With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

Albert Einstein's letters on how to deal with the USSR up for auction

He also dismisses the notion that his theories were difficult to understand as "twaddle".

Einstein's correspondent, the psychoanalyst Walter Marseille, had suggested an idea of a world government in a paper entitled "A Method to Enforce World Peace".

Einstein wrote in correspondence in 1948: "Better to let Russia see that there is nothing to be achieved by aggression, but there are advantages in joining [a world government]: Then the Russian regime's attitude will probably chance and they will take part without compulsion."

In another letter, he wrote: "In my view it is much better, both morally and practically, to attempt to bring about a state of affairs in which the Russians, out of pure self-interest, find it preferable to give up their separatist position."

Simon Luterbacher, who is handling the sale for Bloomsbury Auctions said: "I think that Einstein was much more open to the suggestion that you can make a deal or you can learn to live with what was the USSR."

Read entire article at Telegraph (UK)