1. Shcherbak, Iurii Nikolaevich, Chernobyl (Moscow, 1991), 395–401. Google ScholarPubMed

2. “0 moral ‘no-psikhologicheskoi obstanovke v respublike v sviazi s avarii na Chernobyl'skoi AES,” Tsentral'nyi derzhavnyi arkhiv hromads'kykh ob“iednan’ Ukrainy (TsDAHO), fond (f.) 1, opis (op.) 25, sprava (spr.) 2995, arkushi (ark.) 5, 35-36 (reports to Ukraine CP on rumors about Chernobyl', May 1986).

3. Since the early 1950s, some Americans had argued that the USSR possessed a vast, well-resourced civil defense organization that was far more capable than its American counterpart. This concern swelled into a major political controversy in the 1970s, when critics of detente such as Harvard historian Richard Pipes and Sovietologist Leon Gouré charged that Soviet civil defense proved that the Kremlin was a dangerous, expansionist power fully willing to resort to nuclear aggression if it appeared advantageous. See Pipes, Richard, “Why the Soviet Union Thinks It Could Fight and Win a Nuclear War,” Commentary 23, no. 7 (July 1977): 1–34;Google Scholar and Leon Gouré, War Survival in Soviet Strategy: Soviet CivilDefense (Coral Gables, 1976). Some western analysts concluded that the shortcomings of the USSR's disaster response at Chernobyl’ proved that the USSR's much-discussed civil defense investment was either useless or illusory. See, for example, Potter, William and Kerner, Lucy, “The Soviet Military's Performance at Chernobyl,” Soviet Studies 43, no. 6 (1991): 1039.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. After the explosion of unit 4, the Soviet government rushed to lay blame for the catastrophe on a handful of mistakes made by expendable, easily scapegoated individuals and to defuse charges that the Soviet state could be held responsible. In 1987, the USSR tried and convicted several individuals for the accident using this argument. Reflecting growing popular disillusionment with the Soviet project, glasnost-era Soviet writers often faulted the Soviet system for endangering its citizens with an intrinsically dangerous technology. See, for instance, Shcherbak, Chernobyl'. For a western analysis of the interplay between antinuclear and anti-Soviet popular sentiments following Chernobyl', see Dawson, Jane I., Eco-Nationalism: Anti-Nuclear Activism and National Identityin Russia, Lithuania, and Ukraine (Durham, 1996).Google Scholar Post-1991 Ukrainian scholarship on the disaster has expanded on this thesis. For one such scholarly account, see Baranovs'ka, Nataliia, Chornobyl's'ka trahediia: Narisi z istorii (Kiev, 2011).Google Scholar For an overview of Ukrainian historiography on Chernobyl’ until 2006, see Baranovs'ka, Nataliia, “Stan rozrobky chornobyl's'koi problemy istorichnoiu naukoiu Ukrainy,” Istorichnyi zhurnal 4, no. 2 (2006): 48–56.Google Scholar

5. For instance, Paul Josephson states in his history of the Soviet nuclear power program that “Soviet planners never anticipated an accident of such a scale, and apparently they never accumulated the medicines and equipment needed for nuclear civil defense purposes, except perhaps for the elite in capital cities.” Paul R. Josephson, RedAtom: Russia's Nuclear Power Program from Stalin to Today (Pittsburgh, 2005), 260. Some Russian-language scholarship about Soviet civil defense at Chernobyl’ argues that the organization's failures during the disaster resulted from a disproportionate emphasis on planning for wartime hazards and that it made major reforms in light of its experiences. See Shoigu, S. K., Of MPVO k grazhdanskoi zashchite: Istoricheskii ocherk (Moscow, 1998);Google Scholar and Vladimirov, V. et al., Of MPVO k grazhdanskoi zashchite: Stranitsy iz istorii MPVOGO-PSChS sub'ektov Rossiiskoi Federatsii (Moscow, 2004).Google Scholar Furthermore, several Russian scholars have touched on the role of Soviet civil defense at Chernobyl', particularly writer and Chernobyl’ liquidator Anatolii D'iachenko. See D'iachenko, A. A., Opyt likvidatsii posledstviiChernobylskoi katastrofy (Moscow, 2004);Google Scholar and D'iachenko, A. A., Chernobylskaiakatastrofa: Dvadtsat’ letspustia (Moscow, 2006).Google Scholar For accounts touching on the role of civil defense during the disaster penned by the plant's assistant safety officer, see Karpan, N. V., Chernobyl: Mest’ mirnogo atoma (Kiev, 2005);Google Scholar and Karpan, N. V., Of Chernobylia doFukusimy (Kiev, 2011).Google Scholar

6. Despite the publication of numerous works about the accident, the number of studies derived from archival documents has, to date, remained limited. Most accounts of the disaster possess an anecdotal or journalistic character, which often effectively captures individual experiences but proves less successful at delineating the accident's institutional aspects or its precise chronology. See, for example, Shkoda, V. G., Chernobyl: Dni ispytanii.Kniga svidetelstv. Stikhi, ocherki, rasskazy, otryvki iz romanov ipovestei, interv'iu (Kiev, 1988);Google Scholar Illesh, A. V. and Pral'nikov, A. E., Reportazh iz Chernobylia: Zapiski ochevidtsev.Kommentarii. Razmyshleniia (Moscow, 1988);Google Scholar and Alexievich, Svetlana, Voices from Chernobyl:The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster, trans. Gessen, Keith (Champaign, 2005).Google Scholar

7. For an account of Soviet propaganda extolling nuclear power, see Josephson, Paul R., “Atomic-Powered Communism: Nuclear Culture in the Postwar USSR,” Slavic Review 55, no. 2 (Summer 1996): 297–324. CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8. This reactor design, known in Russian as reaktor bol'shoi moshchnosti kanal'nyi (high-power channel-type reactor, RBMK), descended from Soviet plutonium-production reactor designs and consists of stainless steel tubes containing uranium fuel elements in which the light-water coolant boils, surrounded by graphite blocks that serve as a neutron moderator. The RBMK's large size and relatively high complexity increased its construction costs, but it enjoyed the advantage of decreased fuel costs because it could run on low-enriched uranium, thanks to its superior neutron economy. The designers of the RBMK made design compromises that sacrificed safety in order to achieve this lower fuel cost. See Marples, David R., Chernobyl and Nuclear Power in the USSR (Toronto, 1986), 111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9. Medvedev, Grigori, The Truth about Chernobyl, trans. Rossiter, Evelyn (New York, 1991), 18–19.Google Scholar

10. D'iachenko, , Chernobylskaia katastrofa, 28.Google Scholar

11. Medvedev, , The Truth about Chernobyl, 26.Google Scholar

12. Margulis, U. la., Atomnaia energiia i radiatsionnaia bezopasnost’ (Moscow, 1983), 142–43.Google Scholar

13. On the history of Soviet civil defense, see Geist, Edward, “Was There a Real ‘Mineshaft Gap'? Bomb Shelters in the USSR, 1945-1962,” Journal of Cold War Studies 14, no. 2 (Spring 2012): 3–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14. Rossii, MChS TsSI GZ, “Grazhdanskaia oborona: Slozhnyi etap razvitiia,” Grazhdanskaiazashchita 39, no. 10 (October 2005): 18–19.Google Scholar

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17. Burns, John F., “Russians, Too, Joke Sadly on Atom-War Survival,” New York Times, June 11,1982, A2.Google Scholar

18. For a recent English-language account of these disasters, see Brown, Kate, Plutopia:Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters (Oxford, 2013).Google Scholar For an account based on rumors about the disasters that circulated prior to Chernobyl', see Medvedev, Zhores A., Nuclear Disaster in the Urals, trans. Saunders, George (New York, 1979).Google Scholar

19. Brown, , Plutopia, 285.Google Scholar

20. On the organizational history of the Soviet nuclear power sector prior to Chernobyl', see Schmid, Sonja, “When Safe Enough Is Not Good Enough: Organizing Safety at Chernobyl,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 67, no. 2 (March/April 2011): 19–29.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

21. In early 1983, the ministry noted the “problems of reliability and safety” at nuclear power plants but evaluated the attendant costs entirely in terms of the economic losses resulting from repair shutdowns, not possible accident hazards. As a solution, it suggested that all responsibility for operating the nuclear plants be transferred to it—with the exception of safety, which would remain under Soiuzatomenergo. “Vypiska iz protokola no. 2,” TsDAHO, f. 1, op. 25, sp. 2558, ark. 38–44 (report on shutdowns in Ukrainian nuclear energy sector, March 1983).

22. “Dovidka 3-ho Upravlinnia KDB URSR pro nedoliki u roboti shtabiv tsivil ‘noi oborony obiektiv atomnoi energetiki respubliki,” Derzhavnyi arkhiv sluzhby bezpeky Ukrainy (DA SBU), f. 65, spr. l, torn (t.) 24, ark. 208-12 (Ukrainian KGB report on inadequacies of civil defense in areas around nuclear power plants, mid-1986).

23. Gnatiuk, “Neobkhodimosf MPVO-GO,” 19. According to Gnatiuk, the civil defense staff of the RSFSR carried out exercises at all nuclear power stations in Russia prior to the Chernobyl’ disaster.

24. Medvedev, , The Truth about Chernobyl, 25–28.Google Scholar

25. Gaidamak, V. A., Likvidatsiia posledstvii radioaktivnogo zarazheniia (Moscow, 1980), 4.Google Scholar

26. Medvedev, , The Truth about Chernobyl, 31,48, 86.Google Scholar

27. An employee of Chernobylinterinform told me this during a June 2010 visit to the Chernobyl’ Exclusion Zone. Access to the Jupiter plant is still restricted by the Ukrainian security services.

28. Ivanov, B., “Chernobyl','” Voennyeznaniia 40, no. 1 (January 1988): 32.Google Scholar

29. I visited this shelter in June 2010 along with the shelter at ChNPP.

30. “Dovidka 3-ho Upravlinnia KDB URSR,” 1-5.

31. Medvedev, , The Truth about Chernobyl, 80–83.Google Scholar

32. Ibid., 78-79.

33. Ibid., 119-21.

34. D'iachenko, , Opyt likvidatsii Chernobyl skoi katastrofy, 39–40.Google Scholar

35. Shcherbak, , Chernobyl', 397.Google Scholar

36. Ibid., 398.

37. Ibid., 399.

38. Smirnova, A. S., ed., Trevozhnye dni i nochi Chernobylia: Sbornik rasskazov ivospominanii (Kiev, 2003), 3–4.Google Scholar

39. Ibid., 3-5.

40. Ibid., 5-6.

41. “Tsentral'nyi Komitet Kompartii Ukrainy-Informatsiia,” TsDAHO, f. 1, op. 25, spr. 2997, ark. 2-3 (report to CP Ukraine Central Committee on events at ChNPP, April 1986).

42. Smirnova, Trevozhnye dni, 6.

43. As the functional ratemeters at the plant were sensitive only up to 1000 microroentgens an hour (0.001 R/hr), the KGB reports state that “at the immediate point of the accident, the radiation is up to 1000 microroentgen an hour.” In reality, this was a mere l/10,000th of the actual ambient radiation at the plant. Furthermore, they state that the maximum radiation in Pripiat’ was 14 microroentgens an hour on the morning of the 26th—when in fact there were places in the city where radiation levels were hundreds of times higher. “Povidomlennia UKDB URSR po m. Kyievu ta Kyivs'kii oblasti do KDB SRSR ta KDB SRSR pro vybukh 4-ho enerhobloka Chornobyl's'koyi AES. 26 kvitnia 1986r.,” DA SBU, f. 64 op. 1, spr. 34, ark. 2-3 (KGB report on conditions around ChNPP, April 26,1986); “Povidomlennia KDB URSR do KDB SRSR pro vybukh 4-ho enerhobloka Chornobyl's'koi AES. 26 kvitnia 1986r.,” DA SBU, f. 64, op. 1, spr. 33, ark. 2-4 (KGB report on conditions around ChNPP, April 26,1986).

44. “Informatsiine povidomlennia KDB URSR do TsK KPU pro vybukh 4-ho enerhobloka Chornobyl's'koyi AES. 28 kvitnia 1986r.,” DA SBU, f. 16, op. 11A (1988), spr. 34, ark. 52-56 (Ukrainian KGB report to CPSU Central Committee, April 28,1986).

45. Smirnova, , Trevozhnye dni, 6;Google Scholar Vozniak, V. la., Ignatenko, E. I., Kovalenko, A. P., and Troitskii, S. N., Chernobyl': Sobytiia i uroki. Voprosy i otvety (Moscow, 1989), 120.Google Scholar

46. Shcherbak, , Chernobyl, 399.Google ScholarPubMed

47. D'iachenko, , Opyt likvidatsii Chernobylskoi katastrofy, 39.Google Scholar

48. “Spravka,” TsDAHO, f. 1, op. 32, spr. 2337, ark. 1 (unmarked document, apparently from April 26,1986, outlining radiation protection norms).

49. “Vypiska iz Norm radiatsionnoi bezopasnosti ‘NRB-76,'” TsDAHO, f. 1, op. 32, spr. 2337, ark. 2 (excerpts from NRB-76). The rem measurement is the product of the exposed dose in roentgens and a weighting factor accounting for the effectiveness of the type of radiation to cause biological damage.

50. Shcherbak, , Chernobyl', 400.Google Scholar

51. Ibid., 401.

52. Ivanov, , “Chernobyl',” Voennyeznaniia, no. 1,32.Google Scholar

53. Ibid.

54. Medvedev, , The Legacy of Chernobyl, 49.Google Scholar

55. Ivanov, Boris, “Chernobyl',” Voennye znaniia 40, no. 2 (February 1988): 23.Google Scholar

56. Shcherbak, , Chernobyl', 400.Google Scholar

57. Medvedev, , The Legacy of Chernobyl, 49–52.Google Scholar

58. Ibid., 53. In December 1986, Pikalov received the USSR's highest military award, the Hero of the Soviet Union, for his service at Chernobyl'.

59. Ibid., 54.

60. Boris Ivanov, “Chernobyl',” Voennye znaniia 40, no. 3 (March 1988): 38. Many accounts of the Chernobyl’ disaster erroneously state that Shcherbina made the final decision to evacuate on the evening of April 26, which is reflective of the extraordinary confusion that reigned at the time.

61. Ibid.

62. Medvedev, The Truth about Chernobyl, 185–87.

63. Ivanov, “Chernobyl',” Voennyeznaniia, no. 3,39.

64. Medvedev, The Legacy of Chernobyl, 54.

65. “Nuclear Disaster: A Spreading Cloud and an Aid Appeal; U.P.I. Says Toll May Pass 2,000,” New York Times, April 30,1986, A10.

66. Reports prepared for the party attest to many Soviet citizens’ belief in accounts of the disaster like that circulated by UPI. See TsDAHO, f. 1, op. 25, spr. 2995, listy (11.) 4-6, 34–36.

67. Valentina Shevchenko, head of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR in 1986, insisted in a 2011 interview that the Kiev May Day parade went ahead at Moscow's insistence. Lina Kushnir, “Valentina Shevchenko: ‘Provesty demonstratsiiu 1 travnia 1986-ho nakazali z Moskvy,” Istorichna pravda, April 25,2011, at www.istpravda. com.ua/articles/2011/04/25/36971/ (last accessed November 10, 2014). Radiological conditions in Kiev began deteriorating sharply on April 30. See “Obstanovka i meropriiatia po likvidatsii posledstvii avarii na Chernobyl ‘skoi AES po sostoianiiu na 12 iiunia 1986 goda,” TsDAHO, f. 1, op. 25, spr. 2995,11.12-13 (report to Ukrainian CP Central Committee on Chernobyl’ liquidation effort, June 12,1986).

68. Medvedev, , The Legacy of Chernobyl, 59.Google Scholar

69. Ivanov, , “Chernobyl',” Voennyeznaniia, no. 3,39.Google Scholar

70. Krutskikh, D. A., Memuary (Moscow, 2001), 404–6.Google Scholar

71. Ibid., 407.

72. Ibid., 409.

73. Known as aptechki individualnye AI-2, these first-aid kits came in bright orange plastic cases and included seven different drugs, including potassium iodide, two antibiotics (tetracycline and sulfanamide), cystamine, nausea-prevention tablets, a single-use syringe of morphine, and tablets of “taren,” a form of the Soviet drug aprofen included to counteract organophosphate chemical weapons. The abuse potential of the latter two substances (aprofen can induce a hallucinogenic delirium) may have discouraged the Soviet government from issuing the complete kits to citizens following the Chernobyl' accident, and extant accounts suggest that civil defense distributed only the potassium iodide tablets. Atamaniuk, V. G., Shirshev, L. G., and Akimov, N. I., Grazhdanksia oborona (Moscow, 1986), 101–2.Google Scholar

74. Krutskikh, , Memuary, 410.Google Scholar

75. Legasov, V. A., Iz segodnia—v zavtra: Mysli vslukh Chernobyl i bezopasnost’ (Moscow, 1996), 57.Google Scholar

76. Gorbachev touted the term heavily in his address to the Twenty-Seventh Party Congress, in February 1986, as a critical component of “socialist democratism.” Gorbachev, M. S., Sobranie sochinenii, vol. 3 (Moscow, 2008), 180–280.Google Scholar For an argument that the Chernobyl’ disaster hastened Gorbachev's reforms, see Baranovs'ka, N., “Chornobil's'ka trahediia iak argument perebudovi,” in Perebudova: Zadum i rezul'taty v Ukrainy do10-richchia protoloshennia kursu na reformy (Kiev, 1996), 38–45.Google Scholar

77. An ironic example of this appeared in a May 8,1986, circular for party propagandists stating explicitly that “the population is being promptly and fully informed about the ongoing work at the power plant and other measures.” The circular itself, however, instructs recipients to “destroy after reading.” “Ob avarii na Chernobyl ‘skoi AES i likvidatsii ee posledstvii,” TsDAHO, f. 1, op. 25, spr. 2957,11. 34-38 (circular on Chernobyl’ accident for party propagandists, May 8,1986).

78. On the May 6 news conference, see Taubman, Phillip, “At Moscow News Session: Brief and Not to Point,” New York Times, May 7, 1986, A19.Google Scholar For the text of Gorbachev's May 14 address, see “Vystuplenie M. S. Gorbacheva po sovetskomu televideniiu,” Pravda, May 15,1986,1. On Soviet citizens’ reactions to the address, see “Informatsiia ob otklikakh trudiashikhsia Ukrainskoi SSR po vystupleniiu General ‘nogo sekretaria TsK KPSS tovarishcha M. S. Gorbacheva po Tsentral'nomu televideniiu 14 maia 1986 goda,” TsDAHO, f. 1, op. 25, spr. 2979,11.8-12 (report on Ukrainian citizens’ reactions to M. S. Gorbachev's May 14,1986, televised address).

79. A 1989 book for propagandists about the disaster exemplifies the government's defensive position on this topic. It maintains that the radiological conditions in Pripiat' “did not objectively require evacuation” on April 26, and it ignores the fact that GO officers protested the delay. Vozniak, Ignatenko, Kovalenko, and Troitskii, Chernobyl', 121. For an overview of Soviet media accounts of the disaster in 1986-87, see Marples, David R., TheSocial Impact of the Chernobyl Disaster (New York, 1988).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

80. Valentina Shevchenko has made contradictory statements to this effect. See Kushnir, “Valentina Shevchenko.“

81. On the construction of the sarcophagus, see Baranovs'ka, Chornobyl's'ka trahediia, 207-39, and on state measures to provide housing and employment to evacuees, see ibid., 182-85.