Soviet Exterminism and the Treadmill of Destruction

• In Event: 2251 - Section on Environmental Sociology Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 11. Environmental Injustice

Abstract

The manic nuclear weapons development in the Soviet Union during the Cold War left an unprecedented environmental legacy which has yet to fully be characterized. Within the framework of the treadmill of destruction theory the article examines the historical development of the Soviet nuclear weapons complex. Adopting a path dependency method, it explores the dynamics of a societal commitment to “exterminism.” The article argues that this commitment generated a treadmill of destruction – a contingent and historical anthropogenic process that accelerates additions to and withdrawals from the environment. In presenting this history, it asserts that the crystallization of an “exterminist” social context facilitates the emergence and inertia of this treadmill, and its widespread radioecological consequences. Within-case comparative historical evidence of treadmill of destruction dynamics in the commodity chain of extraction and production of nuclear weapons is identified in the uranium mining and milling boomtowns that were driven by military imperatives rather than economic growth coalitions, and in the enormous secret nuclear weapons production cities constructed to meet the demands of the exterminism. Although the radioactive risks of Soviet nuclear warmaking are widespread, Gulag prison laborers, ethnic and indigenous groups have been unevenly victimized by the resulting environmental contamination. Ongoing efforts to ameliorate risks to these groups and the broader society continue to suffer from the historical suppression and systematic distortion of evidence linking the Soviet Union (and Russia) with environmental damage resulting from its nuclear activities.

Author

• Michael Lengefeld, Goucher College