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The nuclear bomb against the Soviet Union
On July 21, 1945, during the Potsdam conference, Truman received a report on the first U.S. nuclear test.
`This freed my father to negotiate (with Stalin) with far more boldness and bluntness.'
Margaret Truman, Harry S. Truman (New York: William Morrow & Company, 1973), p. 273.
She continued:
`(M)y father now tackled the sticky question of how and what to tell Stalin about the atomic bomb .... Dad strolled over to the Russian leader and told him that the United States had created a new weapon ``of unusual destructive force.'' Prime Minister Churchill and Secretary of State Byrnes stood only a few yards away, studying Stalin's reaction. He was remarkably cool.'
Ibid. , pp. 275--276.
Zhukov recalled the conversation held between Stalin and Molotov upon their return to their residence:
`Molotov reacted immediately. ``They are trying to bid up.''
`Stalin laughed:
` ``Let them. I'll have to talk it over with Kurchatov today and get him to speed things up.''
`I understood they were talking about the development of the atomic bomb.'
G. Zhukov, Reminiscences and Reflections (Moscow: Progress, 1985), vol. 2, p. 449.
Stalin was a determined and cool man who never allowed himself to be intimidated, not even by nuclear blackmail.
Truman, right from the production of the first atomic weapon, perceived it as a weapon of mass terror that would ensure U.S. world hegemony. He wrote in his memoirs:
`I regarded the bomb as a military weapon and never had any doubt that it should be used .... when I talked to Churchill he unhesitatingly told me he favored the use of the atomic bomb.'
Harry S. Truman, Memoirs (New York: Signet Book, 1965), vol. 1, p. 462.
In the end of July, the Soviet Union decided to attack Japan, which was headed for inevitable military defeat. However, without the slightest military necessity, the U.S. decided to `experiment' their nuclear weapons on human beings. They wanted to terrorize their adversaries to an extent that even the Nazis had not done. The main purpose of imperialism, when it massively killed Japanese, was to create terror among the Soviets: the main message was for Stalin. As soon as Churchill learned of the atomic bomb's existence, he wanted to use it against the Soviet Union! Professor Gabriel Kolko writes:
`Field Marshal Alan Brooke thought the Prime Minister's infantile enthusiasm bordered on the dangerous: ``He was already seeing himself capable of eliminating all the Russian centres of industry''.'
Gabriel Kolko, The Politics of War: The World and United States Foreign Policy 1943--1945 (New York: Pantheon, 1990), p. 559.
At Potsdam, Churchill `urged that they consider it as a diplomatic lever on the Russians'.
Ibid. , p. 560.
On August 6, 1945, having learned that Hiroshima was destroyed by the bomb, Truman declared to the people around him that it was the `greatest achievement of organized science in history'. Truman dared to write that in his memoirs! The decision of U.S. imperialism to indiscrimately exterminate hundreds of millions of Japanese civilians shows its inhuman and barbaric nature; it had taken up the torch from the fascist powers. In his official declaration, the same day, Truman said:
`If they do not now accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth.'
On August 9, a second city, Nagasaki, was destroyed by Truman's promised atomic rain. In Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 443,000 civilians were massacred.
The only potential world hegemonic power, the U.S. virulently opposed any anti-imperialist movement, fighting for independence, popular democracy or socialism. This is the meaning of the `Truman Doctrine', a doctrine of unlimited interventionism with the slogan of defending `freedom' (of the market, of exploitation) from `Communist tyranny'. Here is how Truman phrased it on March 12, 1947: `it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.'
Truman, op. cit. , vol. 2, p. 128--129.
This policy of interventionism was principally `justified' by the `threat of Russian totalitarianism'. Truman declared that `the new menace facing us seemed every bit as grave as Nazy Germany.'
Ibid. , p. 124.
Having eliminated Hitler, his rival for world hegemony, Truman took up all the Nazi anti-Communist slanders. Here is how Truman spoke of the Soviet Union:
`(A) group of cruel but skillful fanatics who set up a dictatorship with all the trappings of a state religion .... The individual became the subject of the state in perpetual enslavement'.
Ibid. , p. 314.
So, as soon as the Nazis had been defeated, Truman took up their main direction, anti-Communism and anti-Sovietism. In fact, it was Hitler himself who proposed this opening to the U.S. on August 31, 1944.
`A victory of our adversaries will inevitably Bolshevize Europe.' `The coalition of our adversaries is composed of heterogeneous elements ...: ultra-capitalist states on one side, ultra-communist states on the other'. `One day the coalition will fall apart.' `The important thing is to wait for the moment, no matter how grave the situation.'
Adolph Hitler, Hitler parle à ses généraux (Paris: Éditions Albin Michel, 1964), pp. 279, 264, 283.
To save themselves from their inevitable defeat, the Nazis accentuated, towards the end of the War, their disgusting anti-Communist slanders. Truman took them up, eighteen months later.
Next: Anti-imperialist struggle and Up: The U.S. takes Previous: Gehlenthe Nazi,
Fri Aug 25 09:03:42 PDT 1995