HBO and Sky Atlantic series Chernobyl ends with a series of title cards telling the true story of the events depicted in the series. Mikhail Gorbachev (played in the Sky series by David Dencik), who was in power at the time of the Chernobyl explosion, features in one of these title cards, where he says that the events were directly responsible for the fall of the USSR. Chernobyl historians have agreed that the events exposed the fatal flaws of the Soviet state, triggering the disintegration of the USSR?
How long was Gorbachev in power?
Gorbachev was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, when the Soviet Union was dissolved as a result of a coup against him.
During this time, he was responsible for the policy of glasnost (openness), which meant more freedom of speech and press at home and more so-operation with foreign powers abroad.
This was combined with perestroika (restructuring), which decentralised economic power, arguably directly leading to the breakdown of the USSR into separate nation states.
Both of these major policies expanded as a result of the 1986 Chernobyl explosion, which exposed many of the faults of the Soviet Union.
Did Chernobyl trigger the disintegration of the USSR?
According to Gorbachev himself, Chernobyl was directly responsible for the fall of the Soviet Union.
As described at the end of the Chernobyl series, Gorbachev wrote in 2006: “The nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl…was perhaps the true cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union.”
This quote was from an op-ed Gorbachev wrote for the Japan Times in 2006, where he also wrote: “Indeed, the Chernobyl catastrophe was an historic turning point.
“There was the era before the disaster, and there is the very different era that has followed.”
He later writes: “The Chernobyl disaster, more than anything else, opened the possibility of much greater freedom of expression, to the point that the system as we knew it could no longer continue.
“It made absolutely clear how important it was to continue the policy of glasnost, and I must say that I started to think about time in terms of pre-Chernobyl and post-Chernobyl.”
As shown in the Chernobyl series, the meltdown exposed a number of flaws with the USSR.
For example, it was argued in court that the explosion had been a direct result of Soviet cost-cutting, with the graphite tips of the control rods that were installed as they were cheaper than boron accelerating the reactor and causing it to blow.
The events also showed the problem with the secrecy of the Soviet Union, with the country getting international condemnation for, as it was perceived, keeping secrets about the explosion.
However, in his Japan Times op ed, Gorbachev questions this, writing: “Of course, the world first learned of the Chernobyl disaster from Swedish scientists, creating the impression that we were hiding something.
“But in truth we had nothing to hide, as we simply had no information for a day and a half.”
However, as an article by UnHerd about the impact of Chernobyl on the USSR wrote: “Communism, while a noble ideal, had in practice produced a system of organised lying.
“It was this – rather than a few bad apples or the inherent dangers of nuclear technology – that led to the explosion at Chernobyl and the botched clean-up operation” – and, by extension, the disintegration of the USSR.
Chernobyl is streaming on NOW TV now
This article contains affiliate links, which means we may receive a commission on any sales of products or services we write about. This article was written completely independently, see more details here.
