The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Week commencing 11th August 2023
The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Week commencing 11th August 2023
The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Last weekend millions in Japan and throughout the world paused to remember those who died in the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the last days of the Second World War. On 6th August 1945 Hiroshima was destroyed by an American atom bomb. Nagasaki was hit three days later. Some 250,000 people, mostly civilians, were killed instantly in the atomic blasts. Many more would later perish from flash burns and radiation sickness.
The claim that the atom bombs forced Japan to surrender is an enduring myth of the Second World War. The Americans say they had to use the atom bomb to force Japan to surrender and bring the global conflict to an end. But the Japanese were begging for an armistice as their armies folded under the hammer blows of communist-led guerrillas and the Red Army.
But two Japanese cities were still wiped out to show the world, and the Soviet Union in particular, what US imperialism was capable of doing.
The fight for peace is inexorably linked to the struggle for justice. The campaign must inevitably challenge world imperialism, the greatest threat to peace, and present an alternative to the capitalism that is the root cause of all conflicts in the world today.