Japan's Tokyo Electric Power Company's decision to discharge nuclear-contaminated water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the ocean has sparked heated debate about nuclear safety. The Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident in 1986 in Soviet Ukraine is also frequently mentioned in the public eye. Shahily Ploki, a professor of Ukrainian history at Harvard University, is the definitive historiographical work on Chernobyl.
The book begins with the birth of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, examines in detail the causes and consequences of the accident, and traces it back to the completion of the new sarcophagus of the accident nuclear power plant in the 21st century. Upon its publication in 2018, the book won the Bailey Gifford Prize, the UK's top nonfiction award that year.
Chernobyl: A Tragic History (Expanded Edition), by Shahili Ploki, translator: Song Hong Cui Rui, edition: Gravity, Guangdong People's Publishing House, November 2023
"Chernobyl" from the perspective of management, executive management and ordinary people
Through the understanding of academic history, we can better understand the place of Chernobyl in the historiographical community. Since the accident, physicists, ecologists and doctors have written a lot of work, and the research in the field of history can only be said to be the lagging behind. Early Western writings often focused on the shortcomings of the Soviet system and the superiority of Western society as reflected in the accident. The academic history of the Soviet Union has to be interspersed with the historical torrent of the decline of the Soviet Union, the independence of Ukraine, and the eventual disintegration of the Soviet Union (also mentioned in Section 18 of the book).
Historiography in the early Soviet Union was limited by ideological and political factors, and often focused on the bravery of ordinary accident cleaners. As Gorbachev pursued a policy of "openness" (гласность), the debate over the Soviet government's response to the Chernobyl accident intensified, and a number of writers such as Alaa Yaroshenskaya emerged. They took a strong critical stance by revealing the defects in the design and construction of the reactor and the nuclear power plant, as well as the actions of the Soviet Union and the local Ukrainian government in concealing the scale of the accident and causing damage to the health of the population, and to a certain extent, accelerated the process of Ukraine's secession from the Soviet Union. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the archives related to the accident were gradually declassified by the authorities or disclosed by the people, and the memoirs of those involved in the handling of the accident became more and more abundant, and it became possible to publish serious historiographical works on the Chernobyl accident.
Ploki was born in Soviet Russia and grew up in Ukraine. He not only conducts research in Ukrainian, Russian, English and other languages, but also has relevant cultural backgrounds and the perspectives of those who have experienced them. The book's historical material is mainly drawn from the National Archives of Ukraine, archives published in Ukraine, Soviet and Ukrainian newspaper reports and journal articles, as well as memoirs and oral accounts of those who witnessed the accident, so the narrative has a relatively obvious lower-middle perspective, that is, "Chernobyl" that shows the perspective of management, executives, and ordinary people. The book is informative, calm and infectious, and always makes the reader feel the author's concern for humanity.
A still from "Chernobyl" (2019).
"Accident in the USSR" or "accident in nuclear energy"?
Perhaps Ploki's concern for "Chernobyl" can be interpreted from a classic question in the academic history of Chernobyl, that is, whether the Chernobyl nuclear accident was a "Soviet accident" or a "nuclear accident"? Scholars who support the former view, such as David Marples, emphasize that the Soviet system or the porous Soviet nuclear industry contributed to the accident and its subsequent negative effects, while scholars who hold the latter position, such as Anna Wendland Wendland), arguing that the accident actually reflected a "state of instability in the technical and social system" and, in principle, could have occurred in any country.
Plokhi's book, to a large extent, echoes the former view. During the design, construction and operation phases of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, workers at all levels were under pressure from the indicators imposed by the Soviet-style planned economy. The government's economic plan calls for a complementary energy plan, demanding shorter completion times and higher power capacity from executors. Therefore, the Institute of Atomic Energy of the USSR Academy of Sciences, which was responsible for the development and design of the nuclear reactor type, and the Soviet Ministry of Medium Machine-Building chose the graphite reactor (РБМК type, also the reactor type of the Chernobyl nuclear accident) with more efficient and lower power generation instead of the safer hydro-hydrodynamic reactor (ВВЭР type); Shoddy construction (not to mention the fact that shortages of raw materials often prevented construction from proceeding as planned), and the new Soviet Minister of Energy and Electrification, in pursuit of over-production, reduced the frequency of routine inspections and repairs at nuclear power plants, lest they be shut down for too long and delay the output of electricity.
On more than one occasion, these hidden dangers have led to the failure of nuclear power plants, and major accidents have exploded at the slightest moment.
A still from "Chernobyl" (2019).
On the night of April 25, 1986, the turbine test of the No. 4 reactor of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was the trigger. Firefighters, engineers, soldiers, and scientists, whether they knew a little about the situation or were blinded by propaganda, whether they were coerced or lured by profit, all went forward with great sacrifice at the scene of the accident, and left a tragic song in history. Ploki's text transports the reader to the devastated aftermath of the disaster. It was as if we heard the accident cleaners and investigators sighing helplessly as they worked hard. At the same time, officialdom is also displayed on paper. Influenced by propaganda, some officials underestimated the scale of the accident by believing that it was impossible for the reactor core to explode, and some officials did not dare to act without instructions for fear of taking responsibility for the wrong attempt, thus delaying the progress of post-disaster management. Policy researcher Edward Geist also pointed out these phenomena and pointed out that the contradictions between the different results of the risk assessments of the various Soviet institutions delayed the Soviet government's response to the accident in a timely manner: on the one hand, the secrecy and isolation characteristic of the Soviet system hindered the communication of these risk ideas within and between organizations, and on the other hand, the distortion of information at the beginning of the Chernobyl accident exacerbated the dysfunction of the Soviet government's response to the accident.
As a result of these many of the shortcomings peculiar to the Soviet Union, the Soviet government's slow response at the time of the accident and other anachronistic measures laid the foundation for the future falsification of its own legitimacy. For example, the evacuation of the residents around the nuclear power plant began more than a day after the accident; the Soviet and Ukrainian governments deliberately concealed information about the accident and the radiation level in the aftermath of the accident from the public; communication between the disaster area and the outside world was strictly restricted; and Western radio stations even issued notices to the Soviet people to take radiation precautions before the Soviet authorities; and so on. At the same time, Soviet policymakers were concerned about avoiding panic among the population and from Western attacks on the Soviet Union's nuclear industry and technology. Thus, against the backdrop of the fact that the Ministry of Energy and Electrification (which was responsible for the management of nuclear power plants) and the Ministry of Medium Machine-Building (which was responsible for designing reactors) had long begun to blame each other, in order to protect the reputation of the Soviet nuclear industry and scientific and technological level, the Supreme Court ruled that the nuclear power plant party was solely responsible for the accident, that is, the accident was entirely blamed on the mistakes of the turbine test operators. And the medium-sized machine-building department, which was managed by Yefim Slavsky, the pioneer of the Soviet nuclear industry, was hidden from the responsibility for the accident.
Moreover, this conclusion about the cause of the accident was submitted by the Soviet Union to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and became the cause of the accident announced to the world (see section XVII of the book). In the process, Soviet officials did not prioritize the health of the residents of the affected areas. In this way, the powerlessness of ordinary residents and accident cleaners in the face of disasters can easily turn them from atheists to believers in God. The people's hearts have been shaken. Under the banner of Gorbachev's policy of "openness", the Chernobyl nuclear disaster spawned an independence movement from below in Ukraine and ultimately jeopardized the legitimacy of the Soviet government.
After the independence of Ukraine and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the "Soviet system" was no longer there, but what happened to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant? Ukraine's new government, elected by the people, did not order the closure of the nuclear power plant, but intended to continue using it for power generation for economic reasons. Just as it gave up nuclear weapons in exchange for a huge loan from the United States, the Ukrainian government has used the Chernobyl nuclear power plant as a bargaining chip to negotiate economic aid with the West. Ploki astutely pointed out that this is not only "nuclear blackmail", but also a country's "conflict between economic development and world security". But wasn't this one of the conflicts that the Soviet Union had to face because of the indicators of economic planning?
"Atoms and Ashes: A History of the Nuclear Catastrophe", Author: Shaheeli Ploki, Translator: Li Wenlu Wang Zicheng, Edition: Gravity, Guangdong People's Publishing House, October 2023
In response to questions about whether the Soviet government's response to Chernobyl was "unique," Proloki published a new book, Atoms and Ashes: A Global History of Nuclear Disasters, in 2022. In it, he analyzes the ins and outs of six major nuclear accidents. Although the causes of each nuclear accident are different, Ploki notes some common patterns in how governments deal with nuclear accidents. For example, both sides of the Cold War and the countries involved in the early nuclear arms race were prepared to risk the use of untested nuclear technology in order to achieve international or domestic goals; However, Ploki also made it clear that even if there is some degree of commonality in the causes of nuclear accidents in different countries, there is still something "special" about the causes of nuclear accidents in the Soviet Union. For example, only Soviet managers and engineers deliberately violated safety regulations in order to meet increasingly high production quotas, and the government turned a blind eye, and only the Soviet media played a very different role in reporting about the accident.
Citing the example of the Fukushima nuclear power plant, Ploki pointed out that nuclear accidents will continue to occur. In other words, he agreed, to a certain extent, that the Chernobyl accident had its own "nuclear" aspect, and called for the lessons to be learned from Chernobyl by maintaining close international cooperation among countries developing nuclear programs, regardless of the cause of the nuclear accident.
A still from "Chernobyl" (2019).
weakened the relevant activities of the Soviet leadership
Ploki's Chernobyl is one of the best books to read about the nuclear accident and the social life of the Soviet Union at the end of the Soviet Union.
However, there is still room for this picture scroll to be painted. The book's relatively obvious perspective on the middle and lower classes highlights the independence movement from below, but it also weakens the relevant activities of the Soviet high-level. The Working Group on the Accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU is in fact the immediate boss of the Supreme Council for the Handling of Accidents of the Government and coordinates the work between all relevant departments. At the beginning of May 1986, the founder of the policy of "openness" (A. A. Yakovlev). N. Яковлев) as the head of the release of information about the accident, joined the Politburo working group. Around the policy of publishing information about the accident, there was an undercurrent of political struggle within the leadership of the CPSU. Yakovlev's accession meant that Gorbachev's earlier "openness" and "new thinking" (новое мышление) had seized the opportunity to be further promoted. This was also a change from above that could not be ignored for the future Soviet Union.
Written by Chen Bo and Zhang Juping
Editor/Zhang Jin
Proofreading / Zhao Lin