Imperialism: Death and Destroyer of Worlds
EL SALVADOR— “As the film develops, it shows the Manhattan Project as the manipulation of the destructive power and sadism of imperialism.” This was a Red Flag reader’s comment after a group watched and discussed it.
This film brings us face to face with the imperialist rivalry, the war, and the crisis that existed in 1945. Capitalism in its imperial stage had become a system of oppression and strangulation of the working class worldwide. This framed the confrontation between the Allies and the Central Powers in World War II.
The United States wanted to become the number one world power. It disguises the use of the atom bomb in 1945 as “necessary” to end the conflict and lay the foundations for peace.
Oppenheimer defends the use of the atomic bomb: “They will not fear it until they understand it, and they will not understand it until they have used it.” Oppenheimer is the film’s focus, not the atom bomb’s victims.
The movie does not show the full horror and devastation experienced in Japan after the bombing. 214,000 workers and family members were incinerated. Many survivors suffered radioactive effects, cancers, discrimination, and social rejection.
All this even though the United States knew that Japan was about to surrender. It was just an imperialist strategy, a direct threat to Russia to stop its imperialist expansion.
It forced other US allies to accept that the new world order would be led by US imperialism with its IMF and its World Bank.
The film also does not show the impact of the bomb elsewhere.
The Trinity test in New Mexico, on July 16, 1945, was the first-ever detonation of a nuclear weapon. The United States Army conducted it as part of the Manhattan Project of Los Alamos National Laboratory.
It released large-scale radiation over areas populated primarily by Hispanics and Native Americans. High levels of radiation cause deaths and cancers to this day.
Later, the US exploded a hydrogen bomb a thousand times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb over the Marshall Islands, a Pacific archipelago. Several islands were vaporized. Many people died. Others suffered birth defects and battled cancer. In total, 67 nuclear explosions occurred there between 1946 and 1958.
Capitalist imperialism has hidden the historical events on which the film is based. Obviously, the ruling class does not care about life or the environment, but only about its power.
Capitalism and Imperialism = Death and Destruction
Comrades and friends discussed and criticized the film. C concluded: “Capitalists only seek to maximize profits. They live by competing. They do what they do best: money for a few and the masses are still hungry. That is why they always need imperialist wars to remain the most powerful, thus defeating their enemies.”
“In the middle of a new European war, the Yankees (US) and NATO use Ukrainian people as cannon fodder. The UN is inert in the face of ethnic cleansing by the Russians, threats of tactical nuclear bombs, thousands of civilians killed by cluster bombs, only to mention what is visible on the western side of this media war,” R added.
The capitalist class maintains control through violence. We said that only communist revolution can end imperialist wars, racism, sexism, borders, and exploitation. We encourage other readers to watch and discuss it as well.
Life Depends on a Communist World
The rulers use nuclear war as a threat against the communist revolution, to build pacifism, and to try to get people to accept a “lesser evil” imperialist. We will not be intimidated into passivity. Nor will we side with one imperialist over another. ICWP needs to mobilize masses of workers, youth, and soldiers to fight for communist workers’ power.
If the rulers threaten to use — or do use — nuclear weapons anywhere in the world, the workers of the world must and will mobilize to end their rule forever! Neither nuclear blackmail nor nuclear war will stop the communist-led working class from making revolution.
March 1, 2014: Marshall Islanders protest on 60th anniversary of US hydrogen bomb test that destroyed Bikini Atoll.
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