The Nuclear Landscape as a Garden 23
peaceful socialist atom to its belligerent capitalist counterpart. 12 Using the stages of
the four Geneva Conferences on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy (1955–
1971) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA, established in
1957), the USSR claimed not only moral, but also technological leadership
in the field, stunning the international public, among other things, with the
world’s first NPP in 1954 and a number of cutting-edge contributions to the
development of breeder and fusion reactors. In the late 1950s and early 1960s,
the peaceful atom quickly became a centerpiece of the Soviet rhetoric and
iconography of progress, 13 giving birth to an imaginary that Paul Josephson
has aptly termed “atomic-powered communism.”
However, the new technology had yet to demonstrate its transformative
clout. As Sheila Jasanoff argues, visions of technoscientific futures “must latch
onto tangible things” that “generate economic or social value” in order to
gain assent beyond the bounded communities of scientists. 14 Given the perceived hostility of much of the USSR’s geographical space and the promise
of unlimited energy offered up by the atom, projects of large-scale nature
improvement constituted a particularly appealing field of application for
nuclear energy in the minds of Soviet technologists. The Soviet state had
engaged in “correcting the faults of nature” through large-scale infrastructural development since its inception, from Lenin’s electrification program
(GOELRO) to Stalin’s Plan for the Transformation of Nature, but only the advent
of the atomic age promised to remove whatever limitations had hitherto
hampered the large-scale creation of new natures. 15 “In our times of technological progress, especially in the field of nuclear energy and its use for peaceful purposes, mankind will be able to proceed with […] activities of radical
transformations of nature,” a Soviet author proclaimed in 1961, 16 and another
added that “the elemental evolution of the biosphere is giving way to a conscious, purposeful regulation of it.” 17 The CPSU joined the conversation,
claiming in its 1961 program that where other societal systems lacked the
clout to intervene in nature and left it to its self-will, Communism “greatly
increases [man’s] power over nature,” 18 – a process that was facilitated by the
country’s pioneering role in the utilization of atomic energy for peaceful purposes. 19 Radiating with confidence, Soviet nuclear scientists and engineers
saw themselves “at the onset of a man-made world,” as one of them put it. 20
Transforming deserts into gardens had been a paragon of Soviet nature
improvement since Stalinist times. 21 That Mangyshlak, of all the arid places
in the country, became the testing ground for harnessing the atom’s power
to achieve the task was due to a historical contingency. Shortly after the discovery of uranium, large oil and gas deposits were found on the peninsula,
which at the time were believed to rival the West Siberian fields. The fact
that the region was already being developed at great cost by Minsredmash
created favorable preconditions for their exploitation, as Gosplan argued in
a letter to Khrushchev in 1961. 22 Pursuing this strategy, however, required
the presence of a permanent labor force numbering in the scores and potentially hundreds of thousands – and hence, the construction of a sizable city
peaceful socialist atom to its belligerent capitalist counterpart. 12 Using the stages of
the four Geneva Conferences on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy (1955–
1971) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA, established in
1957), the USSR claimed not only moral, but also technological leadership
in the field, stunning the international public, among other things, with the
world’s first NPP in 1954 and a number of cutting-edge contributions to the
development of breeder and fusion reactors. In the late 1950s and early 1960s,
the peaceful atom quickly became a centerpiece of the Soviet rhetoric and
iconography of progress, 13 giving birth to an imaginary that Paul Josephson
has aptly termed “atomic-powered communism.”
However, the new technology had yet to demonstrate its transformative
clout. As Sheila Jasanoff argues, visions of technoscientific futures “must latch
onto tangible things” that “generate economic or social value” in order to
gain assent beyond the bounded communities of scientists. 14 Given the perceived hostility of much of the USSR’s geographical space and the promise
of unlimited energy offered up by the atom, projects of large-scale nature
improvement constituted a particularly appealing field of application for
nuclear energy in the minds of Soviet technologists. The Soviet state had
engaged in “correcting the faults of nature” through large-scale infrastructural development since its inception, from Lenin’s electrification program
(GOELRO) to Stalin’s Plan for the Transformation of Nature, but only the advent
of the atomic age promised to remove whatever limitations had hitherto
hampered the large-scale creation of new natures. 15 “In our times of technological progress, especially in the field of nuclear energy and its use for peaceful purposes, mankind will be able to proceed with […] activities of radical
transformations of nature,” a Soviet author proclaimed in 1961, 16 and another
added that “the elemental evolution of the biosphere is giving way to a conscious, purposeful regulation of it.” 17 The CPSU joined the conversation,
claiming in its 1961 program that where other societal systems lacked the
clout to intervene in nature and left it to its self-will, Communism “greatly
increases [man’s] power over nature,” 18 – a process that was facilitated by the
country’s pioneering role in the utilization of atomic energy for peaceful purposes. 19 Radiating with confidence, Soviet nuclear scientists and engineers
saw themselves “at the onset of a man-made world,” as one of them put it. 20
Transforming deserts into gardens had been a paragon of Soviet nature
improvement since Stalinist times. 21 That Mangyshlak, of all the arid places
in the country, became the testing ground for harnessing the atom’s power
to achieve the task was due to a historical contingency. Shortly after the discovery of uranium, large oil and gas deposits were found on the peninsula,
which at the time were believed to rival the West Siberian fields. The fact
that the region was already being developed at great cost by Minsredmash
created favorable preconditions for their exploitation, as Gosplan argued in
a letter to Khrushchev in 1961. 22 Pursuing this strategy, however, required
the presence of a permanent labor force numbering in the scores and potentially hundreds of thousands – and hence, the construction of a sizable city