Why I don't usually bring it up, especially since I dont like fighting with Chinese comrades
there is no understanding 20th century history without an understanding of class struggle
this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2025
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I don't live in Japan, is it true that their history textbooks, education, and media keep the mentioning of the war crimes committed by Imperial Japan to a minimum? I hear it on Reddit, and I hear it from Vietnamese too.
Yes, very much so
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21226068
This is not surprising considering the fact that buerecrats in charge of the home ministry during the war, were subsequently moved to the education department after the general amnesty on war criminals, including one of the former home ministers being named the fifth minister of education (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigeo_%C5%8Cdachi)
What drove America to commit this atrocity was trying to one up Stalin. The Russians defeated the Germans and they were coming for the Japanese next. America couldn’t have Russia win the war on two fronts, it would give the commies too much moral authority, so they used the atom bomb to show the soviets their military capabilities whilst bringing the war to a close on Americas terms.
We can mourn the loss of Japanese civilians who were immolated to further American interests in their fight against communism, and we can also mourn the victims of imperial Japans cruelty and greed in China and elsewhere. It is understandable for the victims of Imperial Japans atrocities to wish vengeance on the Japanese but the people who died were (mainly) japan’s proletariat who shared more in common with the Chinese proletariat than they did with their imperial ruling class - I.e. maybe not the right people to seek vengeance against.
Yep. They did it because they heard the Japanese were trying to surrender and the USSR was about to be involved, and they refused to share the credit for victory.
250,000 dead civilians because the US wanted to be the sole victor instead of a joint one.
What drove America to commit this atrocity was trying to one up Stalin. The Russians defeated the Germans and they were coming for the Japanese next. America couldn’t have Russia win the war on two fronts, it would give the commies too much moral authority, so they used the atom bomb to show the soviets their military capabilities whilst bringing the war to a close on Americas terms.
that’s really horrifying, to think your government would do something like that for that reason??
It’s quite an interesting thought experiment to imagine what if Americas nuclear program was delayed by a year and it was the soviets who brought down and occupied Japan instead of the Americans.
What would the world look like today if japans industrial might was rebuilt in the soviets image, not americas. Would the USSR with Soviet Japan still be here?
I'd imagine that Korea would still be unified becuase the US would not have a jumping off point in Japan anymore.
Sounds like it would make a fucking sick comic book.
The US stated reasons are pretty horrific. Frankly, I believe the reason was, "Look what Japan made us do; don't make us do it to you!"
Ultimately, we're responsible for our own behavior.
Key, I think, is in emphasizing that opposing the nukes dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is not about putting down US imperialists in order to defend Japanese imperialists. It's about understanding the barbarity of US imperialism and also recognizing that certain kinds of acts of war are not acceptable on principle, no matter how barbaric the enemy has been; and perhaps more importantly, that being barbaric is not necessary to win a war.
One of the main historical arguments surrounding it is this idea of whether it was "necessary" to do it, in order to end the war. But not only does the historical evidence point to the war being all but over (and they did it anyway, in spite of not needing to), even setting that aside, the presumption of the USian argument for justification (the bogus argument that if they didn't do it, a ton of USian lives would have been lost in a land invasion) implies that US lives are worth more than Japanese lives; worse, it implies that US soldier lives are worth more than Japanese civilian lives. Even if you go with some "shared responsibility" genocidal-adjacent narrative that some horrible people were among those civilians, the argument still comes out with the implication that US lives are more valuable. The argument also assumes that if the bombs weren't used, US lives lost in a land invasion would have been the only way to end the war, which sounds ridiculous on a cursory inspection, that that was the only way to make it happen when they already had air power and had bombed over 20 cities?
It's worth noting that the USian narrative in defense of its bombings does not give a single shit about China or Chinese lives. The US was not trying to save China from Japanese imperialism and it has been trying to undermine communist China since the communists gained power. The US took over for Japan in brutalizing Korea and certainly would have done the same in China if they could have.
The one thing I'm not clear on is to what extent China had already liberated from Japanese imperialism before the US brutalized Japan. If the US's bombings of 20+ cities made it any easier on those efforts, or if they'd already more or less won at home too. Because if it did make it any easier on them indirectly, I could see why someone growing up in China and knowing the horrors inflicted on their people might have trouble viewing that indirect help as a bad thing. But if liberation had already been more or less done, then I'd think at that point, it's little more than vengeance to be in favor of it; but still would not be vengeance they actually inflicted and instead would be barbarity carried out by people who would gladly be racist against them too.
And that's not getting into the Soviet factor
If the Japanese weren't cooked in 1945, with their war on China, and the rest of East and Southeast Asia, uh the Soviets were there to extinguish Imperial Japanese forces in Manchukuo and Korea, joining the war shortly after wrapping the European front.
It's worth noting that the USian narrative in defense of its bombings does not give a single shit about China or Chinese lives. The US was not trying to save China from Japanese imperialism and it has been trying to undermine communist China since the communists gained power. The US took over for Japan in brutalizing Korea and certainly would have done the same in China if they could have.
It can be said, that as much as the Japanese were the target, U.S used the nuclear bomb to set an example to terrorize potential and contemporary rivals and allies alike, into submission, if not surrender. I think this includes the USSR, who was quickly gaining ground near or on Imperial Japan, albeit on a stretched scale.
Good points. Reminds me, I'm not sure to what extent it's been solidified as a historical argument, but I know there's a possibility the US did the nuclear bombings primarily as a means to ensure that Japan would surrender to the US on the US's terms, rather than Japan losing more directly to the USSR. In other words, it may have been less about "ending the war" and more about solidifying US regional power over Japan. IIRC, the argument goes something like that the USSR's invasion of Manchuria was imminent and the US knew this, so rather than risk that event resulting in Japan surrendering to the USSR, they dropped the bombs to end things as fast as possible on US terms.
Yeah this is one of those topics where you kinda just have to let it go. If someone wants to say "yeah those fuckin fascists deserved it!" it's just an argument born of emotion overpowering logic, which is a problem when analyzing events in the present and future, but not really a big deal when analyzing the past. People can be vindictive and irrational regarding shit that already happened, I don't care. As long as nobody's advocating for dropping any nukes today we're good.
(Seriously though dropping the nukes was one of the most horrific crimes ever committed)
The main issue with the U.S. nuking Japan is that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were rather pointless cities to get nuked. I'd be more okay if they nuked Tokyo to actually punish the Japanese imperialists living there, or firebombed the Japanese imperialists' vacation homes in the Japanese countryside.
Also, if China could glass the entirety of the United States and ensure the victory of global socialism, they should do it.
Nuking any city was pointless. Japan was no longer capable of waging war in any meaningful capacity.
And the US knew it. They already knew Japan was starting surrender negotiations
I think I get "exhausted" per se, with this specifically because I feel like some people not only get emotional, but also tend to "play god."
Like in the post, I'm reminded a lot of the god of the old testament. Where he looks upon Sodom and Gomorrah and wipes them out, or how the Egyptians were punished with plagues, darkness and death for their Pharoah's actions against the Jews. (Note: this isnt me accusing people of having a "Christian mindset" or something relating to this. This is just my own analogy)
This type of violence and destruction seems very appetizing for a reason. It's not like these tales of destruction are limited to the Bible. But I think it gets very metaphysical (if im using that term right, I hope). There was a good quote by Jacob Geller in a recent video of his. "The earth doesn't cry out for vengeance, it just cries." There's no law of equivalent exchange when it comes to this. And, as much as you might wish it, you're not god. You cannot free the proletariat by foisting plagues upon the empire's population.
And looking at it from a more material point of view, it's not like the nukes made Japan more remorseful, if anything they're less remorseful (although I'm sure they would've latched onto something else. It's not like the nazis are shutting up about Dresden or the Red Army "mass rapes" any time soon).
Like I said, I dont typically bring it up since it's either not novel at best and a fight starter at worst. I just don't get the logic of supporters usually, and my brain automatically wants to reconcile the problem
I don't think that nuclear bombings are significantly different from conventional bombings. Trying to separate them is useless.
Nukes are definitely distinct from conventional bombs. That doesn't mean conventional bombs are a-ok (you can be barbaric with them too by bombing civilians with them). It just means nukes are in a league of their own. The fallout alone I would say makes it closer to chemical warfare with how horrifying and long-lasting the effects of that can be.
The issue is you can conventionally bomb places with a very low civilian death rate, or go wild and kill many civilians. But with a nuke, you'll only ever do the latter.
Even when you factor in the fallout from a nuclear bombing?
Fallout from a nuclear bomb decays away very, very quickly. In 48 hours, it drops to 1% of the original radioactivity.^[https://remm.hhs.gov/nuclearfallout.htm]
That's why Hiroshima and Nagasaki are perfectly normal cities today.
In a nuclear war scenario, assuming you aren't in the glassing zone, just stay indoors for 2 days and you'll be fine.
Conventional bombing leaves behind a ton of toxic chemicals, so it is not as different.
Look, I have a mean futsal kick, but not close to a professional player. There are levels to it.
That said, and I might be misremembering, but I think the US army killed a lot more people with their incendiary bombings than with the two nuclear bombs.
it's possible but the nuclear bombs at the time were nothing compared to today's arsenal. They still destroyed an entire city and (most everyone) in it. Here's more modern bombs though:
That's also the thing with nuclear bombs, you can't run away or hide from them. You barely have time to see one before it hits, because they detonate far above the ground. your survival hinges entirely on luck and being kilometers away from the blast radius. 70,000 died from just one "tiny" bomb by today's standard. What if the US launched 3 Tridents? Or 5, or 10?
You can also visualize a detonation on this tool: https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
I wonder how far away and how many people would be affected by fall-out, today?
According to the map simulator the nuclear fallout only seems to happen at surface detonation with modern bombs. I couldn't tell you if it's accurate and what the science behind it is, but a bomb would most likely be detonated in the air to maximize casualties, it's just that much stronger.
The increased power of modern bombs actually causes less fallout because more of the fissile material is detonated by more efficient modern weapons.
I still don't think they're ok.
I can't begin to imagine, especially with weather variables, wind, rain, etc.