Communism And The Nuclear Core

Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, 2018

Nuclear energy epitomises the ambiguity of high modernity like no other technology. In the history of the Soviet Union, it played an exceptionally prominent role, initially accelerating its ascent to superpower status and bolstering its visions of the future, but eventually hastening its demise in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. There can be little doubt that without nuclear weapons, the Soviet Union would not have been able to consolidate its hard-won victory in World War II and to achieve superpower status. In a massive effort that combined domestic research in nuclear physics with the knowledge of captive German scientists and intelligence about the American Manhattan project and drew on the resources of the country's military-industrial complex and the Gulag system, the Soviet Union developed its own atomic bomb in record time and tested its first nuclear device in 1949. By 1953, it was also in possession of the hydrogen bomb and had thus achieved technological parity with the United States. 1 In fact, with the successful test of the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile in 1957, the Soviet Union had taken the lead in developing a powerful launch vehicle to deliver thermonuclear warheads across the globe. No less important-in ideological terms even more so than in economic ones-was the Soviet Union's civilian nuclear programme. Soviet atomic scientists advocated harnessing the atom's power for electricity generation as early as the late 1940s, 2 and the CPSU was quick to realise the economic and propagandistic potential of nuclear power. 3 Only one year after the detonation of their first H-bomb, and in response to Dwight D. Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace speech, Soviet nuclear scientists connected the world's first nuclear power plant to the grid in Obninsk near Moscow. While the quantity of energy produced was negligible, the amount of publicity it generated for the Soviet state was enormous. 4 Soviet propaganda could now juxtapose the belligerent capitalist atom of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with its seemingly peaceful socialist twin, eager to serve the

The Rhetorical Rise and Demise of "Democracy" in Russian Political Discourse - Volume One, 2021

Director of the Academic Studies Press, first conceived the idea of collecting our studies and making them available to a new generation of Slavists and rhetorical scholars. His letter to Marilyn Young in 2019 initiated this process. Ekaterina (Kate) Yanduganova, the ASP acquisitions editor for Slavic, East European, and Central Asian studies, has shepherded the publication process for this volume tirelessly and efficiently, as have the members of her copy editing team. Michele Pedro has been indispensable on our end proofreading and formatting the elements that have made up our manuscript.

2018

The article contrasts efforts by Soviet scientists and engineers in the 1950s and 1960s, who successfully persuaded planners to support expensive, still unproven nuclear technologies, and to establish a nuclear industry from scratch, with contemporary efforts by nuclear energy advocates to maintain at least a sliver of relevance for nuclear power in the carbon-friendly energy mix of the 21st century - efforts that have proven very challenging. Nuclear power not only promised to facilitate modernization, it also offered a solution to the imbalance in resource and demand distribution. Despite its cost, creating a nuclear industry made sense to many nations in the 1950s and 1960s. Today, the picture is more fragmented, and different criteria are being used to evaluate the benefits of nuclear energy, including the possibility of severe accidents, and the still unresolved waste management issue. Some countries with nuclear industries have decided to phase out nuclear, while others are en...

The recent Indian decision to acquire Soviet nuclear technology has to be viewed in the light of reports that USSR's nuclear construction programme has been beset with a variety of problems which may well affect the safety status of the reactors being built

Technology and Culture, 2020

This essay considers the TV miniseries Chernobyl (HBO, 2019) to engage in a wider debate on the social and institutional production of techno-science. It explores whether the series resonates with the existing narratives and interpretations of Soviet technoscience in scholarly historiography. The author argues that although the series downplays important aspects of Soviet history, such as international knowledge transfer, it successfully demonstrates the hybrid character of nuclear power and the complexity of the relationship between scientific expertise and policy decision-making.

n the process of the Soviet Union's rapid attempt at nuclear weapons development beginning in the late 1940s, little consideration was given to the radioactive wastes these facilities produced, let alone the environmental and health impacts these wastes posed. To compound this dilemma, atomic power and subsequent radioactive waste management was concealed behind the "curtain of secrecy," since it fell primarily under the jurisdiction of the Soviet military industrial complex. The Cold War inevitably sped up the process of nuclear development to a feverish pace. Furthermore, over the last 30 years, the Soviet Union has experienced a rapid expansion in the number of nuclear power plants - a programme designed to modernise the Soviet economy and consequently supply the military with weapons-grade plutonium to fuel atomic weapons. However, this rapid expansion has translated into an environmental catastrophe. In many cases, the damage caused by radioactive waste mismanagement is irreversible; in others, the threats posed by radioactive contaminants are potential disasters waiting to happen.

When stock is taken of the damages wrought upon humankind and the natural environment by nuclear energy, Kazakhstan invariably occupies one of the podium places in global rankings. Its most prominent claim to this dubious fame is the Semipalatinsk (Semei) polygon -the Soviet-era nuclear-weapons test site in Eastern Kazakhstan where no less than 456 nuclear test explosions took place between 1949 and 1989. 1 It seemed only consequential that upon Kazakhstan's independence, president Nursultan Nazarbaev closed the test site in one of the new government's first major decisions and that within four years of independence, Kazakhstan got rid of what had constituted the fourth-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons of any country in the world upon independence in 1991. 2 Ever since, Kazakhstan has positioned itself as a champion of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, with prominent writer Olzhas Suleimenov, co-founder of the Semipalatinsk-Nevada initiative, serving as the figurehead of these initiatives and president Nursultan Nazarbaev lobbying for nuclear weapon test bans and updates to the Non-Proliferation Treaty throughout the world. 3

Nuclear Energy and Security in the Former Soviet Union , 1997

All rlghta ,-rved. Printed In the United Stalel of America. No part of this publication may be reproduoed or tnnamitted In any form or by any means, electmnk or mechanicel, including photocopy, recording. or any inform•tion storage and retrieval system, without permlalon in wdtlllg fKm the publiaher.

2016

Journal of Modern History Vol. 88 No. 4 (2016) pp 995-7

Abstract: On 26 April 1986, the world has witnessed an obscure nuclear explosion that transpired by the former Soviet Union, which resulted with perpetual consequences in every aspect of political science and anthropology. This case study examines the political repercussions of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and its impacts on the state failure of the Soviet Union. The accident is illustrated by looking at its tragic environmental causes and socio-political impacts on the Soviet society and its disintegration. This project combines differentiated analyses on relevant aspects such as environmental degradation, national economy, socio-political impact and foreign interpretations of the disaster, in order to emphasize overall influence and political repercussions of the Chernobyl accident on state failure. Environmental degradation of states may lead to failure and transformation; these can be political processes such as fusion, globalization, and integration. But at the same time, probability of fragmentation, fission and disintegration of states rest at as high possibilities. The Chernobyl accident happened during the period of tremendous changes such as political restructuring and introduction of democratization, thereof, it played a major role on the collapse of the Soviet Union and became an `invisible game maker` of the democratic movement.