From the Ted Grant archive, Socialist Appeal mid-August 1945
We mark this week the eightieth anniversary of the dropping of the first atomic bombs on Hiroshima, on August 6, 1945, and three days later on Nagasaki. To mark the anniversary, we republish this article by Ted Grant, originally for the socialist newpaper, Socialist Appeal, and written only days after the news of the bomb reached the UK. Grant’s article contains important insights which are no less important today than they were eighty years ago.
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The defeat of the Axis powers will not prevent the outbreak of future wars. None of the basic contradictions of world capitalism have been eliminated; but on the contrary, have been aggravated and intensified by it. Past conflicts have been replaced by new and even sharper conflicts.
The second imperialist war has ended on a more ominous note than when it began.
During the war, technique has advanced at an increased pace…
…The technique of destruction has increased even faster than the technique of construction. Already, V1 and V2 [flying bombs] are obsolete as destructive weapons. The blitzkrieg of tanks, planes and guns are the product of another age. The terrible bombings of great capitals of the world are but child’s play compared to the powers of obliteration of the atomic bomb…
…It transcends by far the primitive sackings of cities and the slaughter of their inhabitants by such amateurs as Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun. The wiping out of every man, woman and child in a matter of seconds is a massacre which has no equal in the long, cruel and bloody history of mankind.
The Japanese reported the effects of the atom bomb on the former city of Hiroshima:
“Medical relief agencies rushed from neighbouring districts were unable to distinguish, much less identify the dead from the injured.
“The impact of the bomb was so terrific that practically all living things – human and animal – were literally seared to death by the tremendous heat and pressure engendered by the blast. All the dead and injured were burned beyond recognition.”
The hypocrisy of the Allied imperialists in their condemnation of the fascists in their use of poison gas in Abyssinia and the rockets and flying bombs against Britain is scarcely credible…
…All this is instructive of the class mechanics of morality. There is no crime too appalling for the imperialists to commit, if their class interests are threatened.
Such is the madness of capitalism that the Anglo-American imperialists spent £500,000,000 on developing the bomb. This amounts to almost the entire pre-war budget of Britain, one of the richest countries in the world. Yet in peace time, research on scientific problems amounted to only £100,000.
On this background, the complete anachronism of the capitalist system stands out. The existence of national boundaries, customs barriers, state armies, navies and air forces, the delirium of production for profit seems like a ghastly nightmare.
The very survival of humanity demands that the working class should destroy the fetters on production established by the existence of the capitalist system. The need for international socialism as a planned world economy has never in history been so apparent.
The industrial revolution in Britain, which was based on the steam engine, transformed the world and destroyed the basis of the old feudal system everywhere. Modern civilisation was based on the technique of new engines. No less revolutionary in its effects would be the use of atomic energy in industry. And the capitalists will have no alternative but to use it. Russia, freed from the restrictions of private ownership, will eagerly utilise this new discovery in peace as well as war industry…
…The dominating task for those who wish for even the continuation of the human species, let alone civilisation, is to explain the alternatives clearly to the workers of all lands. The international working class must be made conscious of the real issues at stake.
The capitalists themselves have been shaken by the powers of destruction which now lie in their hands. Their spokesmen are pouring illusions that this weapon ensurec a permanent peace. This is a most dangerous and pernicious illusion. The talk about “international control” and “a weapon of peace” are so many empty phrases in the interests of the victors to lull the anxieties and deceive the peoples of the world; it is nothing more than an attempt to maintain the world monopoly by Anglo-American imperialism and dominate and exploit the rest of the world.
Hardly had the first shock of the news died down than the Evening News of the August 13 can bellicosely proclaim:
“The more we think about the bomb the more clearly we see that Britain and America are now masters of the world.”
The American imperialists go further: they shove the British aside, proclaiming that as the atom bomb is manufactured in the USA, it is they who hold the mastery of the globe.
The significance of the atom bomb with which World War II fittingly closed, is that in itself it is a threatening reminder of the lagging of the socialist revolution behind the modern development of modern technique. The era of atomic energy is a warning to the working class of all lands that it is no longer a question of ‘socialism or barbarism’ as Lenin imperiously warned – it is now a question of socialism or nothing. The continued existence of the capitalist system poses as a serious possibility the complete extermination of mankind.
Workers of Britain and the world – the atom bomb is the last warning. Fight for a socialist world or capitalism will destroy humanity.
This article consists of extracts of Ted Grant’s original 1945 article, as they appeared in the newspaper Militant, on August 9, 1985
[Feature picture shows Hiroshima aftermath from Wikimedia Commons, here]
