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| Volume 56 Number 24, August 8, 2026 | ARCHIVE | HOME | JBCENTRE | SUBSCRIBE |
Nihon Hidankyo, the Japan Confederation of A-and H-Bomb
Sufferers Organisations and other organisations, protesting
in front of Japan's Diet after Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi criticised her
country's traditional policy against nuclear
weapons, November 21, 2025
When the US imperialists deliberately dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, these were horrendous crimes against humanity, that intentionally caused mass destruction of human populations. These criminal acts for the narrow self-serving aims of the US - done on the orders of the president alone - set the pattern of impunity and use of executive police powers, widely evident today inside and outside of the US. To stop the advance of the peoples' struggles for peace, freedom and democracy, the US fashioned the Cold War on the basis of racist, anti-communist and anti-worker ideology. The US developed an Anglo-American crusade against communism, the Soviet Union, People's Democracies and to counter the national liberation movements in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not chosen because they had any military significance. Hiroshima was considered a good target because it had not been previously bombed and thus would provide a clear demonstration of the devastating power of the atomic bomb which had never been used before.
The original target for the second bomb was Kokura, but it was clouded over, so the secondary target, Nagasaki, was bombed instead. The bombing of Nagasaki three days after Hiroshima was also intended to test the effects of a plutonium bomb as compared to the uranium bomb used at Hiroshima. This partly explains why the US rushed to execute the second horrific crime against humanity only three days after the first - it wanted to test both types of bombs before a Japanese surrender and establish its military hegemony in the region.
The criminal bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were carried out not to end the war as the US claims, as if this would justify such an act of mass terror, but to threaten the peoples of the world with nuclear annihilation if they did not accept US imperialist dictate and hegemony. In particular, it was aimed at the peoples of the Soviet Union and to serve US plans to establish permanent military bases in Japan and attempt to militarily dominate Asia. The peoples of the Soviet Union played the leading role in the defeat of Nazi fascism, at the cost of some 27 million lives. The Chinese people also suffered terribly at the hands of the Japanese militarists, as did the Korean people and peoples of the regions occupied or annexed by the Empire of Japan until 1945.
In opposition to a world united against fascism and war, the heinous crimes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki left no doubt that US imperialism had taken up the Nazi aim to defeat communism and establish its domination over the whole world.
August 6 and 9 are now days when peoples worldwide commemorate those who were slaughtered in these horrendous acts of terrorism by the US. On these days the peoples of the world say Never Again! to such crimes against humanity and reaffirm the demand to end the use of force to sort out conflicts between countries.
Current threats to use pre-emptive nuclear strikes or to retaliate against those declared to be enemies by using nuclear weapons, are part of the outlook that Might Makes Right, and that there is no greater might than the vast arsenal of nuclear weapons in the hands of the nuclear powers. This is the militaristic outlook of the US/NATO alliance and its doctrine of "peace through strength" which was also the outlook of the Nazis. All of it is aimed at terrorising the peoples and block them from seizing the initiative by waging the resistance struggle to advance their own agenda for peace, freedom and democracy.
Far from working to rid the world of nuclear weapons, the US and other big powers, along with NATO members including Britain, are engaged in the militarisation of all of life, putting more and more money into the production of the most modern weapons, in an effort to secure military superiority. Their states are being restructured to permit the broader use of military powers even against their own populations in times of peace.
Of great concern at this time is that the imperialist countries have armed Israel with the most lethal weapons of mass destruction in aid of the Zionist entity's continued occupation of Palestine and genocide of the Palestinian people in the occupied territories. Not only the US but France, Germany, Britain and even Norway secretly sold Israel the material and expertise to make nuclear warheads, or turned a blind eye to its theft. The imperialist powers continue to deny that they have armed the Zionists with nuclear weapons, while they threaten Iran and declare it does not have the right to develop nuclear power for peaceful purposes.
Similarly, the US has permanently stationed its troops in south Korea in violation of the armistice agreement reached at the end of the Korean War, and has installed nuclear warheads on the Korean Peninsula aimed at the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). It carries out annual nuclear war games to threaten the DPRK, including computer-simulated exercises for the invasion of the DPRK. When the DPRK was forced to take measures to deter the US by itself acquiring nuclear weapons, the US engineered further threats and sanctions, unjustly accusing the DPRK of being responsible for the tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
The threat of Armageddon conjures up the day of reckoning in an alleged battle of humankind between good and evil when the world will end with the exception of a few chosen people. All of it is to spread profound fear among the people and get them to give up their striving for peace, freedom and democracy by fighting for their own empowerment and instead reduce their struggle to demands to ban the bomb. This has never succeeded in getting the peoples of the world to give up their resistance struggles which affirm their right to be.
Humanity's fight to rid the world of nuclear weapons and defeat the US imperialist dictate requires stepping up the struggle to uphold the sovereignty and independence of all nations, and the elimination of the threat or use of force to settle conflicts. It also necessitates that the working class and people organise to build a People's Front against War, and demand the government reject the use of force as a means of settling conflicts between nations and peoples, and withdraw from all aggressive military blocs and treaties such as NATO.
On the occasion of the anniversary of the nuclear bombings, all peace and justice-loving people in Britain and internationally pay their deepest respects to the Japanese victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to the Palestinian people and all peoples the world over who have suffered and continue to suffer as a result of imperialist dictate.
The criminal Anglo-American imperialist system can and will be ended by the peoples' resistance and unity in action of all the fighting peoples of the world to establish a new world based on peace, justice, and dignity for all nations and peoples.
No More Hiroshimas and Nagasakis!
No to the Use of Force to Settle Conflicts between Nations!
Dismantle NATO!
All Out to Build the People's Front against War and Organise an Anti-War
Government!
(Based on an article published by the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist))