If the Chernobyl disaster held one lesson, Mikhail Gorbachev wrote in 2006 on the catastrophe’s 20th anniversary, it was that nuclear devastation – whether caused by an accident or the deployment of a weapon – is far more horrifying than the world seemed to realize. Yet countries around the world continue to cling to nuclear technology.
MOSCOW – The nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl 20 years ago this month, even more than my launch of perestroika, was perhaps the main cause of the Soviet Union’s collapse five years later. Indeed, the Chernobyl catastrophe was a historic turning point: there was the era before the disaster, and there is the very different era that has followed.
The morning of the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear station on April 26, 1986, the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union met to discuss the situation and organized a government commission to control the situation and ensure that serious measures were taken, particularly regarding the health of people in the disaster zone. Moreover, the Academy of Science established a group of leading scientists, who were immediately dispatched to the Chernobyl region.
At that point, the Politburo did not have an accurate and complete picture of the situation. But it was the general consensus that, in the spirit of the already-established glasnost policy, we should openly share information upon receiving it. Claims that the Politburo concealed information about the disaster are thus far from true.
One reason I believe that there was no deliberate deception is that, when the governmental commission visited the scene right after the disaster and stayed overnight in Polesie, near Chernobyl, its members consumed regular food and water, and moved about without respirators, like everybody else who worked there. If the local administration or the scientists had known the real impact of the meltdown, they would not have taken such risks.
In fact, nobody knew the truth; that is why our attempts to acquire comprehensive information about the catastrophe were in vain. For example, we initially believed that the main impact of the explosion would be in Ukraine; but Belarus, to the northwest, was hit even worse. Poland and Sweden also suffered serious consequences.
Of course, the world first learned of the Chernobyl disaster from Swedish scientists, creating the impression that we were hiding something. But we had nothing to hide: we simply had no information for a day and a half. Only a few days after the event did we learn that it had not been a simple accident, but a genuine nuclear catastrophe – an explosion of Chernobyl’s fourth reactor.
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Even when the first report on Chernobyl appeared in Pravda on April 28, the situation was far from clear. For example, when the reactor blew up, the fire was immediately put out with water, which only worsened the situation as nuclear particles began spreading through the atmosphere.
Nonetheless, we were able to take measures to help people within the disaster zone; they were evacuated and, with the help of more than 200 medical organizations, tested for radiation poisoning. There was a serious risk that the nuclear reactor’s contents would seep into the soil, and then leak into the Dniepr River, endangering the population of Kyiv and other cities. So we acted to protect the river banks. We initiated a total deactivation of the Chernobyl plant and mobilized resources to control the devastation, including by preparing the sarcophagus that would encase the fourth reactor.
The Chernobyl disaster, more than anything else, opened the possibility of much greater freedom of expression in the Soviet Union, to the point that the system as we knew it became untenable. The experience made starkly apparent how important it was to continue the policy of glasnost. Personally, I began to perceive time in terms of pre-Chernobyl and post-Chernobyl.
The cost of the Chernobyl catastrophe was overwhelming, not only in human terms, but also economically. Even today, its legacy affects the economies of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. But the suggestion that it was the economic price of the catastrophe that ended the arms race – I could not, it is claimed, keep building arms while paying to clean up Chernobyl – is wrong.
My declaration of January 15, 1986, is well known around the world. I addressed arms reduction (including nuclear arms), and proposed that by the year 2000, no country should have atomic weapons. I ended the arms race because I felt a moral responsibility to do so.
Chernobyl did, however, open my eyes to a broader reality: the horrible potential consequences of nuclear technology, even when used for non-military purposes. One could now imagine much more clearly what might happen if a nuclear bomb exploded. According to scientific experts, one SS-18 rocket could have the effect of 100 Chernobyl explosions.
Unfortunately, two decades after the disaster, the world still has a serious nuclear problem. Countries that have nuclear weapons are in no hurry to get rid of them; on the contrary, they continue to refine their arsenals. Meanwhile, countries without nuclear weapons want them, believing that the monopoly of the “nuclear club” is a threat to world peace.
The twentieth anniversary of the Chernobyl catastrophe reminds us that we must not ignore the tragic lesson of 1986. We should do everything in our power to make all nuclear facilities safe and secure, while working hard to produce alternative sources of energy. Fortunately, world leaders increasingly recognize this imperative, suggesting that the lesson of Chernobyl is finally being understood.
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MOSCOW – The nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl 20 years ago this month, even more than my launch of perestroika, was perhaps the main cause of the Soviet Union’s collapse five years later. Indeed, the Chernobyl catastrophe was a historic turning point: there was the era before the disaster, and there is the very different era that has followed.
The morning of the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear station on April 26, 1986, the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union met to discuss the situation and organized a government commission to control the situation and ensure that serious measures were taken, particularly regarding the health of people in the disaster zone. Moreover, the Academy of Science established a group of leading scientists, who were immediately dispatched to the Chernobyl region.
At that point, the Politburo did not have an accurate and complete picture of the situation. But it was the general consensus that, in the spirit of the already-established glasnost policy, we should openly share information upon receiving it. Claims that the Politburo concealed information about the disaster are thus far from true.
One reason I believe that there was no deliberate deception is that, when the governmental commission visited the scene right after the disaster and stayed overnight in Polesie, near Chernobyl, its members consumed regular food and water, and moved about without respirators, like everybody else who worked there. If the local administration or the scientists had known the real impact of the meltdown, they would not have taken such risks.
In fact, nobody knew the truth; that is why our attempts to acquire comprehensive information about the catastrophe were in vain. For example, we initially believed that the main impact of the explosion would be in Ukraine; but Belarus, to the northwest, was hit even worse. Poland and Sweden also suffered serious consequences.
Of course, the world first learned of the Chernobyl disaster from Swedish scientists, creating the impression that we were hiding something. But we had nothing to hide: we simply had no information for a day and a half. Only a few days after the event did we learn that it had not been a simple accident, but a genuine nuclear catastrophe – an explosion of Chernobyl’s fourth reactor.
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Even when the first report on Chernobyl appeared in Pravda on April 28, the situation was far from clear. For example, when the reactor blew up, the fire was immediately put out with water, which only worsened the situation as nuclear particles began spreading through the atmosphere.
Nonetheless, we were able to take measures to help people within the disaster zone; they were evacuated and, with the help of more than 200 medical organizations, tested for radiation poisoning. There was a serious risk that the nuclear reactor’s contents would seep into the soil, and then leak into the Dniepr River, endangering the population of Kyiv and other cities. So we acted to protect the river banks. We initiated a total deactivation of the Chernobyl plant and mobilized resources to control the devastation, including by preparing the sarcophagus that would encase the fourth reactor.
The Chernobyl disaster, more than anything else, opened the possibility of much greater freedom of expression in the Soviet Union, to the point that the system as we knew it became untenable. The experience made starkly apparent how important it was to continue the policy of glasnost. Personally, I began to perceive time in terms of pre-Chernobyl and post-Chernobyl.
The cost of the Chernobyl catastrophe was overwhelming, not only in human terms, but also economically. Even today, its legacy affects the economies of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. But the suggestion that it was the economic price of the catastrophe that ended the arms race – I could not, it is claimed, keep building arms while paying to clean up Chernobyl – is wrong.
My declaration of January 15, 1986, is well known around the world. I addressed arms reduction (including nuclear arms), and proposed that by the year 2000, no country should have atomic weapons. I ended the arms race because I felt a moral responsibility to do so.
Chernobyl did, however, open my eyes to a broader reality: the horrible potential consequences of nuclear technology, even when used for non-military purposes. One could now imagine much more clearly what might happen if a nuclear bomb exploded. According to scientific experts, one SS-18 rocket could have the effect of 100 Chernobyl explosions.
Unfortunately, two decades after the disaster, the world still has a serious nuclear problem. Countries that have nuclear weapons are in no hurry to get rid of them; on the contrary, they continue to refine their arsenals. Meanwhile, countries without nuclear weapons want them, believing that the monopoly of the “nuclear club” is a threat to world peace.
The twentieth anniversary of the Chernobyl catastrophe reminds us that we must not ignore the tragic lesson of 1986. We should do everything in our power to make all nuclear facilities safe and secure, while working hard to produce alternative sources of energy. Fortunately, world leaders increasingly recognize this imperative, suggesting that the lesson of Chernobyl is finally being understood.