Brian Behnken

Research in the former Soviet Union has expanded greatly over the past few years. As the iron curtain fell, Russian archives began opening their doors to foreign scholars. David Holloway became one of the first Americans to visit Russia’s newly opened archives. In Stalin and the Bomb, Holloway traces the origins of the Soviet Union’s nuclear arms program from its meager beginnings to the detonation of a hydrogen bomb. Holloway places the reader in the midst of the Soviet’s race to produce a nuclear bomb and decisively makes the reader a part of this process. The author presents Soviet foreign relations in overwhelming detail and Stalin’s motivations become obvious and understandable. United States foreign policy becomes paramount to Stalin’s actions and the American reader finds himself in the interesting position of having to attempt to understand US foreign policy through the eyes of the Soviet Union. Holloway makes it clear that Stalin’s actions, and the development of the cold war, resulted directly from US diplomacy regarding the atomic bomb and the Soviet Union.

The first six chapters of the book deal almost exclusively with the Soviet’s fledgling nuclear program. The Soviet Union did not have an overwhelming number of theoretical physicists and those that it did possess often received their education in the west. The institutes for the education of new physicists simply did not exist in the USSR at this time. In the 1930s these few physicists gained remarkable freedom to interact with their counterparts in Europe and the United States. This situation could not last forever, however. As tensions grew in the late 1930s, Soviet physicists felt themselves increasingly pressured to create their own research studies rather than simply following or copying western experiments. As party politics increased and party loyalties began to become a requirement of almost all Soviet academicians, Soviet research began to turn inward. The first telltale signs of the Cold War, Holloway notes, were apparent in the late 1930s. N. Gordon Levin goes back even further in asserting that Woodrow Wilson was the supreme exemplar of the future of US-Soviet relations. Levin sees Wilson as the original cold warrior. Holloway does not go back far enough to examine Wilson, but the motivations and containment policies of Wilson (as seen by Levin) show up in the later policies of Truman and Eisenhower.

The study of radioactivity and the possible applications to science and physics that unique metals and ores might provide trace back to 1910 in Russia. After the Bolshevik Revolution, Soviet scientists began working on extracting radioactive elements from uranium. Slowly, Soviet physicists began to understand how and why one could synthesize different elements from uranium. Natural uranium is only slightly radioactive. Soviet scientists soon learned, along with their counterparts around the world, that uranium when bombarded by particles in a proton accelerator or allowed to react in heavy water or a nuclear pile (primitive reactor) produced more concentrated and lethal forms of radioactive material. Studies were performed to produce uranium-235, uranium-238 (which becomes fissionable uranium-239, or plutonium, when irradiated with neutrons), and other elements through a newly named process called fission. At this point in 1940 the USSR and US have their first serious break in diplomacy. The free publication of scientific material suddenly stopped when the United States gained wind that fissionable material might be used to create a new type of weapon. This quick withdrawal of US scientists from the world of nuclear physics threatened the still growing state of Soviet physics. This time the goal of US foreign policy did not revolve around the containment of Bolshevism, as Levin asserts with Wilson, but rather the containment of ideas. The Soviets, who were still our allies, rightly took this as a slap in the face.

Nuclear physics proceeded slowly in the USSR for the next few years. Holloway notes that the Soviets did not know what uranium reserves the country had and no real way to find out. Stalin appointed the able administrator and physicist Igor Kurchatov to the task of finding uranium and constructing nuclear test facilities. As World War II began this work was already well under way. The invasion of the USSR by Germany slowed progress somewhat as almost all scientists abandoned their work to help with the war effort. During this time Soviet researchers, many still on the battlefield, came up with the basic idea for constructing a nuclear weapon. The Maud Committee, a British and American collaboration, also concluded the same basic principle at this time, but did not give this information to the USSR. The idea was simple; compression of nuclear material by brunt force could produce a supercritical fission reaction and lead to nuclear explosion. After the German army was repulsed, work resumed in the Soviet Union in 1942 under Kurchatov with the main goals of the project revolving around the search for sources of uranium and the building of reactor sights to produce fissionable uranium-235 or plutonium.

Soviet scientists found motivation from spy information that confirmed that Britain and the United States had begun construction of atomic bombs. Soviet intelligence scored repeated espionage coups as they learned the step by step procedures that the Manhattan Project took. Stalin decided to make the construction of a Soviet atomic bomb a top priority. After Hiroshima or Nagasaki, Holloway notes that Soviet leaders did not have a clear understanding of the bomb's possible uses as an instrument of foreign policy. The bomb remained a weapon only, not a tool for diplomacy. Stalin desired to have the bomb for himself, not out of any fear of US use of the bomb against the USSR, but out of the simple desire to have the power. But the result of the war and the effects of the United States’ secretive race for an atomic bomb had damaged US-Soviet relations. After Nagasaki, with Soviet forces prepared to invade China and possibly Japan itself, the US decided that it did not desire Soviet participation against Japan. Germany had surrender by this time and Stalin hoped to continue the war on the eastern front. The US rebuttal of Stalin’s plans for repulsing Japanese forces in China was an insult to Stalin and the USSR.

After 1945 the existence of nuclear weapons in the US became a clear symbol of the USSR’s views of US foreign policy. It soon became apparent that Truman would use his nuclear monopoly to gain concessions after the war. Stalin pushed his scientists to restore the balance of power with the USSR and US. Holloway asserts that after only a short period of time the Soviet Union began to view the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in a different light. Stalin now saw the bomb as a threat to the USSR. The existence of the bomb in US hands would allow the US to shape the postwar settlement. Stalin ordered the invasion of China before the Japanese could surrender, and in direct opposition to Truman, in an effort to reclaim lost territories. This action directly challenged US authority. Stalin felt that the he had the right to intervene in China. Continued work on the bomb would only serve to deter the US from acting harshly in the postwar settlement and the invasion of China served as a reminder that the USSR still had world-power status. Nevertheless the Soviets did not produce a bomb before settlement talks began and the lack of territory gained by the USSR after such a long fought and devastating war simply irked Stalin. This led to further deterioration in US-Soviet relations.

Stalin became paranoid with the United States’ actions during the settlement period and the Soviet people felt this distrust as well. Holloway delves into a slightly psychologically oriented history at this point, but fails to make the point conclusively. He seems to be asserting that when the US became paranoid of Stalin, Stalin returned this distrust by becoming paranoid of the US, and at the same time he transferred American paranoia onto his own people. Holloway never explains it this clearly, however. Whatever the reasons, Stalin continually attempted to "purge" the Soviet Union of unpatriotic citizens. Millions are believed to have died in the purges including, ironically, many of the scientists working on the nuclear project. Stalin, with great foresight, began having Soviet scientists and engineers work on radar, rocket, and jet propulsion at this time. Still, many scientists lost their lives in the purges. It is interesting to note the advanced nature of Soviet aviation and rocketry by 1950 as compared to the US even though Stalin kept killing off his scientists.

Washington met with consistent frustration at the peace table due to the Soviet Union’s unwillingness to accept American terms, especially considering the US had a monopoly on atomic weapons. Stalin remained convinced that the Soviet Union deserved its cut of the territory in eastern Europe and this desire, and the desire for a new balance of power, hardened his stance with the US. The US retaliated by hardening its own stance. Holloway notes that Stalin had three policies to pursue in regards to his foreign relations with the US. He could encourage communist elements in European and Asian countries to seize power (thereby increasing Soviet influence), cooperate with the West, or push for territorial concessions. While Stalin followed the policy of intervention in Europe and Asia to encourage the revolt of communist forces, this policy never became a primary motivating factor in Stalin’s actions. Gabriel Kolko chronicles the Soviet’s involvement in France, Greece, Germany, Italy, China, and Korea, but admits that Stalin was often reluctant to get involved with these countries communist elements out of a fear of either seeming like (or becoming) an imperialistic power. Holloway notes that Stalin lamented the fact that Russia "wins wars but does not know how to exploit the fruits of victory."(p.168) He chose to push for concessions by assuming the USSR had won the war (a statement not far from the truth). Stalin felt the US was trying to impose its will on the USSR and that the US intended to dominate the world by taking over Europe. In 1948 Stalin asserted his power in East Germany by refusing a US-UK proposal of joint government in Germany and the printing of a common German currency. This, of course, eventually led to US airdrops and the Berlin wall. Holloway marks this point as the effective start of the Cold War.

Only one year later, the Soviet Union detonated its first atomic bomb. Stalin had achieved the balance of power four years after the Americans had created their atomic monopoly. The US would beat Stalin to the punch again with a hydrogen (thermonuclear) bomb, but it would only take the USSR a few months to detonated a hydrogen bomb of their own. This time the Soviet scientists did not rely on information stolen from the US, but rather designed their own version of the hydrogen bomb. Soviet science began blazing new trails. The level of Soviet rocketry, radar, and aviation technology quickly overtook the US. The Soviets became the first to produce an intercontinental ballistic missile that could carry a nuclear warhead. Soon production model jet aircraft that would impress US aviators and frighten US politicians took to the sky. Soviet aerospace technology needs no explanation here. The effect of the atomic bomb was tantamount to these increases in military hardware and technology. Stalin expected the post-World War II years to resemble the interwar years. He therefore made preparations for the next World War. This war, like WWII, would be fought in Europe and Asia. But this time capitalist powers and socialist powers would battle. The first such battle came only a short time later with the Korean War. Stalin’s suspicious nature pervades this time period and affected Soviet foreign policy in regards to Korea, but the USSR eventually distanced itself from the conflict.

With the death of Stalin, Soviet leaders altered their view of the West and of atomic power slightly. Stalin’s stance on the USSR’s foreign policy, as well as his view of United States’ foreign policy, had remained hard-line until his death. He expected World War III within the next twenty to thirty years and prepared accordingly. Stalin’s successors chose to view thermonuclear weapons for what they truly had become; the most destructive force on the planet, capable of destroying all life if either the US or USSR committed to a full strike. As the Korean War came to an end Soviet leaders had a renewed hope for the future. Khrushchev even went as far as to denounce the Marxist-Leninist thesis that war was inevitable among capitalist states. But this book is about Stalin, and Holloway concludes that atomic weapons themselves did not affect Soviet foreign policy. Rather, Stalin’s fear of these weapons in the hands of a capitalist world power and their use by the US as a tool of foreign policy motivated Soviet actions and led Stalin to call for the creation of a Soviet nuclear arsenal.