Oppenheimer: science under capitalism serves profit wars

Science in capitalism serves imperialists’ war and profits. Science in communism will be used to end inequality created by the capitalists and to protect life in harmony with nature. Oppenheimer, the popular film directed by Christopher Nolan, is dedicated to the scientist Robert Oppenheimer who from 1941 to 1945 coordinated the Manhattan Project for the manufacture of the first nuclear bombs that were dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, causing the death of more than 200,000 people, mostly civilians, and reducing both cities to rubble.

Although the director has declared that his film does not carry any explicit or hidden message, the reality is that, due to its ambiguity and lack of objectivity, this film is being used by the ruling capitalist class to prepare millions in the U.S. and around the world, for the need to use atomic bombs as they did in Japan - only now they are much more destructive. The film makes the same false, criminal argument that bombs save lives, just as President Truman states in a climactic passage of the film.

The film Oppenheimer describes a successful physicist with a brilliant and charismatic mind. It depicts his affinity for social activities that bring him into close contact with a group of communists - an association from which he distances himself when his patriotic dilemma forces him to embark on a military project to build the bomb before the Nazis. With the goal of stopping the Nazis, Oppenheimer assembles and leads an entire scientific community that consciously or unconsciously submits to the military interests of the ruling capitalist class.

The Soviet Red Army defeated the Nazis, not the A-Bomb
One crucial fact that the film omits is that the Red Army, without atomic bombs, was able to crush the Nazi army, driving the Nazis from their territory and liberating Europe. The Nazi defeat and their surrender in May 1945 made the bomb project less meaningful, as stated by some of the scientists involved. However, the military in charge of the project, President Truman and the ruling capitalist class, pushed the project until they achieved their true purpose: their military hegemony in the world. The scientist Isidor Isaac Rabi warned Oppenheimer that "the military only uses scientists for their warlike purposes."

The construction of the nuclear bomb was another episode in the submission of science to capitalist interests. Three months later, in August 1945, the bombs were used under the crude pretext of "forcing Japan to surrender" though militarily they were already defeated. The film does not deny or contradict this vile capitalist manipulation, nor does it unmask the true purpose of dropping the bombs - to intimidate the world, particularly the Soviets, and make clear the military power achieved by the American capitalist class. As we can see now, it ultimately served to unleash the arms race between the two imperialist blocs that continue to drag the world into more wars, wreaking massive levels of destruction.

As the true purposes of the arms race became apparent, many scientists refused to participate in the construction of the much more destructive H-bomb. Oppenheimer was one of them, which is why they discredited him, reviving his association with the communists, to invent an allegation of treason against him.

The film does not unmask all this manipulation, rather, it tries to disprove the attacks on Oppenheimer as personal quarrels with Lewis Strauss, his former collaborator in the manufacture of the first bomb. The film shows how other renowned scientists such as Ernest Lawrence and Edward Teller , willing to collaborate in the arms race, betray Oppenheimer by testifying against him, while dozens of other scientists signed a public letter in their support.

Turn imperialist world war into communist revolution
In the context of the decline of North American and European imperialism, the imperialist alliance between Russia and China, and the growing division of the world into two imperialist blocs vying for control of the world, the dilemma presented in the film is as current as ever. The imperialists today threaten each other with the use of atomic bombs in Ukraine, Taiwan and any other disputed area.

Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. are about to approve a new military budget, the largest in history. The imperialists in Europe, Russia and China are also increasing their military budgets. The endgame of all the imperialists is war to control the world's wealth. The capitalists have shown that they build bombs to use them against people. Let's not doubt that they will use them again to maintain their control and their profits.

Capitalism means death and destruction. We need to put an end to all the capitalists and their bombs, and we can only do that with communist revolution. Communism means workers run society. Communism will not only end all wars, it will also restore the environment that capitalist irrationality and its thirst for profit has pushed to the brink of collapse. Communism will end poverty, inequality, racism, sexism and all the evils that affect the vast majority of the world's working population. Progressive Labor Party is in the fight for communism. JOIN US.