Environment in the Soviet Bloc

Dr. Zoltán GrossmanDr. Zoltán GrossmanAssorted Cabbage-Eating Peoples Studies, Assorted Cabbage-Eating Peoples Studies,

The Evergreen State College, Olympia, WashingtonThe Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington

Environment in Russia

Environment in Soviet Central Asia

Engels’ Engels’ Dialectics of NatureDialectics of Nature (1883) (1883)““We by no means rule over nature like a We by no means rule over nature like a conqueror over a foreign people, like someoneconqueror over a foreign people, like someonestanding outside of nature--but that we…standing outside of nature--but that we… belong to nature and exist in its midst…”belong to nature and exist in its midst…”

““We are…getting to know both the We are…getting to know both the immediate and the more remote immediate and the more remote consequences of our interference with consequences of our interference with the traditional course of nature….the traditional course of nature….The more will men not only feel, but The more will men not only feel, but also know, their unity with nature, also know, their unity with nature, and thus the more impossible will and thus the more impossible will become the senseless and anti-become the senseless and anti-natural idea of a contradiction between natural idea of a contradiction between …man and nature.”…man and nature.”

RosaRosaLuxemburgLuxemburg

(1917)(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, self-sufficiency 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.

Amu Darya Size ofAral Sea

KaraKumCanal

Environmental damage estimatedat $1.25 -$2.5 billion a year.

Interbasin water transfers(river diversions)Aral Sea

BLACK SEA

Sea ofAzov

Don R.

Crimea

Ukraine

Georgia

Turkey

Dnieper R.

Danube R.

Bosporus

Russia

Romania

MoldovaDniester R.

Bulg.

Sea of Azov

Metals plant onDnieper River

Eutrophication (Algae growth)

LakeBaikal

Environmentalobjections topaper mills

as earlyas 1960s

Network withLake Superior

Gabcikovo Dams,Slovakia

Conflict, protests betweenSlovakia and Hungary

over diversion of Danube River in Gabcikovo/

Nagymaros project

AIR & LAND

Kola Peninsula, NW Russia

BlackTriangle

GDR

CZECHOSLOVAKIA

POLAND

Devastation fromacid rain, SO2, toxics

Pop.,1870

Pop.,1910

Canals& RR,Pre-1914

Industry1945-1989

Donbass & Kuzbass

Donbass coalfields, E. Ukraine

Kuzbass coalfields, W. Siberia

Kalmykia

EuropeanBuddhist Mongols

Desertification

Chemicals/Salinization

Oil development

Sakha(Yakutia)

• Siberian indigenous

• Coal, metals mining

• Logging

Noril’sk nickel smelter

Arctic Haze and Acid Rain

Kola Peninsula

Acid rain,Mining,

Nuclear subsscuttled

MILITARIZATION

Toxic Soviet military bases

Abandoned Sovietmilitary bases in Central

Europe, ex-GDRhave toxicwastes (like U.S.bases elsewhere.)

Sverdlovsk anthrax, 1979

Bioweapons disaster,79 cases (66 dead)in Yeltsin’s district

Bombing civilianchemical plants

Toxic cloud after NATO bombing of Pancevo plant in Yugoslavia, 1999

1st uranium minesin Czech Rep.

Maria Sklodowska Curie, Polish-French scientistwho discovered radiumfrom Czech mines, 1890s

Uranium mining in HungaryRoma (Gypsy) kidsplaying on radioactivemill tailings fromSoviet uranium mine in Pécs (Like Native American kids in US).

Mecsek Range minersthreatened toflood mine in 1956 Revolution

Soviet nuclear tests

in Kazakhstan

Kazakhs protest, network with Nevadans

for 1996 ban

Genetic defectsnear Semey(Semipalatinsk)

Kyshtym waste disaster, 1957

– 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

Orphans

NovayaZemlya

Chernobyl

disaster,

April 1986

NUCLEARPOWER

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 near-meltdown 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 (!)

Half of deaths, many genetic defects in local contaminated zone

8,000-10,000 premature deathsUnited Nations Scientific Committee of the

Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), 2005

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/Secondaryto 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 gascompaniesin Caspian

Basin

Oil spill offBaku, Azerbaijan

Caspian Sea

Caspian sturgeonand its caviar

CaspianSeal inKazakhstan

Clear-cutting in Siberia

Japanese and South Korean companies take advantage

of Yeltsin’s “fire sale, ” 1990s

International campaign toprotect 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. standards2000

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

Russiancutoff 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 spillAustralian-run gold

mine in Romania, 2000

80% of fish in Tisza River / wetlands died, spill to Danube

Hungary highest surface water flowon Earth, 85% ag, land, 96% rivers

originate outside borders

Hungarian cyanide disaster falloutCzech 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. betweenEU (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