Frédéric Joliot-Curie—An Outstanding Scientist, an Ardent Fighter for Peace

(On the Fiftieth Anniversary of His Birth)

On March 19, 1950, fifty years had passed since the birth of Frédéric Jean Joliot-Curie, one of the most remarkable scientists in the world, a brilliant experimental physicist, a full member of the Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Medicine of France, a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, chairman of the Permanent Committee of the World Congress of Partisans of Peace, and president of the France–USSR Society.

The life path of Frédéric Joliot-Curie is a splendid example of service to science in the highest sense of the word. Frédéric Joliot-Curie was never an armchair scientist, cut off from life, alien to political questions, standing aside from the struggle of his people for freedom and independence, for peace, and for a better future. Working in one of the most complex fields of modern physics—the field of the atomic nucleus—he made many fundamental discoveries. He trained an entire scientific school of French physicists. Yet the direction of extensive research work did not prevent Frédéric Joliot-Curie from becoming an outstanding political figure in France and in the international movement of partisans of peace, a man who enjoys the great love of the peoples of all countries of the world.

The son of a participant in the Paris Commune, who was repeatedly persecuted for revolutionary activity, Frédéric Joliot-Curie was brought up in the spirit of the revolutionary traditions of the French working class. After graduating from an institution of higher learning, he worked as an engineer at a metallurgical plant in Luxembourg. Living among workers, he understood that it was they who constituted the force that must lead his country to a free and happy life and deliver it from capitalist exploitation. Even before the Second World War he joined the Popular Front and firmly linked his destiny

with the most progressive forces of France, joining the ranks of the members of the French Communist Party.

Frédéric Joliot-Curie was the beloved pupil of the great French scientist and patriot Paul Langevin. Until the last days of Langevin’s life they remained close friends. They were united not only by a commonality of scientific views, but also by a unity of political ideas. Langevin called his pupil “the glory of France.”

Frédéric Joliot-Curie’s scientific work is exceptionally fruitful. We shall dwell only on some of the most important discoveries made by him in the field of nuclear physics. It must be noted that the majority of the works carried out by Frédéric Joliot-Curie were done by him in collaboration with his wife, his comrade in labor and companion in life, Irène Joliot-Curie (the daughter of Marie Curie-Skłodowska), who with full right shares with him the well-deserved fame and respect of scientists throughout the world. Like her husband, Irène Joliot-Curie is a well-known progressive public figure.

Joliot-Curie began work in the field of nuclear physics in 1928. At that time, at the head of the French scientists engaged in the study of the atomic nucleus stood Marie Curie-Skłodowska—an émigrée from the milieu of the progressive Polish intelligentsia, a remarkable woman scientist who inscribed immortal pages in the history of science. Marie Curie-Skłodowska was Frédéric Joliot-Curie’s second great teacher. As a special assistant in her laboratory, he became interested in the nuclear reactions that occur when the nuclei of light elements (standing at the beginning of D. I. Mendeleev’s periodic system) are irradiated with polonium $\alpha$-particles. Together with Irène Joliot-Curie he obtained a source of $\alpha$-particles powerful for that time—a polonium preparation of 150 millicuries—and with the aid of this source began a systematic study of nuclear reactions in light elements.

By that time about 9 years had already passed since, in 1919, Rutherford had first succeeded in carrying out a nuclear reaction by bombarding nitrogen with $\alpha$-particles emitted by radium C′. As is known, he observed the transformation of nitrogen nuclei into oxygen nuclei:

\[ {}_{7}\mathrm{N}^{14} + {}_{2}\mathrm{He}^{4} = {}_{8}\mathrm{O}^{17} + {}_{1}\mathrm{H}^{1}. \]

Confirmation that the reaction had taken place in the work of Rutherford and his pupils was provided by the appearance of protons which, striking a zinc sulfide screen, caused the screen to glow. It was soon established that, under bombardment by $\alpha$-particles, nuclear reactions could be obtained in most light nuclei situated in the periodic system no farther than potassium. At the same time, even among elements lighter than potassium, disintegration was not observed in helium,

lithium, beryllium, carbon, and oxygen. Alpha particles could not produce the splitting of the nuclei of heavier elements because, as the atomic number of an element in the periodic system increases, the charge of the nucleus also increases, and together with the charge there grow the repulsive forces between the nucleus and the $\alpha$-particle incident upon it. This repulsion not only limited the ability of $\alpha$-particles to split the nuclei of various elements, but in each individual case made the splitting extremely improbable; thus, for example, when aluminum is bombarded with 1,000,000 $\alpha$-particles, 7–8 disintegrations are observed. Thus, $\alpha$-particles were extremely ineffective and weak projectiles of nuclear physics. It is not surprising that for a whole decade, until a new type of nuclear projectile was discovered, nuclear physics had no great successes.

In 1930 Bothe and Becker carried out an experiment whose purpose was to establish whether, when various light substances were irradiated with $\alpha$-particles, any other particles besides protons arose. Since at that time physicists knew only electrons and $\gamma$-rays, Bothe and Becker replaced the zinc-sulfide screen with a Geiger–Müller counter registering electrons and $\gamma$-quanta, and as the source of $\alpha$-particles they took polonium, which emitted neither electrons nor $\gamma$-rays. Under the action of $\alpha$-particles on beryllium, lithium, and boron (the first two elements had previously been considered non-disintegrable), the counter registered radiation. Since the penetrating power of this radiation proved to be very great, Bothe and Becker decided that they had discovered $\gamma$-rays arising from the capture of $\alpha$-particles by the nuclei of the bombarded substances. The formation of $\gamma$-rays occurred most intensely in beryllium; their energy was estimated at 7 MeV.

Taking advantage of a powerful source of polonium $\alpha$-particles, Frédéric and Irène Joliot-Curie in 1932 used, for the registration of the “beryllium radiation,” an ionization chamber, which made it possible to measure directly the ionization produced by this radiation. As was to be expected, the ionization was very small, but, continuing the experiments, the Joliot-Curie spouses discovered a new property of this radiation, one that proved decisive for understanding its nature. Placing paraffin, cellophane, paper, or other hydrogen-containing substances in the path of the radiation, or filling the ionization chamber with helium, they found a noticeable increase in ionization. Investigating this phenomenon, the Joliot-Curie spouses established that absorption of the “beryllium radiation” occurs by the knocking out of light nuclei from the substances containing them (for example, hydrogen nuclei from paraffin, cellophane, etc.). The existence of the phenomenon of the ejection of light nuclei was confirmed by them through direct measurements in a Wilson chamber. Having measured the range of the ejected protons, they found that if the nature of the “beryllium ...”

of radiation” is identical to γ-radiation, then the energy of the γ-quanta of “beryllium radiation” is equal to 55 MeV.

Such a discrepancy in the values of the energy determined by different methods could be explained only on the assumption that the nature of “beryllium radiation” differs from γ-rays. Thus the experiments of Joliot-Curie created all the necessary experimental prerequisites for the discovery of new elementary particles—neutrons. These particles were soon discovered by Chadwick, who repeated the Joliot-Curie experiments, but not with hydrogen, rather with nitrogen and argon, and by a simple calculation showed that all the contradictions disappear if one assumes that “beryllium radiation” consists not of γ-quanta, but of particles with a mass close to that of the proton, but without electric charge.

It is difficult to overestimate the significance of this discovery. It gave physicists a powerful means for nuclear transformations: the neutron, deprived of electric charge, does not expend energy on interaction with the electrons of the atoms of the substances through which it passes (and it is precisely in this way that most α-particles lose their energy); moreover, it is not repelled by the electric charge of nuclei and can penetrate into them with even the most insignificant energy. Therefore neutrons are exceptionally effective projectiles of nuclear physics. Along with protons, neutrons proved to be a constituent part of all nuclei, and their discovery enabled the Soviet physicist D. D. Ivanenko to create the concept of the proton-neutron structure of the nucleus, which lies at the basis of modern nuclear physics. It may be boldly said that the further development of nuclear physics, up to the discovery of the transuranium elements, the fission of nuclei, and the realization of a chain process, became possible only thanks to the discovery of neutrons.

Continuing the investigation of various reactions leading to the formation of neutrons, Frédéric and Irène Joliot-Curie soon made yet another remarkable discovery. At the beginning of 1934 they published in the Reports of the French Academy of Sciences a short note in which they described experiments proving the emergence of radioactive nuclei from ordinary stable elements: boron, magnesium, and aluminum. These experiments marked the beginning of a new era in the history of radioactivity.

The ability of certain heavy elements, standing at the end of the periodic system, spontaneously to emit α- and β-particles and γ-rays, called radioactivity, had been discovered as early as 1896 by Joliot-Curie’s compatriot Henri Becquerel and studied in detail by Marie Curie-Skłodowska and Pierre Curie, who by persistent labor succeeded in isolating two new radioactive elements: polonium (named in honor of Poland, the homeland of Marie Curie-Skłodowska) and radium. The study of radioactivity showed that this phenomenon consists in the transformation of heavy elements into more

light elements, accompanied by the emission of helium nuclei and the appearance of electrons and \(\gamma\)-rays. All attempts to exert any influence on the character of the radioactive transformation and on its rate proved fruitless. Neither temperature nor pressure, neither electric nor magnetic fields, nor chemical reagents could alter the properties of radioactive substances.

The discovery of radioactivity brought about a revolutionary upheaval in science. At the same time it became the first chapter of nuclear physics. And now, almost forty years later, it turned out that radioactivity can be artificially created by man, and moreover in elements situated at the opposite end of the periodic system. Furthermore, it turned out that the radiation of artificially radioactive elements consists neither of \(\alpha\)- nor \(\beta\)-particles, nor of \(\gamma\)-rays, but of positrons, which had been discovered shortly before in cosmic rays and had not yet been observed by anyone under laboratory conditions.

The history of this discovery is as follows: investigating which substances, under the action of \(\alpha\)-particles, can emit neutrons, the Joliot-Curies discovered the emission of neutrons by aluminium. It was known to them that aluminium, bombarded with \(\alpha\)-particles, emits protons in accordance with the reaction

\[ {}_{13}\mathrm{Al}^{27}+{}_{2}\mathrm{He}^{4}={}_{14}\mathrm{Si}^{30}+{}_{1}\mathrm{H}^{1}. \]

Since there exists only a single isotope of aluminium, \({}_{13}\mathrm{Al}^{27}\), the emission of neutrons under the action of \(\alpha\)-particles had to occur with its participation. Consequently, it followed that different particles could fly out from nuclei of one and the same kind. Studying the transformations of aluminium nuclei with the aid of a Wilson chamber, the Joliot-Curies noticed, alongside the tracks of protons, thin lines resembling the tracks of electrons (neutrons usually leave no tracks in a Wilson chamber). To determine the nature of the particles leaving these tracks, Joliot-Curie carried out an analysis by the method proposed by the Soviet physicist D. V. Skobeltsyn: the chamber was placed in a magnetic field, and since the tracks of these particles bent in the direction corresponding to a positive charge, it became evident that these particles were positrons. The appearance of neutrons and positrons was also detected in magnesium and boron.

Continuing to study these transformations, the Joliot-Curies found that the appearance of positrons also occurs after the bombardment by \(\alpha\)-particles has ceased, and moreover the intensity of the positron radiation decreases according to the same law as in natural radioactive elements. From this it followed that the products of reactions occurring under the action of \(\alpha\)-particles and accompanied by the emission of neutrons are radioactive. Thus, for example, to explain the processes occurring in boron, Joliot-

The Curies proposed the following reaction scheme:

\[ {}_{5}\mathrm{B}^{10}+{}_{2}\mathrm{He}^{4}={}_{7}\mathrm{N}^{13}+{}_{0}\mathrm{n}^{1} \quad \text{(instantaneous reaction),} \]

\[ {}_{7}\mathrm{N}^{13}={}_{6}\mathrm{C}^{13}+\mathrm{e}^{+} \quad \text{(slow reaction).} \]

The radioactive product formed in this reaction is “radio-nitrogen,” \({}_{7}\mathrm{N}^{13}\).

Since the half-lives in all three cases were sufficiently long (for example, for boron—14 min.), Frédéric and Irène Joliot-Curie were able to confirm the correctness of the reaction schemes they had proposed by an exceptionally simple and ingenious method. The number of atoms of the radioactive element arising in a nuclear reaction is very small and inaccessible to direct detection by methods of chemical analysis. However, if we suppose that the given artificially radioactive substance is, for example, phosphorus, then, by adding to it a sufficient quantity of ordinary phosphorus and then carrying out various chemical manipulations, we may expect that the “radiophosphorus” will always follow the ordinary phosphorus, since chemically they are completely identical. Detecting the presence of the “radiophosphorus” is not difficult, since, by emitting positrons, it itself “reports” its location. The experiments carried out by the Joliot-Curies using this method confirmed the existence of “radio-nitrogen,” “radiophosphorus,” and “radiosilicon,” and at the same time the validity of the nuclear-reaction schemes they had proposed.

Whereas before the discovery of artificial radioactivity radioactive substances occupied only a few boxes at the end of the periodic system, following the work of the Joliot-Curies radioactivity “spread” throughout the entire periodic system; moreover, the number of new “radioelements” is continuously increasing, and along with it our knowledge of the structure and properties of atomic nuclei is also growing. With the discovery of artificial radioactivity, enormous possibilities for various practical applications opened up before nuclear physics (the “tracer atom method”*), only partially realized in biology—for the study of various forms of metabolism in organic nature; in medicine—for local methods of analysis and treatment of various malignant tumors; in industry—for the study of the rates of various processes, etc. For this outstanding discovery Frédéric and Irène Joliot-Curie were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935.

A remarkable quality inherent in Frédéric Joliot-Curie is the ability to have a real sense of the prospects of modern

* See, for example, G. M. Frank, “The Application of Artificially Radioactive Substances in Biology and Medicine,” UFN, XXV, p. 79 (1941).

science. Thus, for example, already in 1935 he was one of the first to express the idea of the possibility of the practical use of the energy contained in atomic nuclei by carrying out a chain nuclear reaction. In a speech delivered on December 12, 1935, in Stockholm on the occasion of the award to him of the Nobel Prize, Joliot-Curie made the following remarkable prediction:

“If we look back, into the past, and cast our eyes over the ever-accelerating advance of continuous scientific progress, we shall be entitled to conclude that researchers who have learned to split and create elements at their own discretion will subsequently be able to carry out such transformations of matter of an explosive type as will be analogous to chain chemical reactions.

If it proves possible to carry out such transformations, then one may suppose that in the process an enormous quantity of energy will be released, which can be used.”

The same idea, but in an even more developed form, he expressed in his well-known lecture delivered in 1936 at the Moscow Order of Lenin State University named after M. V. Lomonosov. Here is what Paul Langevin wrote on this subject in his book L’Ère des Transmutations, published in 1945:

“Before the war Joliot-Curie had already foreseen the possibility of creating thermal power stations of 300,000 kilowatts each, consuming as fuel only one ton of uranium per year instead of the three million tons of coal or oil consumed by modern steam turbines.”

Frédéric Joliot-Curie’s subsequent work played an enormous role in the practical realization of the problem he had posed—the use of intra-atomic energy. Having no opportunity to consider these works in any detail, although they are of exceptional interest, we shall dwell on only two of them, those most closely connected with the discovery of the fission of uranium and thorium nuclei.

After Fermi had shown that, when uranium is irradiated with neutrons, several new radioactive transformations appear, with different half-lives, and Hahn, Meitner, and Strassmann had drawn up schemes of radioactive transformations that were to describe the paths by which new “transuranic” elements were formed, it seemed that the nature of the processes occurring in uranium when it was bombarded by neutrons had been understood. According to these schemes, the uranium nucleus, having absorbed a neutron, undergoes several successive β-transformations, leading to the formation of elements with atomic numbers 93, 94, and 95. There was as yet no question of any fission of uranium nuclei. But then in Joliot-Curie’s laboratory, Irène Joliot-Curie and Savić repeated the investigations with the irradiation of uranium by neutrons and in doing so found a new radioactive decay with a period of 3.5 hours, which had escaped the attention

of earlier researchers. Analysis of the nature of the radioactive substance decaying with this period convincingly showed that it did not belong to any of the heavy elements, but was lanthanum, element No. 57, located in the middle of Mendeleev’s periodic system. Obviously, this discovery contained everything necessary to substantiate the hypothesis of the fission of uranium nuclei, since there was no other way to explain the formation of lanthanum when uranium was irradiated with neutrons.

As soon as this hypothesis had been put forward, Meitner and Joliot-Curie carried out an experiment confirming the fission of the nuclei of uranium and thorium. The idea of the experiment was that, if nuclear fission really exists, then the fragments formed, possessing an excess number of neutrons in comparison with stable nuclei and therefore capable of $\beta$-transformations, must fly apart in opposite directions with enormous kinetic energy. The experiment itself was set up as follows: a brass cylinder, inside which a neutron source was placed, was covered on the outside with a thin layer of uranium oxide. Coaxially with the brass cylinder there was a bakelite cylinder of larger radius, so that the gap between the two cylinders was 3 mm. Neither uranium nor neutrons separately activated the bakelite, but after the neutrons had acted on the uranium for some time, the inner surface of the bakelite cylinder, facing the uranium oxide, proved to be $\beta$-active. Obviously, the $\beta$-activity arose from fragment nuclei that flew out at the moment of fission from the layer of uranium oxide and settled on the bakelite. By placing thin cylindrical screens in the gap, Joliot-Curie also determined the range of the fragments. Analogous experiments confirmed the existence of nuclear fission also in thorium.

Following these works, Joliot-Curie began to investigate the ways in which a chain reaction in uranium could be carried out. The Hitlerite occupation of France temporarily interrupted these investigations.

The far from complete review presented here of the scientific achievements of which Frédéric Joliot-Curie was the author testifies that he succeeded in creating important links in the long chain of investigations by scientists of many countries leading to the modern achievements of the physics of the atomic nucleus. In the light of his scientific achievements (not to mention the achievements of scientists of other countries, including our Soviet scientists), the absurdity and awkwardness of the Americans’ attempt to ascribe to themselves the discovery of the secret of obtaining nuclear energy stands out with complete obviousness.

In the difficult years for France of the Hitlerite occupation, the image of this remarkable man was revealed in a new way. Frédéric Joliot-Curie had every opportunity to leave his country

with the aim of calmly continuing his research, which had been developing so successfully beyond its borders. But he remained with his people and, constantly risking his life, took his place in the foremost ranks of France’s best fighters for national liberation. Living in Paris, he took the most active part in all forms of the national Resistance movement led by the glorious Communist Party of France. He founded and headed the underground organization “National Front.” In his laboratory he stored explosives, organized the production of grenades and bombs and their transport. With weapon in hand he fought against the Hitlerite invaders in the unforgettable days of the uprising in Paris. In this period, the finest qualities of a true fighter were manifested in him with exceptional force: fearlessness, courage, endurance, an unbending will to victory, and inexhaustible energy. His remarkable talent as an organizer, his extraordinary capacities as a leader not merely of a small scientific collective but of broad popular masses, grew immeasurably. All these qualities define his life to this day.

But even in the days of the severest trials Frédéric Joliot-Curie did not cease to concern himself with the future of French science. He gathered its personnel, solicitously sustained in the hearts of scientists faith in the inevitable defeat of Hitlerite Germany.

After the liberation of his homeland, in 1946, Frédéric Joliot-Curie created a remarkable institution—the true national pride of France—the Commissariat for Atomic Energy—and was appointed High Commissioner of the Government of France for atomic-energy affairs.

Throughout his life Frédéric Joliot-Curie has fought for science to serve the cause of peace and the progress of all mankind. When, as early as 1935–1936, he expressed the supposition that nuclear energy might be used in practice, he clearly formulated the demand that this use should be of a peaceful character. In the liberation of nuclear energy he saw a means of further extending man’s power over nature, of freeing people from heavy physical labor, a means leading humanity along the path toward the bright goal—a society in which, in his words, “...the labor necessary to satisfy people’s material needs will become a small obligation, the performance of which will take up only a few months of each person’s life.” “We are deeply convinced,” he said, “that the peaceful use of atomic energy would have decisive importance for raising the welfare of mankind.”

In creating the Commissariat for Atomic Energy, Frédéric Joliot-Curie openly declared on behalf of all its collaborators that they would work only in the field of peaceful applications of atomic energy. This is how he himself recently recounted it.

“We began work only after it had been clearly stated that we considered the purpose of our research to be the defense of peace, and the government agreed to this. Several months ago the personnel of the Commissariat for Atomic Energy, now numbering about a thousand employees in Paris and its environs, not counting the workers at the mines, clearly, unequivocally, and unanimously confirmed its decision to work only in the field of applying atomic energy for peaceful purposes”*).

“All working people, workers and scientists in the Commissariat for Atomic Energy in France solemnly declared that they would leave this institution if they were forced to work on the manufacture of atomic weapons. They will consider their actions justified until their government agrees to sign an agreement prohibiting the use of this monstrous means of destruction”**).

Despite the fact that at the first stage of the Commissariat’s work great difficulties had to be overcome, for, in Joliot-Curie’s words, “everything had to be created from scratch,” while French industry was severely ruined and disorganized; despite the ill will, and at times the hostility, of the ruling circles, within a comparatively short time after the creation of the Commissariat the French scientists, led by Frédéric Joliot-Curie, achieved great successes. On December 15, 1948, at 12:12, the first French experimental atomic reactor with uranium and heavy water began to operate. Joliot-Curie named this reactor “Zoe,” which in Greek means “Life.”

With the construction of the reactor, the first stage of the Commissariat’s plan of scientific work was completed. The second stage, whose completion was scheduled for the end of 1953, was to consist in the construction of one or two medium-power atomic reactors and of a large center for conducting research work in the field of nuclear physics at Saclay, where scientific and technical workers were to work in close proximity to the new reactors and powerful particle accelerators used as projectiles for splitting atomic nuclei.

However, the successful development of work directed toward the peaceful use of atomic energy, as well as the categorical refusal of Frédéric Joliot-Curie and all the employees of the Commissariat to work on the manufacture and improvement of atomic weapons

) Frédéric Joliot-Curie, “On the Organization of Science in France,” Izv. AN SSSR*, XIV, No. 1, p. 66 (1950).

) Frédéric Joliot-Curie, Introductory address at the opening of the Third Session of the Permanent Committee of the World Congress of Partisans of Peace in Stockholm. Partisans of Peace, No. 9, April 1950.

fundamentally at odds with the plans of the American warmongers. Under the crude pressure of the Americans, the Marshallized government of France, which had long since betrayed the national interests of its country, adopted on April 28, 1950, a decision monstrous in its brazenness—to remove Frédéric Joliot-Curie from the post of High Commissioner of France for Atomic Energy, depriving him of the possibility of continuing his work in the institution he had created.

To understand the driving forces underlying this decision, it is necessary to dwell in greater detail on the other side of Joliot-Curie’s activity, organically connected with his scientific work. Frédéric Joliot-Curie is one of the greatest political figures of France and of all progressive humanity. The mortal hatred of the reactionary circles of the French bourgeoisie and their American masters, with which they respond to Joliot-Curie’s consistent struggle for peace and for the national independence of France—this is the reason for this shameful decision.

The American imperialists are deliberately impeding the development of work on the peaceful, industrial use of atomic energy. They fear this use, since under the conditions of modern America it would lead to an even greater sharpening of the economic contradictions among monopolistic trusts, to a colossal growth of unemployment, and, together with it, of social contradictions and class struggle. Therefore they are making every effort to expand the production of atomic bombs, to devise new, still more destructive means of war, and to foment war hysteria. Now receiving colossal superprofits from war production, they are counting in the future on world domination. Their policy has split the world into two camps—the camp of peace and democracy and the camp of the instigators of a new world war. The time has come when every person, regardless of his political views, convictions, and profession, must determine his place in this struggle.

When the warmongers began to use the discoveries of nuclear physics for the preparation of a new world war, Frédéric Joliot-Curie, as a truly advanced scientist of our time, as a true humanist and fighter for the happiness of humanity, understood that he could not remain aloof and, shut up in his laboratory, calmly observe how a crime against all humanity was being prepared.

“I was tempted to shut myself up in my laboratory,” he said at the banquet given in his honor on March 31, 1950. “But I asked myself: ‘And who will make use of the discovery that I have made?’ And then I understood that in order to have the possibility of sitting calmly in my laboratory, I ...”

must fight in the ranks of those who want the achievements of science to be used for peaceful purposes, and not for the selfish aims of predators, not for the fomenting of war... And only when a lasting peace is established shall we, scientists, be able to find peace of mind and sit for whole days in our laboratories. And what happy tidings we shall then bring to humanity...”

With all the passion characteristic of him, using his enormous authority as a scientist who, working in the field of nuclear physics, clearly understands all aspects of the peaceful and military use of atomic energy, Joliot-Curie came out resolutely against the American atomic warmongers. At the World Congress of Partisans of Peace in Paris he was unanimously elected Chairman of the Permanent Committee of the Congress, and from then on his voice resounded throughout the world. His speeches, addressed to the people of France and to the peoples of the whole world, raised people to the struggle for peace, mercilessly exposed the maneuvers of the incendiaries of war, and awakened in the hearts of millions of ordinary people all over the globe a sense of responsibility for their future. Calling upon the partisans of peace to wage an active struggle for peace, he said that their task consists not in asking for peace, but in “imposing peace on the warmongers.” The words he spoke at the opening of the Third Session of the Permanent Committee of the Congress rang out as an angry warning to the warmongers:

“We want all the peoples of the world to be able to enjoy peace and to apply the ever more powerful means of using the forces of nature that have now become available to everyone; and if there are people who want to establish their domination over the world and flatter themselves with the hope that they will succeed because they consider themselves the possessors of the most effective means of destroying life on earth, then let them know and remember firmly that the growing army of partisans of peace will thwart their criminal plans and drive them out forever*).”

Addressing scientists, Joliot-Curie calls upon them to recognize their immense responsibility for the fate of their discoveries, not to isolate themselves in a small group of the “chosen,” cut off from practical life, from the people. “Scientists and engineers are not some little group of the chosen, detached from real actuality. As citizens of the great camp of working people, they must, together with the latter, fight so that science as a whole may serve the cause of peace and the good of humanity.”

He calls upon scientists to struggle “for the building of a better world, just and peace-loving, in which science will undoubtedly be

) Frédéric Joliot-Curie, Introductory address at the opening of the Third Session of the Permanent Committee of the World Congress of Partisans of Peace in Stockholm, Partisans of Peace*, No. 9, April 1950.

decisive factor in the material and spiritual liberation of humanity.” He reminds them again and again that, in order to carry out this great task, they have only one path: “...it is necessary that scientists, engineers, and physicians maintain close contact with democratic workers’ and peasants’ organizations. Isolated from the workers and peasants, men of science would be powerless, and many of them would risk becoming a plaything in the hands of those against whom they are obliged to struggle; in such a case they would betray the interests of the people.”

Speaking at the Stockholm session of the Permanent Committee of the World Congress of Partisans of Peace, Frédéric Joliot-Curie for the first time uttered those simple words, intelligible to every honest person, which formed the basis of the appeal adopted by the Committee to all people of good will throughout the world. Here are these remarkable words:

“We demand the unconditional prohibition of atomic weapons, weapons of aggression and of the mass extermination of people.

We demand the establishment of strict international control in order to ensure this prohibition.

We shall regard as criminal that government which is the first to use atomic weapons against any country.”

He was the first to put his signature to the Committee’s appeal. Today this appeal is being signed by millions of people in all countries of the world. In all the languages of the world, in every corner of the globe, the words spoken by the remarkable scientist are gathering ever new signatures of those who are fighting for peace. In our country, the collection of signatures for the Stockholm Appeal has become a mighty demonstration of the unity of the people, approving and ardently supporting the Stalinist policy of peace consistently pursued by our Party and Government.

Frédéric Joliot-Curie is a convinced and sincere friend of the Soviet Union. He is President of the “France—USSR” Society, whose activity is devoted to acquainting the broad masses of the French people with all aspects of the life of our great state. He has visited the Soviet Union more than once, and each time expressed admiration for the achievements of our socialist national economy and for the successes of our Soviet science.

Here, for example, is how he characterized our science in his report at the session of the Department of Physical and Mathematical Sciences of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR on November 10, 1949:

“Those of us who are outside the borders of your country know well of the brilliant achievements of Soviet science, which it attained both during the victorious war of liberation that has ended and in the realization of the great plans for the development of industry and agriculture.

FRÉDÉRIC JOLIOT-CURIE

Progressive scientists in all countries of the world, as well as you yourselves, understand that this unprecedented flowering of your scientific research activity could have taken place only because your talents, your abilities, are developing in a favorable environment—in the world of socialism, created by the great scientist-revolutionaries Lenin and Stalin, in a world where science has been placed at the service of the people. You can work with enthusiasm and a clear conscience, since you know that the results of your investigations will be used for the defense of the freedoms that have been won and for the continual improvement of the conditions of the material and moral existence of humanity”*).

Speaking on April 5, 1950, at the Twelfth Congress of the Communist Party of France with a major address, Joliot-Curie again spoke with the greatest sympathy about the position of science in the Soviet Union and about Soviet scientists.

“Fighting against the aggressive war that is being prepared, I think of those scientists whose science serves the people, giving us a noble example. I think of all those new people who have already once saved humanity and who are the hope of the whole world. We are indebted to them. That is why progressive scientists, Communist scientists, will never give even the smallest share of their knowledge for the preparation of war against the Soviet Union. And we shall stand firm, realizing that by doing so we are serving France and all humanity.”

Joliot-Curie sees in the country of socialism an impregnable fortress of peace, a reliable stronghold in the struggle against the instigators of war, an inspiring example for the working people of the entire world.

Frédéric Joliot-Curie’s fiftieth birthday was widely marked by the democratic organizations and progressive scientists of France. At the reception organized in honor of Joliot-Curie there were about 1,000 people present, including the leaders of the French Communist Party Maurice Thorez and Jacques Duclos, the head of the organization “Fighters for Peace and Freedom” Yves Farge, the poets Louis Aragon, Paul Éluard and Elsa Triolet, General Petit, Abbé Boulier, the English professors Bernal and Crowther, and representatives of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and other people’s-democracy countries. The President of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Academician S. I. Vavilov, on behalf of the entire Soviet scientific public, sent Frédéric Joliot-Curie congratulations and wishes for happiness and success.

It is quite understandable that Frédéric Joliot-Curie’s active participation in the struggle for peace arouses hysterical hatred toward him in the ranks of the instigators of war. Under existing political conditions, when the government of France has lost the last remnants

*) Frédéric Joliot-Curie, “On the Organization of Science in France,” Izv. AN SSSR, XIV, No. 1, p. 66 (1950).

...of independence and autonomy and sold out their country to be bought up by the dirty dealers from Wall Street, scientific and political activity becomes ever more difficult for Joliot-Curie. He is subjected to constant attacks from the American and that part of the French press which is under the control of the Americans. Thus, in May 1949, at the prompting from across the ocean, the reactionary press of France began a campaign of persecution against Joliot-Curie for his participation in the World Congress of Partisans of Peace, setting slander and filthy insinuations in motion. But the people of France rose to the defense of the scientist, and the government had to retreat. Here, for example, is what Mme Eugénie Cotton, chair of the Women’s International Democratic Federation and president of the Union of French Women, declared concerning these persecutions:

“I repeat what I told scientific workers. The most active partisans of peace are being persecuted. The press has more than once attacked Frédéric Joliot-Curie in connection with his political convictions. Have the French really forgotten all that they owe not only to his knowledge, but also to his patriotism? What would have been the fate of our country if Frédéric Joliot-Curie had been a collaborator and if he had handed over to the Germans the secret of the chain reaction, which he possessed as early as 1940? They dare to suspect this great citizen only because he followed his teacher Paul Langevin along the path of socialism, just as he followed him along the scientific path. This is vile!”

However, driven on by its American masters, the French government on April 28, 1950, adopted a decision “to remove Frédéric Joliot-Curie from the leadership of scientific research.” By doing so it finally exposed itself before the French people and the peoples of the whole world as a zealous accomplice of the American aggressors. This decision reminded the French of how, during the Hitlerite occupation, at the demand of the fascists, the great scientist-patriot Paul Langevin was removed from the post of director of the Higher School of Physics and Chemistry.

The government’s shameful decision provoked a storm of indignation. Throughout France the slogan now resounds: “Bring back Joliot-Curie!” Protest strikes are taking place. One after another, mass and political organizations issue statements condemning the decision and characterizing it as an attempt against all of French science. A splendid expression of the people’s wrath and, at the same time, a devastating characterization of the policy of the French government is the protest of the French Communist Party.

“The Central Committee of the French Communist Party, expressing the feelings of the working people, democrats, and patriots, indignantly protests against the removal of Joliot-Curie from the post of High Commissioner for Atomic Energy.

In the person of Joliot-Curie, the greatest French scientist of our time, the government of national betrayal is striking a blow at a passionate patriot who is opposing the use of French science by the American instigators of war, just as he prevented the Hitlerites from deriving benefit for themselves from French science.

The government, which obeys the orders of the American imperialists, in the person of Joliot-Curie is striking a blow at the chairman of the Permanent Committee of the World Congress of Partisans of Peace…

Joliot-Curie refused to place science at the service of war. By removing him from his post, the government acknowledges that it is preparing war.

By producing atomic energy for peaceful purposes, Joliot-Curie opened for France the prospect of economic and scientific independence. By removing him from his post, the government acknowledges that it is renouncing national independence.

For a number of months Joliot-Curie has been subjected to attacks by the American press and American official circles. By removing him from his post, the government acknowledges that it is obeying orders from abroad…”

The protest movement spread beyond the borders of France. Scientists, workers’ organizations, and the democratic public of entire states, united in peace-defense committees, protested. The Academy of Sciences of the USSR issued an indignant protest. In this protest the foremost scientists of our country wrote:

“…An outstanding scientist and tried-and-tested fighter for peace has been expelled from the institute he created and deprived of the opportunity to continue research work in that branch of science which arose with his direct, active, and exceptionally fruitful participation.

One of the finest representatives of the progressive thought of France—the homeland of the great Encyclopedists, the fatherland of Descartes and Pasteur, a country that has so enriched world science—has been subjected to barbarous persecution…

“…The removal of Joliot-Curie from the post he occupied was carried out to please the instigators of a new war. In demanding Joliot-Curie’s dismissal, the war instigators have once again shown that they reject any attempts whatsoever to use atomic energy for peaceful purposes. Science whose aim is the triumph of life is unacceptable to them, and they admit to the atomic cauldrons only those who are capable of turning science into an arsenal of death, manufacturing weapons for a new war.

To us, Soviet scientists, the honorable name of Joliot-Curie is dear; by all his scientific work and all his public activity he has proved that he sees the purpose of his life in selfless service to the people.

In these days we, Soviet scientists, wish to testify to our respect for the remarkable son of freedom-loving France, the selfless worker of science and steadfast fighter for peace.

No terror will enable the warmongers to avert the victory of the great cause of peace and democracy!”*)

The session of the Division of Physical and Mathematical Sciences of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, which opened on May 15, addressed Frédéric Joliot-Curie with a greeting of the following content:

“Scientists of the Division of Physical and Mathematical Sciences of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, of which you are a member, having gathered for a regular scientific session, express their deep indignation at the arbitrary act of the French government, which has removed you from the post of High Commissioner for Atomic Energy. We are well acquainted with your remarkable works, which opened new paths in the physics of the atomic nucleus. It is known to the whole world that you have always directed your scientific activity toward peaceful aims, for the benefit of France and all mankind. Your removal from the post of High Commissioner for Atomic Energy could have been carried out only to please the instigators of a new war. Your removal is an insult inflicted upon all advanced science. It is a clear threat to peace; it is an attempt to turn French science into the service of a new, mad military aggression now being prepared.

The Division of Physical and Mathematical Sciences sends to you, our outstanding member and dear comrade, its ardent greetings and joins the voice of all progressive humanity in defense of you, a selfless worker of science and steadfast fighter for peace.”

On May 24 Pravda published the protest of the Soviet Committee for the Defense of Peace.

Never before has the fate of one person met with such an all-embracing response across the globe. But this happened because the matter concerns a person who has united his fate with the fate of peace, with the fate of all peoples.

As a progressive scientist and public figure, Frédéric Joliot-Curie was formed under the influence of the steadily growing conviction of the broad popular masses that only the great ideas of communism, being embodied in life in the Soviet Union, show the working people the way out of that abyss of poverty and lawlessness into which capitalism plunges them, and that only the communist parties are the true heroic fighters for people’s democracy, national independence, for bread and peace for the people. These factors exert an enormous influence on broad strata of the working—

) Pravda*, May 13, 1950.

2 UFN, vol. XLI, no. 3

...the working people, including the better part of the intelligentsia of the capitalist countries, stimulating the irresistible growth of progressive forces despite cruel persecution by the ruling classes.

The Soviet people love and esteem Frédéric Joliot-Curie. Recognizing his enormous services to science, the Academy of Sciences of the USSR on June 12, 1947, elected Frédéric Joliot-Curie a corresponding member. In Joliot-Curie we value one of the greatest scientists of our time; we highly appreciate his role as a leading fighter for the national independence of France, for peace and freedom throughout the world. In him we greet advanced French science—those scientists who, like Joliot-Curie, do not confine themselves to their scientific activity, but come forward as active fighters for peace and democracy, against fascism and war.

The forces of peace are growing with every day, with every hour, and however much the warmongers may rage, however much they may try to halt this irresistible movement, they will never succeed. We firmly believe that the cause of peace, to which Frédéric Joliot-Curie, together with all progressive humanity, is devoting so much strength and energy, will triumph not only in his homeland but throughout the world, and that the day is not far off when he will once again stand at the head of the scientific institution he created and will lead French science to new achievements in the struggle for the good of his people, for their free and happy life.