你和原子彈

George Orwell

You and the Atomic Bomb

喬治·奧威爾

你和原子彈

考慮到我們所有人都有可能在未來五年內被原子彈炸成碎片，原子彈並沒有引起人們預期的那麼多討論。報紙上刊登了大量質子和中子運作的圖表，但這些圖表對普通人來說並沒有什麼幫助，而且報紙上還反复強調炸彈「應該置於國際控制之下」這一毫無意義的聲明。但奇怪的是，對於我們大家最迫切關心的問題，即“製造這些東西有多難？”，卻很少有人提及，至少在印刷品中很少提及。

我們——也就是廣大公眾——所掌握的有關這一問題的資訊是透過相當間接的方式獲得的，與杜魯門總統決定不向蘇聯移交某些機密有關。幾個月前，當原子彈還只是傳聞時，人們普遍認為，分裂原子只是物理學家的一個問題，而當他們解決了這個問題之後，一種新的毀滅性武器將幾乎人人皆可擁有。 （有傳言稱，實驗室裡的某個孤獨的瘋子隨時可能把文明炸成碎片，就像點燃煙火一樣容易。）

如果真是這樣，整個歷史的趨勢就會發生徹底的改變。大國與小國之間的差異將會消失，國家對個人的權力將會大大削弱。然而，從杜魯門總統的演講以及對此發表的各種評論來看，這種炸彈極其昂貴，製造它需要巨大的工業努力，世界上只有三、四個國家能夠做到。這一點至關重要，因為這可能意味著原子彈的發現非但不會改變歷史，反而會加劇過去十幾年來出現的趨勢。

眾所周知，文明史很大程度上就是武器史。特別是火藥的發現和資產階級推翻封建制度之間的聯繫，被一再指出。儘管我毫不懷疑會有例外，但我認為以下規則普遍適用：當主導武器價格昂貴或難以製造時，往往是專制時代，而當主導武器廉價而簡單時，普通民眾就有機會。例如，坦克、戰艦、轟炸機本質上是暴政武器，而步槍、火槍、長弓、手榴彈本質上是民主武器。複雜的武器可以讓強者更強大，而簡單的武器——只要沒有應對之策——只會讓弱者陷入困境。

民主和民族自決的偉大時代是火槍和步槍的時代。在燧發槍發明之後、雷管發明之前，火槍是一種相當有效的武器，同時又非常簡單，幾乎可以在任何地方生產。它的這些特質的結合使得美國革命和法國革命得以成功，並且使得人民起義比我們這個時代更嚴肅。繼火槍之後出現了後裝槍。這是一種比較複雜的東西，但仍然可以在幾十個國家生產，而且價格便宜，容易走私，彈藥經濟。即使是最落後的國家也總是能從各個來源獲得步槍，因此佈爾人、保加利亞人、阿比西尼亞人、摩洛哥人——甚至西藏人——都可以為獨立而戰，有時甚至能夠取得成功。但此後，軍事技術的每一次發展都有利於國家而不是個人，有利於工業化國家而不是落後國家。權力的焦點越來越少。早在1939年，世界上就只有五個國家有能力發動大規模戰爭，而現在只剩下三個──最終或許只剩下兩個。這種趨勢多年來一直很明顯，甚至在 1914 年之前就有一些觀察家指出了這一點。唯一可能扭轉這種趨勢的就是發現一種不依賴大量工業廠房的武器——或者更廣泛地說，一種作戰方法。

從種種跡象可以推斷，蘇聯尚未掌握製造原子彈的秘密；另一方面，大家似乎一致認為他們將在幾年內擁有它。因此，我們面臨的前景是，出現兩三個可怕的超級大國，每個國家都擁有可以在幾秒鐘內消滅數百萬人的武器，並瓜分世界。人們草率地認為這意味著更大、更血腥的戰爭，甚至可能是機器文明的真正終結。但假設──這確實是最有可能的發展──倖存的大國達成默契，永遠不對彼此使用原子彈？假設他們只對那些無法報復的人使用它或威脅它？在這種情況下，我們又回到了以前的位置，唯一的區別是權力集中在更少的人手中，被壓迫民族和被壓迫階級的前景更加絕望。

當詹姆斯·伯納姆撰寫 《管理革命》時 ，許多美國人認為德國很可能會贏得歐洲戰爭，因此自然認為德國而不是俄羅斯將主宰歐亞大陸，而日本將繼續主宰東亞。這是一個錯誤的估計，但不影響主要論點。因為伯納姆對新大陸的地理描繪已被證明是正確的。越來越明顯的是，地球表面被分割成三大帝國，每個帝國都自給自足，與外界隔絕，並且都由一個自選的寡頭政權以某種偽裝進行統治。關於邊界劃分的爭論仍在繼續，並將持續數年，而三個超級大國中的第三個——由中國主導的東亞——仍然是潛在的，而不是現實的。但整體趨勢是顯而易見的，近年來的每項科學發現都加速了這一趨勢。

有人曾告訴我們，飛機已經「廢除了邊界」；事實上，只是自從飛機成為一種強大的武器以來，邊界才變得絕對無法通行。人們曾期望廣播能促進國際理解與合作；它已成為一個國家與另一個國家隔絕的手段。原子彈也許能完成這個過程，剝奪被剝削階級和人民的一切反抗力量，同時使原子彈擁有者處於軍事平等的基礎上。由於無法相互征服，他們很可能會繼續統治世界，除了緩慢而不可預測的人口變化之外，很難想像這種平衡會被打破。

在過去的四、五十年裡，赫伯特·喬治·威爾斯先生和其他人一直在警告我們，人類正面臨著用自己的武器毀滅自己的危險，而螞蟻或其他群居物種將接管人類的統治。任何見過德國廢墟城市的人都會發現這種想法至少是可以想像的。然而，從整個世界來看，幾十年來的發展趨勢並不是走向無政府狀態，而是走向奴隸制的重新實施。我們或許並非正走向全面崩潰，而是正走向一個如古代奴隸帝國般極為穩定的時代。詹姆斯·伯納姆的理論已被廣泛討論，但很少有人考慮過它的意識形態含義——即在一個 不可征服 且與鄰國處於永久「冷戰」狀態的國家中，可能盛行的世界觀、信仰和社會結構。

如果原子彈像自行車或鬧鐘一樣廉價且易於製造，它可能會讓我們重新陷入野蠻狀態，但另一方面，它也可能意味著國家主權和高度集中的警察國家的終結。如果事實確實如此，它是一個像戰艦一樣難以生產的稀有而昂貴的物品，那麼它更有可能以無限期延長「不和平的和平」為代價來結束大規模戰爭。

1945

結束

~注意~~~

喬治·奧威爾的這篇作品最初於 1945 年 10 月 19 日由論壇報發表。 當時，唯一使用原子彈殺人和摧毀城市的國家──美國，在日本廣島和長崎投下原子彈，兩個月之內。奧威爾對原子彈的描述已經足夠多了，但這篇作品尤其出眾，因為它分享了對原子武器時代世界格局的深刻見解。此外，很顯然，他的小說《一九八四》的基礎 已經透過這次寫作完成了。

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喬治‧歐威爾：《你與原子彈》

首次出版：《論壇報》。 — GB，倫敦。 1945年10月19日

轉載：

—《喬治‧歐威爾散文、新聞與書信集》。 — 1968年。

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機讀版本：O. Dag

最後修改日期：2015-09-24

[馬德倫·奧爾布賴特——仇恨部長]

對南斯拉夫的「人道」轟炸

1999年3月24日至4月24日，以美國為首的北約在二戰後最大規模的軍事行動中，向南斯拉夫社會主義聯邦共和國投下了約2.5萬噸炸彈，其破壞力數倍於美國投向廣島和長崎的原子彈。北約使用了數萬枚不同類型、不同用途的炸彈和飛彈，其中一些炸彈重達近5噸，對居民區造成的破壞程度堪比地震。 — 整個五月，他們也轟炸了南斯拉夫社會主義聯邦共和國 — — 每晚都轟炸！

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來源：《白皮書》（第 1 號）：
《北約在南斯拉夫的罪行——1999 年 3 月 24 日至 4 月 24 日的書面證據》
貝爾格萊德，1999 年 5 月——ISBN 86-7549-124-7
由南斯拉夫「Sluzhben

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格式化者：O. Dag
最後修改時間：2019-12-29

Considering how likely we all are to be blown to pieces by it within the next five years, the atomic bomb has not roused so much discussion as might have been expected. The newspapers have published numerous diagrams, not very helpful to the average man, of protons and neutrons doing their stuff, and there has been much reiteration of the useless statement that the bomb ‘ought to be put under international control.’ But curiously little has been said, at any rate in print, about the question that is of most urgent interest to all of us, namely: ‘How difficult are these things to manufacture?’

Such information as we — that is, the big public — possess on this subject has come to us in a rather indirect way, apropos of President Truman's decision not to hand over certain secrets to the USSR. Some months ago, when the bomb was still only a rumour, there was a widespread belief that splitting the atom was merely a problem for the physicists, and that when they had solved it a new and devastating weapon would be within reach of almost everybody. (At any moment, so the rumour went, some lonely lunatic in a laboratory might blow civilisation to smithereens, as easily as touching off a firework.)

Had that been true, the whole trend of history would have been abruptly altered. The distinction between great states and small states would have been wiped out, and the power of the State over the individual would have been greatly weakened. However, it appears from President Truman's remarks, and various comments that have been made on them, that the bomb is fantastically expensive and that its manufacture demands an enormous industrial effort, such as only three or four countries in the world are capable of making. This point is of cardinal importance, because it may mean that the discovery of the atomic bomb, so far from reversing history, will simply intensify the trends which have been apparent for a dozen years past.

It is a commonplace that the history of civilisation is largely the history of weapons. In particular, the connection between the discovery of gunpowder and the overthrow of feudalism by the bourgeoisie has been pointed out over and over again. And though I have no doubt exceptions can be brought forward, I think the following rule would be found generally true: that 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.

The great age of democracy and of national self-determination was the age of the musket and the rifle. After the invention of the flintlock, and before the invention of the percussion cap, the musket was a fairly efficient weapon, and at the same time so simple that it could be produced almost anywhere. Its combination of qualities made possible the success of the American and French revolutions, and made a popular insurrection a more serious business than it could be in our own day. After the musket came the breech-loading rifle. This was a comparatively complex thing, but it could still be produced in scores of countries, and it was cheap, easily smuggled and economical of ammunition. Even the most backward nation could always get hold of rifles from one source or another, so that Boers, Bulgars, Abyssinians, Moroccans — even Tibetans — could put up a fight for their independence, sometimes with success. But thereafter every development in military technique has favoured the State as against the individual, and the industrialised country as against the backward one. There are fewer and fewer foci of power. Already, in 1939, there were only five states capable of waging war on the grand scale, and now there are only three — ultimately, perhaps, only two. This trend has been obvious for years, and was pointed out by a few observers even before 1914. The one thing that might reverse it is the discovery of a weapon — or, to put it more broadly, of a method of fighting — not dependent on huge concentrations of industrial plant.

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. It has been rather hastily assumed that this means bigger and bloodier wars, and perhaps an actual end to the machine civilisation. But suppose — and really this the likeliest development — that the surviving great nations make a tacit agreement never to use the atomic bomb against one another? Suppose they only use it, or the threat of it, against people who are unable to retaliate? In that case we are back where we were before, the only difference being that power is concentrated in still fewer hands and that the outlook for subject peoples and oppressed classes is still more hopeless.

When James Burnham wrote The Managerial Revolution it seemed probable to many Americans that the Germans would win the European end of the war, and it was therefore natural to assume that Germany and not Russia would dominate the Eurasian land mass, while Japan would remain master of East Asia. This was a miscalculation, but it does not affect the main argument. For Burnham's geographical picture of the new world has turned out to be correct. More and more obviously the surface of the earth is being parceled off into three great empires, each self-contained and cut off from contact with the outer world, and each ruled, under one disguise or another, by a self-elected oligarchy. The haggling as to where the frontiers are to be drawn is still going on, and will continue for some years, and the third of the three super-states — East Asia, dominated by China — is still potential rather than actual. But the general drift is unmistakable, and every scientific discovery of recent years has accelerated it.

We were once told that the aeroplane had ‘abolished frontiers’; actually it is only since the aeroplane became a serious weapon that frontiers have become definitely impassable. The radio was once expected to promote international understanding and co-operation; it has turned out to be a means of insulating one nation from another. The atomic bomb may complete the process by robbing the exploited classes and peoples of all power to revolt, and at the same time putting the possessors of the bomb on a basis of military equality. Unable to conquer one another, they are likely to continue ruling the world between them, and it is difficult to see how the balance can be upset except by slow and unpredictable demographic changes.

For forty or fifty years past, Mr. H. G. Wells and others have been warning us that man is in danger of destroying himself with his own weapons, leaving the ants or some other gregarious species to take over. Anyone who has seen the ruined cities of Germany will find this notion at least thinkable. Nevertheless, looking at the world as a whole, the drift for many decades has been not towards anarchy but towards the reimposition of slavery. We may be heading not for general breakdown but for an epoch as horribly stable as the slave empires of antiquity. James Burnham's theory has been much discussed, but few people have yet considered its ideological implications — that is, the kind of world-view, the kind of beliefs, and the social structure that would probably prevail in a state which was at once unconquerable and in a permanent state of ‘cold war’ with its neighbors.

Had the atomic bomb turned out to be something as cheap and easily manufactured as a bicycle or an alarm clock, it might well have plunged us back into barbarism, but it might, on the other hand, have meant the end of national sovereignty and of the highly-centralised police state. If, as seems to be the case, it is a rare and costly object as difficult to produce as a battleship, it is likelier to put an end to large-scale wars at the cost of prolonging indefinitely a ‘peace that is no peace’.

1945

THE END

~ Note ~~~

This George Orwell piece was originally published by the Tribune on October 19, 1945 within two months after atomic bombs were dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan by the only country ever to have used them to kill people and destroy cities, viz., the U.S.A. Orwell had written enough about the same (re: A. Bomb) but this particular piece was exceptional for the insights it shared about the world dispensation that lay ahead in the age of atomic weaponry. In addition, it was clear that the groundwork for his novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four had been completed by this writing.

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George Orwell: ‘You and the Atomic Bomb’

First published: Tribune. — GB, London. — October 19, 1945.

Reprinted:

— ‘The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell’. — 1968.

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Machine-readable version: O. Dag

Last modified on: 2015-09-24

[Madlen Albright - Secretary of Hate]

‘Humanitary’ bombing of Yugoslavia

‘You and the Atomic Bomb’:

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