were warned to stay below 17,000 feet to avoid it.” Dr. Stafford L. Warren, chief radio safety officer at the bomb tests, and Dean of the Medical School of the University of California, describes it as: “A blast that grows more and more sinister the longer scientists study its results . . . But that second one at Bikini really ties this business up in a knot. . . Literally astronomical quantities of radio-active materials had become intimately mixed with the sea water, mist and spray which accompanied the formation of the giant mushroom of water which rose from the lagoon. Such atomic mist will deposit huge amounts of radium-equivalent; anywhere from a ton to 100 tons. When this mist moves in over a city you have to evacuate the people right away or they will die from gamma radiation. You couldn't clean the area. The fissionable material would get into the water—into everything. It would get into next year’s crop. I'm not so worried about the killing of 50 to 75 million people as I am about the wiping out of resources.”

But bombs are no longer required, says Mr. Thomson: “More slowly, but quite as efficiently, the same result is being achieved through the fumes given off from atomic fission factories. Every wind that blows through such a factory comes out radio-active. The screening devices used in atomic factories slow down the spread of radio-activity, but even these absorbent and reflecting materials present danger. No matter how much, or what particular substance is used, it gradually acquires radio-activity, and a point comes when it must be broken up and dispersed. Not that dispersal solves all difficulties. It merely takes the danger to a new area. At the American factories the isotope garbage is placed in concrete chests and dumped in the sea or into swamps.”

But it is not only the screens that become radioactive. The scientists and workers in the factories become affected; though this is denied by Professor Mott, President of the Atomic Scientists' Association, who says: “Protection of these workers is so easily and strictly applied that it is inconceivable that workers could be affected.” in reply to this Mr. Thomson says:

“I wonder if Professor Mott has heard of the great hospital built to accommodate the damaged workers from the Manhattan Project? And how soon it was filled to overflowing? And of how a great annexe was hurriedly constructed to be likewise filled to capacity? And of how still another annexe had to he improvised to keep the radio-active workers from filtering back home to contaminate their families and neighbours? (And, incidentally, to prevent them from talking).”

According to Mr. Thomson the bodies of the victims remain radio-active. Cremation does not quench it. And grave yards can be affected. While the Daily Graphic (8/4/47) mentions a notice in a New York paper offering “atomic burial vaults with concrete walls, interlined with lead, ready for delivery in May. That, at the moment is the insoluble problem of the U.S.A. morticians (undertakers to you); how to dispose of their radio-active clients without exposing themselves to danger.”

In some sections of the press there have appeared strongly-worded attacks on scientists as a body. They have been blamed, not only for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but for all the indications of worse to come in the future. The truth is that those who control the political machinery of the state are alone responsible. It was the heads of the capitalist state who saw, in the splitting of the atom, the promise of a new force that would revolutionise war and industry in their class interest. In the early days they could not foresee the dangers, though scientists, with experience of radium, knew that precautions would be more than ever necessary. The press could see nothing but benefits for mankind. The press is still registering that opinion. When the dangers appeared; a mysterious sickness, lassitude, danger of contagion to families and friends, and sterility; the entire industry was sworn to secrecy. What mattered a few thousand wage-slaves with this colossal power within their grasp? But the demand goes on, and must increase because of wastage of manpower in these factories. "There is to be a training school for boys and girls of 15 and over, who have studied chemistry at school, to be opened by the Ministry of Supply at the Government atomic energy factory at Springfields, near Preston ... the first course would begin in August. . . Salaries will start at £140 a year at the age of 15, rising to £276 for men and £257 10s. for women by the age of 26.” (Scotsman, 5/5/47.)

On this Mr. Thomson comments as follows: "Is It possible that nobody at the Ministry of Supply knows of the biological disruption awaiting the majority of these youngsters? Not one word of warning appears. Just an alluring offer of free training to be followed with good wages.”

All this applies to the rank and file workers. As in most industries there are supervisors, and others, known as high-ups. Mr. Thomson's records do not present them in a favourable light. He has been at some pains to collect evidence of their callous indifference to the sufferings of atomic victims. He says:

"As James Cameron reported (Express, 25/9/46) "The most scared man in the world today are the atom-splitters.’ But Cameron also provides an indication that not all workers in the fission field are sensible of their communal responsibilities: ‘Many of the atomic scientists arc honest men already somewhat stricken by the fruits of their energy. But—one of them I met on the island of Bikini—was, I am sorry to say, British, and so far as I am concerned he has no name. But he spoke in terms so crude and heartless, propounded a doctrine so pernicious, held the happiness of his fellow men so low, that he sent away even a bunch of shellback American newspaper men, revolted and appalled'." The same James Cameron also said: “Let us not be too kind to the scientists. They have a tendency to protect themselves as the reluctant tools of a relentless military, forced . . . to debase their knowledge to barbarism. In actual fact, a few weeks before Hiroshima a poll of more than 150 scientists working on the project was taken . . . More than half of them voted for demonstration in an inhibited area.”

No doubt these scientists were the high-ups. Never-the-less it was not their votes that decided the fate of Hiroshima; that decision was made by someone with real power. Mr. Thomson says: "One authority is quoted as stating that the decision to drop the bombs on inhabited cities ‘was made by the Army and Navy.’ That is a direct contradiction of President Truman’s claim that he alone made that ‘least objectionable choice'. "

Whatever attitude the scientists adopt the ultimate power always rests with the political heads of the state. Mr. Thomson presents his case against atomic bombs and fission factories with admirable precision, but on this side of the question he is indefinite. He says:

“With more and more stations and factories coming into action, a steady poisoning of our atmosphere is already taking place. Unless the public become enlightened enough to force our rulers to call a halt, the sum total of radioactive 'dew' in the atmosphere must slowly increase until life as we know it—vegetable, animal and human—can no longer exist on this planet.”

If Mr. Thomson holds that our rulers must be forced to call a halt, he should have indicated the nature of the force that would be equal to the task. He has not done so. So-called public enlightenment today rests on the capitalist press, and is merely enlightenment on matters affecting the capitalist way of life. At the moment capitalist interests determine that atomic factories shall continue, and that all criticism of the work must he discouraged.; hence there is no question of the press being divided on the subject. There is no opportunity for a study of the facts for and against. The factories are State-owned. They may never pay dividends, but they are experimenting in the capitalist interest. They are capitalist property, part of the means of wealth production owned by that class. The only solution is to make them the common property of the people, along with all the other means of life; to be democratically controlled by the people as a whole. Under such a system poison factories would be eliminated; while the people would operate the rest for the satisfaction of their needs. The working-class alone can do this by organising for control of the political machinery that capitalist control may be superseded by the Socialist way of life.

F. Foan

Why they dropped the bombs (2005)

From the October 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

Richard Headicar concludes his analysis of the reasons why the US dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. 

Link to Part 1

Understandably Allied servicemen involved in the Pacific war, many of whom experienced the unspeakable horrors of Japanese prisoner of war camps, welcomed the atomic bombs as a “miracle of deliverance”. With a few notable exceptions, even those historians who conclude that dropping the bombs was not necessary to obtain Allied victory – that it would not even have been necessary to invade Japan – generally accept that using the bombs probably shortened the war. Even if only by a few weeks. In the grim reality of war, the life of a single comrade saved is worth a thousand enemy slain.

But what would such men think if they knew that, far from shortening the war, the atomic bombs actually prolonged it? That for all the crocodile tears shed about the “terrible plight” of the captives; for all hollow praise heaped upon the “heroic sacrifices” of the armed forces they were, after all, merely expendable pawns in the unrelenting hostilities of power politics? That “bringing our boys back as soon as possible”, was not actually the first order of business?

Did the US want Russian intervention?

By the time the atom bombs were dropped, Allied victory through overwhelming military superiority was virtually assured. Also, at Potsdam in July 1945, Stalin had confirmed his intention to enter the war on 15 August. As President Truman, writing in his private journal, noted at the time: “Fini Japs when that comes about”. In fact Russia declared war on Japan on 8 August and the following day – just hours later in Far East time – Russian troops attacked in Manchuria and Korea. The rapidity with which they penetrated against the cream of the Japanese army is convincing evidence for many commentators that Japanese surrender would have swiftly followed. Surely such a potentially decisive intervention would have been welcomed by those pledged to “bringing our boys back as soon as possible”? Surely every effort would have been made to encourage the speediest possible participation of the Russian military as a matter of utmost urgency? Not so!

The attitude of the US policy makers regarding Russian intervention, even though initially positive, was never entirely free from fear-fuelled ambivalence. And, corresponding with increasingly encouraging reports from the Manhattan project, that attitude eventually hardened to become actively negative. Well-founded mutual suspicion governed every move; trickery and deception concerning their respective intentions was extensively employed by both sides. And, once again, American Secretary of State, James F. Byrnes, unashamedly declared his hand. He thought that it would be “regrettable” if Russia became involved in the war. He was desperately worried that if Stalin knew about the awesome power of the atomic bomb (he did) he might “immediately enter the war”. So Byrnes sought to delay Russian entry. That his attempts were unsuccessful is largely irrelevant and hardly the point, which is that the US leaders did not want Russian intervention. Firstly, because they were intent on using their atomic bombs before the war in the Pacific ended and, secondly, they were reluctant to share their prospective economic and political influence in the Far East with anyone else, friend or foe.

Although Stalin had no qualms about rescinding the Neutrality Pact with Japan, the likelihood of Russia entering the Pacific War any earlier than it did, even had it been urged to do so by America, was extremely remote. Yet there were two other avenues through which the US administration, had it had the slightest inclination to pursue them, could almost certainly have succeeded in shortening the conflict. Instead, to serve their own agenda, they approached these avenues with sufficient circumspection to frustrate every overture; each manoeuvre calculated to obstruct the least chance of any kind of rapprochement.

Was Japan really suing for peace?

The evidence that it was is overwhelming. Astonishingly, Japanese diplomats initiated peace feelers as early as late summer 1944. They continued to do so – through Sweden, Switzerland, Russia and even the Vatican. Particular efforts were made via Moscow in the (mistaken) belief that the Neutrality Pact that existed between Japan and Russia made it the most viable channel. Despite the fact that Stalin had previously declined to renew the pact, Japanese fears were somewhat mollified (but by no means quelled) by his assurance that it would continue to inform his decisions until its expiry in April 1946. But by the end of 1943 he had already made known to Allied leaders his intention to enter the war against Japan and signed an agreement confirming it, at Yalta in February 1945.

On the day following the collapse of Okinawa (21 June 1945), Emperor Hirohito told the Supreme Council for the Direction of War to reverse their “Basic Policy”, urging them to seek peace by diplomatic means: “You will consider the question of ending the war as soon as possible”. It was the specific mission of the new cabinet of Prime Minister, Baron Kantaro Suzuki (appointed 7 April 1945), to seek peace. But neither the US nor Russia were interested in Japan’s efforts for peace; the US wanted to wait until it could drop the atom bombs and Russia until it was ready to declare war. Not one of the messages imparted to Moscow by the Japanese ambassador was passed on to America. This made little difference, however, since all Japanese codes – diplomatic (“Magic”) and operational (“ultra”) had long been broken. An extract from “Magic” Nº 1205 (13 July 1945) deciphering a cable from Foreign Minister Togo to Ambassador Sato reads: “His Majesty the Emperor, mindful of the fact that the present war daily brings greater evil and sacrifice upon the peoples of all belligerent powers, desires from his heart that it may be quickly terminated”. The same transcript further states: “It is the Emperor’s private intention to send Prince Konoye to Moscow as a Special Envoy . . .” And so he did, but Moscow would not receive him. Later President Truman “thanked” Marshal Stalin.

Stephen Harper, in his book Miracle of Deliverance, subtitled ‘The Case for the Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki”, writes, with commendable honesty: “Ways could have been found to explore the Japanese peace moves had there been any desire to do so, but it seems clear that the doctrine of unconditional surrender . . . had become compulsive thinking – an Allied blindspot”.

Was it unconditional surrender?

On 21 July an ultimatum – the Potsdam Declaration – was given to the Japanese government. It was issued on behalf of the President of the United States, the President of Nationalist China and the Prime Minister of Great Britain; but not Russia. Its language was uncompromising as these extracts show:

“Following are our terms. We will not deviate from them. There are no alternatives. We shall brook no delay.

“There must be eliminated for all time the authority and influence of those who have deceived and misled the people of Japan into embarking on world conquest . . . We call upon the government of Japan to proclaim the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces . . .”

Despite the inclusion of phrases such as : “We do not intend that the Japanese shall be enslaved . . .”, “Freedom of speech, of religion and of thought . . .”, “. . . fundamental human rights shall be established” – the single non-negotiable concession, repeatedly demanded by Japan, was noticeably absent: a guarantee of the Emperor’s position. A crucial paragraph offering just such a guarantee was deleted by the US Secretary of State James F. Byrnes. Consequently, the Declaration was deemed unacceptable by Japan – just as the US hoped it would be.

Much discussion has ensued concerning the nature of the Japanese response. Some analysts consider it to be an outright rejection; others no more than a pause for breath. Confusion was sown by the use of the Japanese term “mokusatsu”, which can mean: “take no notice of”; “treat with silent contempt” or (most probably) “withhold comment”. Some writers have emphasised the jingoistic and defiant statements trumpeted in the Japanese media, but these were obviously face-saving propaganda exercises designed to boost national morale. Other compelling evidence makes it abundantly clear that, so far as Japan was concerned, negotiations were still very much ongoing. And that the US was aware of it.

“Magic” intercept Nº 1218 (26 July 1945) revealed the text of another message sent from Foreign Minister Togo to Ambassador Sato. This was a reaction to a broadcast made to the Japanese on 21 July, on behalf of the US. The broadcast was made by Captain (later Rear Admiral) Ellis M. Zacharias, later to write an article for Look magazine (6 June 1950) entitled “How We Bungled the Japanese Surrender”. Part of the “Magic” summary stated: “It is impossible for us to accept unconditional surrender, no matter in what guise, but . . . there is no objection to the restoration of peace on the basis of the Atlantic Charter”. But once again Byrnes intervened and claimed that it was best to refrain from designating the broadcast as “official”.

That the issue of “unconditional surrender” was the primary stumbling block to the achievement of a peace settlement had been recognised long before. A Joint Intelligence Committee in March 1940 commented: “The crux of the political situation will lie in the all-important status of the Japanese Emperor”. After the war was over, both Secretary of War Stimson and the President recorded their conclusions. “[H]istory might find that the United States, by its delay in stating its position [on the surrender terms] had prolonged the war” wrote Stimson in his memoirs. Or as Truman succinctly remarked during the compiling of his: “It was because of the unconditional surrender policy against Japan that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were wiped out”.

Two days after the Potsdam Declaration, Prince Konoye was still making frantic efforts to make contact with Russian diplomats, contradicting the generally accepted notion that the Declaration had been dismissed out of hand by Japan. In any event, the decision to drop the bomb had already been taken: finally confirmed on the same day as the Declaration.

On 10 August, the morning after the second bomb was dropped, an offer of surrender from Japan was received in Washington. Once more it stipulated that any agreement should “ . . . not compromise any demand which prejudiced the prerogatives of His Majesty as a Sovereign Ruler”. Stimson favoured its acceptance; Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal suggested a compromise; Byrnes opposed it. For once, Byrnes had to give way but, nevertheless, he was the one who drafted the reply, the key phrase of which permitted that vital Japanese proviso: “From the moment of surrender the authority of the Emperor and the Japanese Government to rule the state shall be subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers”. It was enough. The bombs, apparently, had not persuaded Japan to drop its proviso concerning the Emperor.

Byrnes’s reluctance to bend, even at this juncture, is hard to fathom precisely. What is seldom mentioned in popular accounts of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, however, is that a third bomb would have been delivered and ready to drop by 17 August 1945.

Why were the bombs dropped?

A complex labyrinth of reasons lay behind the decision to drop the atomic bombs. Once the vastly expensive machinery of production had commenced, and the original purpose of its instigation forgotten, sufficient resolve not to use it ceased to exist. The astronomical investment of public funds needed to be justified; the widespread public antipathy of the American population towards the Japanese following the Pearl Harbour attack, demanded revenge – a mood of which the American leadership was acutely aware. As Secretary for War Stimson subsequently observed: “No man, in our position and subject to our responsibilities, holding in his hands a weapon of such possibilities could have failed to use it and afterwards look his countrymen in the face”.

A number of ‘revisionist’ historians confidently assert that the primary motive was to gain diplomatic advantage: a powerful political lever allowing the US to dominate future negotiations with the Soviet Union. They make a powerful case and undoubtedly this was a major consideration in the formulation of atomic policy. But this could have been accomplished with just a single bomb and, surely, not necessarily on a heavily-populated city.

The fact that two bombs were dropped, however – without warning – on specifically targeted and crowded locations which had been spared aerial bombardment; the fact that each bomb had different technology (one uranium-explosion; one plutonium-implosion), each with different yields, dropped at different heights but both resulting in prolonged and deadly after-effects of which little was understood, suggests the conclusion that the primary motives might have been the seldom mentioned (almost unmentionable) one of “scientific” experimentation. A conclusion that seems to be confirmed by the grim recommendations of both the Interim and Target committees detailed in the first part of this article (last month).

The terrible war in the Pacific, in common with all wars between capitalist states, had its origins in the protection and expansion of economic interests. There seems to be no limit to the degradation and cruelty utilised to protect those interests. Anyone visiting the Hiroshima museum would be able to view the leaflets that were dropped warning of an atomic attack. In an act of macabre cynicism that almost defies belief, those leaflets were not dropped until 9 August – three days after the bombing. Things improved for Nagasaki – they were only one day late.

Richard Headicar

Blogger's Note:

The following correction appeared in the November 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard:

Two mistakes found their way into the article "Why They Dropped the Bombs" in the October issue. The date of the Potsdam ultimatum to Japan was 26 July not 21 July as stated and there was a reference to a comment of the Joint Intelligence Committee in "March 1940". Readers will have realised that this cannot have been since the US and Japan were not even at war at that point. It should of course have read "March 1944".

Why they dropped the bombs (2005)

From the September 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

  Last month saw the 60th anniversary of the dropping of atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  The media mostly contented itself with repeating the myth that this was the lesser evil to continuing the war by conventional means.  In a two-part article Richard Headicar uncovers the real reason for the bombings: to test the destructive power of a new weapon for use in future wars.

A common charge levelled at those who challenge the (still largely believed) established myth concerning the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, is that they do so from the comfortable perspective of hindsight. This view was most elegantly formulated by Albert R. Hunt, writing in the Wall Street Journal on 3 August 1995: “The critics view the situation through the prism of today and side-step both how the situation looked to decision-makers in 1945 and the political realities facing them”.

At first glance a not unreasonable observation but one which, upon closer examination, is revealed as somewhat disingenuous. Firstly, because, given that such a vast amount of crucial and enlightening information was for many years kept secret (much still is), anything other than hindsight concerning many areas of knowledge would have been pure speculation. Secondly, because there existed a number of contemporary critics. Many of these were closely involved in the production of the bomb, others from the military and some, even, close to the president.

Before proceeding to disentangle the web of lies and deception surrounding this subject, it is important to emphasise that, whatever the reasons for the decision to drop the bombs, it was a consequence of a brutal and ruthless conflict between warring capitalist states. A British First Sea Lord once put it: “Moderation in war is imbecility”. Today there are few military ‘conventions’ and any that remain are almost sure to be violated. Rest assured, had any one of the main protagonists in the Second World War obtained an atomic bomb before the United States, they would almost certainly have used it with a similar alacrity and disdain for human life.

Who took the decision to drop the bomb?

Although, of course, it was President Harry Truman who had to give final approval (British consent, a formality required by agreement, was readily granted) he was the new boy on the block relying heavily on his advisors. General Leslie Groves, director of the Manhattan Project to manufacture the bomb, famously described Truman as “a little boy on a toboggan”. Once the decision had been made to produce the atomic bomb and the process of manufacturing it had begun, it was always assumed by the military and politicians that it would be used. In that sense no actual decision was ever a real necessity.

Nevertheless, formalities and procedures were prudently followed and, in order to work out the practical details and make suitable recommendations, various committees were established. The two most important of these were the Interim Committee (political, plus a co-opted scientific panel) and the Target Committee (military and scientific). General Groves headed the Target Committee and although not a member of the Interim Committee, was always present at its meetings. He was an unswerving advocate for deployment of the bomb. As he bluntly explained: “It would not have looked well if I had been appointed to serve on a committee of civilians. But I was present at all meetings and I always considered it my duty to recommend that the bomb be dropped.”

The chairman of the Interim Committee was the Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson. On 3 May 1945, he proposed a further member who was to have a most significant influence on events: James F. Byrne, soon to become the Secretary of State to President Truman. His views on the dropping of the bomb were as rampantly in favour of those of Groves and together they formed the irresistible force that, more than any other, led to the final cataclysmic devastation of those two unlucky Japanese cities. As the physicist Arthur H. Compton put it: “The Scientific Panel was not called to decide the question of whether the bomb should be used, but only how it should be used . . . it . . . seemed to be a forgone conclusion.”

Minutes taken at the meeting of the Interim Committee on 1 June 1945 recorded:

  “Mr Byrnes recommended and the committee agreed, that . . . the bomb should be used against Japan as soon as possible; that it be used on a war plant surrounded by workers’ homes; and that it be used without prior warning.”

On 25 July 1945 a directive approved by the Secretary of War, but which had been previously composed by Groves, manifested US intentions and confirmed previous assumptions in its first two sections:

“(1) The 509 Composite Group, 20th Air Force will deliver its first special bomb as soon as weather will permit visual bombing after 3 August 1945 on one of the targets: Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata and Nagasaki . . .
“(2) Additional bombs will be delivered on the above targets as soon as made ready by the project staff . . . “

Whether or not that directive constituted a decision and whether Stimson and Truman or Byrnes and Groves bore most responsibility for it remains a matter of some debate. The theory of the “forgone conclusion” gains some credibility from the response given to Groves when, in January 1945, he suggested to his immediate superior, Army Chief of Staff General George Marshall, that detailed plans should be drawn up for the employment of the bomb in war. He was told “see to it yourself”.

Were they military targets?

 “The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in the first instance to avoid, in so far as possible, the killing of civilians”. President Harry S. Truman (9 August 1945).

All of the cities on the target list (like most reasonably sized cities in time of war) were of some military significance. Five of them, with the agreement of the Air Force, were to be spared any further aerial bombardment from May 1945 onwards. These were Hiroshima, Kyoto, Yokohama, Kokura Arsenal and Niigata. On the express orders of the Secretary of War, Stimson, Kyoto – considered to be the cultural centre of Japan and a beautiful city that Stimson had once visited – was removed from the list and Nagasaki took its place. The truth is, of course, that the US Air Force could have destroyed any military target that it chose to. Japanese air defences were practically non-existent and of Japan’s sixty-six largest cities, fifty-nine had been destroyed; the seven remaining partly so. By the summer of 1945 only two cities with populations exceeding a quarter of a million had not been assailed by incendiary raids.

Since Hiroshima was designated as a major port and home of Regional Army Headquarters and the northern sectors of Nagasaki contained the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works, why did they remain largely untouched (Hiroshima hardly damaged at all and Nagasaki comparatively unscathed)? The answer is provided by the proposals of the Target Committee, 27 April 1945:

  “To enable us to assess accurately the effects of the bomb, the targets should not have been previously damaged by air raids.”

Nagasaki had been bombed to some extent but it was only a late addition to the target list and was not first choice even on the day the bomb was dropped on it – that had been Kokura Arsenal.

Further recommendations made by the committee were that “ . . . the first target be of such size that the damage would be confined within it, so that we could more definitely determine the power of the bomb”. Then from a further meeting on 10 and 11 May came the clear (and fortunately documented) instruction: “ . . . to neglect location of industrial areas as pin point target . . . [and] . . . to endeavour to place first gadget in center of selected city; that is, not to allow for later 1 or 2 gadgets for complete destruction.”

To erase any lingering doubts a subsequent Bombing Survey Report stated: “Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen as targets because of their concentration of activities and population”.

Was it necessary to drop the bombs?

One of the most commonly accepted beliefs is that, horrific though it was, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved millions of lives – Japanese as well as American – by bringing about a swift end to the war and forestalling a bloody invasion. We are reminded about the massive casualties already suffered by both sides in the Pacific War. Particularly about the fanatical defence by the Japanese of Iwo Jima, Luzon and Okinawa. But although there were plans for an invasion they were contingency plans.

The first stage – “Olympic” – was to land at the island of Kyushu on 1 November 1945. No assault on the main island, Honshu, – “Coronet” – was scheduled until 1 March 1946. In the light of what we now know, it seems doubtful that the need for any kind of invasion would ever have arisen. Japan was certainly not defenceless. It still had an army of more than two million troops, many prepared to fight to the death for their Emperor. Also, as well as conventional planes, there were thousands of kamikaze, mines, beach fortifications, etc, and the remnants of the navy. Their problem was one of deployment. But as the US Strategic Bombing Survey concluded, less than a year after the bomb had been dropped:

  “Certainly before 31 December 1945 and in all probability before 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bomb had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.”

Some historians argue that the bombs were unnecessary precisely because Russia intended to enter the war, so the conclusion of the Strategic Bombing Survey was all the more remarkable. Less so, however, when the reality of the Japanese military situation is properly examined. Their navy was virtually finished; their army was described by Hanson W. Baldwin as consisting of “Green conscripts and second rate troops”; communication lines were in disarray; fuel was in extremely short supply; roads were in a poor state of repair; transport and transportation could be bombed at will; ports were becoming paralysed; food was scarce; illness through malnutrition was an increasing problem and (not surprisingly) public morale was diminishing by the day. In marked contrast to this, the US armed might remained immensely powerful.

All of this was known to the US administration and military and the ludicrous estimates of projected invasion casualties – ranging from “hundreds of thousands” to “millions” – were post-war exaggerations designed to contribute to the successful establishment of a public justification for the dropping of the bombs. Major General Curtis E. LeMay expressed the truth quite bluntly a few weeks after formal surrender of the Japanese Emperor. “The atomic bomb,” he stated, “had nothing to do with the end of the war”.

But the reasons were not merely military ones.

(To be concluded next month)

Richard Headicar

50 Years Ago: Nuclear Waste (2015)

The 50 Years Ago column from the August 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

It was 20 years ago this month that the world witnessed the terrifying spectacle of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Twenty years of gradually mounting evidence to help piece together like a jigsaw, a background of cynical and calculated brutality that is almost without parallel. Twenty years in which the soundness of the Socialist Party’s stand on the whole question of war in all its forms has been again and again vindicated.

This will no doubt be a month of commemoration and protest. From statesmen and politicians of every variety we may expect the usual tired platitudes, lies and hypocrisy as they spuriously talk about peace and prepare for another war. CND will be well to the fore, attempting to deal with nuclear weapons in isolation from their root cause – Capitalism. But society cannot put the scientific and technical clock back. From this time forward man’s ability to manufacture nuclear weapons is here to stay. The only truly reliable way to “Ban the Bomb” is to establish a society where human relationships could not possibly cause war or call nuclear weapons into use. Only World Socialism really guarantees that Hiroshima or Nagasaki could not happen again.

We have felt it important to return to the question again this month because apart from the threat to humanity’s existence in a world armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons, it illustrates well a point we have made many times― the shocking wastefulness with which Capitalism not only squanders society’s material resources, but squanders humanity itself. (…)

Even whilst CND have been campaigning, more nations have entered the nuclear field. The bombs are bigger, and there are more of them. CND have protested against one aspect of capitalism’s wastefulness. They will miss the important point until they realise that the need is to remove Capitalism itself. Gigantic waste which is horrifying in its effects is synonymous with Capitalism in every direction, from nuclear terror, to world hunger. The campaign against these problems outside the context of the demand for Socialism cannot carry the prospect of success.

(from editorial, Socialist Standard, August 1965)

Lest we forget . . . (1994)

Editorial from the July 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

This editorial is being written as the second world war is being re-enacted on TV. The news for June 1994 is followed by the news for 1944. This time uncensored (which is probably more than can be said for today’s news). Every bomb and bullet seems to have been recorded. What is lost by the absence of glorious technicolour in the dusty archive film is made up for in blood-soaked black-and-white. The unspoken message is repeated again and again: "Here’s something you should be proud of - we won, we won." To remind us that the business of killing Germans had its funny side, an old repeat of Dad's Army has just been repeated again. Now it’s back to how we won the war.

The reason for all this is not made clear. If the intention is to remind ourselves of the countless number of men and women who were pointlessly slaughtered - and we should remind ourselves - why the jingoistic display of 1,000 paratroopers descending into Normandy, watched by a smiling Prince Charles? Why the public display of pitiful, worn-out old warriors being interviewed displaying a strange mixture of patriotic pride for the killing along with their shame and their tears and their medals; and all-too-often total incomprehension of the obscenity and futility of it all? "Well I tried to kill him, he tried to kill me, - we both missed and that’s why we’re here." Ideal material for a Dad's Army script.

One thing to be thankful for is that enough old soldiers expressed their outrage at the Tory Party plans to make the whole thing a Conservative Party Euro-Election jamboree. The thought of Maggie Thatcher being wheeled out every night to sing "We’ll meet again" would have been just too much to bear. John Major’s Churchillian speech against the homeless beggars was bad enough: "We will fight them on the benches, we will fight them on the pavements" etc.

Of course the victims of war must never be forgotten, whichever side they were unfortunate enough to be killed by. Or the sacrifice they made. Or the lies they were fed to make them go out and kill or be killed by other ordinary, decent people. Or the children involved, or their mothers. Nicholas Humphrey, in his excellent essay Four Minutes to Midnight tells the story of Keiko Sasaki: "When my grandmother came back I asked ’Where’s Mother?’ ’I brought her on my back,’ she answered. I was very happy and shouted ’Mama!’ But when I looked closely, I saw she was only carrying a rucksack. I was disappointed . . . Then my grandmother put the rucksack down and took out of it some bones ... I miss my mother very much."

The bomb that fell on Hiroshima killed 140,000 people. The bomb that fell on Nagasaki killed 70,000. 210,000 people killed by just two bombs. How can we adequately remember the pain of Keiko Sasaki 210,000 times over? Plus the pain of the parents, children and friends of the victims of the Holocaust? And of every soldier, every civilian and every child killed? And that was just one war . . .  50 years ago.

Nor must we forget the sacrifice of those whose human dignity and humanity made them refuse to kill their fellow beings, and how they were punished for it by "their" countries. But to not forget is not enough. We’ve got to overturn this mad, bad system and never allow it to be possible again.

The Destroyer of Worlds (1995)

Editorial from the August 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

In May 1945 four Japanese cities, including Hiroshima, were designated as possible targets for the US atomic bomb. Although American bombing raids were encountering only minimal resistance, the chosen cities were to be spared any aerial bombardment in order that the effects of the new bombs could be accurately assessed.

The first bomb, "Little Boy" (uranium gun) was dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August at 8.16 a.m. —the height of the Japanese rush hour when the maximum number of people were exposed. No prior warning was given. On 8 August, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan. The very next day "Fat Man" (plutonium implosion) was dropped on Nagasaki.

Until the atomic bombs were dropped the American President, Harry Truman, had insisted that unconditional surrender and the removal of the Japanese Emperor were the only possible terms he could offer— despite warnings from some of his own advisers that such conditions were unlikely to be accepted and comprised a major obstacle to ending the war. Almost immediately afterwards, however, the proposals were modified allowing the Emperor to remain.

The claim that the use of the atom bombs prevent an imminent invasion is completely unfounded. In this case contingency invasion plans had been prepared but it was never expected that they would need to be activated. The earliest date proposed for even a preliminary incursion was 1 November 1945 and for a full invasion not until Spring 1946—nearly eight months after the bombing of Hiroshima. The official US Strategic Bombing Survey produced quite soon after the war stated that “certainly prior to 31st December 1945, and in all probability even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, Japan would have surrendered, even if Russia had not entered the war. and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated”.

The US was not concerned with this, but with flexing its imperialist muscles in order to achieve its position for the post-war settlements.

The dropping of the atomic bombs has rightly been described as “barbaric" but the conduct of war is a thoroughly nasty business and its consequences invariably strangely similar. In any war. treachery, deceit, cruelty and power posturing are commonplace. It would be a serious mistake to imagine for one moment that had any of the other imperialist powers succeeded in making atom bombs first, they would have behaved much differently.

Hiroshima & Nagasaki—The Background (1959)

From the September 1959 issue of the Socialist Standard

“We take no pride in being able to massacre millions of our fellow human beings, to poison the air, to cripple the children of the future. We find no safety in weapons designed only for wars that nobody can win. . . "

These words from the leaflet announcing the second Aldermaston March, expressed the feeling of the idealistic element of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Heard above the suave evasions of politicians, and the arrogant threats of generals, this call, to those enchanted, seemed the golden echo of truth itself; promising in victory, a finer and happier life for Man.

How and why did this protest arise? What has it achieved? Will it set the foot of Man on the long-sought path of Peace and Happiness?

To answer these questions one must go back to see how it came into being and how it has grown.

THE FIRST ATOMIC BOMB

On July 16th, 1945, in the New Mexico desert, the Los Alamos scientists successfully exploded the first atomic device. Reports of this were hurried to President Truman at the Potsdam Conference. After consulting his advisers he gave authority to an air force group, in special training since the autumn of 1944, to prepare to use the atomic bombs.

In the early days of August, from a warship in mid-Atlantic, Truman gave the final order to begin the atomic bombing of selected Japanese cities. At the earliest indication of clear weather over Hiroshima, a B-29 was dispatched. A uranium bomb, assembled in the air on the way to the target, was dropped. Hiroshima on the morning of August 6th, 1945, became the first atomic crematorium. The “new weapon of special destructive force” which Truman had casually mentioned to Stalin, was a secret no longer.

The Russian government, fearing a belated American attempt to deprive it of some of the spoils of Yalta, hastened to declare war on Japan. A right to participate in the final share-out of the Far Eastern loot; a desire to safeguard their sphere of influence, these were the main concerns of the Russian rulers. No protest at a sickening outrage. No sorrow expressed at the agonies of the Hiroshima victims, the seared, stunned survivors; the radio-active remnants of what had been men, women and little children! So much for the party of Lenin and Stalin in the glorious fight for Peace!

Truman's other allies, the British ruling class, their interests now in the care of a Labour Government, watched, from afar, the results of their joint scientific and industrial enterprise. Three days after Hiroshima, Attlee’s representative, Group Captain Cheshire, was present at the bombing of Nagasaki, where a plutonium bomb, operating on a new principle, was used.

Public awareness of the circumstances in which the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan has always been limited by the facile myth that these bombs were necessary to break the back of Japanese resistance, thereby saving Allied lives. Japan was, in fact, on the verge of collapse.

A GRUESOME EXPERIMENT?

Was the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, towns on a carefully selected list of possible targets, a gruesome experiment? A callous scheme of sections of the American military, designed to discover the respective merits of different kinds of atomic bombs when used against densely-populated industrial centres?

Was the atomic bombing a practical demonstration of American technical superiority in warfare to warn the Russian rulers against expansion which might further encroach upon American spheres of influence?

Whatever answers posterity may yield, however intricate the web of truth, to Socialists, there is no word, no line, to justify this deed. Nothing can excuse the roasting of the newly-born or the incineration of infants at play, the slaughter of thousands.

Whatever may have been the reasons, political, economic, military or personal, that may have moved the principal actors to speak the lines and play the parts they did, to Socialists one thing is the essential point. This war and all its misery and fire, was rooted in capitalism.

It is not the villainy of militarists, the schemings of armament kings, the bellicosity of dictators, the ineptitude of statesmen, that is the cause of war in the modern world. It is not deceptions practised upon honest by dishonest politicians.

It was not the manoeuverings of Roosevelt and Churchill nor the embargo placed upon raw materials for Japan in 1941 and all the machinations on both sides of the Pacific leading up to the “surprise” attack on Pearl Harbour that were the causes of war in the Far East.

STRUGGLE FOR MARKETS 

Basically, the cause of the war, which led to the bestiality of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was the conflict between the different national groups of capitalists, each aiming to improve its position in the relentless struggle to maintain or expand its control over markets and sources of raw materials. Little territory or resources, easily exploitable, remained to the nations such as Germany, Italy and Japan which had come late to the table.

To satisfy their growing appetites, arising from industrial and commercial expansion, the senior predators, they thought, must yield to them a large share of the economic fruits of earlier piracy.

The Japanese forces slowly advancing into Indo-China were a menace to American, British, Chinese, and Dutch interests in the islands and archipelagoes of South East Asia, fabulously rich in raw materials. Rubber, tin, nickel, oil and the like were never absent from the calculations of all concerned. The Japanese sought to control the Chinese mainland and to bring all South East Asia under their economic and cultural sway, by force of arms, if necessary.

In the West, if Germany over-ran Europe, the American rulers would find their long-term interests threatened, by a collossus commanding vast technical and industrial resources. A bitter struggle therefore ensued. The bomb and the bayonet became the means to convince where the honeyed modulations of sleek and urbane ambassadors had failed.

The attack on Pearl Harbour, the possibility of which American admirals had been discussing since the early thirties, helped to persuade the ordinary American people, who like people everywhere else, had no desire to become involved in war, that war was necessary in the interest of the nation as a whole. The Pearl Harbour attack roused the American people to a fury; they were in the war before they knew what it was all about. To the American man in the street the atomic bombing was a justified reprisal for the Japanese attack four years earlier. Thus does violence breed violence.

RUSSIA

It must not be thought that Russia comes into conflict with the other powers because of ideological reasons; because its social system is alleged to be “Socialist.”

Russia is a capitalist country. All the basic features of capitalism exist there; class monopoly of the means of production, backed-up by a powerful state apparatus, the dominance of commodity production and the profit motive, the subjection of the majority to wage-labour, the “anarchy of production” called “state-planning”; all are there.

All modern nations have these basic attributes. They may have particular features arising from the different national and economic backgrounds from which capitalism developed in each country. Each emerging capitalist class was born into a certain historical situation. The new industrial capitalists of England in the nineteenth century had the world at their feet; the later arrivals to the capitalist jungle, while having advantages in being able to learn and apply the latest techniques, found themselves surrounded by already entrenched rivals.

It is not what men think or say about themselves that is crucial to the analysis of a social system. It is how they are related to other men about the means of production, what role they play in the productive process, what, in fact, they do. In struggling with the traditional capitalist groups of the world, the top-ranking Communist Party bureaucrats, and politicians, the military, and industrial senior executives, in short, representatives of Russian capitalism, are different in no fundamental way. They are all as helpless to prevent war, and all as ruthless in its prosecution when diplomacy has failed.

FOR SOCIALISM

Socialists want no part of this nightmare world. Socialists are opposed to war, whether nuclear or “conventional" weapons are used.

The solution however, does not lie in the banning of a specific kind of weapon. Weapons are only necessary in a world of capitalist competition. The real enemy is the social system that breeds it. Our task is to keep the issue clear. To insist on the need for a society without privilege, poverty, or war. We take our stand solely for socialism.

B.

Appended at the bottom of this article in the original issue of the Socialist Standard:

Lord Attlee and the Bomb

"He [Mr. Truman] had to take the decision about the atom bomb. It is questioned sometimes. In my view, in the light of the knowledge we had at that time, he was absolutely right."

Lord Attlee at a Pilgrims' Dinner (July 21st, 1956) reported in "Daily Telegraph" (July 22nd, 1956).

Labour and the atom bomb (1985)

From the August 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note: This short piece was appended to the longer Hiroshima in the Making article that appeared in the same issue of the Socialist Standard.

It is sometimes forgotten that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki took place under a Labour government. Attlee was British Prime Minister at the time and was a member of the war cabinet involved with the American government in organising the development and production of the atomic weapon. As Prime Minister he had a representative at the bombing of Nagasaki.

In a speech at a Pilgrim's Dinner in London on 21 June 1956, referring to the action of President Truman, Attlee declared:

He had to take the decision about the atomic bomb. It is questioned sometimes. In my view in the light of the knowledge we had at that time, he was absolutely right.

(Daily Telegraph, 22 June 1956.)

One of the reasons given at the time to justify the atomic bombings was that they were necessary as a means of bringing pressure on Japan to sue for peace. However, in a written answer to the Liberal MP Horabin published in Hansard (Volume 431) on 19 December 1946, before declaring that it was known that "the Japanese leaders had previously been considering means of reaching a settlement more favourable to themselves than unconditional surrender", Attlee had carefully pointed out that:

No overtures for peace were made by Japan to the countries with which she was at war, prior to her acceptance of the terms of the Potsdam Declaration . . . (our emphasis).

In other words, Attlee admitted that Japan had made peace overtures before the dropping of the atomic bombs. It is also worth recalling that Truman's decision which Attlee regarded as "absolutely right", was a deliberate decision to bomb concentrated civilian populations. As an official American government publication on The Effects of Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, The United States Strategic Bombing Survey, published in 1946, put it:

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen as targets because of their concentration of activities and population (p. 41, our emphasis). 

No wonder the Attlee Labour government had no qualms about deciding to develop a British atomic bomb and all subsequent Labour government no qualms about keeping it.