The 1980s were the final years of the Soviet Union’s existence. For the state on the Volga, it was a time of numerous changes and reshuffles, among the Kremlin elite as well. In November 1982, the long‑time leader of the Soviet state, Leonid Brezhnev, died, and the post of General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was taken over by Yuri Andropov. Andropov had previously headed the KGB. His rule, however, did not last long, as Andropov died in February 1984. His successor at the helm of the USSR was Konstantin Chernenko who governed even more briefly and died in March 1985.

Such sudden and frequent changes at the heads did not benefit a country mired in economic crisis, whose relations with the West were steadily deteriorating. The supposed remedy was the appointment of a relatively young Mikhail Gorbachev as the new general secretary. When he assumed this position, he was only 54 years old, which made him the youngest member of the party’s Politburo (The Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union; the highest political organ) and distinguished him from most of his already elderly comrades.

In the first months of his rule, Gorbachev launched several important reforms. His first move was uskoreniye, or “acceleration”, intended to stimulate the Soviet economy, which had become rigid under Brezhnev. The second step was the famous perestroika, or broad “restructuring”. Within its framework, glasnost (transparency) was introduced to provide transparency in the actions of the Soviet authorities. However, as soon became clear, declarations were one thing and reality another, and the latter quickly put the fine words to the test. The nuclear power plant at Chernobyl in Ukraine became the litmus test.

Chernobyl – power out of control

In 1966, the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union adopted a resolution on the construction of new nuclear power plants in the country. One of them was to be built in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Almost immediately the field research began. After examining sixteen locations in three regions of the republic, the final choice fell on an area about four kilometers from the village of Kopachi on the Pripyat River in the Kyiv region.

Construction work began at the start of 1970. The first priority, however, was not the plant itself but the building of the city of Pripyat, which would house the plant’s workforce. Two years later, the first apartment blocks were commissioned, and in 1979 Pripyat was granted city rights. By that time, it had several schools, more than twenty shops, as well as a cinema, a cultural centre, and an amusement park.

As for the power plant itself, the first reactor unit came to work at the end of 1975, the second in 1978, the third in 1981, and the fourth two years later. It was precisely this last unit that would prove to be the ill‑fated one.

Yet the first serious problems at the plant occurred in Unit 1. In September 1982, following maintenance work, a test start‑up of the reactor led to the destruction of a fuel channel and the emergency fracture of a fuel pipe. This caused deformation of the graphite core and the release of significant quantities of radioactive substances into the atmosphere, contaminating the neighborhood area. However, this was only a prelude to what would happen a few years later in the “unlucky” Unit 4.

“A malfunction occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant…”

On 25 April 1986, as a consequence of planned maintenance works, Unit 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant was shut down. At the same time, as it is a common the case in such situations, it was decided to carry out tests on various pieces of equipment, including an additional emergency power supply system. The test began during the night.

The first stage involved reducing the reactor’s power output from the nominal 3600 MW to 700–1000 MW. It took about a day to reach this level, and at five minutes past midnight on 26 April the power had dropped to 720 MW. Twenty minutes later, however, it was already down to 500 MW, and shortly afterwards to just 30 MW. The plant’s staff managed briefly and slightly to increase the power, but it then fell again, leaving the reactor completely unstable. Unaware of this state of affairs, the operators continued the test, cutting off steam afflux to the turbines. This triggered a sudden, uncontrolled power surge, escalated by internal design defects.

The first stage involved reducing the reactor’s power output from the nominal 3600 MW to 700–1000 MW. It took about a day to reach this level, and at five minutes past midnight on 26 April the power had dropped to 720 MW. Twenty minutes later, however, it was already down to 500 MW, and shortly afterwards to just 30 MW. The plant’s staff managed briefly and slightly to increase the power, but it then fell again, leaving the reactor completely unstable. Unaware of this state of affairs, the operators continued the test, cutting off steam afflux to the turbines. This triggered a sudden, uncontrolled power surge, escalated by internal design defects.

A nuclear catastrophe and a political disaster

Two people died directly as a result of the explosions. This, however, was only the beginning. In the following days and weeks the death toll rose sharply. Firefighters arrived almost immediately at the scene, but they were not prepared to operate in a contaminated environment, and no one informed them of the true nature of the fire. Many of them soon died from radiation sickness. In the subsequent weeks, other workers, including miners, were sent to Chernobyl, and many of them also paid for their efforts with their lives.

While firefighting and containment operations were under way at the plant, the Kremlin had to decide what political steps to take. Gorbachev, informed of the disaster, hesitated to share the news with the public. On the one hand, it could trigger panic; on the other, it would expose yet another weakness of the Soviet state. In the first hours after the catastrophe the authorities tried to cover up the incident as much as possible. But the consequences of the explosion were too serious to hide. On 27th of April, the evacuation of residents from Pripyat was announced. Even then, however, they were not informed about the real scale of the danger and were assured they would return to their homes soon. In the following days, evacuations expanded to other towns and villages.

A real turning point came on 28th of April. Early that morning, workers at the Forsmark nuclear power plant in Sweden, about 140 kilometres north of Stockholm, detected elevated radiation levels. At first they suspected a malfunction at their own plant, but investigations soon ruled this out. Measurements clearly pointed to the southeast as the source of the radioactive fallout. In the face of Moscow’s silence, the Swedish authorities tried to put pressure on the Soviets, using both diplomatic channels and a televised press conference at which Sweden’s energy minister criticised the Kremlin’s lack of communication. The International Atomic Energy Agency also became involved. Finally, at 9 p.m. on 28th of April, the Soviet news agency TASS issued a statement:

“An accident has occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. One of the nuclear reactors has been damaged. Measures are being taken to eliminate the consequences of the accident. Aid is being given to those affected. A government commission has been set up”.

In Poland, the first information about the events at Chernobyl appeared only on 30th of April and sounded even less alarming:

“At the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, located 130 km north of Kiev, a malfunction has occurred (…) At present, the radiation situation (…) has been stabilised”.

It was not perestroika but Chernobyl that destroyed the Soviet Union…

Despite the first reports about the disaster, the Soviet leadership still tried to hide the topic. Across the country, preparations for the 1th of May celebrations continued, and people took part in parades. In Kyiv, the May Holiday Day demonstration was organized on Gorbachev’s orders. The general secretary did not address the nation about Chernobyl until 14th of May, more than two weeks after the accident.

The promised glasnost turned out to be an illusion. At a time when people needed “transparency” more than ever, the Kremlin chose silence. Years later, Gorbachev defended his decisions, claiming that the leadership had not concealed or suppressed any information and that they themselves did not know the full truth about what had happened near Pripyat.

However, both domestic and international criticism directed at Moscow in the spring of 1986 further undermined the USSR’s position on the world stage. Gorbachev himself later argued that it was the Chernobyl disaster, rather than his reforms, that ultimately led to the collapse of the Soviet state.

Piotr Bosko

Translated from Polish: Katarzyna Remża – Sybir Memorial Museum