After Fukushima: Revisiting Chernobyl and the Collapse of the Soviet Union

Abstract

Some of the scholarship on the former Soviet Union—specifically that of Stephen Resnick and Richard Wolff as well as that of David Kotz and Fred Weir—has given inadequate attention to the role of the Chernobyl disaster in its collapse. While Kotz and Weir understand the former Soviet Union as a system of state socialism, Resnick and Wolff analyze it as a system of state capitalism. Though they provide different explanations for its collapse, neither set of authors adequately addresses the role of Chernobyl. This is unfortunate, as the Chernobyl disaster may have been a significant contributing factor in its collapse and transition to private capitalism. The Fukushima disaster may have similar implications for Japanese society and may lead to a deeper questioning of its capitalist system.

Keywords:

• Fukushima
• Chernobyl
• Collapse
• State Capitalism

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Blair Sandler and Richard Wolff for their helpful comments and suggestions.

Notes

¹The updated version of Kotz and Weir's book retains the fundamental analysis from the earlier book. It still does not discuss the role of Chernobyl. Most of the new material concerns developments in post-Soviet Russia since 1996.

²In Russia's Path, Kotz and Weir argue that the Soviet economy did not collapse due to its internal contradictions, but began to contract only after the process of dismantling key institutions was well under way in 1990–1. They state: “The Soviet planned economy did not ‘collapse’; it was dismantled through political means” (2007, 291).

³While the heaviest concentration of fallout was in these three areas, radiation spread around the entire northern hemisphere, from Scandinavia to China.

⁴The interest of the IAEA is to downplay and minimize the death toll from nuclear disasters, since its agenda is to promote the expansion of nuclear power worldwide. The IAEA study only reviewed literature written in English. A Union of Concerned Scientists report recently estimated excess deaths of 25,000 (http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/chernobyl-cancer-death-toll-0536.html). A 2006 report by Greenpeace estimated there were some 200,000 additional deaths between 1990 and 2004 in the most affected areas of Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia (http://www.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/planet-2/report/2006/4/chernobylhealthreport.pdf). The estimate from the New York Academy of Sciences report is significantly higher, since it includes estimates of deaths that occurred outside Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia. This study also engaged in an extensive review of scientific studies written in the Slavic languages (http://www.nyas.org/publications/annals/Detail.aspx?cid=f3f3bd16-51ba-4d7b-a086-753f44b3bfc1). It must also be pointed out that many of these cancers have an incubation period of five to forty years, so the death toll may still rise in the future.

⁵Specifically, a poorly designed safety test was postponed twice and finally was conducted during the night shift after more experienced workers had gone home. A power surge then triggered an explosion and graphite fire, which burned for ten days and spewed radiation high into the air.

⁶The thirty-kilometer exclusion zone remains in place even twenty-five years after the Chernobyl disaster (McNeill 2011).

⁷Perhaps most important was the decision to build them in areas that were seismically active and vulnerable to tsunamis. Also important were the failure to raise the seawalls, the placement of the diesel generators at ground level, and the lack of containment structures for the spent fuel pools.

⁸In June, TEPCPO announced that Fukushima probably released more radioactive material into the environment than did Chernobyl.

⁹The estimate of one million was made by Chris Busby, a professor at the University of Ulster (McNeill 2011).

¹⁰Environmentalists like Harvey Wasserman (2011) are already seeing this as a turning point from nuclear power toward “Solartopian” alternatives, but I would go further to suggest it might also be a turning point toward noncapitalist alternatives.