Environment in the Soviet Bloc
Dr. Zoltán Grossman
Assorted Cabbage-Eating Peoples Studies,
The Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington
Environment in Russia
Environment in Soviet Central Asia
Engels’ Dialectics of Nature (1883)
“We by no means rule over nature like a
conqueror over a foreign people, like someone
standing outside of nature--but that we…
belong to nature and exist in its midst…”
“We are…getting to know both the
immediate and the more remote
consequences of our interference with
the traditional course of nature….
The more will men not only feel, but
also know, their unity with nature,
and thus the more impossible will
become the senseless and antinatural idea of a contradiction between
…man and nature.”
Rosa
Luxemburg
(1917)
Soviet Central Planning
• “The means—industrialization—
came permanently to replace the
end—egalitarianism—as it
was…expressed in the Bolshevik
Revolution.” (Bailes)
• Economic decisions made not by
workers’ self-management, but
central planners insensitive to
local communities’ needs
USSR was worse than West
• 2.5 X air pollution of
U.S. (per GNP)
• 20% water unsafe
• 1/3 of arable land
affected by acid rain
• Etc., etc.
Why Soviet bloc was worse
• Stalinist heavy industry
• Expansion of agriculture
– Khrushchev: “Virgin Lands”
• “Inexhaustible” resources in
large empire/bloc
• Sacrifice for defense of
Communist state
Why Soviet bloc was worse
• Little or no free opposition
• Secrecy; lack of enforcement
• Only capitalism harms nature
• Need to “catch up” with
(historic) West & capitalism
Why Soviet bloc was worse
• State legitimacy, selfsufficiency through technology
• Aviator heroes,
1920s-40s
• Space Race,
1950s-60s
Soviet Technocracy
• Technocratic institutions had the ear
of the Kremlin (Konrád / Szelényi)
• Leaders technicians; questioning of
technology prevented
• 80% of Politburo had high technical
education, 1970s.
• Many Western-recognized Soviet
dissidents were also technocrats
(Sakharov, etc.).
WATER
Aral Sea
• Once the 4th largest inland
body of water in the world.
A series of dams was built
to irrigate cotton.
• Aral Sea reduced to about
25% of its 1960 volume, 4x
salinity wiped out the
fishery.
• Pollutants became airborne
as dust, causing significant
local health problems.
Interbasin water transfers
(river diversions)
Aral Sea
Kara
Kum
Canal
Amu Darya
Size of
Aral Sea
Environmental damage estimated
at $1.25 -$2.5 billion a year.
Dnieper R.
Ukraine
Sea of
Dniester R.
Azov
Moldova
Crimea
Danube R.
Romania
Don R.
BLACK SEA
Bulg.
Bosporus
Turkey
Russia
Georgia
Sea of Azov
Eutrophication (Algae growth)
Metals plant on
Dnieper River
Lake
Baikal
Environmental
objections to
paper mills
as early
as 1960s
Network with
Lake Superior
Gabcikovo Dams,
Slovakia
Conflict, protests between
Slovakia and Hungary
over diversion of
Danube River in Gabcikovo/
Nagymaros project
AIR & LAND
Kola Peninsula, NW Russia
Black
Triangle
GDR
Devastation from
acid rain, SO2, toxics
POLAND
CZECHOSLOVAKIA
Pop.,
1870
Pop.,
1910
Canals
& RR,
Pre1914
Industry
19451989
Donbass & Kuzbass
Donbass coal
fields, E. Ukraine
Kuzbass coal
fields, W. Siberia
Kalmykia
European
Buddhist
Mongols
Desertification
Chemicals/
Salinization
Oil development
Sakha
(Yakutia)
• Siberian
indigenous
• Coal, metals
mining
• Logging
Noril’sk nickel smelter
Arctic Haze and Acid Rain
MILITARIZATION
Acid rain,
Mining,
Nuclear subs
scuttled
Kola Peninsula
Toxic Soviet military bases
Abandoned Soviet
military bases in Central
Europe, ex-GDRhave toxic
wastes (like U.S.
bases elsewhere.)
Sverdlovsk anthrax, 1979
Bioweapons disaster,
79 cases (66 dead)
in Yeltsin’s district
Bombing civilian
chemical plants
Toxic cloud after NATO bombing of
Pancevo plant in Yugoslavia, 1999
1st uranium mines
in Czech Rep.
Maria Sklodowska Curie,
Polish-French scientist
who discovered radium
from Czech mines, 1890s
Uranium mining in Hungary
Roma (Gypsy) kids
playing on radioactive
mill tailings from
Soviet uranium mine
in Pécs (Like Native
American kids in US).
Mecsek Range miners
threatened to
flood mine in 1956
Revolution
Soviet
nuclear tests
in Kazakhstan
Genetic defects
near Semey
(Semipalatinsk)
Kazakhs protest,
network with Nevadans
for 1996 ban
Kyshtym waste
disaster, 1957
Orphans
– Explosion at Soviet weapons factory forces
evacuation of over 10,000 people in Ural Mts.
– Area size of Rhode Island uninhabited;
30 villages demolished; many cancers reported
Novaya
Zemlya
NUCLEAR
POWER
Chernobyl
disaster,
April 1986
400 million people exposed in 20 countries
“It Can’t Happen Here”:
West Mirrors East
• U.S. reaction to Chernobyl, 1986
– Blamed on Communism, secrecy, graphite reactor
• Also Soviet reaction to Three-Mile Island, 1979
– Blamed on Capitalism, profit, pressurized-water reactor
• US, Soviet industries covered for each other
– No technology is 100% safe
– Fukushima 2011 due to corporate profit & state secrecy
Soviet media reaction to
Three-Mile Island, 1979
• Literaturnaya Gazeta: Pennsylvania nearmeltdown was a “serious, major accident.”
• Kommunist: Build nukes in less populated areas.
• Izvestiya: “essentially minor unfavorable
consequences were depicted in an extremely
exaggerated form,” by an antinuclear movement
that is a “tool” of Western oil companies (!)
8,000-10,000 premature deaths
United Nations Scientific Committee of the
Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), 2005
Half of deaths, many genetic defects
in local contaminated zone
My grandmother, by Luda
Death of my life, by Marina
Chernobyl is war, by Irena
Beauty and the beast, by Helena
Nothing escapes radiation, by Irena
Chernobyl, our hell, by Eugenia
Self-portrait, by Natasha
Chernobyl’s political fallout
• Secrecy stimulated opposition to nuclear power in GDR,
Poland, Czechoslovakia (with Western activists)
• Stimulated nationalism in Ukraine and Belarus,
and Baltic republics that lost clean-up workers
(strike by angry Estonian conscripts).
• Gorbachev’s Glasnost (openness) stronger in short-term.
• USSR weakened in long-term by questioning of the
heart of technocratic power; collapsed within 5 years.
Nuclear plants in Europe
Transitions to Capitalism
• Central Europe best world region to study transition from
state-run socialist economy to privatized capitalist economy
• Transitions uneven within and between different countries
• State & global institutions
still play roll in economy
• Move from Primary/Secondary
to Tertiary/Quaternary economy
1. Primary economic activities
Extracting raw materials
2. Secondary economic activities
Processing and manufacturing materials
3. Tertiary economic activities
Sales, exchange, trading goods and services
Stock
exchange
Call Centers
Tourism
4. Quaternary activities
Processing knowledge and information
Positives since end of USSR
• Democratization: NGOs, data
• Decentralization: local sensitivity
• Deindustrialization of old areas
• Expanded national parks
• Protection laws stronger by 1993
Negatives since end of USSR
• Financial difficulties; jobs stressed
• Reduced monitoring, enforcement
• Increased affluence, cars, waste
• Forests, mines, oil open to foreign
companies
• Putin dismantled agency, 2002
Caspian Sea
Western,
Russian
oil and gas
companies
in Caspian
Basin
Caspian Sea
Caspian
Seal in
Kazakhstan
Caspian sturgeon
and its caviar
Oil spill off
Baku, Azerbaijan
Clear-cutting in Siberia
Japanese and South Korean
companies take advantage
of Yeltsin’s “fire sale, ” 1990s
International campaign to
protect Amur Tiger near China
Putin restricts foreign
companies, 2010s
Other positives in Central Europe
• Ecological activists in transition
– Slovenia, Bulgaria, Estonia,
Hungary, etc.
• Increased spending in some states
• Pollution control technology
• Loss of markets in USSR
• Entry into E.U. standards
2000
Cleaner air and water, 1990s
• Because of capitalist market reforms
(Bochinarz) or in spite of them?
• Due to deindustrialization of heavily
polluting military plants?
• Due to severe recession?
• Due to end of censorship?
• Due to E.U. standards?
Natural Gas dependency
Russian
cutoff to
Ukraine, EU,
2009
New problems under capitalism
• Profit motive for corporate secrecy
– Need for strong regulation during time of
weakening state and privatization.
• Foreign companies not accountable
– Go bankrupt when face penalties
– Power transferred from COMECON to WTO
• Market-based models for regulations
– Emissions trading, carbon markets, etc. allow
polluters to continue polluting
Tisza cyanide spill
Australian-run gold
mine in Romania, 2000
80% of fish in
Tisza River /
wetlands died,
spill to Danube
Hungary highest surface water flow
on Earth, 85% ag, land, 96% rivers
originate outside borders
Hungarian cyanide disaster fallout
Czech Rep., Hungary, Montana, etc. ban
cyanide in metallic mining; East inspires West
Cross-border Pollution
Few mechanisms for cross-border pollution control in Bug R. between
EU (Poland), non-EU (Ukraine), along new “Schengen Line”
Kolontár sludge disaster, 2010
• Hungarian alumina plant toxic
waste pond spills red sludge,
kills 9, injures 150
• Govt nationalizes, shuts plant
“Ecological Imperialism”?
• Western environmentalists imposing beliefs?
– Like feminism, took decades to develop in West
– East Bloc citizens had zero political or consumer choices
• Nationalists resent EU holding back development
– Also resent polluting foreign companies
• Countries have their own ecological traditions
– Village regulations of use of Commons; forest access
• Western, Eastern activists now have common issues
Nature &
National
Identity