For obvious reasons there is not an extensive literature in English on the history of the nuclear project. The pioneering work was Arnold Kramish, Atomic Energy in the Soviet Union, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1959; see also George Modelski, Atomic Energy in the Communist Bloc, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1959. I published two articles on this history: “Entering the Nuclear Arms Race: The Soviet Decision to Build the Atomic Bomb,” Social Studies of Science, May 1981, pp. 159–97, and “Soviet Thermonuclear Development,” International Security, Winter 1979–80, pp. 192–7.
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