[Marxism] Refuting the "anti-revisionists" on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Here in the UK, Oliver Kamm, a blogger and occasional newspaper 
columnist, has written about the above issues from an anti-revisionist 
perspective. In a Guardian comment piece on the 62nd anniversary of the 
atomic bombing of Hiroshima, he claimed that "New historical research 
[.] lends powerful support to the traditionalist interpretation of the 
decision to drop the bomb." While acknowledging the terrible nature of 
the bombing, he claimed that there is "a high degree of probability that 
abjuring the bomb would have caused greater suffering still."[19] This, 
to say the least, is a highly contentious assertion.[20]

Kamm has written at length about the end of the Pacific war in his blog, 
citing anti-revisionist historians such as Robert Maddox, Robert Newman, 
Sadao Asada and D. M. Giangreco.[21] Giangreco is a military historian 
based at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort 
Leavenworth, Kansas. He is an advocate of the "high-estimate casualties" 
thesis: the argument that hundreds of thousands, perhaps more than a 
million, U.S. lives would have been lost in Operation Olympic, the 
invasion of Japan that was scheduled for November 1, 1945. Kamm adheres 
to the orthodox/anti-revisionist script that the two atomic bombs were 
necessary to bring about Japan's surrender, citing a Japanese historian 
at Doshisho University in Kyoto:

"Sadao Asada has shown from primary sources that the dropping of both 
bombs was crucial in strengthening the position of those within the 
Japanese  Government who wished to sue for peace."

I contacted Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, author of 'Racing the Enemy', and pointed 
out the above arguments. Referring to several anti-revisionist 
historians, and to Kamm, Hasegawa responded:

"I am familiar with the criticisms raised by Giangreco, Asada, Newman, 
and Kamm. I would also add Michael Kort in the same category. Their line 
of arguments are very similar."

Not only are they similar, but they have been refuted by serious 
historians including Bernstein, Alperovitz and Hasegawa himself. 
Significantly, Hasegawa notes that Giangreco, Newman, Kamm and Kort do 
not read Japanese, and therefore have to "rely exclusively on Asada to 
make their judgement on the crucial question: how the atomic bombings 
and the Soviet entry influence[d] the Japanese decision to surrender."[22]

http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/16231

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