Stalin and the Bomb

by David Holloway

the book is organized chronologically. It starts with the development of physics in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s, before the discovery of nuclear fission. It ends with three closely related events in a crucial six-month period in 1955–6: the Soviet Union’s first test of a superbomb in November 1955; Khrushchev’s renunciation, in February 1956, of Lenin’s thesis that war was inevitable between capitalist states; and the visit of Igor’ Kurchatov, scientific director of the Soviet nuclear project, to Britain in April 1956. The reason for going beyond Stalin’s death in March 1953 is that the Stalin years become more comprehensible when one examines the way in which his successors dealt with his nuclear legacy. Moreover, the changes in 1955–6 marked the end of one phase in nuclear relations between the Soviet Union and the Western powers.