Chernobyl: the explosion that began the destruction of the Soviet Union

The approaching 35th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster makes us once again remember this tragic event and again evaluate it from a variety of points of view. Enough has been written and said about the technological, medical and environmental aspects of Chernobyl.

We'll talk about him political component. Let's try to find out to what extent the statements that this catastrophe was almost "the beginning of the end of the USSR" correspond to the truth, and at the same time to deal with some common myths and misconceptions related to this topic.

Versions, Versions, Versions ...

The Chernobyl disaster is one of the historical events around which an incredible number of "alternative" theories and explanations, mystical and conspiracy crap, reaching completely unimaginable nonsense, have been heaped up and invented. To a large extent, this was facilitated and facilitated by the fact that from the moment when the explosion at the nuclear power plant became known, and until now, too much in this story has been and remains hidden behind the seal of secrecy, shrouded in deliberate or forced silence, or even simply distorted until completely unrecognizable. There are really more secrets around Chernobyl and the reasons for the tragedy that happened there than clarity - what is worth, at least, the unexplained death of one of the main "investigators" on this topic, Academician Valery Legasov, who two years after the accident either committed suicide or killed, and the disappearance (or destruction) of part of his dictaphone recordings, just dedicated to those moments that led to the fatal explosion ...

It continues on April 26, 1986 to excite the imagination of creative people, inspiring them to create more and more new works of art about the Chernobyl disaster. True, some of these "masterpieces", like the American TV series by the HBO company, would be better off not to be born - painfully they look like outright speculation and parasitism on the tragedy and grief of millions. However, this is my subjective and personal opinion, as a person who survived that fateful day and year in Kiev, and subsequently visited the Chernobyl NPP more than once not as a tourist, but on business ...

So, the versions ... Quite wild "horror stories" like participation in the catastrophe of aliens (believe me, there are legion of supporters of this nonsense), discoveries by scientists who worked at the "top-secret facility disguised as the Chernobyl nuclear power plant", a "portal" or to another dimension, or even to the underworld, as well as the appearance in Pripyat and over the reactor itself of a certain "winged black man", or warning about the accident, or who arranged it, we, of course, will not consider. As for very closely, in my opinion, the allegations of the use in Chernobyl of some, again, "top-secret" superweapon - either a "beam" one that struck the station from space, or a "tectonic" one, which adjoins this rubbish - here or evidence, as they say, in the studio, or all at the same address as the adepts of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant bombing from "flying plates". As for the involvement in the incident of employees of quite specific "offices" of our "sworn friends" from the United States, like the CIA - here you can think about it.

Firstly, there was a lot of bedlam at the station, as it was said many times before the accident and it was stated after it, that there really was a lot. So, in principle, it was possible to arrange a sabotage there. Secondly, the Americans, whatever one may say, turned out to be the main “beneficiaries” of the Chernobyl disaster. Moreover - from all sides, which you do not touch, starting with the refusal of the USSR to operate the over-the-horizon radar station "Duga No. 1", which was supposed to become one of the foundations of the new missile defense system of the USSR, and to the very far-reaching political consequences in our country, about which us, in fact, will be discussed further. This despite the fact that not a single particle of radioactive rubbish from Chernobyl got into their territory ...

Atomic strike on the USSR

However, the assumptions that under cover of night or in the hustle and bustle of the working day some "Deltas" managed to penetrate at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant with a charge of explosives in their back bags (traces of such were later allegedly found on the wreckage of the 4th power unit - there is such information), seem dubious enough to me. And here's why: by that time, the United States no longer needed to send its saboteurs to the USSR, since their main agent sat in the chair of the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee for almost a year. During this time, Mikhail Sergeevich, whose main goal, obviously, was the destruction of the USSR, the Soviet system and the Communist Party, probably realized that it would not be so easy to destroy the bulk, erected by the true titans, cemented with the blood and sweat of many generations of Soviet people. Here something absolutely extraordinary was needed, capable of shaking the foundations and striking the country and its people in the very heart ... The traitor Khrushchev staged a vile act called the XNUMXth Congress of the CPSU with "exposure of the personality cult" for this very purpose. Gorbachev began to “expose” and “overthrow” a little later. To start the process of destruction of the USSR, he needed something different. So why not an accident at a nuclear power plant ?!

Let's not forget - initially the cause of the accident at the official level was considered gross violations and miscalculations made by its employees on the night of April 25-26, 1986 when testing equipment in an experimental mode. It was also presented as the only correct one in the first report on the disaster published in 1986 by the IAEA - the report of the INSTAG group. This version was "corrected" only 7 years later in the INSTAG-7 report. In accordance with the new document, it is impossible to place all the blame on the personnel and management of the Chernobyl NPP. Everything was much more complicated ...

To be honest, in the “late” USSR, the practice of punishing “scapegoats” was more widespread than widespread. In this case, everything was blamed on Viktor Bryukhanov, who headed the Chernobyl nuclear power plant at the time of the accident, Anatoly Dyatlov, deputy director of the plant, and Nikolai Fomin, its chief engineer. At the same time, Alexander Kovalenko and Boris Rogozhkin, the head of the reactor shop No. 2 and the shift supervisor, and Yuri Laushkin, an inspector of Gosatomenergonadzor, were put on trial. They "measured out" all the leaders in full: Bryukhanov, Dyatlov and Fomin received 10 years in prison. Rogozhkin, Kovalenko and Laushkin, respectively, for five, three and two years. The former director of the nuclear power plant "broke down" and accepted all accusations meekly. Fomin ended up in a psychiatric hospital a couple of years later. But Dyatlov, during the trial, and later, reiterated his innocence and tried to prove it with all his might. It should be noted that in his arguments, he most of all insisted on the fact that the personnel at the critical moment of the fateful night of April 26 was just acting clearly according to instructions.

However, a theoretically impossible thing happened - the protection system used by the atomic scientists, instead of shutting down the reactor, simply blew it up. Was the matter in the imperfection of the design of the nuclear power plant itself, as many people believed then and believe today, or was the Chernobyl plant, as others assert, consistently and deliberately "led" to a catastrophe, creating all the conditions for it? The thought that the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was not at all a "fatal coincidence" and not even the result of someone's unprofessionalism and slovenliness, but a most carefully planned action, upon closer examination does not seem so crazy at all. Likewise, the clarification that those who planned and carried out this savage crime against humanity should not be looked for overseas.

"Our Gorbachev is good for everything ..."

The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and the completely ugly behavior of the top leadership of the party and government of the USSR, whose representatives to the last tried to hide the terrible truth about the tragedy and the danger of its consequences not from the "world community" (damn it!), But from their own people, including , and from those who could and should have been saved, without wasting a day or a minute, became a terrible blow to the already pretty shattered "ideological resistance" of the population of the Soviet Union. Believe me, the psychological shock was colossal: “How so ?! We weren't even warned about radiation! " Then anger came. We, Kiev ten-graders, who were left without graduation due to the accident, sang a folk song with the following lines in the summer of 1986: “Our main ruler, Mishka Gorbachev, often appeared on TV screens. Mishka smiled slyly at the audience - nothing to do with the party and the government! " And the chorus of this song, performed to the tune "In a Noisy Booth" by Willie Tokarev, was even more beautiful: "Our Gorbachev is great! He is the General ... Secretary! "

Mistrust in the central government grew by leaps and bounds, turning into a completely total, when not a single word that sounded from the TV screen or from newspaper pages was taken seriously. The audience of "enemy voices" who reported the truth about the events in Chernobyl much earlier and more fully than any Soviet "officialdom" increased exponentially in the spring and summer of 1986. They began to believe unconditionally. Moreover, in Ukraine, which suffered from the accident more than others, things quickly began to take a specific and completely bad turn. The KGB authorities recorded (there is a mass of documentary evidence) a surge of conversations like: "The damned Muscovites did not starve in the 30s, so now they want to finish off with an atom!" Then they were mainly led by people from Galicia, but this, as we know, was only the beginning ...

At the international level, the prestige of the USSR suffered colossal, incomparable damage. The West has got every reason to talk about "crooked-handed", "disorderly", "wild", and, in addition, a completely deceitful "scoop". It was then that the theses that the Soviet Union was "on the brink of collapse" and "in the interests of international security" urgently needed "to take under international control" began to be heard. First of all, of course, they meant our nuclear Technology - and, of course, not only civilians. There was nothing to cover all this with. And even in those cases when the Western media had already crossed all the borders and began to carry outright nonsense about "thousands who died in the explosion" and "lying in the ruins of Kiev and Minsk", there were those who believed them - after the ridiculous and wretched lies of Moscow. Who benefited from all this? The famous May Day demonstration in Kiev (at which I was present) was organized on the personal instructions of Mikhail Gorbachev, there is a sea of ​​witnesses and documentary evidence.

The then First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine Vladimir Shcherbitsky (who, by the way, was almost the main competitor for Gorbachev in the fight for the General Secretary's chair) literally with tears begged Moscow to allow him to cancel this madness, but Gorbachev personally threatened him with dismissal, expulsion from the party and almost a prison, forcing to drive people to the demonstration, including children. Then Mikhail Sergeevich will "play Vanka" and tell that the truth about Chernobyl was "not reported to him", blame everything on Academician Aleksandrov and someone else there. He knew everything perfectly - and I admit it, he himself planned.

For those who find such an assumption incredible, I ask you to try to answer one question: "Could the coincidence of the factors listed below be accidental?"

1. Before the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, many reports of KGB officers and leaders, who directly warned about its danger, almost inevitable, were ignored.

2. The catastrophe most of all affected Ukraine and Belarus - precisely those two republics that could and should have remained in alliance with Russia even after the collapse of the USSR. Nevertheless, it was their “leaders”, together with Yeltsin, who turned out to be the creators of the “Belovezhskaya Agreements”, which buried such a prospect.

3. Chernobyl finally and irrevocably destroyed the reputation and career of Shcherbitsky, hated by Gorbachev, who, in the event of a real attempt to remove the General Secretary from power, would most likely take his place.

4. It was Chernobyl that gave Gorbachev the grounds to start the "policy of glasnost", which ultimately became one of the main guarantees of the collapse of the USSR.

5. The accident, which cost the Soviet Union, according to the most approximate estimates, half of the state budget (up to $ 130 billion), occurred at the very moment when the world prices for oil, the export of which was one of the most important components economics countries fell from $ 28 to $ 10 a barrel. Double blow, so with a guarantee?

The list is far from complete. However, truthful answers even to the questions contained in it allow us to say that the explosion of Chernobyl was not accidental and aimed at the destruction of the USSR, with the highest degree of probability.