Did Chernobyl Cause the Soviet Union To Explode?

[Yavin4]

Fewer than six years elapsed between the meltdown at Chernobyl and the formal dissolution of the Soviet Union—six years marked by suspicion of government, dissatisfaction with public safety, and demands for greater transparency. Could Chernobyl have caused the first, most fundamental crack in the Soviet state and led to its collapse?

That might sound like an audacious proposal, but it’s been advanced by none other than the man who oversaw the dismantling of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev. He states flatly that the Chernobyl explosion was “perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union.”

Sovietologists “don’t like monocausal explanations” of the fall of the USSR, said Michael David-Fox, a professor of Russian and Soviet history at Georgetown University. Still, “there’s a case to be made” that Chernobyl occurred early enough in Gorbachev’s first phase of glasnost to hasten the process and eventually drive the state into the ground.

https://slate.com/technology/2013/01/chernobyl-and-the-fall-of-the-soviet-union-gorbachevs-glasnost-allowed-the-nuclear-catastrophe-to-undermine-the-ussr.html

So, no, Reagan did not end Soviet Communism.

[lordsummerisle]

1. Maybe you meant implode? n/t

[uponit7771]

2. Gorbachev is still making excuses for soviet authoritarianism, when people were given the choice...

... they didn't want the soviet union's heavy hand towards the average citizen.

Chernobyl was a prime example of this unnecessary and stupid level of authoritarianism and secrecy; there was no need to "look" like everything was perfect.

The people in the surrounding cities understood crap happens and they would need to get out quick fast but from Gorbachev on down the USSR was concerned about how things "looked" ... just stupid.

also

Stupid people might take the wrong lesson from Chernobyl; a nueclear war is survivable

[Yavin4]

3. So, they settled for Putin's heavy hand? n/t

[uponit7771]

7. Not at all Putin, like Red Don, is a con man who took control of the media with oligarchs help. ...

.. After that the country was done.

[larwdem]

6. think of this

I don't think the soviet union ever went away! Are they a free country?

[uponit7771]

8. +1, No they're not! They went from one heavy hand to another. Putin is a con man like Red Don

[Turbineguy]

4. I always thought it did.

You can't have political hacks making decisions beyond the limited scope of their knowledge.

[tirebiter]

5. I wouldn't say explode

But it definitely put the USSR down. I did wonder if we had some Special Forces of some kind do it. But then they'd have to do it back to us.

[Yavin4]

9. Nope. There's a great HBO mini-series about the accident.

It was an accident.

[tirebiter]

10. That's what I figured

Since, as I pointed out, there was no counterattack.