The Case of World War 2: Nukes, Scientists & the Tasks of a Revolutionary Core
Posted by Mike E on June 15, 2010
The atomic explosion over Hiroshima -- a historic crime
“We need to fight U.S. imperialism — and not concoct crude or sophisticated justifications for not doing so. …We communists need to promote a culture of strategic courage — of being willing to risk prison, public demonization, , and even worse in serving the people and advancing the revolution…
“And we need … a core movement of revolutionaries that can help ‘create favorable conditions through struggle’ — so that the resistance that emerges is coordinated, coherent, conscious, visible, effective, and connected (in sophisticated ways) to the project of revolution.”
* * * * * * * *
In a parallel thread, we have been discussing the role of communists in the Manhattan Project — the vast secret World War 2 scientific operation that produced the atomic weapons dropped by the U.S. on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is perhaps not widely known, but progressive, leftist and even communist scientists played important (even crucial) roles in the development of these American super-weapons. And our sister Joan Hinton (who recently died) was one of those physicists, who went on to play a quite internationalist role in revolutionary China for much of her life.
“[These scientists were] often sincere in their attempt to ‘do the right thing.’ And virtually their whole generation was won over to the idea that they needed to make an alliance with U.S. imperialism against a greater evil (Nazi Germany) — especially in order to defend the Soviet Union. And this played a huge role in the nuclear program, where quite a few of the scientists were rather radical and left — and yet threw themselves into the work of giving this monstrous weapon to the U.S. government.
“History shows that many of their hopes were betrayed: this was not used to defeat Nazi Germany (after all) or defend the Soviet Union. It was dropped on Japan in a genocidal way, and was an attempt to intimidate the revolutionary forces of China and the USSR. And it gave the U.S. imperialists an unprecedented power to use — in harvesting a new global empire out of the chaos of World War 2.“
Bob H raises a series of questions about what kind of stand scientists could have taken during World War 2. David_D takes up the issues of “united front against fascism.” The following is my own friendly exploration of those questions.
by Mike Ely
Thanks for digging into these matters with me, Bob, and bringing them out for others (who may not be as familiar, or who may have different insights from us). I think we have similar views on much of this… though we may be approaching it from a slightly different “vantage point.”
If I understand it correctly you are grappling with the question: Given the situation, what could the individual scientists have done to be most effective?
I’m more grappling with the question: What made this situation so political awful and yet compelling for radical scientists, and how did they get corralled into facilitating (what history will judge to be) war crimes?
Pwned: Physics and Their War Machine
Bob writes:
“In the 1980s I was an undergraduate studying physics. As I got politicized (among other things by RW articles against Reagan’s SDI — “Star Wars”), I tried to organize a faculty debate about SDI in the physics department.”
A personal echo:
I entered the 1960s storms as a physics and math geek (hiding a secret passion for history and politics). In my freshman year of college i read a passing statistic that 80% of physics research was tied to military operations. A physics professor said to me: “I work on protecting earth satellites from cosmic ray bombardment,” then added with a cynical wink, “But, you know, the same science can protect our command and control from radiation effects during nuclear war.” I felt nauseous. And never, not for a second, ever considered a lifetime in physics again.
Of course, I’m not recommending that kind of black-and-white decisionmaking for students. I was a teenager — and was already more interested in revolution than physics. It could have (should have) been possible to become a revolutionary-minded person making contributions to humanity in physics (or any other field). But it was not easy (then or now) to avoid spending a life as a complicit high-paid serf solving intellectual puzzles for the military machine.
I remember sitting with a graduate student who had just gotten his PhD in particle physics — someone whose love was the study of antimatter and the origins of the universe. He leaned over and, almost in a whisper, explained that his only job offer had been from the U.S. Navy on a project to protect nuclear submarines from detection.
On the SDI articles in the 1980s: Clark Kissinger wrote many of those pieces with unusual substance . He was often able to reach out to a broader audience (at least before his life’s work was gutted by his party’s turn toward madness).
The Tasks of Communists: On Creating Favorable Conditions for Revolution
Bob writes:
“We are talking about a specific moment, the generation of scientists in the 1940s recruited to work on the Manhattan Project. Scientists in Germany and Central Europe, as you say, had the option to flee the Nazis to Britain and America before the war, and rightly did (although you ignore the fact that many went on to work for the MP). But part of that specific moment was that the Comintern and ICM was totally geared towards defense of the USSR. So in these circumstances these scientists had the following options: 1) work for American/Britain 2) abstain and try and speak out 3) spy for the (then socialist) USSR and 4) try and sabotage the work from within
“Most took option 1, which we agree is bad. You seem to advocate option 2, but I think that would have been ineffective since any attempt to speak out would land you in jail and you’d be effectively isolated and silenced — a moral gesture at best. 3 seems like the most effective option. 4 would have been difficult because there were enough people in category 1 to spot the problems and fix them, and you probably wouldn’t be able to do it for long. It’s probably still a more effective option than 2, in my opinion. It’s still an individualistic moral gesture, but one that harms imperialism more than 2.”
I’m not mainly making a criticism of those scientists — I’m mainly trying to excavate a terrible outcome of the dominant line among communists.
The international communist approach during World War 2 obviously achieved some positive things: I.e. Stalin’s Soviet Union was able to survive and crush Hitler. The Chinese revolution was able to seize the national stage. Several important national liberation movements emerged in Southeast Asia (especially Indochina and Malaysia).
But this approach had terrible outcomes at the same time — in other parts of the world: Communists in the “Allied” imperialist countries were trained to be patriotic and non-revolutionary. Revolutionary work was suppressed in many western colonies (from India to Puerto Rico). And (with communist support) the U.S. developed the atomic bomb. (The CPUSA also cheered the dropping of that bomb, and defended the rounding up of the Japanese…)
So I am not so much exploring “What else could the scientists have done given those conditions?” — I am exploring “What should the communist movement have done differently, to have created different political conditions for resistance and revolution?”
These are both valid questions — and we can explore them both. But the apparent differences between Bob and me are, in part, the result of focusing on different questions.
Put another way: I’m saying that if a powerful communist movement had taken a different approach to U.S. imperialism in World War 2, the various individual options facing individual scientists would have looked different.
That is the point of the related Maoist orientations:
“Create favorable conditions through struggle.”
“Hasten while awaiting more favorable conditions.”
“Once the correct ideas characteristic of the advanced class are grasped by the masses, these ideas turn into a material force which changes society and changes the world.”
Our work doesn’t just take advantage of conditions — we are (potentially) a part of creating new conditions (hastening them), especially to the extent that communists are deeply connected to the advanced among the people, and able to make radical politics a “material force.”
I am not making an argument for isolated, ineffective moral gestures “on principle.” But exploring how (in aggregate) to mobilize all factors to help create more positive conditions for revolution in the world.
A Criminal Collaboration of American Communists with U.S. Imperialism
The capitulation of the communists to U.S. imperialism created terrible conditions for revolution (and not just in the U.S.) And the problem facing U.S. scientists was not mainly that they had few options for resistance, but was actually a far worse problem: most radical and even communists scientists had been convinced (by the CPUSA and the Soviet Union) to wholeheartedly throw themselves into the U.S. war effort and (furthermore) do it publicly under a highly unalienated and patriotic banner. They were told (and told others) that the U.S. (and Britain and France) were “democratic powers” who were inherently “antifascist,” and that it was only secret fascists who would oppose the U.S. war effort, and that the war was an extension of “American ideals,” and so on…
The associated political results would take a long time to list. A few examples :
- Disappearing the fight of African American people for equality. (The CPUSA did not support the Double-V movement of “Victory over Hitler abroad, Victory over Jim Crow at Home”),
- Disappearing the fight of Puerto Rico and Philippines for liberation from U.S. imperialism,
- Heatedly opposing economic struggle among workers inside the U.S. (including by enforcing the No-Strike pledge).
- Directly supporting the U.S. war to retake the western Pacific (It was American communists who introduced the Chinese communist slogan “Gung ho” to the U.S. Marine Corps in the 1940s, during their participation in the colonialist Pacific island-hopping campaign.)
- And, I’m arguing, the communists’ political line helped convince progressive and left-leaning U.S. scientists to throw themselves into the Manhattan Project (in the name of anti-fascism).
A little known historical fact: Many of the scientists on the Manhattan project (who were Jewish or leftist or both) were determined to destroy Nazi Germany. When Germany collapsed, in the Spring of 1945, some of those scientists met informally to debate whether to continue developing the bomb. Nazi Germany was gone. The remaining opponent in the war was Japan — in a Pacific conflict that was much more removed from any conceivable defense of the Soviet Union, and which was much more openly connected to an expansion of a U.S. empire. The fact that they debated this is significant. The fact that they decided to continue their research anyway is also significant. This is one of the moments where resistance (even when you can’t calculate the effectiveness or outcome) is important. And it is a moment where refusal to resist helped contribute directly to the horrific genocide over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Also: Leo Szilard and James Franck wrote a petition signed by dozens of scientists opposed to the use of the bomb on moral grounds. However, it was an attempt to “advise” President Harry Truman — that respected wartime authority and secrecy. And it was brushed aside by the U.S. imperialists — who, holding this weapon in their hands, could not wait a second to deploy it.
Bob writes:
“Maybe Einstein, with his scientific standing and public persona, could have advocated 1 and had a real political impact, but of course in 1939 he wrote his famous letter to Roosevelt that got the ball rolling. Probably a political critique of that era’s scientists should focus on him, rather than abstractly talk about what scientists as a whole should have done.
Perhaps one or two prominent scientists could have made a difference — It is true that in France (later in the 1950s), some intellectuals (notably Sartre) stepped forward to oppose the Algerian War (in opposition to the French CP’s awful chauvinism). Such things can happen, and do.
But really, this is the kind of moment that requires an organized communist core (an influential vanguard applying the mass line), to articulate and organize a whole approach to a specific war. But the issue in World War 2 is that there was a hegemony achieved by U.S. patriotism and imperialism that was made possible by the capitulation of the CPUSA — which swept the most radical currents of the left into the embrace of FDR and the ruling class (virtually for a generation).
Obviously, these policies were not invented by the CPUSA (or by their leader Earl Browder). These were the policies articulated by the Comintern at its Seventh World Congress in 1935 — and then later re-applied and expanded under wartime conditions. And they were applied worldwide (not just by the communists in the U.S.).
But I think we can (like Mao over similar questions) both criticize the Soviet Union for promoting this logic (of global united front against the Axis), and also make special criticism of those communists (like Browder, Foster, Dennis, Williamson, etc.) who (by adopting the strategy in their circumstances) were crudely moving to full and enthusiastic collaboration with their “own” imperialism (and its criminal enterprises).
Some communists (both in the 1950s and now) portrayed the CPUSA’s patriotic support for U.S. imperialism as a “deviation” carried out by CP leader Earl Browder on his own — but this is historically unsupportable. Browder’s chauvinist and reformist approach represented the line of the Soviet Party (specifically for U.S., but also for other “western democracies”) during the war. Browder was knocked down afterwards (by the 1945 Duclos Letter) only because that official Soviet line changed once the US and USSR became post-war adversaries, and once Browder proved unable to switch his approach. He was not removed for putting forward his “Browderist” policy for ten years — he was removed in 1945 for not modifying it for the post-war period (as the global war alliances crumbled and the first Cold War began).
On Alternative Approaches and the Trotskyist “Proletarian Military Policy”
Bob H writes:
All of this is a sideshow to the question of what Communist parties should have done in the late 30s/early 40s. Maybe the CPUSA should have followed the lead of the SWP and organized strikes. Maybe the Indian CP should have followed the lead of Bose and launched people’s war to kick out the British (but strengthen Japan). Had all that been happening then maybe scientists in the USA would have taken a stronger anti-militarist stance. But scientists are not the vanguard, and that’s who I though we were talking about — not Debs, or Wobblies, or SWP leaders for that matter. That’s why I find a touch of moralism in your argument, it’s more about symbolic actions scientists should have taken than the concrete politics of the era (although I’m sure you can critique the politics of the 1940s far better than I can).
Here, you are taking up the question that I am trying to put central.
Yes, the Indian communists should have launched a peoples war against their oppressors the British, parallel to the Chinese peoples war against the Japanese. Of course, it is metaphysics to think we can (from our distant spot in time and space) specify all the details and contradictions of that. But yes, the Indian communists should have organized revolutionary anti-colonial struggle in the context of this great war. And the world would (as you say) probably have been different.
I don’t believe it is a matter of communists “following the lead of the SWP” — because in many ways the Trotskyist approach was deeply flawed, and quite different the overall orientation from what communists should have carried out in the U.S. (Here too it is metaphysics to think we can sketch some full “shoulda” policy for communists in World War 2 — but there are overall questions of line and orientation that can be known and articulated, especially with an eye toward the future.)
The Trotskyists did not send their cadre (as the CP did) into the Marines to island-hop for U.S. domination of China and the Philippines. They send some of their cadre into the merchant marine — to participate more directly in the supply lines that supported the Soviet Union (rather than participate directly in the U.S. military operations).
But (if we were to look at it more deeply) the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) approach (the so-called “Proletarian Military Policy“) had serious rightist and economist flaws (involving that deep trade unionist instinct of their whole generation). They had an approach to war that suggests war is the best time to expand our unionization, (similar to the approach taken by W.Z. Foster-style syndicalists in WW1). And further their economist approach of “transitional program” led them to focus on demands about the conditions of the soldiers in war — not on opposing the actual politics of the war itself — they were demanding better conditions, democratic control of military training, election of officers.
In other words, they were organizing to make structural reforms on U.S. to created a more revolutionary anti-German, anti-fascist war — it was ultimately not a deep enough break.
And (in real life) that boiled down to raising economic issues among the soldiers (essentially tradeunionization in the military) not an attempt to build opposition and exposure to U.S. imperialism and its goals. In words (and in their secret documents) they opposed U.S. imperialism and its war — but in practice their work really was to focus on the day-to-day demands and concerns of soldiers.
This was similar to the approach later taken by Andy Stapp’s American Serviceman’s Union during the Vietnam War — when the Workers World Party adopted their own version of the Trotskyist “Proletarian Military Policy” — combining some heroic antiwar work inside the U.S. army with a strange overlay of trade unionism and economist assumptions.
The Trotskyists had a line that took more distance with U.S. imperialism than the CP (as did the Black Muslims and pacifists). They argued (correctly I believe) that the Second World War was primiarly an interimperialist war — and that, meanwhile, the people of the world had an important interest in “defending the Soviet Union.” In other words, World War 2 was not “one thing” with one overriding “nature.” It was a number of different wars waged simultaneously (an interimperialist war, a defense of the Soviet Union, several national liberation wars etc.) I think that to understand why world war 2 was mainly an interimperialist war it is valuable to read Bob Avakian’s early work “Advancing the World Revolutionary Movement.”
Some SWP leaders spent the last years of WW2 in prison for their views (like a handful of others, including our Wobbly brother Carlos Cortez, pacifists like Dave Dellinger and future Muslim leader Elijah Muhammad).
I think that the antiwar stance of all of these forces was worthy of respect and support, but none was a model of the kind of communist revolutionary politics that one would want to develop in such a situation. By contrast, the CPUSA leadership actually applauded when Trotskyist leaders were condemned to prison under the newly minted, repressive Smith Act (1940) for sedition and resistance — only to be soon targeted themselves, by the same Act, once the wartime U.S./Soviet alliance ended!).
Daring to Resist
Bob H writes:
“I think it’s also worth talking about your point that “the danger of arrest makes it (resistance seem) impractical”. It is always very easy to get arrested. The question I ask is, is it the most *effective* way of achieving a goal. Einstein in a U.S. prison in 1940 for advocating a physicists’ strike has a much bigger impact than an unknown grad student like Joan Hinton trying to do so. So perhaps we shouldn’t talk about this in the purely abstract (moral) sense but in the concrete/tactical sense.”
My argument is that resistance often looks impractical, and it is often necessary to resist anyway.
Resistance is not something we just do for immediate results and direct measurable impact. It is something we do as part of something larger. When captured and brutalized it is often necessary to resist without knowing whether it will be known to others or be inspiring for others or will “make a difference.” Often when confronted with choices, you don’t get to know whether “it will matter” in some direct way.
Often resistance looks nuts and isolated — especially at the beginning, especially in moments the larger mood has swung behind the oppressors. But this often makes it all the more important to have daring and strategic confidence (in the people and our cause).
After pointing to a lot of unity, I will end on a brief note of disagreement. Bob writes:
“I’ve watched a lot of people volunteer to get arrested at demos and on my more cynical days I ask myself is this primarily about resistance or about absolving one’s conscience.”
I don’t think we should separate the two so mechanically. What is wrong with having a conscience? What is wrong with refusing to collaborate? What’s wrong with taking a public symbolic stance? What is wrong with taking a stand on the basis of a revolutionary morality — especially when it is hard (as an individual) to develop a full and sophisticated sense of all the dynamics of the moment?
Resistance can, of course, be done in invisible ways. It need not be crude or public. But the issue we are discussing around the Manhattan Project is not an issue of different “forms of resistance” — it is about shameful forms of collaboration.
We need to fight U.S. imperialism — and not concoct crude or sophisticated justifications for not doing so.
People need to take a stand. They need to resist oppression. They need to oppose the oppressors. They often need to risk everything to obstruct and expose the awful defenders of capitalism. They need to strive to be beacons for others. We need to promote a culture of strategic courage — of being willing to risk prison, public demonization, , and even worse in serving the people and advancing the revolution. (Not a culture of empty gestures and worthless losses, obviously — but yes, of self-sacrifice and risk.)
And while asserting that basic stand (and morality), we need to also assert that is also important to develop a sophisticated core movement of far-sighted revolutionaries that can help “create favorable conditions through struggle” — so that the resistance that emerges is coordinated, coherent, conscious, visible, effective, and connected (in sophisticated ways) to the project of revolution.
Miles Ahead said
Sorry to try and jump in, WITHOUT having read this entire post and/or all previous comments, but I was just thinking yesterday that I wanted to try and write and add something re the Manhattan Project, having read pretty extensively on the subject, as well as the McCarthy era..
Well, I’m not sure that we can understand the “horrific outcome of the dominant line among communists” if we also don’t take into account the role and position of science and scientists under the tutelage of a capitalist/imperialist system, most especially and in this case, the U.S.
More often than not, there is a huge gap between even the most well-meaning scientists and scientific development and the people and society’s needs. And in many cases, the scientists themselves are far and away removed—they deal in their own little, and sometimes elitist, world–and are encouraged to do so.
There were some progressive scientists and not just former or actual CPUSA members, or communist “symps, involved in the highly secretive Manhattan Project. If you read some of the biographies, you will see that after the fact, i.e., Hiroshima and Nagasaki, many of these people were tortured by their conscience, but also, the actual dropping of the A-bomb and the outcome, wrecked havoc with their idealism.
Even J. Robert Oppenheimer –who had toyed with the CPUSA and was active more so during the Spanish Civil War—was shocked at the outcome of the development of the bomb, even though he was more or less privy to the ultimate designs of the U.S. government. His politics were complex, and I assert that part of his conflict was his elevation in the scientific world, as well as his (and other scientists’) ivory tower position.
With the explosive test later named “Trinity,” Oppenheimer took a stab at “poetic justice”—quoting the Bhagavad Gita: “If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one.”
After the bombs (the “fruit” of his and others’ labor) had been dropped, and after the detonation of the first nuclear weapon, Oppenheimer said, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” After that he became an opponent of nuclear weapons (albeit not as vocal or strong as others) during the “debates” as to the repercussions of this unspeakable act.
And ironically, and after he had a “change of heart”, he was denied security clearance, brought before HUAC, and accused of selling atomic secrets to the Soviets. That’s how warped the tenor of the times was.
His brother Frank, who had been a member of the CPUSA, but also worked on the Manhattan Project, argued with Robert; however, even with great remorse and supposedly more heightened political consciousness, Frank was still part of the team developing the A-bomb. And while Oppenheimer respected Ernest Lawrence in the realm of science, even with some sharp disagreements therein, he ended up arguing with Lawrence’s politics—Lawrence being an ultra-conservative.
Albert Einstein did not work directly on the Mahattan Project, but here’s what he had to say after the fact: “”I made one great mistake in my life… when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made; but there was some justification – the danger that the Germans would make them.” Interestingly enough, Einstein’s autobiography has less to do with his scientific theories, and more to do with his humanist views. And in his autobiography, he makes the case that scientists/physicists should not be alienated from the people, nor be so specialized they are ideologically/practically removed from society and/or humankind.)
Under capitalism/imperialism — I don’t think there is such a thing as a pure“red and expert,” even though under existing conditions, some may wish it so. (Think Linus Pauling tried to strike a better balance between his expertise, his anti-imperialist views and his humanism.) But there are “experts” and groups that do exist, even now, that try to apply their expertise in the service of the people to varying degrees—e.g., Physicians for Social Responsibility, Doctors without Boarders, Union of Concerned Scientists, etc.
Miles Ahead said
oh dear, crazy typo…Doctors Without Borders…not Boarders.
Mike E said
Some related notes
Bob writes:
Shortly after 9/11, IBob Avakian laid out (in a typical all-day one-way talk) his then-developing theory that a conflict between “thinking people” and “theocrats” was emerging as one of the key faultlines in the U.S.
He asserted that a major focus of our communist work needed to be reaching out to scientists to bring them (under our leadership and influence) into a wide united front against the Bush regime and its Christian-fascist fundamentalist base. And as usual, this was a situation where first he laid out his conclusions for adoption — and only then asked for our experiences and opinions. (So much for the pseudo-scientific theory of “chain of knowledge” and “chain of command.”)
This sudden RCP turn toward the scientists proved to be a temporary and expedient orientation: Once the RCP failed in its feverish multi-year attempt to develop a “phalanx of public intellectuals” willing to hoist Avakian into the stratosphere of U.S. intellectual life — the RCP lost interest in reaching scientists in this way, and turned its supporters toward handing out Avakian manifestos.
However, there is-and-was real value to communist engagement with progressive scientists. There is-and-was a fascist threat from the fundamentalist right (though it morphs constantly and is not that wedded to theocracy).
But Avakian had only half developed the idea — i.e. “a brainstorm masquerading as science.” This was cooked up in a typically dilettantist way — without doing the investigative work or collective vetting. At the time, I pointed out an unevenness in the political climate among scientists — with some, like biologists, anthropologists, ecologists, being much more widely progressive, and with certain hard sciences (physics, chemistry etc.) much more tied (both ideologically and financially) to the military and corporate establishments.
Of course, this political landscape among the scientists is not an absolute. There are radical or communist physicists in this generation (including Michio Kaku and David Bohm). And there is a basis (overall) for building a radical pole among scientists — but not mainly using the Bush-era RCP schema of “Defend Science.” The old slogan “Science for the People” is perhaps a better basis for some of that outreach.
Bob H said
Thank you for taking the time to expand these themes. As you say, the question of the line of the ICM in the 30s and 40s is the important, strategic question that is much more important to delve into than the actions of individuals. While not as complex as summing up the failures and success of socialism overall, I think it is of pretty great importance to advance a communist understanding of history.
On the question of symbolic public defiance, I know I was putting out something of a false dichotomy. I am not saying there is anything wrong with people doing these things, or acting out of conscience, or acting in relative isolation because you are ahead of the curve. Nor is it wrong for people to act according to the level of political understanding they are at.
What troubles me (and I am not suggesting that you are doing this) is that it has often seemed to me that there is a very broad moralistic streak in the U.S. left overall that perhaps is one more hindrance to its development. Take, for instance, a large anti-war demo. Certainly many people there are first-timers and that’s a positive thing. But I can’t help but think that the organizers and experienced activists there are kind of “going through the motions”. On some level they certainly must know that this demo will probably barely make the news, much less stop the war. Is the “doing something is better than doing nothing” aspect of activism a barrier to building the kind of organizations we manifestly need?
Our society in general produces a great deal of egoism and individualism. While moral outrage against war and imperialism is a vitally important thing, I wonder if there isn’t a kind of trap where we are focused on our own self-righteousness. We proudly volunteer to be symbolically arrested but never contemplate getting arrested for something more treasonous. That was why I made a point of raising espionage in the Manhattan Project because it clearly goes beyond the Thoreau-esque symbolic resistance.
I’m sure that some will say that revolutionary work is the answer, that’s true in an absolute sense. But we all know the trap of the dead-end sect which I suspect is just another variation on moralistic self-righteousness.
I have no real answers (or probably even the right questions) here, other than to say I think in general to (individually and collectively) interrogate our own motives and actions, in order to really think critically about forms of resistance. I think a lot of what the U.S. left does is really stale.
prianikoff said
re “Alternative approaches”.
See Workers International News 1938-49
http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/win/index.htm
land said
We will have to see what kind of coverage there is this year of the US dropping an atomic bomb twice on the people of Japan.
And I don’t want to take the focus away from the last posts of the “Question of Method in an Attack on Zizuk” which bring us to what we need to do to at this time when we are regrouping and finding a new way.
The Zizek article is on what kind of revolutionary core we need – and what kind of movement we do not need- which was the movement at the time of the Manhattan Project where communists made the decision to help build an atomic bomb to drop on the Japanese people.
For the history of this read this article. Most of this history of the CPUSA and the Manhattan Project I had little idea of. What theory did they read to make this decision. I had never heard that communists contributed in this way to the genocide over Hiroshima and Nagaasaki.
In this article Mike Ely writes
Today the questions and the time have new requirements. We need and we do not have a well-defined revolutionary movement. There is not yet a creative, well-defined communist theory.
We need to build a core of organized revolutionaries that are now scattered all over the country.
And we need to fight US imperialism.
And we need to fight U.S. imperialism.
May9 said
To call World War II an “interimperialist” war and to criticize the Communists for their heroism in contributing to the defeat of fascism is insulting. 80% of the European war was fought in the East. The vast majority of the German war machine was focused on attacking the Soviet Union. Millions of Soviets lost their lives to defeat the Hitlerite barbarians. And we have bloggers sneering about interimperialist war. This was a war between socialism and capitalism. Where was the “interimperialist” aspect of this war? While we’re self-righteously condemning the atomic attacks on Japan, calling it ‘genocide’ even, when the number of deaths were far fewer than the masses which were butchered by the fascists in Nanjing. They were far fewer than even the conventional firebombing of Japan. These fascists were enslaving people in Korea and having competitions to behead Chinese. Let’s not forget that. Thanks.
nando said
This is an important historical (and strategic) question you are taking up May 9. And it is good to get into it.
However, your method makes it hard to get started — since you either misunderstand, or distort, the argument from the beginning.
You write:
First this is matter of analysis (of understanding reality) not of immediate emotional outrage or insult. If we disagree, lets analyze the differences.
Second, you don’t understand the argument. Here is what is said in the article above:
“…the Second World War was primiarly an interimperialist war…”
I.e. that this was a complex world event, that, at a world scale was primarily defined by its interimperialist contradiction. then it goes on to say:
That an important intertwined factor was the defense of socialism in the Soviet Union — which is something of great importance to the oppressed internationally (not just the people of the Soviet Union itself).
And finally:
So you are mistaken to characterise this as simply an argume that this war was (like WW1) interimperialist — it was far more complex, and the nature of the war was different in different arenas (i.e. in Nanking it was an anticolonial war against Japanese imperialism, in Stalingrad it was a war for socialism against German imperialism)… and that it was wrong (for the communist movement) to simply assume that the contradiction facing the world’s main socialist country was (immediately and universally) the main contradiction for the people of the world.
And the example of communists helping to give U.S. imperialists nuclear weapons and supporting the horror of Hiroshima are examples of how wrong that analysis could be. The movement in India lost a historic opportunity for revolution. The radical movement in the U.S. was damaged terribly.
And (at the same time) the effort helped the Soviet Union to survive — but at a terrible ideological cost (as the defining experience of the “great patriotic war,” fought heavily on a nationalist basis, left the ideological and political alertness around socialism lowered in the USSR itself.) It was an important war for socialism, but it was waged as war for Mother Russia — with all the ocmplexity that produced (for the revolution in the USSR and elsewhere).
You say:
“Let’s not forget that. Thanks.”
No one is forgetting anything. But remembering is not enough.
This is a discussion about understanding it — i.e. understanding something as complex as a world war fought on dozens of fronts in two major different theaters.
May9 said
And yet it was not “primarily” an interimperialist war. Nothing in your post addresses this fact. I understand your argument perfectly. You speak of ‘costs to revolution’ for subordinating world revolution to the cause of defending the Soviet Union, and the ‘costs’ to the ideological understanding of socialism in the USSR. Great, what about the costs to the millions of people who would have been exterminated had this not been done? Every strategy has its costs. The costs of defending the ‘motherland’ were minimal compared to the gains made by destroying fascism. The costs of defending the USSR were minimal compared to the costs that would have existed if the Hitlerites, Italian fascists, and Japanese militarists had won.
The western imperialists certainly understood that the main aim of the fascists was the destruction of Bolshevism. That Nazism was first and foremost an anti-communist ideology. The German-Italian-Japanese axis wasn’t called the Anticomintern Pact for nothing. The western imperialists didn’t appease the fascists for nothing. They loved the idea of the fascists going to war with the Soviets and the fascists acting as a bulwark against communism.
This was not an interimperialist war. If it were, it is quite sriking that after the war the empires crumbled to dust and in the place of these European empires stood the mighty Soviet Union, beacon of antiimperialism. The first major world power to renounce conquest and colonial expansion as a natural aspect of foreign policy.
May9 said
This is, once again, a total misunderstanding of the principle contradiction in the international system. To Kasama, everything must always be subordinate to fighting western imperialism and revolution. No conditions can ever exist when some other contradiction is more central to the world. Thank goodness Kasama wasn’t running the CP during WWII. We’d all be dead.
worker antagonism said
Lets talk about the “unique” nature of fascist barbarism just like the apologetic bourgeoisie liberals and forget about the millions of Indians killed by British colonialism during the war, the Allies terroristic targeting of the Japanese and German working class etc..
Its easy to believe fascism is so much worse then ordinary capitalism from a relatively privileged class position in the metropole ( referring to myself), but looking at imperialism in its totality, the crimes of National Socialism are “just another brick in the wall”, considered in terms of the millions of deaths from starvation, working conditions and pollution every year, the continual litany of genocides from Iraq, to Kurdistan, to Congo, to El Salvador,to Colombia etc..its not really that “special”.
Also where was the socialism in the USSR to defend?
the consistent internationalist position in the second world war was the transformation of the imperialist war into civil war, unfortunately this was impossible because of the bourgeoisie degeneration of the international worker’s movement.
land said
This is from the above article:
“A little known historical fact: Many of the scientists on the Manhattan Project(who were Jewish or leftist or both) were determined to destroy Nazi Germany. When Germany collapsed in the Spring of 1945, some of those scientists met informally to debate whether to continue developing the bomb. Nazi Germany was gone. The remaining opponent in the war was Japan – in a Pacific conflict that was much more removed from any conceivable defense of the Soviet Union, and which was much more openly connected to an expansion of a U.S. empire. The fact that they debated this was significant. The fact that they decided to continue their research anyway is also significant. This is one of those moments where resistance (even when you can’t calculate the effectiveness or outcome) is important. And it is a moment where refusal to resist helped contribute directly to the horrific genocide over Hiroshima and Nagaski.”
It was a shameful form of collaboration.
And a good example of the kind of movement we do not need.