The Journals of Ayn Rand Read online

  For the last hundred years, the world has been going toward Statism, gradually, in one form or another. If Statism were the right principle, this would have made the general condition of mankind progressively better, in corresponding degree. Instead, it has made conditions progressively worse—under every form of Statism and no matter who held the power. We have not seen more general wealth and a rising standard of living throughout the world—but a growing poverty and now literal starvation. Not more freedom—but concentration camps and torture chambers. Not peace—but more wars, each more horrible than the last.

  Statism leads men to war because that is its nature. It is based on the principle of force, violence and compulsion. This means, on the principle of destruction. Statism cannot maintain itself because it kills the productive activities of its own subjects; therefore it cannot exist for long without looting some freer, more productive country. This is a fact demonstrated by world history. It is the Statist nations—the controlled nations, the nations of dictatorial government—that have always resorted to violence and caused wars. Statist Sparta against Athens. Statist Carthage against Rome. Statist Spain against England. Statist Napoleon against the whole of Europe. Statists Bismarck of Germany and Napoleon III of France, against each other. Statist Wilhelm II of Germany and Nicholas II of Russia who, between them, plunged the world into the First War.

  And now what about this last war? Who started it? The alliance of two dictators—Hitler and Stalin. Now observe a most significant point: the American-British strategy throughout the war was to destroy the production centers of the enemy and knock him out—because America and England were not after loot, they had nothing to gain by war, they were the productive nations and were merely defending themselves. Was that the strategy of Germany and Russia? No. While Germany was overrunning Europe, she was very careful to spare industrial centers, to seize them intact, and promptly loot machinery and entire factories for shipment into Germany. And Russia did precisely the same while occupying Germany—and is still doing it. If we want to know who and what leads the world to war, destruction, bloodshed and horror—isn’t the answer blatantly obvious in practical demonstration? Or are we still going to prattle like high-school boys about “capitalist greed” and “rich munitions-makers”?

  So long as Statism had only guns and dynamite with which to enslave men, mankind had a chance against it. After every havoc wrought in history by one dictatorship or another, mankind could still recover, rebuild and start over again. The destruction was partial and limited. But notice that with the improvements in the technology of weapons, each war left behind it more ruin than the one before. Now, with a weapon such as the atomic bomb and with a trend such as Statism in the world, there is no more chance left and our days are literally numbered—unless the trend is reversed.

  An atomic bomb is safe only in a free society—because a free society does not function through violence and does not cause wars. Such a weapon would be dangerous in the world at any time. At a time when most of mankind has embraced the faith of Statism—a world suicide is most surely ahead of us, unless men learn a different faith.

  The best sociological minds of this country say: “Mankind has just one more generation to exist. This is a final ultimatum to us. Now men must be free—or perish.”

  The horror and the responsibility in that statement is the fact that our generation will probably have a chance to muddle through irresponsibly to our normal graves—that we know it instinctively and so refuse to think about it too deeply. But our children will not survive. Nobody who is under twenty now will escape it. And it is we, now, who are going to blast them into bloody vapor—we, who will decide the issue by what we do and think—we, who’ll pass the sentence on them and throw them into a screaming horror—while we ourselves escape. This is what I, for one, will not have on my conscience. And I don’t see how anyone else can wish to have it [on his conscience].

  This is not a subject for quibbling or evasions. When we say “men must be free or perish,” let us be specific and honest about what “free” means. It means free from compulsion; it means free from rule by force; it means free from government control of enterprise.

  Since the issue of free enterprise versus Statism is so fundamental, since everything we do or say affects it, since every bit of propaganda relates to it—we cannot touch a subject such as the atomic bomb without knowing clearly where we stand. There is no fence to straddle here, no compromises, no neutrality, no appeasement policy possible. [...]

  The atomic bomb is now the focus of everybody’s sociological thinking. All people agree that mankind must reconsider its whole direction in a world that contains the atomic bomb. The question is: What direction?

  The Statists are already making propaganda capital out of the atomic bomb by yelling that now we must have a bigger and better Statism, a world slave state with a world totalitarian government—for the sake of harmony and peace. Well, this last is true: we must have peace or it will be the end for all of us. But harmony is not achieved by force. Brotherhood is not achieved by compulsion. Peace is not achieved by appeasement.

  Harmony, brotherhood and peace can be reached only voluntarily—or not at all. Only free men are peaceful men. When we need peace as desperately as now, we must have freedom.

  It is true that mankind must reverse its direction. But its direction has not been toward free enterprise. Its direction has been toward Statism. That is the trend which must be reversed.

  The world is still stunned by the atomic bomb and is groping desperately for some understanding of its significance. Therefore anything we say or hint or imply or suggest in a picture on this subject will have tremendous consequences in influencing the thinking of a muddled, confused, bewildered public.

  Let us realize and remember that the atomic bomb as an argument can be more powerful and destructive spiritually than it is as a weapon physically.

  To sum up, the crux of our responsibility in making the picture is this: (1) It is precisely because of the atomic bomb that the world must return to free enterprise; (2) The atomic bomb is a tremendously potent argument. If we use it as an argument for Statism—we will have blood on our hands. If we use it as an argument for free enterprise—we will make an inestimable contribution toward saving mankind; perhaps, a historic and immortal contribution.

  The whole history of the atomic bomb is an eloquent example of, argument for and tribute to free enterprise. It would be monstrous to disregard the lesson, to ignore it or to twist it into the exact opposite. We don’t have to attach artificial propaganda to the picture. We must let the facts speak for themselves. We must only present the truth. But we must present the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

  II. The Specific Problems of the Picture

  If our picture is to be a tribute to free enterprise, does it mean that we have to enter into a controversy and antagonize a lot of people? Not at all. Since we will treat the subject in a broad, philosophical manner, we will find everybody in agreement with us. We will present the issue in such a way that we will leave no room for argument and nobody will dare disagree with us, except the out-and-out Fascists and Communists.

  How do we do that? Very simply. By presenting the issue not in superficial, political terms—but in its deeper, essential terms. We state our theme like this: “Man’s greatest achievements are accomplished through free, voluntary action—and cannot be accomplished under force, compulsion and violence.”

  If we stick to this theme intelligently and consistently, who will want to disagree? In order to object, a person would have to admit that he is against freedom and in favor of violence.

  Do we touch on any political issue in the narrow sense of contemporary American politics? No. None of that is pertinent. We are not for or against Labor or Capital or Republicans or Democrats. We are presenting only a fundamental issue. If, after seeing our picture, the audience walks out with the conviction that personal freedom is desirable and that the use of force is neither good nor practical, that is all we want to accomplish, and it will be a great accomplishment.

  However, we cannot do this by merely tacking on a few cheap speeches about freedom, worded in such a general way that it can mean anything or nothing. Our theme must be explicit, clear-cut and expressed not in speeches, but in action. It must be integrated into the structure of our story.

  Do we have to attack our own government and criticize the New Deal? No. (So long as we don’t start glorifying the New Deal, either!) As far as I know without further research, our government seems to have behaved properly in regard to the atomic bomb. All we have to do is show the government’s actions factually, stressing that in this case it acted as a free country’s government should act: it did not use compulsion.

  But where we must express our theme full blast is in our treatment of the governments of the countries from which the scientists escaped. This is the heart of the real issue historically—and this is the crux of our theme. We must show how Statism destroys, exiles and paralyzes men of genius—why these men could not work under compulsion—why they could produce what they produced only in a free country. Will anyone object to our showing that dictatorships do things at the point of a gun, by force, by decree, by orders in the name of the State? A person who objects to that, deserves to have every returned soldier spit in his face.

  So much for our general approach to the subject. Now let us examine the particular key points.

  1. What made the creation of the atomic bomb possible?

  This is the most important question our picture has to answer.

  In presenting the strictly factual history of the bomb, we will not be able to avoid a slant of unintentional propaganda, one way or the other. The history of the bomb is long and complex. We c
annot literally present all the facts. We have to exercise choice in what we select to present, how we present it, what significance we attach to it, what meaning we convey. In order to present the truth, we must be able to distinguish the essential from the inessential. Any record can be falsified by omission of the essential and overstressing of the inessential. This is where we have to be careful.

  For instance: it is a fact that Roosevelt gave to the scientists the funds necessary for their experiments. How are we going to treat this point? If we show or imply that that was the crucial factor in the creation of the bomb, we throw at the world the most powerful piece of propaganda for Statism that could be devised. We tell the audience, in effect: “See what a strong government can do? Many people objected to Roosevelt’s arbitrary use of money for secret purposes—yet look what he gave you! The proper way to run the world and achieve the best results is for you common men to shut up, to trust a leader implicitly, to let your government decide for you and plan for you without your knowledge or consent.” This is what our audience will walk out of the theater with.

  Do we want to say that?

  Do we want to feature the superficial aspects of the case and release on the world a thousand converted Statists with each showing of the picture? Do we want—in presenting the greatest achievement of free enterprise—to make “a picture whose hero will be Roosevelt,” as I have heard suggested?

  If not, does it mean that we should falsify Roosevelt’s contribution? Certainly not. We must give him full and exact credit for the part he played. Not less than that—and not more.

  Here is the first point where clear and honest thinking is required: if it were true that the atomic bomb was an achievement of strong government—why didn’t Germany achieve it? Hitler’s government was much stronger than ours—if by “strong” we mean strong-arm, total control, dictatorial power, arbitrary use of money and resources. Hitler certainly wanted to find the secret of the atomic bomb—and he tried. He started preparing for war long before we did. He could and did throw the entire resources of his country into his war machine. What good did it do him? He did not get the atomic bomb.

  That is a fact. How do we treat it? If we ascribe it to sheer luck, just an accident of fate in our favor—if we say that Hitler could have got the bomb, that he was just on the verge of it, only we beat him to it—we miss the whole significance of the story of the atomic bomb. We are then committing a moral crime by falsifying a historical lesson of tremendous importance.

  There is no factual evidence to support the idea that Hitler was about to discover the bomb. There is plenty of evidence to the contrary. But here is what will happen if we accept that idea: we’ll be saying to the audience, in effect: “A totalitarian system is just as good and efficient as ours. Even more so. They can do anything we can. It was quite a feat for us to beat them.”

  Is that true?

  The fact is that Germany did not, could not and never would have created the atomic bomb; nor Italy; nor Russia.

  Is it an accident that since the beginning of the machine age, all the great, basic, epoch-making inventions and discoveries have come from America and England? Mostly from America, secondly from England—and with very few contributions from all the other countries. Why? Anglo-Saxon superiority? No. The inventors were of all races and nationalities. But they all had to work either in America or in England. The other countries then elaborated on the discoveries, worked out some details and variations, made minor improvements; but never produced anything crucially new, never made a discovery that was a turning point in science; nothing to compare with the steam engine, the electric light, the automobile, the airplane, the telephone, the telegraph, the motion picture, the radio. For God’s sake, can we ignore that? Are we going to say “sheer accident?” How many accidents of this nature do we need to be convinced? And if, through our own fault, an atomic bomb drops on us in a few years—are we going to say that was an accident, too?

  The simple fact is that invention, discovery, science and progress are possible only under a system of free enterprise. If you want to know why and how, in detail, please read Science and the Planned State by John R. Baker, a British scientist. It is a short book, recently published. It presents the whole case, with facts, names, dates, records, reasons and unanswerable proof.

  This is the crucial point of our approach to the picture. If we take the greatest invention of man and do not draw from it the lesson it contains—that only free men could have achieved it—we deserve to have an atomic bomb dropped on our heads.

  Now let us look at the history of the bomb in detail. If there is a God, it is almost as if He had staged it that way on purpose—to give us an object lesson.

  Some of the key figures in the development of the bomb were [Albert] Einstein, [Niels] Bohr and [Enrico] Fermi. They had to flee from Germany, Denmark and Italy. The Statist dictators had these men and had the knowledge of their original discoveries. And it did not do the dictators any good. These scientists laid the foundations of their future achievements in their own countries. But they could not continue to work there. They had to escape to a free country.

  Then there is Dr. Lise Meitner who made her first important experiments right in Nazi Germany—and had to escape. Her colleagues who remained behind, Hahn and Strassman, continued the work and got no results. She continued the work in a free country—and got results. There are many, many other refugees from dictatorships among the scientists who contributed to the atomic bomb. The object lesson is eloquent.

  How are we going to treat it? Are we going to say that these refugees were victims of racial prejudice? That is not an explanation. Racial prejudice was a symptom, not a cause; a manifestation of Statism, not its basic essence. Racial prejudice as such does not cause exiles and concentration camps; it can’t; it does not rule society; it remains the province of bums and the lunatic fringe. It is only when racial prejudice acquires political power, only when it establishes a system of Statism where man’s individual dignity and individual rights are destroyed, only then can it actually start to shed blood. Without individual rights, there are no minority rights; without minority rights there are no majority rights either. And an individual is the smallest minority on earth.

  To say that Einstein and Lise Meitner were thrown out of Germany on account of racial prejudice is the truth—but not the whole truth. It was racial prejudice armed with State power. And what about Fermi and the others? There was no racial prejudice involved in their cases.

  The whole truth is that no achievements can be made under a Statist system because: (1) Statists always throttle and destroy the ablest men among their subjects because Statist systems are based on blind obedience; men of ability are dangerous, independent and not easily ruled; (2) Even when a few men of ability survive in a Statist system and are begged or ordered to produce—they cannot produce because they cannot work under orders, controls and compulsion. Nothing new and great can be or ever has been done that way. (See Science and the Planned State. See the whole of history. Try to name one exception.)

  That is the point our picture must make. That is the lesson of the atomic bomb. That is the greatest glory of America, its noblest distinction and its highest pride. And if anyone objects to our saying that, he does not deserve the name of a human being.

  2. The actual history of the atomic bomb

  To tell the whole truth about the atomic bomb means to show the entire process of its creation, at least in highlights and key-points.

  This is essential to our theme and to historical accuracy. Furthermore, it has the value of great public interest. The public is eager to know just what the atomic bomb really is and how men made such a discovery. Therefore we must tell our story from the beginning.