Essays in Humanism by Albert Einstein Read Free Book Online Page A

the genuine liberation of the colonies. With this purpose, the imperialists are resorting to the most diverse methods of military, political, economic and ideological warfare.
    It is in accordance with this social behest that the ideologians of imperialism are endeavoring to discredit the very idea of national sovereignty. One of the methods they resort to is the advocacy of pretentious plans for a “world state,” which will allegedly do away with imperialism, wars and national enmity, ensure the triumph of universal law, and so on.
    The predatory appetites of the imperialist forces that are striving for world supremacy are thus disguised under the garb of a pseudo-progressive idea which appeals to certain intellectuals—scientists, writers and others—in the capitalist countries.
    In an open letter which he addressed last September to the United Nations delegations, Dr. Einstein suggested a new scheme for limiting national sovereignty. He recommends that the General Assembly be reconstructed and converted into a permanently functioning world parliament endowed with greater authority than the Security Council, which, Einstein declares (repeating what the henchmen of American diplomacy are asserting day in and day out), is paralyzed by the veto right. The General Assembly, reconstructed in accordance with Dr. Einstein’s plan, is to have final powers of decision, and the principle of the unanimity of the Great Powers is to be abandoned.
    Einstein suggests that the delegates to the United Nations should be chosen by popular election and not appointed by their governments, as at present. At a first glance, this proposal may seem progressive and even radical. Actually, it will in no way improve the existing situation.
    Let us picture to ourselves what elections to such a “world parliament” would mean in practice.
    A large part of humanity still lives in colonial and dependent countries dominated by the governors, the troops, and the financial and industrial monopolies of a few imperialist powers. “Popular election” in such countries would in practice mean the appointment of delegates by the colonial administration or the military authorities. One does not have to go far for examples; one need only recall the parody of a referendum in Greece, which was carried out by her royalist-fascist rulers under the protection of British bayonets.
    But things would be not much better in the countries where universal suffrage formally exists. In the bourgeois-democratic countries, where capital dominates, the latter resorts to thousands of tricks and devices to turn universal suffrage and freedom of ballot into a farce. Einstein surely knows that in the last Congressional elections in the United States only 39 per cent of the electorate went to the polls; he surely knows that millions of Negroes in the Southern states are virtually deprived of the franchise, or are forced, not infrequently under threat of lynching, to vote for their bitterest enemies, such as the late arch-reactionary and Negrophobe, Senator Bilbo.
    Poll taxes, special tests and other devices are employed to rob millions of immigrants, migrant workers and poor farmers of the vote. We will not mention the widespread practice of purchasing votes, the role of the reactionary press, that powerful instrument for influencing the masses wielded by millionaire newspaper proprietors, and so forth.
    All this shows what popular elections to a world parliament, as suggested by Einstein, would amount to under existing conditions in the capitalist world. Its composition would be no better than the present composition of the General Assembly. It would be a distorted reflection of the real sentiments of the masses, of their desire and hope for lasting peace.
    As we know, in the General Assembly and the UN committees, the American delegation has a regular voting machine at its disposal, thanks to the fact that the overwhelming majority of the members of the UN are dependent on the