HIROSHIMA and NAGASAKI

MANKIND has now lived under the threat of nuclear weapons for over a quarter of a century.

Nuclear bombs have only twice been used in war, when American imperialism destroyed the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki sakhalin, he agreed to sign a treaty of friendship with the Chinese government - i.e. the Kuomintang regime of Chiang Kai-shek.

Even though Chinese Communist forces occupied large areas of Shensi and Manchuria, Stalin undertook to support a capitalist regime throuchout the STALIN, TRUMAN AND CHURCHILL MEET IN POTSDAM, JULY 1945 CALCULATED SLAUGHTER BACKED BY STALINISM Japanese surrender befóre the Red Army entered China and before the Chinese Communists gained too much leverage over the unlang regime. aran tha rhiner minima On July 16, 1945,, the first atom bomb was exploded in the New Mexico desert. It proved more powerful than almost anyone working on the project had estimated, releasing energy equivalent to the detonation of 15,000 tons of INT.

News of the test arrived as Truman was in conference with Stalin at Potsdam. According to his Secretary of War, Stimson, he was 'tremendously pepped up by it'. He immediately went into the next session and "told the Russians just where they got off and generally bossed the whole meeting', telling Stalin that he would recognize the governments in E Europe 'when these were established on a proper basis and not before'.

ready been made by a special CHIANG KAI-SHEK A SERIES OF ARTICLES WHICH WILL APPEAR OCCASIONALLY IN BELOW: JOSEPH STALIN unit of the US Air Force in the Pacific responsible to General Groves, military leader of the atom bomb project.

4 number of Japanese cities, including Hiroshima and Nagasaki, had been left out of the programme of explosive and incendiary bombing. They were being 'saved' as prospective targets for the atom bomb in order that the impact of the weapon should be as great as possible.

Stalin had not been told of the bomb. It had in fact been leveloped in conditions of the ery tightest security, and Truman himself was ignorant of it until he became President.

As soon as full reports came to Potsdam Truman casually told PART ONE Stalin that he had 'a new weapon of unusual destructive force'. He was surprised by Stalin's relatively ofthand reaction, but did not at the time grasp the signincance of it—that Soviet intelligence already Knew of the weapon, and perhaps even of the successful test, through Klaus Fuchs and other spies working on the programme.

Stalin, in fact, replied that he hoped Truman would 'make good use of it against the Japanese'.

No objection Stalin therefore, willing, but not eager to send his forces into Manchuria, raised no objection to the use of the bomb, although he certainly knew that a single atom bomb was capable of causing death on a gigantic scale.

The military preparations for bombing Hiroshima then swung MAJOR-GENERAL L. R. GROVES (SEATED) into action. Various less drastic plans-such as a démonstration of the weapon off the Japanese coast-had already been ruled out.

Secretary of War Stimson, in what must be one of the most sickening gestures ever made to 'culture' had had Kyoto, historic centre of Japanese art and religion, excluded from the list of prospective targets, despite its military suitability.

But the memoirs of Stimson, Truman and Churchill all agree that there was not then any question of not using the bomb against a major city.

Yet for some time the British and American governments had been aware that the Japanese were on the point of surrendering, with only a military faction in the Cabinet arguing for a fight to the finish.

Not only were Japanese communications being , daily intercépted and decoded, but the Japanese leaders were making continued approaches to the Soviet government for mediation to bring the war to an end. They knew that an offer to allow the office of Emperor to survive (which was subsequently allowed) would almost certainly have produced a rapid ceasefire.

Truman and Churchill also knew that the major factor in the minds of the Japanese leadership was the probable entry of the Soviet Union into the war.

Razed to the ground But they made no effort to accelerate this, while General Groves was instructed to déliver the first bomb as soon as possible. On August 5 a flight of B-29s set off from the Americanheld island of Tinian and seven hours later Hiroshima was razed to the ground and over 70,000 people were dead.

On August 8 : Stalin declared war on Japan and the Red Army crossed the border into Manchuria, launching a full-scale attack on the Japanese forces. At Il a.m. on the 9th a second atom bomb destroyed Nagasaki. And on the morning of the 10th Truman first had news of a Japanese offer — though not an unconditional one—to surrender.

By the 14th cease-fire terms had been settled, and Japan was shortly occupied by American troops. Soviet troops occupied number Manchuria and N Korea as the Japanese forces surréndered on and after August 16.

It is accurate to say that the use of atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not the final blow of the Second World War, but the opening one of the Cold Truman's policy towards Europe was enormously stiffened by these 'live' demonstrations of the new weapon. He went on to insist on the 'rehabilitation' of 'democratic' governments in the areas under Red Army control.

In China the end of the Japanese war recpened the civil war between the Communist forces and the Kuomintang. driven off the mainland.

And just as Stalin, would-be suppressor of the Chinese revolution, cheerfully greeted the plans of US and British imperialism to massacre tens of thousands of japanese civillans with the bomb, so was he echoed by his political pupils in the British Communist In a 1946 CP pamphlet, 'Atomic Energy and Social Progress', we find the statement:

'All intelligent people know that the atom bomb helped to shorten the war and thus saved millions of lives!' When Stalinism now denounces the slaughter at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it is pure hypocrisy, flowing directly from the present requirements of Kremlin diplomacy and reactionary to the core.

Stalinism has always fought against the mobilization of a class battle against the weapons of the imperialists-even joining leaderstip niht hey-day of CND to do so.

IMPORTANT READING A TROTSKY ANTHOLOGY