Environmentalism or Sausages? Politicizing the Environment in the Late Soviet Union

Abstract

This paper analyzes the politicization of the environment in the late Soviet Union based on a new perception of the interconnection between the human being and the ‘rest’ of nature. On the basis of previously ignored sources, it shows the emerging rise and ultimate decline of human subjectivity as a political force in the Soviet Union, and the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR) in particular. Experts, politicians, and the secret service had long understood the need to conserve natural resources and the ecological consequences of relentless industrialization or nature transformation projects, and they had at least partially attempted to counter them. However, the disclosure, in the late 1980s, of the extent and consequences of the Soviet Union's ecological legacies, particularly the Chernobyl disaster, triggered an unprecedented awareness of the vulnerability of the human body and the Soviet state's disregard of the dangers to human health. This new awareness mobilized Soviet citizens, including state functionaries who had previously seemed untouched by ecological issues, to call for a right to life in an unprecedented way. Despite some achievements, such as new protection laws and investments in health care, this ‘ecological revolution’ was short lived. The social and economic difficulties linked to the collapse of the Soviet Union allowed the concern for a healthy, livable environment to fade into the background again in the early 1990s.