Orwell’s 5 greatest essays: No. 4, “You and the Atomic Bomb”
歐威爾最偉大的五篇散文：第四篇《你與原子彈》
作者： 麥可‧希爾茨克
對於任何對左右翼政治以及最高層政治新聞感興趣的人來說，奧威爾的作品都是必不可少的。本週，正值他誕辰 110 週年之際，我們列出了他最偉大的五篇散文。
奧威爾的《你與原子彈》是在廣島和長崎原子彈爆炸僅僅兩個半月後出版的，它是第一批試圖預測一種以前無法想像的威力的新武器的社會和政治影響的書籍之一。它的名聲源於奧威爾創造了一個新術語“冷戰”，用來描述原子彈在美國和蘇聯兩個大國之間造成的永久對峙。
參與曼哈頓計畫的物理學家們就核武的社會和政治影響討論了一年，但由於計畫的保密要求，他們中的大多數人直到原子彈投向日本才知道整個工作取得了多大的進展。隨著爆炸的發生，這些問題被拋到公眾面前進行辯論。
奧威爾將炸彈正確地置於歷史的連續體中。他寫道：「文明史很大程度上就是武器史，這是眾所周知的。」「當主導武器價格昂貴或製造困難時，往往是專制時代；而當主導武器廉價簡單時，平民百姓就有機會。因此，例如，坦克、戰艦和轟炸機天生就是暴政武器，而步槍、滑槍、長弓和手榴彈天生就會讓民主武器。
至於冷戰，即無限的“非和平的和平”，奧威爾預見到，用不了多久，蘇聯就會與美國一起成為原子彈秘密的唯一擁有者。
從各種跡象可以推斷，蘇聯人尚未掌握製造原子彈的秘訣；另一方面，輿論普遍認為他們將在幾年內掌握它。因此，我們面臨的前景是，兩個或三個龐大的超級大國，每個國家都擁有一種可以在幾秒鐘內消滅數百萬人的武器，瓜分世界。
至少在一個方面，奧威爾的眼光並不比 1945 年的任何人更有遠見：當其中一個超級大國崩潰時會發生什麼？
By Michael Hiltzik
For anyone interested in the politics of left and right--and in political journalism as it is practiced at the highest level, Orwell’s works are indispensable. This week, in the year marks the 110th anniversary of his birth, we present a personal list of his five greatest essays.
Published a mere two and a half months after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Orwell’s “You and the Atomic Bomb” is notable as one of the first efforts to divine the social and political implications of a new weapon of previously unimaginable power. Its fame arises from Orwell’s coinage of a new term for the permanent standoff the bomb would foster between two great powers, the United States and the Soviet Union: the “cold war.”
The social and political aspects of nuclear weapons had been debated for a year by physicists working on the Manhattan Project, though even most of them--thanks to the requirements of secrecy within the project--were unaware of how far the overall work had progressed until the bombs were dropped on Japan. With the blasts, the issues were thrown open for public debate.
Orwell places the bomb properly within the historical continuum. “It is a commonplace that the history of civilisation is largely the history of weapons,” he writes. “Ages in which the dominant weapon is expensive or difficult to make will tend to be ages of despotism, whereas when the dominant weapon is cheap and simple, the common people have a chance. Thus, for example, tanks, battleships and bombing planes are inherently tyrannical weapons, while rifles, muskets, long-bows and hand-grenades are inherently democratic weapons. A complex weapon makes the strong stronger, while a simple weapon — so long as there is no answer to it — gives claws to the weak.”
As for the cold war, that infinite “peace that is no peace,” Orwell foresees that it will not be long before the Soviets join the Americans as sole possessors of the bomb’s secrets.
“From various symptoms one can infer that the Russians do not yet possess the secret of making the atomic bomb; on the other hand, the consensus of opinion seems to be that they will possess it within a few years. So we have before us the prospect of two or three monstrous super-states, each possessed of a weapon by which millions of people can be wiped out in a few seconds, dividing the world between them.”
In at least one regard, Orwell’s vision was no more farsighted than anyone else’s in 1945: What happens when one of those super-states collapses?
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