Einstein's legacy
Written by Eric Walberg    Tuesday, 11 August 2009 10:34    PDF Print E-mail
October 2003 -- The America I once knew seems like a distant memory, says one journalist after another these days. But how about this: "Times such as ours have always bred defeatism and despair." Re-reading Einstein's writings on peace, it is clear that America has been through an equally insane fit in the past - such as the madness following World War II.

 Einstein was referring to the rush to build more A-bombs, to develop H-bombs, the plans to launch preventive war against a destroyed and helpless Russia (no UN "food for oil" program then), conscription, the Korean war, loyalty oaths, McCarthyism, and the electrocution of the Rosenbergs.

The rest of the world was revulsed then as it is today, but then it was devastated economically, weak politically, without TV or Internet. After World War II the US emerged virtually unscathed as the victor. Yes, 300,000 US soldiers died, but compare that with losses in Europe and Russia - far more than 30,000,000. And US industry and housing were intact. A colossus in a world of pygmies, and yet it was to launch the most horrific and costly arms race in the history of mankind.

Einstein wrote: "The 'Communist menace' is being used here by reactionary politicians as a pretext to mask their attack on civil rights. The population is too misguided, and the intellectuals too intimidated, to defend their Constitutional rights… We have come a long way toward the establishment of a fascist regime. The similarity of general conditions here to those in the Germany of 1932 is quite obvious. What might happen if, in addition, the dreaded economic depression were actually to take place!" (private letter 1954)

Einstein was a lifelong advocate of détente. While criticizing Soviet internal policies, he sympathized with the dangers that the Soviet Union faced, which convinced him, on the whole, that it was the US that posed the greater threat to world peace. He also counted on Europe, the nonaligned countries (at that time the most prominent being India), and the smaller countries: "The less powerful nations may band together and thus force an international solution; but by no means do I overestimate the realization of that hope." (1954)

Supranational Government

In fact, the main theme that appears throughout his writings from the 1920s until his death in 1955 is the need for a supranational government, with a binding commitment by all member countries on security issues, as opposed to the optional nature of both the League of Nations and the UN, neither of which had/has the ability to enforce its security measures.

How to achieve this state of affairs is still a moot point, and Einstein's answers changed as the world political situation changed. Though not a Marxist, he criticized the imperialist ambitions of both Nazi Germany and the post-World War II US. Though initially a pacifist, he quickly recognized the danger of Nazi Germany and supported rearmament to fight fascism. He never advocated fighting the Soviet Union even during the Stalinist purges and the Cold War, unlike such otherwise enlightened intellectuals as Bertrand Russell, who, after World War II, briefly contemplated a preventive atomic war against the Soviet Union.

In his final years, living under the cloud of nuclear annihilation and an increasingly belligerent US, Einstein became convinced that the only way forward was Gandhi's nonviolent resistance combined with a commitment to the Nuremberg principle: "The state has recognized the duty of the individual to act according to the unwritten law when commands based on national laws are in striking conflict with the laws of his conscience.… Let us hope that we may soon come to the point where the Nuremberg principle will not only be enforced upon citizens of vanquished nations!" (Einstein's introduction to conscientious objector Gene Sharp's book on Gandhi, 1953.)

He was convinced that intellectuals have a key role to play: "The intellectual is capable of exerting a strong influence on the formation of public opinion. Those who endeavor to lead us toward an authoritarian government are particularly anxious to intimidate and silence the intellectual." (1954) He recommended that the intellectual learn from Gandhi's "non-cooperation, i.e., he must be prepared for jail and economic ruin… not based on the fifth Amendment, but on the assertion that it is shameful to submit to such an inquisition which violates the spirit of the Constitution." (New York Times letter 7/12/53)

This letter caused a public scandal and he even joked at the time that he feared imprisonment. In a subsequent editorial, the Times criticized Einstein for promoting civil disobedience in defence of the Constitution: "To employ the unnatural and illegal forces of civil disobedience is to attack one evil with another." To this Bertrand Russell replied to the Times: "Do you condemn the Christian martyrs who refused to sacrifice to the Emperor? Do you condemn John Brown… George Washington? As a loyal Briton, I of course applaud this view; but I fear it may not win much support in your country."

The Russell-Einstein Manifesto

His last hours were concerned with an anti-war project that Russell had instigated and which was signed by nine Nobel Prize winners [see the Rotblat article in this issue] making clear that war must at all costs be avoided, since neither side can hope for victory in a nuclear war and that there is a real danger of the extermination of the human race.

Of course, it does not take a nuclear physicist to see all this. However, it is a balm and an inspiration to commune with the genius of his great mind as revealed in these nonscientific writings. As a passionate lover of science, he was puzzled by the heat of the political debate, and insisted to anyone who would listen that we should not be dogmatic about economics, that socialism and capitalism had good and bad points, and that the important thing was to avoid war by ceding military power to a supranational government. Both sides in the Cold War dismissed this as unrealistic, as indeed it has proved to be so far. But Einstein's argument that survival should come before economic preferences is more relevant than ever. His intuited ideas about how to extricate ourselves from the political impasse are as compelling as ever.

Post(latest)war manifesto

So, what help is Einstein in finding a way forward now? The fundamentals of his equation for peace still hold. To "win the hearts and minds" of ordinary Americans we need a broad-based platform that integrates the US into the community of nations, as opposed to the present platform of USA world domination through intimidation and state violence. A reasonable mainstream political platform to be fought for within the US would entail:

1) a conciliatory approach to "the enemy": "A genuine solution of the security problem presupposes mutual confidence… but what was actually done both in the case of Germany (re demilitarization of Germany in cooperation with Russia) and that of East Asia (re China and Korea) was the opposite of what might have created confidence."

2) a domestic program defending Constitutional rights and promoting economic stability and justice.

This must be backed up by Gandhi-inspired civil disobedience by intellectuals and ordinary people, and refusal to support the militarization of domestic and foreign policy. The role of intellectuals is key - especially after the war in Iraq settles down into postwar routine terrorism, domestically, where Constitutional rights are eroded.

Israel

Einstein supported Zionism, though he immediately saw the dangers which the foundation of Israel entailed and refused the offer to become Israel's second president. Privately he expressed reservations about the wisdom of the existence of a Jewish state: "My awareness of the essential nature of Judaism resists the idea of a Jewish state with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power, no matter how modest. I am afraid of the inner damage Judaism will sustain - especially from the development of a narrow nationalism within our own ranks…"

He argued that peaceful coexistence between Arabs and Jews was a prerequisite to healthy development of a Jewish home in Palestine. In 1955 he said that Israel should maintain a "policy of neutrality between East and West and complete equality for the Arab citizens living in our midst…. The attitude we adopt toward the Arab minority will provide the real test of our moral standards as a people."

While it is perhaps comforting to know that the hopeless scenario of today is not unique in recent times, the environmental crisis, the increased deadliness of "conventional" arms of today, and the overwhelming extent of corporate control of life does not leave much room for optimism. However, it is still clear what is to be done.

http://archive.peacemagazine.org/v19n4p06.htm Oct-Dec 2003
 

From Peace & Socialism

  • Einstein's legacy
    October 2003 -- The America I once knew seems like a distant memory, says one journalist after another these days. But how about this: "Times such as ours have always bred defeatism and despair." Re-reading Einstein's writings on peace, it is clear that America has been through an equally insane fit in the past - such as the madness following World War II.
  • In memoriam: Sonja Tsukert Bates

    Garment worker, peace activist, mother. Born 1906, sister of composer Leonid Tsukert, wife of poet and peace activist Harold Bates.

    Like a rose bush, Sonja bloomed many times, sending her roots into whatever soil there was, finding nourishment where others found only dirt, and producing beauty and joy where others found only darkness and misery. She was the 4th of 9 children born to a stationmaster on the Imperial Russian railway in eastern Poland.

  • Kwame Nkrumah: The greatest African

    “For centuries, Europeans dominated the African continent. The white man arrogated to himself the right to rule and to be obeyed by the non-white; his mission, he claimed, was to "civilize" Africa. Under this cloak, the Europeans robbed the continent of vast riches and inflicted unimaginable suffering on the African people.”

    --- I Speak of Freedom: A Statement of African Ideology (1961)

    (Spring 2008) -- The incessant stream of bad news — make that “flood” — from “the dark continent” gives the impression that Africa somehow missed out on the wonders of capitalist development which the West luckily reaped through some quirk of fate. No longer is it acceptable to attribute this discrepancy to skin colour, though that underlying prejudice still survives, seemingly corroborated by World Bank — even holier-than-thou United Nations — statistics.

    So the words and works of Kwame Nkrumah, which inspired a generation, are well worth a second glance. In fact, the greatest African of the millennium, according to the 2000 BBC World Service listeners’ poll, is not Nelson Mandela or even Patrice Lumumba, but Kwame Nkrumah, the man who inspired the movement for African independence, but who has dropped out of Western discourse, for very good reasons.

  • Kissinger's scheme

    The gloves are off in the battle to shape our "new world order", observes Eric Walberg

    19/2/9 -- The American Recovery and Reinvestment Bill passed this week will define Barack Obama's presidency. But it is really just the younger sibling to the Troubled Assets Relief Programme. To separate the now trillions being handed out to the banksters from the $800 billion being handed out to the lottery winners is to be ingenuous. The elder sister's patrons are already blackmailing mama Obama, wailing for more trillions or they will plunge the economy into even greater financial crisis. "You ain't seen nothing yet," they hissed to Treasury Secretary Geithner, who, according to economist Michael Hudson, quickly "pledged government financing for as much as $2 trillion... to spur new lending and address banks' toxic assets, seeking to end the credit crunch hobbling the economy."

  • Who is the enemy? Part II
    In the second of a two-part series, Eric Walberg looks at the repercussions of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan

    29/5/8 -- While the current occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq look to be part of an ambitious plan of American domination of the Muslim world, both are proving to be a much greater problem than their shadowy planners supposed. And whatever conspiracy jigsaw puzzle Afghanistan forms a key piece in, it is certainly not one made in Russia, despite current attempts by the United States to paint Russia, formerly enemy number one, as enemy number two, after the current enemy du jour -- Islam.

  • Who is the enemy? Part I
    The US is not only repeating all the Soviets' mistakes in Afghanistan, it is showing remarkable creativity in the horrors department, says Eric Walberg in the first of a two-part series
     
    22/5/8 -- Twenty years ago this week (22 May 2008) the Soviet Union began its withdrawal from Afghanistan, eight and a half years after it was invited by the desperate People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), which had degenerated into intra-party squabbling and was beset by Islamic rebels massively financed by the United States. The straw that broke the Soviets' back was when the US began providing Stinger missiles to Osama bin Laden and his friends.
  • Food crisis: Silent Tsunami
    Is there more than meets the eye in the sudden flurry of talk about a world food crisis, asks Eric Walberg

    15/5/8 -- Food protests and riots swept more than 20 countries in early 2008, including Egypt. On 2 April, World Bank President Robert Zoellick told a meeting in Washington that there are 33 countries where price hikes could cause widespread social unrest. The UN World Food Programme called the crisis the silent tsunami, with wheat prices almost doubling in the past year alone,

  • 9/11 for dummies

    As demonstrators march on the White House with a million signatures on a petition to impeach Bush and Cheney, doubts persist about the event that made them "wartime leaders", says Eric Walberg

    6/9/7 -- Theories about what really happened on 11 September, 2001 continue to inspire books and documentaries and convince otherwise sane, respectable public figures, not to mention the teeming masses. Journalist Robert Fisk recently joined the fray, intrigued by the scientific improbably of the buildings collapsing in such a seemingly controlled way and charges by engineering professors who call the final report "fraudulent or deceptive". As a Middle East expert, he also finds the letter allegedly written by Mohamed Atta, the Egyptian hijacker- murderer "weird", surely a forgery.

  • The UN: Achieving peace: chicken or egg?
    While UN peacekeeping has done little to calm the world's troubled waters, the UN's other mandate -- development -- has had some success despite its many problems, argues Eric Walberg

    30/8/7 -- The debate over how to achieve peace revolves around two poles: world peacekeeping and disarmament vs economic and social development. The latter argument goes: busy literate hands and full stomachs obviate the need for war, just as the improvement of women's status leads to reduced family size.

  • The UN: Peacemaker or puppet?
    With its largest peacekeeping mission planned in Sudan, Eric Walberg considers the UN's track record in the first of two articles
     

    16/8/7 -- Founded amidst the rubble of World War II -- well, actually in untouched San Francisco, with delegates spirited in by United States military planes, and nursed and spied on by a US determined to make the most of its new unrivalled world hegemony -- the United Nation started out with much more potential than its stillborn predecessor, the League of Nations, precisely because the US was committed. Even the Republicans were onboard, and all the major powers were present and willing. However, this US blessing was a two-edged sword and the UN's history is one of ups and downs with few political highpoints.