The Accelerated Development of the Soviet Atomic Bomb

1954 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Arms race between us and ussr essay

Stalin, political bureaucrats, and even leading Soviet physicists of the time often put early pre-war and wartime Soviet nuclear research on the back burner. This was mainly due to the Soviet Union fighting for its very existence during the first years of the war. After the tide of the war had turned towards the Soviets, and intelligence from the Western powers suggested an active atomic weapon program, renewed interest by Stalin and the Soviet machine began in earnest. The Soviet Union was behind the technological curve when it implemented its atomic weapons program in earnest and suffered greatly from a lack of resources. The Soviet scientific community, by itself, could not have produced a working atomic weapon in just four short years after the successful deployment of two atomic bombs by the United States over Japan in 1945. Resources, material, research, and scientists taken or stripped from Soviet occupied areas of the defeated Nazi Reich (mostly German) and designs stolen from the American Manhattan Project used for the Soviet nuclear weapons program allowed that program to become successful.
Early Soviet nuclear physics in the 1920s and 1930s enjoyed success in many fields. David Holloway states, “In spite of the difficulties it faced, Soviet nuclear physics reached a high standard in the 1930s.” 1 Physicists such as Abram Ioffe, who studied under Röntgen, Igor Kurchatov, Kirill Sinel’nikov, and others were prominent and capable scientists who advocated and build many of the institutions in the new Soviet Union to support scientific research. Ioffe’s Physicotechnical Institute was one of these institutes. The Soviets did not actually lack from talented and intelligent physicists in the early years of scientific research...

... middle of paper ...

... Soviet H-bomb development programmes: historical background”, Uspekhi Fizicheskikh Nauk, (Russian Academy of Sciences, 1996), http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/russia/nuke/goncharov-h-bomb.pdf.

Holloway, David, Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy 1939–1956, (New Haven:Yale University Press, 1994).

Klaus Fuchs, “Espionage on the Manhattan Project”, Manhattan Project Heritage Preservation Association, Inc., http://www.mphpa.org/classic/SPY/ROSENBERG/fuchs_k.htm.

Pavel V. Oleynikov, “German Scientists in the Soviet Atomic Project, the Nonproliferation Review”, (2000), http://cns.miis.edu/npr/pdfs/72pavel.pdf.

Schwartz, Michael I., “The Russian-A(merican) Bomb: The Role of Espionage in the Soviet Atomic Bomb Project”, Journal of Undergraduate Sciences, no. 3, (Harvard University, 1996), pp. 103-108, http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~jus/0302/schwartz.pdf.

Show More
Related

  • Persuasive Essay On Bomb By Steve Sheinkin

    333 Words  | 1 Pages

    A young scientist who was very smart and intelligent was the creator of a bomb that killed millions. The bomb was the most powerful weapon that was ever manufactured. He changed the course of World War II. This man is Robert Oppenheimer, creator of the atomic bomb. The book “Bomb” by Steve Sheinkin, is a book that includes teamwork and how Americans made a deadly bomb that changed the course of the war. The book engages the reader through how spies share secret information with enemies. Because the physicists were specifically told not to share any information, they were not justified in supplying the Soviet Union with the bomb technology.

    Read More

  • Reflection Of The Book Plutopia

    1151 Words  | 3 Pages

    Imagine working with radioactive materials in a secret camp, and the government not telling you that this material is harmful to your body. In the book Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters by Kate Brown, she takes her readers on a journey to expose what happened in the first two cities that started producing plutonium. Brown is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She has won a handful of prizes, such as the American Historical Association’s George Louis Beer Prize for the Best Book in International European History, and was also a 2009 Guggenheim Fellow. Brown wrote this book by looking through hundreds of archives and interviews with people, the evidence she found brought light to how this important history of the Cold War left a nuclear imprint on the world today.

    Read More

  • The Pros And Cons Of The Atomic Bomb

    1061 Words  | 3 Pages

    On August 6, 1945, the U.S. dropped the world’s first atomic bomb over Hiroshima. Three days later, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. On August 15th, the Japan announced unconditional surrender in World War II. To this day historians still discuss why the U.S. decided to use the atomic bombs. Orthodox historians argue that the decision to drop the bombs was a military one designed purely to defeat the Japanese. Revisionist historians argue that the bombs were not needed to defeat Japan; the bombs were meant to shape the peace by intimidating the Soviets. After analyzing the documents in The Manhattan Project it has become clear that the U.S. used the bombs during WWII not only to defeat the Japanese, but also to intimidate the Soviet Union

    Read More

  • Race for the Super Bomb

    525 Words  | 2 Pages

    The super bomb in which America and Russia were trying to build was in fact the Hydrogen Bomb. This bomb had an unlimited blast potential and for the country who possessed it unlimited power. The A-bomb’s explosion was based on the principal of fission (the splitting of atoms), however the H-bomb’s explosion was base on fusion (the coming together of atoms). In August of 1945 Russian President Stalin, turns up the nuclear project in Russia. He put Barria whom was in charge of the secret police, to head the Russian Nuclear program. An American scientist named Edward Teller solicited the American government to build the H-bomb. He was born in Hungary and had learned to fear the communists and the Russians. In April of 1946 the Super Conference was held. Klaus Fuchs was a scientist that worked for Teller at Los Alamos, he told the Russians how to build the A-bomb, and also about Tellers ideas of the H-bomb. He was arrested for spying for the Russians. By chance the Americans found out that there were traces of radioactive material in the air over Russia. They pieced together that Russia had the A-bomb they decided to go ahead with plans to build the super bomb. President Truman came to the conclusion that no matter how bad of a weapon the H-bomb was if was better if we had if first. America had lost some of its power and wanted to gain a new edge. General Curtis Lamay was put in charge of Strategic Air Command to protect America from the threat of nuclear war. Lamay was the ranking Air Force General over the Skies of the pacific and was the man for the job. His strategy was to have an abundant amount of bombers ready to strike every major city in the Soviet Union. He wanted everyone in the Army and Air Force to act as if war was not far away.

    Read More

  • Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

    1914 Words  | 4 Pages

    Despite all of the security used by the officials in charge of the “Manhattan Project,” soviet spies managed to leak information to the Soviet Union that allowed them to create a nuclear bomb of their own. Klaus Fuchs, an important scientist to the “Manhattan Project,” managed to move throughout the project and provide crucial information to the Soviets. David Greenglass also provi...

    Read More

  • Cold War Revisionism

    1546 Words  | 4 Pages

    Sherwin, M. (1973). The atomic bomb and the origins of the cold war. American Historical Review, 78: 1-7.

    Read More

  • Development Of The Hydrogen Bomb

    978 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the world there is little thing called power. Many countries want to have great power, few get it. Powers gave the Soviet Union and the U.S. the ability to dominate in wars. In the 1950’s during the Cold War these two countries had a race to se who could create the most powerful weapon the world has ever seen, the Hydrogen Bomb. Edward Teller, an atomic physicist, and Stanislaw Marcin Ulam, a mathematician, "who together developed the Teller-Ulam design in 1951" for the Hydrogen Bomb (Teller-Ulam Design). Many people had their thoughts about why or why not the Hydrogen Bomb should have been built. What this essay will talk about is why the Hydrogen Bomb was built.

    Read More

  • President Truman: The Reasoning for Dropping the Atomic Bomb

    1219 Words  | 3 Pages

    America’s development of this secret atomic bomb began back in 1939 when President Roosevelt was still alive. This project was so secretive that Roosevelt did not even want his Vice President Harry S. Truman to know a thing about it. Truman could not believe it, until he read the note from Secretary Stimson. That night he wrote a letter in his diary about the U.S. perfecting an explosive great enough to destroy the world. Tr...

    Read More

  • Speech To The Association Of Los Alamos Scientists

    822 Words  | 2 Pages

    Imagine a society where everyone has a different opinion about dropping an atomic bomb to country that they are fighting with. What is an atomic bomb? An atomic bomb is a bomb which derives its destructive power from the rapid release of nuclear energy by fission of heavy atomic nuclei, causing damage through heat, blast, and radioactivity. The atomic bomb is a tremendously questionable topic. Nonetheless, these literary selections give comprehension on the decision about dropping the atomic bomb for military purposes. For example, the “Speech to the Association of Los Alamos Scientists” by Robert Oppenheimer, argues that we should have drop the atomic bomb, “A Petition to the President of the United States” by 70 scientists, asks President

    Read More

  • What Are The Pros And Cons Of The Atomic Bomb

    713 Words  | 2 Pages

    As nuclear fission became a reality during World War II, the world became entrenched in a race to build and detonate the first atomic weapon. This led to the development of the Manhattan Project, in which the United States constructed the first atomic weapon. On August 6th and 9th of 1945, atomic bombs were detonated over both Hiroshima and Nagasaki Japan respectively. Although the dropping of atomic bombs had led to the end of World War II, it was unethical for the United States to detonate them over the citizens of Japan due to the adverse effects it had brought upon the international community.

    Read More

  • Essay On The Manhattan Project

    699 Words  | 2 Pages

    ... in American history’, there is much evidence to suggest otherwise. Nevertheless, Strickland’s study does offer a valuable guide to the development of ideas, organizations and associations the formed by atomic scientists immediately after the World War II. It, however, not does include an extensive analysis of the Manhattan Project scientists’ wartime messages, nor does it investigate the tenets behind them. Correspondingly, Robert Gilpin’s study extensively covers the scientists’ role in atomic energy policy-making in the post-war decades. Although his study in useful for evaluating how scientists can be more successfully integrated into matters of nuclear weapons policy, it fails to consider the varying forms of the atomic scientists’ wartime movement and its relevance for considering their successes and failures in influencing post-war nuclear weapons policy.

    Read More

  • COLD War and the Arms Race

    1673 Words  | 4 Pages

    When President Truman authorized the use of two nuclear weapons in 1945 against the Japanese in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end World War II, the nature of international security was changed irreversibly. At that time, the United States had what was said to have a monopoly of atomic bombs. Soon thereafter, the Soviet Union began working on atomic weaponry. In 1949, it had already detonated it first atomic bomb and tensions began to heat up between the two countries. With the information that the Soviets had tested their first bomb, the United States began work on more powerful weapons1, and a fight for nuclear superiority had begun.

    Read More

  • Nuclear Technology After the World War II

    953 Words  | 2 Pages

    After the United States developed the atomic at the end of World War II, interest in nuclear technology increased exponentially. People soon realized that nuclear technology could be used for electricity, as another alternative to fossil fuels. Today, nuclear power has its place in the world, but there is still a lot of controversy over the use of nuclear energy. Things such as the containment of radiation and few nuclear power plant accidents have given nuclear power a bad image. However, nuclear power is a reliable source of energy because it has no carbon emissions, energy is available at any time, little fuel is needed for a lot of energy, and as time goes on, it is becoming safer and safer.

    Read More

  • Technology During World War 2

    2322 Words  | 5 Pages

    Volti, Rudi. “Atomic Bomb.” The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Society. Vol. 1. New York: Facts On File, 1999. Modern World History Online. Web. 4 Apr. 2012. .

    Read More

  • Examing the Factors That Led To Dropping the Atomic Bomb on Nagasaki

    1303 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Soviets were developing their own nuclear program at the same time as the Manhattan Project was underway, and Soviet espionage provided them with crucial information from the Manhattan Project that helped their progress (Walker, 67). When the United States used the atomic bombs on Japan, the USSR believed that the United States would seek to threaten Soviet interests. Instead of simplifying the growing conflict between the United States and the USSR, the use of atomic weapons on Japan only made the situation more complex.

    Read More

More about The Accelerated Development of the Soviet Atomic Bomb

Open Document