Soviet official critiques of the resource scarcity prediction by limits to growth report: the case of Evgenii Fedorov’s ecological crisis rhetoric

ABSTRACT

This paper focuses on official Soviet attitudes towards ‘ecological crisis’ and the rhetoric developed to address it. It analyses in particular the discussions in the Soviet Union that followed the publication of the Club of Rome report Limits to Growth (1972). It contributes to the better understanding of the debate around resource scarcity in a framework of so-called ‘ecological crisis’ as it was conceptualized in the late 1960s to the mid-1970s. It is based on the analysis of writings by the Soviet geophysicist Evgenii Fedorov (1910–81) who was among the few Soviet members of the Club of Rome and thus had direct access to contemporary Western scholarship. The paper explores how such rhetoric accepted and reconceptualized the notion of crisis for use in both domestic and international environmental politics and the associated advancement of technology as the most effective remedy against resource scarcity. Fedorov largely built his ideas on Soviet Marxism and Vladimir Vernadsky’s concepts, which preceded the current notion of the Anthropocene. In addition, his experience in nuclear projects and weather modification research –– both more or less successful technocratic projects – gave him some kind of assurance of the power of technology. The paper also provides some comparison of the views of the problem from the other side of the Iron Curtain through a discussion of the thoughts of the left-wing American environmentalist Barry Commoner (1917–2012), which had been popularized for the Soviet public by Fedorov.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Jonathan Oldfield and Vladimir Jankovic for their interest in my research. They read earlier versions of the paper and gave thoughtful insight about how to improve it. The very first idea for the paper was discussed at The Ninth World Congress of the International Council for Central and Eastern European Studies (ICCEES) in Makuhari on 3–8 August 2015 as part of the ‘The Politics of Nature in the Soviet Union: Toward a Global Future Beyond Communism’ session. I am grateful to all colleagues who were part of this session, especially Egle Rindzeviciute, and Irina Sandomiskaja as commentator. In September 2015 the ideas from the paper were presented at the ‘1970s: Turn of an Era in the History of Science?’ workshop at Aarhus University, Denmark. In this regard, I am grateful to all the participants for their questions and feedback, and especially to Matthias Heymann, Sverker Sorlin and Michael Egan for their interest and fruitful discussions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Selcer, The Postwar Origins of the Global Environment, 248.

2. Egan, “Survival Science.”

3. Villaume et al., “Introduction: The ‘Long 1970s’”; Hellema, The Global 1970s.

4. Radkau, The Age of Ecology, 79–89.

5. Hohler, Spaceship Earth in the Environmental Age.

6. Egan, “Survival Science.”

7. Hünemörder, “Environmental Crisis and Soft Politics,” 257.

8. McNeill and Unger, Environmental Histories of the Cold War; Brain, “The Appeal of Appearing Green”; Selcer, The Postwar Origins of the Global Environment; Kirchhof and McNeill, Nature and Iron Curtain.

9. McNeill, “The Environment, Environmentalism, and International Society in the Long 1970s,” 263.

10. Weiner, “The Predatory Tribute-Taking State.”

11. Rindzevičiūtė, The Power of Systems, 9.

12. Coumel, “Building of Soviet Eco-Power.”

13. On the history of ecological and political discourses see Efremenko, Ekologo-politicheskie diskursy.

14. Meadows et al., The Limits to Growth.

15. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rhetoric

16. See, on the appearance of environmental rhetoric in Leonid Brezhnev’s statements at the Communist Party Congresses in 1971 and 1976, Brain, “The Appeal of Appearing Green,” 16–17.

17. Fedorov, “Climatic Change and Human Strategy.”

18. Brain, “The Environmental History of the Soviet Union,” 234.

19. Tolba, Global Environmental Diplomacy.

20. Oldfield, Russian Nature, 35–7.

21. Commoner, The Closing Circle.

22. Fedorov, Ekologicheskii krizis i sotsialnyi progress. English translation: Fedorov, Man and Nature.

23. Nemtsev, “Emergence of ‘Scientific Communism’.”

24. Bikbov, Grammatika poriadka.

25. Fedorov and Novik, “Man and his Natural Environment”; for Igor Novik see Graham, Science and Philosophy in the Soviet Union, 347–8.

26. For biographical data about Evgenii Fedorov in Russian see Treshnikov, Akademik Fedorov; “Evgenii Konstantinovich Fedorov” in English https://public.wmo.int/en/about-us/awards/international-meteorological-organization-imo-prize/evgeny-konstantinovich-fedorov (accessed August 13, 2019).

27. Fedorov, On Drifting Ice.

28. Rindzevičiūtė, The Power of Systems, 132.

29. Ibid.

30. Elie, “Formulating the Global Environment.”

31. Aronova, “Environmental Monitoring in the Making”; Johnson, UNEP.

32. Aronova et al., “Big Science and Big Data in Biology.”

33. Kelley, “East-West Environmental Cooperation.”

34. Edwards, “Meteorology as Infrastructural Globalism.”

35. Edwards, “Entangled Histories.”

36. Rindzevičiūtė, The Power of Systems, 132.

37. Fedorov, Peregovory.

38. Oldfield, “Imagining Climate’s Past, Present and Future”; Oldfield, “Climate Modification and Climate Change Debates.”

39. Hamblin, Arming Mother Nature, 210.

40. Lajus and Sorlin, “Melting the Glacier Curtain.”

41. Fedorov, “Vozdeistvie cheloveka na meteorologicheskie protsessy.”

42. Edwards, A Vast Machine.

43. Fedorov, Ekologicheskii krizis i sotsialnyi progress. English translation: Fedorov, Man and Nature.

44. McNeill, “The Environment, Environmentalism, and International Society in the Long 1970s,” 267.

45. Hohler, Spaceship Earth in the Environmental Age, 5.

46. Robin et al.,The Environment, 52–7.

47. See http://www.clubofrome.org/?p=375 and Kanninen, Crisis of Global Sustainability.

48. For early discussions see Sandbach, “The Rise and Fall of the Limits to Growth Debate”; for immediate strong critique see Cole et al., eds., Models of Doom.

49. Egan, “Commentaries,” 115, see also the recent paper by Trainer, “Entering the Era of Limits and Scarcity.”

50. Turnbull, “Simulating the Global Environment,” 271–2.

51. Robin et al.,The Environment, 47.

52. Turnbull, “Simulating the Global Environment” and Seefried, “Towards the Limits to Growth?”

53. Kelley, “Economic Growth and Environmental Quality in the USSR”; DeBardeleben, The Environment and Marxism-Leninism, 176–204.

54. See the opinions of the leading Soviet economists Khachaturov “Prirodnye resursy i planirovanie narodnogo khoziaistva” and Khromushin, “Problemy ekologii,” among others.

55. Ananyin and Melnik, “Commodity Siu Generis,” 96.

56. Ibid., 76.

57. Rindzevičiūtė, The Power of Systems, 132.

58. Bikbov, Grammatika poriadka, 256–62.

59. Vieille-Blanchard, “Technoscientific Cornucopian Futures,” 103; the technocratic ethos of Limits was criticized by Taylor and Butler, “How Do We Know We Have Global Environmental Problems?” among others.

60. Rindzevičiūtė, The Power of Systems, 133.

61. Medouz, Predely rosta.

62. Rindzevičiūtė, The Power of Systems, 133–4.

63. Fedorov, Vzaimodeistvie obschestva i prirody.

64. DeBardeleben, The Environment and Marxism-Leninism, 180.

65. See esp. Kapitsa, “Global’nye nauchnye problem blizhaishego buduschego.”

66. Fedorov, Man and Nature, 9.

67. Ibid., 13

68. Ibid., 9

69. Zimmermann, World Resources and Industries.

70. Egan, “Commentary,” 113.

71. Rockström et al., “A Safe Operating Space for Humanity.”

72. Fedorov, Man and Nature, 87.

73. Kapitsa, “Global’nye nauchnye problem blizhaishego buduschego,” 138.

74. Fedorov, “Rech deputata E.K. Fedorova.”

75. DeBardeleben, The Environment and Marxism-Leninism, 186.

76. Marx, “Letter to Fr. Engels from 25 March 1868,” 559.

77. Oldfield and Shaw, “V. I. Vernadsky and the Noosphere Concept.”

78. See Vernadsky, “Scientific Thought as a Planetary Phenomenon”; Fuchs‐Kittowski and Krüger, “The Noosphere Vision of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Vladimir I. Vernadsky.”

79. DeBardeleben, The Environment and Marxism-Leninism, 92–3.

80. Anon., “Problemy gumanisma v sovremennoi ideologicheskoi bor’be,” Pravda 228 (August 16, 1975), 3; on a vision of pessimism at that time see Bailey, Pessimism.

81. While currently unable to verify whether Fedorov or those philosophers who consulted him read Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (the first Russian edition of ‘The Phenomenon of Man’ was published only in 1987, but Fedorov may have read him in other languages), the resemblance of Fedorov’s writings to the work of the French Jesuit scientist is striking in places.

82. Fedorov, Man and Nature, 43.

83. Ibid., 28.

84. Ibid., 29.

85. Salmon, “Politics of Scarcity versus Technological Optimism.”

86. Fedorov, Man and Nature, 31.

87. Kochetkova, “Industry and Forests.”

88. Ostroumov, “Chelovek i priroda. Reportazh so vsemirnoi vystavki v Spokane.”

89. Kommoner, Zamykauischiisia krug.

90. Egan, Barry Commoner and the Science of Survival; Egan, “The Social Significance of the Environmental Crisis: Barry Commoner’s ‘“The Closing Circle’.”

91. Cornwell, “Barry Commoner: Scientist who Forced Environmentalism into the World’s Consciousness.”

92. Selcer, The Postwar Origins of the Global Environment, 247.

93. Fedorov, “Progress i mir nerazdelimy.”

94. Fedorov, “Posleslovie.”

95. Villie -Blanchard, “Technoscientific Cornucopian Futures,” 107.

96. Fedorov, Man and Nature, 56–7.

97. Fedorov, “Posleslovie.”

98. Egan, Barry Commoner and the Science of Survival, 17.

99. Fedorov, Man and Nature, 129.

100. Fedorov, “Obschestvo i priroda.”

101. Josephson et al., An Environmental History of Russia, 232.

102. Vernadsky, “Vopros o proizvoditelnykh silakh v Rossii.”

103. Villie -Blanchard, “Technoscientific Cornucopian Futures.”

104. Josephson, “War on Nature as Part of the Cold War,” 43.

105. Brain, “The Appeal of Appearing Green,” 4.

106. Coumel, “Building of Soviet Eco-Power,” 34.

107. Sörlin and Warde, “Expertise for the Future,” 39; Warde et al., The Environment.

108. DeBardeleben, The Environment and Marxism-Leninism.

109. Fedorov and Novik, “Man and his Natural Environment,” 5–9.

110. Rindzevičiūtė, The Power of Systems, 131.

111. Pryde, Conservation in the Soviet Union, 165.

112. Porritt, Seeing Green.

113. Kirchhof and McNeill, “Environmentalism, Environmental Policy, Capitalism and Communism,” 14.

Additional information

Funding

I would like to acknowledge support from the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council, project title: ‘Soviet Climate Science and its Intellectual Legacies’ (reference: AH/P004431/1).

Notes on contributors

Julia Lajus

Julia Lajus is an associate professor at the Department of History, St Petersburg School of Arts and Humanities of the National Research University Higher School of Economics, Russia. She is a head of laboratory for Environmental and Technological History. Her research interests include the environmental and technological history of biological resources, especially in marine and polar areas, and the history of field sciences such as fisheries science, oceanography and climatology.