Russia and Its Neighbors - Comparing Environmental Policies in 16 Countries - page 217

shut down for routine maintenance. A few technicians wanted to perform
an unauthorized experiment on how late in the process the turbine could
be restarted. They shut off the emergency core cooling system, and when
the experiment went awry, further blundered by pulling out the control
rods that were supposed to slow down the reaction. Nearly at once the
core heated up dramatically. Part of the core “went critical,” exploding
like an atomic bomb with the force of four tons of TNT. Four seconds
later a second explosion, perhaps nuclear or perhaps steam, blasted the
thousand-ton concrete roof off the reactor. Radioactive material spewed
into the atmosphere. Some drifted west over Sweden and Germany, where
monitoring stations detected this mysterious radiation.
The government's immediate reaction followed the old Soviet pattern.
This was in spite of the recent reforms at the highest levels. Only a year
earlier, Mikhail Gorbachev had taken power in a move toward openness
and restructuring. His appointment followed a long period of economic
and social decline under Leonid Brezhnev, characterized by stagnation,
corruption, and cronyism. On the other hand, this was also a period of
diplomatic detente with the West. Brezhnev and President Nixon had
signed treaties limiting the use of nuclear weapons, and scientists and
experts from the two nations had exchanged visits. By the mid-1980s, the
old Communist bosses finally recognized that their system was failing
and hoped Gorbachev could salvage it. But for 10 days after the Chernobyl
explosion, the Soviet government blacked out news of the accident, in spite
of 30 deaths, 238 casualties from radiation, and the evacuation of thou-
sands. Shortwave radio broadcasts from Western Europe had been telling
the Soviet citizens of the event for a week.
The secret could no longer be hidden. In a television broadcast, Gorbachev
admitted the problem, promised to aid the victims, and pledged to tell the
truth. The Chernobyl accident had the effect of unmasking the failings
of the old system. The reformers used the incident as a reason to remove
many party officials and bureaucrats from their positions. Ordinary
citizens came to speak more openly about the dangers of radiation. One
consequence was to advance the reform effort. This was not the only case
of citizen outrage against environmental danger during the 1980s. People
living near the cellulose cord factory on Lake Baikal had voiced their
objections, and people living near the Aral Sea had complained about
its water being robbed for irrigation. Soviet citizens felt able to object
to environmental degradation in a situation when they did not feel safe
in objecting to political or social injustice. In 1988 the Socio-Ecological