In a glass house

The Soviet nuclear program was paid by thousands of human lives and the threat of international security

At the end of August 1949, the first Soviet atomic bomb was tested. In Russia, they still assure that on this day a nuclear shield was born, which ensured the security of the country of Soviets and the world around the world.

It was possible, the Russian military and politicians say, to disrupt the plans of the United States that intended to destroy the Soviet Union - just as two Japanese cities were destroyed. In order to once again emphasize the aggressive nature of American politics, the speaker of the State Duma Sergey Naryshkin proposed to hold an international tribunal condemning the United States for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. However, Naryshkin did not take into account: living in a glass house should not be rushed with stones. Discussion of the events of seventy years ago cannot be limited by the actions of the United States; It, of course, attracts attention to how Soviet nuclear weapons were created.

According to the Russian historian Zhores Medvedev , "the secret of the fate of millions of people who made the most difficult contribution to the creation of the atomic power of the superpower remains unsolved ... Only one thing is clear - the atomic gulag took much more lives than the first atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki." If this assessment is exaggerated, then not much.

Hundreds of thousands of people participated in the creation of the Soviet nuclear industry. In 1950, their number reached 700 thousand , half of which were the prisoners of the Gulag, a third-employees of the military-construction units of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and only about 10 percent were on civilian-selling ones, whose freedom was greatly limited. Official data on the mortality of builders of atomic facilities are still stored in the archives of the Gulag and Rosatom inaccessible to researchers. The few memories that have reached us say that she "acquired enormous size." This is not surprising. The working conditions and life of the "atomic soldiers" of life were monstrous. Meanwhile, the then Minister of the Interior, General Kruglov, coming to atomic construction sites, strictly criticized their leaders for the fact that, in his opinion, they spent too much effort on creating at least the minimum housing conditions of builders to the detriment of industrial construction.

Paranoid concern for secrecy led to the fact that after the completion of the construction of nuclear enterprises, military-construction units were transferred to new construction sites in remote areas of the country, or their soldiers and officers went there to the settlement. A lot of them got into the camps. Less is known about the fate of the prisoners of the Gulag. One of the researchers, Yakov Ladyzhensky, writes , for example, that in his library about 400 books of camp memoirs, but “Notes of these [atomic] objects and saved I did not come across. I didn’t come across a surviving convict. Maybe someone was more fortunate. That's strange. That’s strange. From Norilsk and Kolyma, Kolyma and Jezkazgan-please, and please, but with Krasnoyarsk-26-nobody. " This gives rise to the most terrible assumptions. After all, the leader and teacher of Soviet people said: there is no man - there is no problem.

No less criminal were conducted in the USSR studies of the effects of nuclear weapons on the human body. The largest of them are the so -called Totsky military exercises of September 1954, in which 45 thousand soldiers and officers participated. The actions of the advancing side were worked out, the troops overcame the area of the atomic explosion, and then they had to hold the seized positions until the reserves approach. Less than an hour after the explosion of the 38-kiloton atomic bomb, about two times more powerful than the east troops dropped through Hiroshima, began the offensive through the area of the nuclear explosion, passing through its epicenter. After what days the TASS message was published in Pravda, which stated: "In the last days, one of the types of atomic weapons was tested in the Soviet Union. The purpose of the test was to study the action of the atomic explosion."

True, TASS did not specify that the explosion was studied not only into service and equipment, but, first of all, to personnel. The Soviet command, atomes and military doctors wanted to know whether the troops will retain the ability to fighting after irradiation and, if so, to what extent. And the fact that, as a result of the experiment, tens of thousands of Soviet soldiers and local residents received solid doses of radiation, many fell ill and died of cancer, did not interest anyone. All participants in the exercises and the locals who were near him gave a subscription about non -disclosure, the history of their diseases were falsified, later doctors could not even imagine what the causes of the disease were. There are reports of the explosion of a thermonuclear bomb over Chukotka in order to study what will happen to the population exposed to radioactive sediments.

The Soviet nuclear-powered complex is responsible for dangerous environmental pollution by radioactive substances. Data on this is strictly classified, only certain facts are known that the authorities failed to shut up. The Mayak plant located in the Southern Urals, intended for the production of weapons of plutonium, for many years drained highly radioactive waste in the Karachay Lake and the Great River, from which local residents used water. This river and the lakes located in its valley are turned into radioactive waste storages. These places are one of the most polluted areas of the planet. According to environmental organizations , the amount of radiation accumulated there is equivalent to eight Chernobyl emissions. Cases of dangerous radioactive emissions are known as a result of the so -called "peaceful" underground nuclear explosions, including in densely populated areas of the country.

If the American leadership was going to destroy the USSR with an unprovided nuclear bombardment, why did Washington not do this in those years when he had all the possibilities to avoid a response blow?

Today, the leaders of the nuclear industry and lawyers cannot deny these and similar facts. But, they say, the USSR was forced to create nuclear weapons as soon as possible, regardless of the costs and even the loss of human lives. Otherwise, he would allegedly be erased from the face of the earth with American atomic blows. “Who knows what would happen if the Soviet Union of a nuclear shield was not,” said, for example, academician Julius Khariton , the creator of the most powerful Soviet nuclear warheads. “We did not think about the possibilities of the death of mankind. It is important not to lag behind the potential enemy would not overtake you.” At the same time, Russia usually refer to the American plans "Pincher", "Dropshot" and others. More often than others, a “dropshot” is mentioned, according to which, according to Russian commentators, on January 1, 1957, an atomic bombardment of the Soviet Union was supposed to be performed. However, it is enough to read the first page of this document (he is all, from the first to the last word, is available to any Internet user) to understand the lie of the Soviet, and now Russian propaganda. According to this plan, it was assumed that on January 1, 1957, Soviet troops would invade Europe and the atomic bombing of the largest Soviet cities will be the only means that can stop the Soviet tank divisions on the way to La-Channel.

Surely there will be people who will not convince the data on the activities of the Soviet nuclear complex, and the analysis of American strategic plans. Perhaps the ratio of nuclear charges will be more convincing? In 1949, when the USSR first experienced nuclear weapons, the United States had 235 bombers, each of which carried one atomic bomb and could strike at the most important political, economic and military centers of the USSR. In 1951, when the tensions in relations between the USSR and the USA reached a maximum as a result of the war in Korea, the USSR had 25 nuclear bombs, and the United States had 640 bombs, and about 550 strategic bombers. It is also important that until 1956 the Soviet Union did not have bombers that could fly to American territory.

There are many other figures indicating that until the mid-1960s, the Soviet Union was much more vulnerable to atomic blows than the United States. But if the American leadership was going to destroy the Soviet Union with an unprovided nuclear bombardment, why did Washington not do this in those years when he had all the possibilities to avoid a response impact? You can ask another question: how and why the Soviet-nuclear scientists, people, without a doubt, highly intellectual and not alien to world culture, calmly watched at the nuclear construction projects daily died the prisoners of the Gulag and the number of victims of the tests is growing?