Sold – Albert Einstein Condemns Superstition and Exploitation

Einstein had for decades been a pacifist, and had joined with Indian leader Mahatma Ghandi in a joint declaration against conscription in 1925. However, his pacifism could not survive the obvious necessity to go to war to defeat Naziism and Fascism in World War II. After the war Einstein could neither return to pacifism nor embrace its opposite, but struck a middle position, fervently advocating disarmament, international cooperation and renouncing of military solutions to international problems. If peaceful methods of problem solving could not prevail and the Cold War erupted into a third world war, then he predicted that the fourth world war will be fought with stick and stones by our descendants, that is, if anyone survived the preceding nuclear exchange. These and similar positions placed him outside the American mainstream at the time, but brought him international approval from such like-minded world leaders as Jawaharlal Nehru. In 1946, Nehru’s greatest book, Discovery of India, was published. In it he assessed the problems India faced in combatting such deep-seated ills as poverty and the caste system, and attacked popular religion, ceremony, superstition and priest-craft.

All of this appealed very much to Einstein, who was firmly against ignorance and superstition of every kind, and had said that any “belief that did not itself rest on knowledge was superstition, and as such had to be opposed.” Einstein wrote Nehru praising the work, saying “I have read with extreme interest your marvellous book…” In 1949 Nehru visited Einstein and paid him homage from the Indian people. This visit strengthened the Prime Minister’s nonaligned policy and his resolve to avoid being drawn into the sphere of influence of either the eastern or western powers, but to serve as a buffer between them and promote peace. As late in Einstein’s life as 1954, he supported Nehru’s plan to secure a moratorium on nuclear testing.

Einstein saw America as a citadel of liberty and democracy, and was grateful to have been so warmly welcomed. He said, “I would rather live here than anywhere else in the world.” Despite his anti-military feelings and the disapproval of some in the scientific community, he wrote his famous letter to Pres. Roosevelt about the potential of nuclear energy in the construction of powerful bombs (which was as patriotic a letter as has ever been written to an American president). However, during the last decade of his life, Einstein came to feel that capitalism as practiced in the U.S. was detrimental, in that it damaged the educational system by making financial success the main goal. “An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student,” he said. Beliefs such as this were considered left-wing (no small problem in post-war America), and coupled with his well known opposition to the arms race and nationalistic attitudes, they caused J. Edgar Hoover’s F.B.I. to target him in the late 1940’s. Then, in 1950, the Korean War broke out and with it the witch-hunting McCarthy era. Einstein began to fear that the U.S. would become a fascist state, restricting civil liberties and supporting dictatorships around the world.

Albert Einstein Autograph Letter Signed, one page 8vo, in German, to Rudolf Ehrman, who had been his physician in Berlin and who emigrated to America before World War II. In Einstein’s last years, Ehrmann was once again one of the doctors treating him. Although the letter is not dated, and could possibly have been written at any new year from 1947-1953, we would conjecture that it was penned in January 1950. At that time, Nehru’s visit was fresh in Einstein’s mind, and although dissolutionment with the direction the U.S. seemed to be heading had set in, it was not as marked as it would became after the outbreak of the Korean War. “Best wishes for the New Year and many thanks for all the attention. The book is surely very interesting. It will make it ever clearer that the unequalled Nehru doesn’t have an easy job, to clean the country from bloodsuckers and superstitution, when one cannot count on the support of the rabble. In this sense our lot is easier, as we can restrain ourselves by complaining (which I, at least, put to good use).”

The letter has important political as well as philosophical implications, in that in condemning bloodsuckers, he is making a political judgment about those who exploit the people, while in attacking superstition, he is confirming a scientific opinion that truth rests on knowledge rather than belief. Looking at the specific content, it shows how much Einstein admired Nehru, and appreciated the enormous difficulties he faced as the first prime minister of India. It also manifests his disdain for superstition and priest-craft, and the lamentable inclination of the “rabble” to be led by demogogues and religious fanatics into all the wrong attitudes and positions. He had, of course, seen this in Germany, and now feared it in Amercia. In India, it revealed itself in dogged adherence to the caste system and acceptance of poverty and lack of education as an unalterable part of life. Einstein ends by saying that whereas Nehru faced the necessity of overcoming entrenched beliefs widely held by the Indian people, in America the task of combatting “bloodsuckers and superstition” was easier; so much so that making his opinions known by complaining seemed sufficient. Einstein rarely included such direct, “plain-speaking” attacks on the evils of the world in his correspondence, but apparently felt able to do so because the recipient was an old friend and confidant. A very interesting and enlightening letter.