Kremlin's A-test guinea pigs

Scan page 10

cracy in this regard.

Straight after the Second Imperialist World War, rightly alarmed by the powerful new weapons in the hands of the aggressively anti-communist American government, Stalin oraerea ine development of a -led 1-1.Russian atomic bomb in the shortest possible time at any cost. And according to Mikhail Klochko (who worked on the Abomb in the '40s and '50s, but sought political asylum in Canada in 1961) "at any cost"' meant "with total disregard for the health of those involved."!

The A-bomb project was pursued in a characteristic bureaucratic fashion. From pre-war situation where some atomic scientists found themselves deprived of ration cards because their work was of 'no practical importance", in 1946 senior scientists found their salaries trebled, while those working directly on the bomb also got cars and dachas (country houses) - the carrot to which the secret police was the stick.

Klochko repeats a popular anecdote of the time reflecting the stress under which scientists had to work:

•There are two sets of government bonuses: the small set and the large set. the small set consists of a refrigerator, a TV, hypertension and a stroke. The large set: a dacha, a car and a heart attack."

The A-bomb scientists had an extra bonus — the threat of radiation-related diseases.

Klochko worked in the Kurnakov Institute of General and Inorganic Chemistry (IONKH), one of hundreds of scientific establishments pressed into the A-bomb project and he reports that when radioactive work was commenced no precautions were introduced.

Liquid radioactive ' wastes were just poured into the general sewage system, which due to the inadequate ventilation. Within a few months of the start, there were deaths from radiation sickness (caused by acute exposure).

Another occupational hazard was the secret police, whose agents were keen to finger those who complained about conditions. Of two IONKH workers arrested for this, one died in jail and one "disappeared"

In 1947, IONKH belatedly set up a "control station"' to monitor contamination of people and equipment - its manager died of leukaemia.

Suffering

Medical surveys in 1947 found some 250 people, more than halt of IONKH's staff, suffering some degree of radiationlinked disease. over 100 of these were serious cases. Even workers not working on the bomb projeci were affected due to the general levei of contamination in the institute.

Apart from deaths from radiation sickness, Klochko mentions several senior staff who died untimely deaths. Researchers at other atomic institutes also seemed to die sooner than average, often afer "a long serious illness' (cancer?).

But all this is the tip tion camp prisoners, for whom even the most elementary safety precautions were too good!

Censorship

Facts on the scope of this unnatural disaster are hard to come by due to police state censorship. The first discussion of radiation problems did not even take place until ten years after the bomb project started. Before that, even the words "radiation sickness". were taboo.

Klochko was one of the censors of work to be published by IONKH scientists and reports that forbidden information for publication included epidemics, accidents in mines, factories and testing grounds, and any kind of national disaster. this clearly covers any of the problems of radiation, and no details of radiation illness and deaths reached the Russian newspapers.

Klochko estimates the total death toll, including victims of the Urals nuclear disaster of 1958 (where a fire or explosion at a nuclear waste disposal plant spread radioactive fall-out over a large area, may exceed the deaths due to the Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombs together!

Information: New Scientist. before the economic crisis of 1970 rolled across the EEC, Britain only joined in 1972 on the eve of that crisis. It remained possible in Britain to blame all the economic problems of the '70s on EEC membership. AntiCommon: •Market politics remained 'the left pòsition' Withdrawal was itself the goal not an option in face of EEC obstruction of a future left wing British government.

Now, with remarkable speed, almost like a wall crumbling and collapsing, all that is changing. Neil Kinnock has dropped it. Eric Heffer now says European workers' unity is the decisive thing to aim for, not withdrawal. Stuart Holland want a European AES (though he has yet to understand that this is incompatible with withdrawal. Give him time!).

The latest straw in the wind is in this week's Tribune in an article. by Dennis MacShane, a one-time anti-Marketeer.

He rightly says: 'There is not a single socialist, communist, Trotskyist, Maoist politicl party in Europe.:. that wants to see. Britain out of the EEC."

He advocates closer ties with the European labour movement and that use be made of the European Parliament to expose Thatcherism.

Whatever the motives of such as Kinnock and however much confusions there may still be in sections of the Left, these moves away from Little Britainism and towards the quest for European workers' unity are tremendously encouraging.

Especially to those of us who always refused to believe that the anti-EEC position was serious left or working class politics.

Scan page 11

140. 1953 FIze

----- pull-quotes -----

For an indepen- dent inquiry into the death of Coli Roach! Roach Family Support Commit tee, 50 Rectory Ra, London N16