Volumes of The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell

A Hypertextual Edition of Paper 58 in Volume 24

eadnote

The atom-bombing of Hiroshima at 8:15 a.m., Japan time, on 6 August 1945 destroyed four square miles of the city. Three days later Russell was at work on this article. We know this because midway he remarks that he has just learned of the explosion of the second atomic bomb, over Nagasaki. This bomb was dropped at 11:01 a.m. (or 2:01 a.m. GMT) (Weintraub 1995, 482; Ham 2012, 364). At this point he abandons the exposition and history of atomic theory to dwell on the danger to civilization posed by the new weaponry, and immediately states: “The prospect for the human race is sombre beyond all precedent.... A great deal of new political thinking will be necessary if utter disaster is to be averted” (310:7–10). This is in contrast to the guarded optimism of paper 48, finished a few days prior to the nuclear attack on Japan and as a consequence, perhaps, not published. In the last sentence quoted, Russell began using language that would occur repeatedly as he wrote about the prospect of nuclear warfare. E.g. in a cognate paper a month later (61) he wrote, “we must learn a new kind of political thinking” (324: 17–18). When the Soviets exploded their first atomic bomb, he gave a new paper the title “The Bomb: Can Disaster Be Averted?” (1949d). In “Man’s Peril” he wrote: “All, equally, are in peril, and, if the peril is understood, there is hope that they may collectively avert it. We have to learn to think in a new way” (1954a; Papers 28: 86). He closely reiterated these lines in the Russell–Einstein Manifesto (ibid., 28: 318).

Russell does not refer to the Manhattan Project by name. He may well have been cognizant of the physicists’ pre-war curiosity about producing an atomic explosion. By the time of writing he knew of the 1938 discovery of nuclear fission and that scientists on both sides of World War II had been working on the problem. Newspapers carried this information in early days of the nuclear age (see The Times 1945q and, there officially on the bomb’s origins, Churchill 1945a). The Times covered military and scientific aspects extensively (1945p, 1945r, 1945s). Some of Russell's information may have come from these sources.

The main outline and some details of his international policy for the next few years are visible, complete with an argument for forcing world government and a prediction that the U.S. would not internationalize the atomic secrets.

Russell could not comment here on whether the atomic bomb hastened the end of the war. Japan did not surrender until several days later, on 14 August. At the same time preparations were under way for massive Allied land invasions (Giangreco 2017). It remains uncertain whether it was the atomic bomb or the prospect of the invasions, including that of the Russians, which brought Japan to surrender. It was “a common observation that Japan at war’s end was vastly weaker than anyone outside the country had imagined—or anyone inside it had acknowledged” (Dower 1999, 44). However, this is not (Giangreco’s conclusion (see his 2017, xvii–xix).

The copy-text is a photocopy and separate colour scan (RA3 Rec. Acq. 840) of the manuscript. The manuscript survived in the papers of Forward’s editor, Emrys Hughes (1894–1969, who was soon to be elected M.P. at this time). Its survival as the marked-up copy for the compositor is unusual in this volume. Additional changes were made, possibly to save space. There is no evidence that Russell read proofs of the newspaper publication, of which he kept two copies. Manuscript and print were collated. Several departures from Russell’s manuscript were made by the Forward, none of which are accepted here. The substitution in the printed text of “hear” for the manuscript’s “learn” at 310: 6 was a misreading of Russell’s hand, as was “expelled” for “repelled” at 309: 26. Forward silently deleted several commas in typesetting Russell’s manuscript, and others were inserted. The substantive variants are recorded in the Textual Notes.

hronology (selected)