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PARTISAN REVIEW
whether the government has any serious intention of introducing So–
cialism, but if it has, I don't see what there is to stop it.
The
new~
of the Japanese surrender came in yesterday about lunch–
time, when I was in Fleet Street. There was quite a bit of jubilation in
the streets, and people in upstairs offices instantly began tearing up old
papers and throwing them out of the window. This idea occurred to
everyone simultaneously, and for a c-ouple of miles my bus travelled
through a rain of paper fragments which glittered in the sunlight as
they came down and littered the pavements ankle deep. It annoyed me
rather. In England you can't get paper to print books on, but apparently
there is always plenty of it for this kind of thing. Incidentally the British
War Office alone uses more paper than the whole of the book trade.
The prompt surrender of Japan seems to have altered people's out–
look on the atomic bomb. At the beginning everyone I spoke to about it,
or overheard in the street, was simply horrified. Now they begin to feel
that there's something to be said for a weapon that could end the war
in two days. Much speculation as to "whether the Russians have got it
too." Also, from some quarters, demands that Anglo-America should
hand over the secret of the bomb to Russia, which does seem to be
carrying trustfulness a bit far.
GEORGE ORWELL
