Transformer of secrecy

16 First Chief Directorate (PGU) headed the creation of the secret atomic industry in the USSR since August 1945. [27] In the spring of 1946 the question of peaceful uses of atomic energy was discussed at the PGU Scientific and Technological Council (NTS) in terms of two “needs to remove”: removing heat released during plutonium production for weapons which stimulated the development of nuclear power engineering, [28] and removing the waste contributed to isotopes. At that time, the proposal of the President of the Academy of Sciences on separate management of “closed” and “open” atomic works was rejected by NTS for resources concentration, prompt decisions, and keeping secrecy. [29] Maintaining unilateral authority led to complicate the institutional architecture of the peaceful atom: the secret agency could not formally manage the open works and needed intermediaries. I refer to the boundary infrastructures provided this mediation as interfaces, and the efforts to create them as de-mobilization, [30] describing the interfaces of de-mobilization provided the isotopes transition between secret production infrastructures and the worlds of civilian consumption.

17 In 1968, the USSR celebrated the anniversary of using isotopes in the national economy. A special issue of the Atomic Energy opened with a historical review, told with classified outtakes. There was no mentioning of how the production of non-weapon isotopes started twenty years ago. Kurchatov (in another version – the head of the Radiation Lab) proposed to put cobalt, phosphorus, iron, strontium, potassium, iodine into the atomic boiler, where uranium was irradiated and plutonium for bombs was accumulated, and to obtain radioactive materials [31] “without any labor, and damage to the machine.” [32] Scheduled production began in January 1949 at the military reactor located in a city absent from the maps. For many years Chelyabinsk-40 and its plutonium factory became the invisible hub of the Soviet isotope network.

18 Instead, the anniversary text mentioned the Preparatory Lab as an organization that stood at the origins of the Soviet isotope industry. It was established in December 1948 at the Institute of Biophysics to work with isotopes. [33] This is where “semi-finished isotopes,” delivered from the South Urals were stored, prepared, packaged, and shipped to customers. At first, “demobilized atoms” [34] literally kept their shoulder straps on, delivered by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. [35] The Institute itself had a double – masking – subordination, typical for organizations involved in classified research. It was listed under the Academy of Medical Sciences but run by PGU. The institutional complication allowed the Preparatory Lab to link a hybrid isotope network.

19 The invisible nexus was the Section “R” founded at the NTS under the leadership of Vasilii Emel´ianov, a graduate of the Mining Academy and a prominent industry-organizer. [36] While the section was responsible for isotope production within the Atomic Project, the showcase for isotope work was the Special Scientific Council under the President of the USSR Academy of Sciences. This Council not only supervised the open “use of nuclear energy in engineering, chemistry and biology,” but masked the participation of the Atomic agency.

20 After the bomb tests, the existence of the atomic industry in the USSR was no longer a secret. In 1950, the isotopes used in engineering and medicine, were partially declassified. [37] The border went through the Preparatory Lab, acted as a technical interface, connecting closed and open works with isotopes through routine operations.

Governing the scales

21 At the turn of 1950s, the responsibility for the use of isotopes in the national economy laid with the Academy of Sciences. Literally “from the moment the Scientific Council was organized under the President of the Academy of Sciences,” [38] Lab No. 6 of the Institute of Metallurgy introduced isotope technologies for controlling the condition of blast furnaces, ore mixing and slag formation. [39] Transition to “preparation R”(cobalt-60) – a by-product of weapons cycle, “several thousand times cheaper than radium!,” [40] easy to obtain and powerful, – changed the scale of isotope works at metallurgical plants in Novokuznetsk, Magnitogorsk, Tula, where radioisotope laboratories were opened. Two years later there were nine of them. [41] In 1958 their results were presented in Geneva as the Soviet achievements, which was poorly combined with secrecy of works.

22 Since the early 1950s, the management of research institutes, factories and ministries planned and reported on the work “on isotopes” to the Academy of Sciences. Along with metallurgists and oil workers, there were chemists and “Kurchatov’s” cotton growers. [42] In the middle of the decade “the peaceful atom had already penetrated into all sectors of the national economy.” [43] Even the Institute of the Fur Industry reported on a radiometric densimeter “to determine the hair density of fur skins.” [44] President Nesmeianov formulated the mission of isotopes at the session of the Academy of Sciences:

23

Radioactive tracers have become a necessary and powerful research tool in all (…) fields of science and technology, concerned with the detection of matter and the study of the processes of its transformation and movement (…) And yet, from the realm of semi-fantastic tales it is seeping more and more before our eyes into the daily routine of life. [45]

24 The penetration of isotopes into routine of life required changing the algorithms of interaction. In 1956 the oilmen raised the question of the radiation ecology with their metallurgical counterparts:

25

Technical Department of the Ministry of Oil Industry received information that in casing pipes there are ones with large radioactivity, that excludes the possibility of conducting radioactive logging in wells cased with the pipes (…) In order to ensure the normal conduct of well logging, we ask you (…) to use radioisotopes with a half-life of no more than 20 days. [46]

26 In a world where everyone needed the atom, the half-life was of additional importance. These and other questions, in fact, intended for the Sredmash, ministries and organizations addressed to the Academy of Sciences. It became difficult for the Academy to cope with the role of an intermediary. In spring 1956, speaking at a “meeting on isotopes” in Gostekhnika (State Committee for New Technology under the Council of Ministers), сom. Karibsky commended those who “initially” supervised the isotopes and criticized the academicians for “inefficient coordination of work at the present stage.” [47] The agenda was set by the July Plenum of CPSU Central Committee of 1955, which proclaimed technological progress as the means to achieve a brighter future. Coordination became the basis of the discursive and administrative work of Gostekhnika.

27 Under Viacheslav Malyshev, Gostekhnika became the central government for applied science. [48] The new style of administration was opposed to both the inertia of the Academy and the feudal isolationism of the ministries. The new technique was interpreted broadly – it supported the transition to electric locomotives, introduced welding and modernized construction. However, the Chairman, who left the post of Minister of Sredmash due to physical and political health, willingly rhymed innovations with the atom. [49]

28 Gostekhnika began coordinating unclassified work with isotopes in the summer of 1956. [50] At the meetings of the Section on industrial use of isotopes, representatives of the Committee, Sredmash, the Academy, and ministries discussed standard designs for radioisotope labs, lack of equipment, and division of authority. The Academy was in charge of open research, while Gostekhnika itself was responsible for planning and implementation of isotope technologies into the national economy. All “serious issues” – the production of stable and radioactive isotopes, the development of radiometric equipment and radiation protection – were left to “more competent authorities.” [51]

Department of simulation

29 On March 22, 1956 by Decree of the Council of Ministers No. 404, Glavatom, the Chief Directorate for the Use of Atomic Energy (GUIAE) was formed within Sredmash. With its help the secret agency, which was involved in the struggle for the peaceful atom, communicated with the outside world. Following instructions, the Glavatom pretended to be a division of the USSR Council of Ministers. [52] Through the interface, on a scale comparable to the Ministry, they set up export to socialist countries, promoted peaceful atom, developed new equipment, expanded isotope production. [53] In 1960, the fiction became a reality – Glavatom (now the Committee under the Government, GKIAE) [54] began coordinating open work not only outside but inside the atomic industry. [55] The Isotope Directorate became one of the leading divisions of GKIAE. [56] Neither before the transformation, nor after 1965, when the Committee permanently returned to Sredmash, had the weight of isotopes in the technopolitics of the Soviet Union been so high.

30 By the time Glavatom was formed, different agencies were not only working with isotopes, but were also producing equipment themselves. The Committee had to bring order to this radioactive polyphony – to establish control over the use of fissile substances and ensuring radiation safety, to standardize methods, and to organize waste “disposal points” in 34 cities. [57]

31 Despite the increased volume of work, [58] the Preparatory Lab continued to pack isotopes, but was no longer responsible for their logistics. Orders were sent to Glavatom, until in August 1958, when the All-Union Bureau Izotop at the trust Soyuzreaktiv of the Ministry of Chemical Industry was organized. At the moment when the USSR was learning to sell atom, experience of chemists in supplying drugs to consumers and developing network of specialized stores was in demand. Two years later the Bureau became an All-union association reassigned to Glavatom. [59]

In between communism and the store

32 By the mid-1950s, the country’s leaders gradually recognized the isotopes as the key to solving the socio-economic problems. In 1955, Prime Minister Bulganin called access to nuclear energy “the pinnacle of modern scientific and technological development,” and placed the atomic science and technology above the industrial revolutions of “steam and electricity.” [60] Six months later at the 20th Congress KPSU the only President of the Academy of Sciences spoke about isotopes. [61] But at an extraordinary 21st Congress General Secretary put isotopes on a par with nuclear energy, artificial planets (rockets), and radio electronics. Successes in the use of the new technologies, according to Khrushchev, ensured the growth of productivity and create the material base of communism. [62] Compared to the favorites of the peaceful atom – large-scale NPP, thermonuclear facilities, nuclear-powered aircraft – isotopes had the advantage of tomorrow’s technology, available for application here and now.

33 A window to isotopes in the thawed USSR was a demonstration showroom-store located in the basement of an apartment building on Leninskii Prospekt. Not far from Moscow State University and new site for the Palace of Soviets – in the fresh spaces of the latter-day Moscow – physics-engineers sold isotopes, radiation sources, protective equipment, and overalls. Newspapers wrote about the unusual store, domesticating the atom. Readers were persuaded that it was safe, “walked right next door,” “did wonders” and was “necessary in the most ordinary matters” – be it storing potatoes or finding leaks in the sewers. [63] The photos show charmed citizens gawking at the display cases, and elegant ladies in white coats demonstrating isotopes at the “glowing board” [64]– an electrified table of goods from the Mendeleev system. Judging by the abundance of screens and increased visibility, Izotopy was an interface.

34 It was not the most Soviet format of sales. In the Izotopy they used catalogs. [65] Enriched elements were sometimes so expensive that they were recommended to be “loaned” through the Institute of Atomic Energy. [66] The store catered to pre-ordered organizations authorized to work with radioactivity. The trade, almost unaffected by routines, was becoming rhetorical action. Poet Leonid Martynov, sensitive to the technical signs of the times, was asserting the reality of demobilization through commodification of isotopes:

35

Kind world,
Which I love
You recently came out of the trenches.
I’ll buy you something
In the isotope store. [67]

36 If the Preparatory Lab linked the worlds of secret production and open use of isotopes, and the Glavatom emulated the departmental infrastructure of the peaceful atom, the “first demonstration showroom-store” [68] was not only bureau of atomic orders, but a conductor of ideology. By exhibiting new equipment for sale, here they shortened the distance to the future.

37 By the 20th anniversary of the All-Union Isotope Association in 1981, the jubilee discourse lost its connection with the nuclear sublime: there were reports on optimization of supplies, improvement of warehouses and reduction of prices. [69] But in the 1950 – 1960s, isotopes still promised visionary happiness for humankind, prosperity for the national economy, lyricism for the soul, and transfiguration for matter. Having described the interfaces that made the widespread circulation of isotopes possible, I characterizе them as nuclear boundary objects.

(Radio)active matter

38 In the year of agitation for the reactor in Tashkent, the filmmaker Bogolepov, who filmed nuclear tests, made a doc about the peaceful atom. [70] It was shown to delegates of the 20th CPSU Congress and was presented as a gift to the British delegation. The invisible work of the radioactive matter was screened through animation. Dynamic beams and flying balls represented protons and neutrons, allowing the viewer to imagine how fissile materials cross boundaries, leave traces, and transform matter. In this section I show how the specificity of radioactive matter is recognized and actuated, transforming isotopes into the ideal boundary object of the atomic age, drawing attention to their ability to interact not only with stuff, but also with discourses of Late Socialism.

39 Bogolepov’s film mapped the Soviet universe of the peaceful atom: in the center, the reactor and nuclear facilities for transport, flanked by the use of isotopes in various areas of the national economy. Scenes with isotopes lose out in spectacularity to robotic nuclear power. But these were the isotopes produced in a stationary reactor [71] that moved into the doctor’s office, the field, the manufactory, providing a wide spread of atom. The scale of contact is conveyed by official figures: by the mid-1960s, the USSR had built three NPP, operated up to 20 research reactors and sent 150,000 isotopes shipments. [72]

40 Isotopes were used as a source of energy and high radiation. Strontium was applied to make batteries for lighthouses and weather stations, and cobalt facilities – to produce superhard wood, sterilized medical instruments, and root crops with increased weight. [73] But widespread use of the “small-scale atom” was provided by diagnostic methods based on nuclide radioactivity. “Shining through,” or getting intelligence from radioisotopes, allowed to make the invisible – visible and to gain new knowledge about matter without destroying it. The breadth of information made isotopes the multifunctional boundary objects:

41

Ionizing radiation, which interacts with the environment, carries a considerable amount of information about those physical features of the structure of the substance of environment, which (…) are manifested in the process of interaction with radiation, as well as about the geometric characteristics of the irradiated bodies and their topology. [74]

42 Level gauges, meters, temperature controllers, alarms were constructed to measure “physical features of the substance structure” (length, density, filling, concentrations). They were used to measure steel tape thickness and cement density, uncoil silkworm cocoons, and take static electricity. By 1969 the USSR was producing more than 80 industrial series and 200 kinds of radioisotope devices, [75] supposed to be “pointing, recording and regulating.” [76] Based on sensor reactions and radioactivity meter readings, they sent commands to actuators. The icing alarm was based on this principle: as soon as the strontium sensor was covered with ice and the radiation flux weakened to the reference mark, the aircraft’s icing protection system was automatically triggered. [77] The unsophisticated device made isotopes controllers of processes.

43 Nuclear enthusiasts welcomed the translation of non-contact measurements into commands, positioning isotope devices as a means of automating labor. Academician Kurdiumov told readers of Literaturka about the talents of the gamma-indicator, which “unmistakably identified the loading level,” “kept track of the cars,” “showed the direction,” “gave signals,” and “helped the dispatcher. [78] The hero of the industrial atomic novel called the gamma relay installed in the blacksmith manufactory “the magic wand of scientific and technological progress”:

44

- This is a radioisotope relay unit. A powerful thing – with its help, you can transform the world! (…) by transforming production. You know what we are aiming for in the end by improving production, in a technical sense?
- Probably complex automation. [79] 

45 Isotopes were used to solve problems beyond human sensory capabilities – count fish without taking them out of the water and distinguish a loaded tugboat from an empty one. Solutions belonging to the technological unconscious became the subject of stories about “miracles of science” [80] – insignificant isotopes provided automation more radical than the robots duplicating human actions in Bogolepov’s film.

46 In the years of the First Seven-Year Plan, at the peak of the technocratic breakthrough into the future, isotopes were delegated to solve complicated technological and managerial problems. The Gostekhnika’s Chairman urged organizations interested in isotope packaging not to wait for the Preparatory Lab, but to involve the “peaceful atom”: “The problem of packaging can be solved by applying some active substance and irradiation – here you have an automaton, the simplest machine that can be made.” [81] Having recognized the atomic automaton as the “simplest machine” to solve a difficult problem, it was rhetorically connected to “production management,” “rational agriculture,” “successful implementation of the decisions of the 22th Congress.” [82] The Soviets seemed to have handed all the power (over matter) to the isotopes.

Techno-social logics of the wonderful

47 The use of stable isotopes required mass spectrometers. The practice of chemical methods required specialists capable of “complicated and time-consuming operations.” [83] Whereas irradiation was recorded “with simple and readily available apparatus, or even without it, using photographic materials.” [84] “Quickness, simplicity and high precision,” as Academician Bardin put it, made radioisotope methods “modern.” [85]

48 In the USSR, people trusted not only the “simplicity” of atomic technology, but its unpretentiousness. The head of Glavatom told about radioisotope devices, “reliable in operation and practically requiring no maintenance,” referring to the experience of the plant, where the atom worked from 1955 to 1963 “without changes and preventive repair.” [86] Atomic devices freed the worker from his worries and ensured production growth without replacing equipment.

49 One of the hallmarks of the isotope boom was optimistic calculations and savings reports. Oilmen saved 32 million rub. on oil exploration, [87] and geochemists saved 1 hour and 1 rub. on each analysis. [88] The Vice President of the Academy of Sciences reported that in 1957 the effect of isotopes was 1.5 billion rub. [89] Next year the isotopes group was organized at the Institute of Economics to investigate the efficiency of atom adoption. After the examination of 60 enterprises, it was concluded that radioisotopes would pay for itself within 3 to 8 months. [90]

50 Expectations that active matter would simply, quickly, radically, and inexpensively transform the socialist economy corresponded to the spirit of the Soviet engineering imagination. The progressive impulse was combined with uncritical assessment of the realism of the project, the arrogance of the enthusiasts, and the willingness to disregard details for the sake of the main thing. [91] Those who were expecting a miracle from the new technology, were led into the order of the marvelous by the isotopes.

Tracer of the national economy

51 The universe of isotopes time after time was shaped from metallurgy, chemistry, food industry, agriculture, and medicine on postage stamps and matchstick labels, movie screens and newspaper pages, in reports and brochures. If isotopes and tracers, “shining through” the substance, allowed to judge about its state, the sequence of industries-users made visible the hierarchies and priorities of the national economy.

52 In the US isotopes were distributed in favor of nuclear medicine and radiobiology. According to Néstor Herran, between 1946 and 1950 “AEC sent 11,400 domestic shipments of radioisotopes, of which 5161 (45%) were used in medical therapy, 2920 (27%) in animal physiology research and only 427 (3.7%) in industrial research.” [92] At a closed meeting in Moscow, the speaker reported that in the US in 1951 the “medical” iodine (7000 parcels) and “biochemical” phosphorus (5400 pieces) were the leaders. [93] In the USSR, where the priority was the Group A industry, the main isotope was cobalt: in 1958, they produced 190,000 curies of cobalt-60, 1,500 – cesium-137, 1,200 – iodine-131, 200 – carbon-14. [94]

53 Through the Academy of Sciences and Gostekhnika, the state encouraged the leading industries to work with “peaceful atom.” At the same time, the river-building enterprises, which were not eligible for this support, asserted their right “to deal with radioactivity along with the machine-building ministries.” [95] In the 1950s, metallurgists and machine builders topped the list of isotope consumers; in the 1970s, these were oil and gas workers. But no matter how the Soviet “isotope lineup” began, it was terminated by medicine. In 1950, Glavgosstroi, custodian of radioactive stocks of the Atomic Project, gave 3000 units of “R-60 preparations (including 2000 to industrial ministries and up to 1000 for medical purposes)” to the Preparation Lab. [96] In 1968, 4,200 organizations worked with isotopes, including 2,500 industrial, 600 research institutes and 500 clinics. [97] Ten years later, the use of californium-252 was discussed ranging from oil exploration to tumor irradiation. [98] The outsider position in isotopes remained with the medical issues until the end of the Soviet era. [99]

54 Radioisotopes not only elicited economic priorities, but stimulated formational shifts at the political economy. Simon Turchetti mentions the violent reaction of the US Congress to the Atomic Energy Act of 1946, according to which

55

ownership of all fissionable materials, reactors, and manufacturing plants for atomic weapon components belonged to the United States, to be administered by the Commission (…) Preexisting patents were subject to compulsory purchase by the Commission. These features of the legislation had been attacked on the floor of Congress as socialist, but they survived. [100]

56 While the US administration was provoked by the atom to “shift toward state socialism” – the introduction of a state monopoly on nuclear technology and the expropriation of innovations, – in the USSR the introduction nuclear technology had the opposite effect. Malyshev demanded a less doctrinal attitude to planning: “We should not look at the plan as an icon. A plan for new technology is a risk (…) Here one has to be flexible.” [101] A flexible plan was the step to irradiated socialism with new properties.

Socialist complication

57 With the transition to mass use of radioisotopes came the realization of the risks and costs of the “peaceful atom.” Irradiated meat stored better, but stank. Modified wood was hard but brittle, and radiation vulcanization was expensive. [102] The loss of illusions was global, but in the USSR, it was aggravated by deficit, the hardships of implementation and other joys of socialist economy. The opposite is also true. Radioactive matter – dangerous and aggressive – amplified the flaws of the socialist economy, acting as their indicator and catalyst.

58 In work with radioactive substances, the usual lack of resources was accompanied by an unaccustomed lack of safety. The staff of Lab No 6, which was helping metallurgists to adopt radioisotope techniques, designed shielding containers of steel and cast iron because of the shortage of lead. [103] The directors of research institutes and chief engineers of plants were concerned about the lack of protective equipment, centralized dosimetric service, sanitary instructions, and “scientific-medical control.” [104] The Institute of Neurosurgery of the Georgian SSR and the Stalingrad Tractor Plant refused isotopes in 1955 due to “lack of appropriate conditions” or a ban by the State Sanitary Inspection. They demanded standard projects for storage facilities and the disposal of radioactive waste from Glavatom. [105]

59 The nuclear logistics, sluggish and full of malfunctions, was a source of criticism. Short-lived isotopes were ordered three months in advance, other types took half a year. [106] Since the beginning of 1953, Elektrostal “received the wrong isotope twice. Once an isotope that was not mentioned on the order form, and some other time an isotope was in the form of a compound that could not be used under the conditions of the plant.” [107] The Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Combine – the flagship of the peaceful atom – was notified with a long delay about the release of 5 isotopes out of 9 ordered. The preparation that had to be put into the furnaces during their repair, was missing. The furnaces were stopped, but the preparation was not there. [108]

60 Security restrictions complicated already unsatisfactory delivery of isotopes: “The special delivery truck hands over the container and the package, which the plant’s special department has the right to unseal only after signing the confirmation receipt.” [109] Only after the signature it was found out that wrong items had been delivered. The “blind” deliveries were accompanied by the absence of manuals for radiometric equipment: “We received two Fialka (Violet) devices, but no instruction manuals for them. It turned out fortunate that we managed to master them ourselves and did not break them, but there are no instructions to this day.” [110] But “the first reason for the inefficient use of isotopes” is prepackaging. [111]

61 The Preparation Lab, which supplied the whole country in the 1950s and could not cope with the flood of orders, packed isotopes in large packages. However, customers – excluding large radiochemical enterprises – required small or non-standard quantities. To carry out on-site packaging meant the danger of contamination. In 1956 Moscow specialists refused to supply small doses of radioactive phosphorus to Azovstal. But exactly this – small doses, ready-packaged, short-term storage – was what the Sanitary Inspectorate recommended to all consumers to reduce radiation risks. [112] Handing these tasks over to Izotop did not solve the problem – even 15 years later the assortment remained modest. Pointing to packages of 1 or 5 millicuries, the radiochemist asked wittily: “What about those who need 1.5?” The problem was not only the volume, but the quality of packages. Leaky ampoules supplied by Izotop contaminated equipment. [113] The leaks meant not only a threat to the health of workers, but also economic damage to the organization, which received less of the substance than it paid for. From radioisotopes to milk, poor packaging was indicative of the state of the Soviet economy. [114]

62 Contrary to all the promises, the use of isotopes not only was uneasy, it complicated production routines, technologies, and infrastructures. For isotopes delivery it was required to use an equipped autotruck that could neither be bought nor ordered. For storage – a room with special ventilation. For packing – automatic lines for supplying containers. For work – the scarce protective equipment. The local authorities were not prepared for these complications. And the nuclear agency did not plan to invest in the improvement of civilian nuclear technologies. [115]

63 Under conditions where knowledge was lacking and technology was not followed, radioisotopes entered into dangerous and uncontrollable interactions. The Ministry of Iron and Steel recommended making rail steel from irradiated materials that was less hazardous to human health. However, “the condition was not always met. Cobalt got into the soft types,” which were used to make fittings for industrial and residential buildings. [116] Radioactive calcium from metallurgical combines with slag got into fertilizers, and with fertilizers – into the fields. [117] Cobalt was used to monitor migrations of insect pests – bedbugs would spread out, taking radiation. Reviewer Zimme, commenting the report, recommended the use of shorter-lived isotopes. [118]

64 Declarations of efficiency and cheapness, which increased the attractiveness of isotope technology, did not correspond to reality. In order to embellish the scale of economies, the calculations were based on a conditional – lower – cost of isotopes. [119] The higher infrastructure costs caused by stricter radiation safety requirements were not taken into account in the initial calculations. Not surprisingly, after two years, the optimistic reports of the Institute of Economics, which studied the efficiency of the use of isotopes in the national economy, gave way to fanciful arguments about the non-triviality of the task.

65 Even the question of who needed the development of nuclear infrastructure in the USSR and for what purposes remains open. The Tashkent reactor, for which Kurchatov had advocated in 1956, was built and commissioned three years later. In 1961 in Leningrad the participants of All-Union Conference on Research Reactors discussed the unreadiness of republican nuclear centers to carry out independent studies and lack of specialists. The Tashkent reactor was used for two years to perform a research on one topic only. [120]

66 Writing on the American experience, Angela Creager calls the 1950s the “golden age” for isotopes. In the Soviet case I emphasize the ambivalence of isotope boom, describing its arrangements as the socialism of isotopes. Socialism of isotopes assembled the Soviet nuclear sociality and materiality in the 1950s-1960s, juxtaposing the techno-social logics of the transition to communism with a lack of resources, the centralized imposition of new technologies with inertia, the rhetoric of economy with implementation problems, nuclear optimism with a gradual loss of illusions at the national, as well as at local levels.

Radioisotope’s city

68 Obninsk, located between Moscow and Kaluga, has many names. The city, founded in 1956 from a secret settlement of physicists on the wave of de-mobilization of the atom, was unexpectedly named after a village, a railway station, and Obninsky, a landowner of progressive views. In the late 1940s, the secret Object V was Maloyaroslavets-1. After the commissioning of the nuclear power plant in 1954, it became the “home of the First in the World (NPP).” It became a city of institutes when a dozen of nuclear research institutes settled down next to physicists. Obninsk was considered a Sredmashch town, because it was built and patronized by the Ministry. In 2000, it became “the first naukograd of Russia.” But Obninsk has never been called a city of radioisotopes, although there were grounds for that.

69 In early 1969 Pravda printed a photo-report by Alexander Ustinov linking the city, the research institute, and the store through isotopes:

70

Muscovites and guests of the capital are already accustomed to the huge sign Izotopy on the Leninskii Prospekt. But few know that a large number of isotopes used in various fields of science, national economy, medicine, are “born” at the cyclotron in the Obninsk Institute of Physics and Power Engineering (IPPE). [122]

71 Reactors were the hallmark of the first and main institute of Obninsk. The experimental breeders were open to international peaceful cooperation and produced weapons-grade plutonium under great secrecy. Top secret nuclear facilities for submarines and spacecrafts were created here. Isotopes were last on the list of the institute’s issues – in line with the Soviet “atomic vertical.”

72 IPPE produced isotopes in reactors and cyclotrons. The 1.5-meter cyclotron was launched at IPPE in 1963. Officially, the decision to design the U-150 facility, made in 1958, is associated with Kurchatov’s speech on the use of isotopes. [123] Unofficially the ex-director of the accelerator told that the cyclotron was intended for brotherly China. While the facility was being developed, the political relations worsened, Soviet specialists were recalled from China and the accelerator was situated in Obninsk. [124] By that time, the city had already built an infrastructure for research institutes of nuclear meteorology, radiochemistry, and medical radiology, which focused on the prospective use of radioisotopes. By the end of the 1960s, the cyclotron was producing 42 stable and radioactive isotopes, [125] “fully satisfying the needs of the country.” [126]

73 Other research institutes and enterprises of Obninsk were also associated with the production of isotopes and the developing of infrastructures for them. A branch of the Karpov Institute of Physics and Chemistry (popularly called Karpovka) produced short-lived isotopes using a reactor, cobalt units, and accelerators. The instrument factory Signal, built in Obninsk under the auspices of the Sredmash, produced not only equipment for NPP, but super profitable protective lead houses for radioisotope laboratories. It was symptomatic that in 1978 the next All-Union Conference dedicated to the 30^th anniversary of isotopes use in the USSR was held in Obninsk. [127] The development of isotope production, proportion of Obninsk isotopes in the national nuclear economy, and transfer production of short-lived isotopes – molybdenum-99 [128] and iodine-131 [129] – from Moscow to Karpovka cemented the status of Obninsk as a radioisotope’s city, that did not only produce, but also consumed short-lived nuclides.

Ryabukhin’s triangle

74 The center of consumption of short-lived isotopes in Obninsk was the Institute of Medical Radiology (IMR), designed by the Director Georgiy Zedgenidze according to the latest biomedicine and nuclear technology. [130] Isotopes and high irradiation were supposed to link two departments of IMR – the clinic and experimental radiobiology, which was led by the great Timofeev-Resovsky. In 1964 future dissident Zhores Medvedev, who was studying the radiation mechanisms of aging, was still complaining about the impossibility to fully implement the research program due to the lack of isotopes and was counting on the launch of the 101 (isotope) building. [131] A year later, there were already traces of accidents that occurred with isotopes. A junior researcher was demoted for three months to a lab technician for careless handling of selenium-75, which was found in a landfill by the Local Sanitarian Inspectorate. A senior technician of the biosynthesis group, who had discharged residual carbon-14 into a regular sewer, was reprimanded. The state arbitration court recovered 2,912 rub. from IMR in favor of the regional branch of Izotop “for untimely return of containers for radioactive products.” The proponents of neutron capture therapy, who worked with neutron beams in the reactor, asked unhappily: “For what purposes and who needs these short-lived isotopes? It turns out that no one is waiting for them.” [132] However in 1969 the IMR became the leading medical institute for “radioisotope business” and began to coordinate the use of short-lived isotopes in medicine nationwide.

75 The management of IMR failed to construct a specialized medical reactor because medical radiologists were stationed in Obninsk with the expectation of using the nuclear infrastructure of physicists and radiochemists. [133] IMR staff was in contact with its neighbors, and turned its facilities into boundary infrastructures. A junior scientist in the activation analysis lab recalls working at the Karpovka at VVR-c, the radiochemists’ reactor, a fellow of the Tashkent one, adapted to handle short-lived isotopes:

76

The Karpovka reactor was one of the first to be equipped with horizontal channels with pneumatic mail. It was possible to send a sample quickly … to the reactor core and, therefore, quickly extract it (…) very important because some short-lived nuclides are obtained. And they need to be measured right there (…). And the rest of the reactors were all, as a rule, vertical channels. And a sample had to be put on a string, which means (laughs) lowered, irradiated for many hours (…) [134]

77 His supervisor was Yuri Ryabukhin, a radiochemist who had left Karpovka for nuclear medicine. Ryabukhin used his old contacts to provide access to the reactor for his staff. For Ryabukhin’s colleagues, interdepartmental barriers were often an obstacle. While IPPE was a restricted enterprise of Sredmash, and Karpovka, formally subordinated to the Ministry of Chemical Industry, in fact worked for Sredmash, the IMR was subordinated to the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences and therefore systematically experienced problems with nuclear integration. Radiochemists for years did not connect the experimental sector of the IMR to the special sewer line, planned in order to save money for the two institutes. As a result, the IMR isotope building, conceived on a grand scale, did not work “according to radiation hazard class 2” and was on the verge of closure by the Sanitary Inspectorate. [135] Short-lived isotopes were the problem that IMR successfully presented to the Party and academic authorities.

78 At the height of the thaw, Obninsk institutes were subjected to political repressions. The theoretical department of IPPE received the brunt of the repression, but the IMR staff also suffered. [136] They were accused of low political consciousness, immature position on Czechoslovakia, participation in free meetings at the Scientists House, and solidarity with physicists. At the beginning of 1969, a commission from the Academy, accompanied by the first secretary of the Obninsk party committee, nicknamed Ivan the Terrible for his despotic treatment of the scientists, came to the IMR. At the meeting, the head of the isotope building talked about fluorine-19:

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We cannot use short-lived isotopes. For example, there is a very interesting isotope fluorine-19 with a half-life of 112 minutes. Both in experiment and the clinic, this isotope could be used. But what path does it take before it can be used? It is taken from here to Moscow, from Moscow it is taken to Obninsk, and its half-life is 112 minutes … We must obtain these isotopes on-site at a nearby institute where there is a cyclotron and where they are produced. [137]

80 Against the background of direct political pressure on the Institute, a purely functional requirement – to reduce the distance to IPPE – became an implicit form of resistance. Disintegration, which was sought by the party authorities, was countered by the nature of fluorine-19, which required local technoscientific cooperation. The commission supported the researchers, considering the actions of IMR administration, which organized supplies of the short-lived isotope through Moscow, as an irrational use of the peaceful atom, “intolerable, non-state.” From the director’s comment, however, it was clear that the “non-state use” was the result of the costs of the cumbersome socialist management, which made direct interactions of IMR with the Sredmash institutions economically unprofitable for medics:

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We tried to get isotopes directly here. However, for this, we have to pay big money on a contractual basis. If we are talking about new preparations, and fluorine-19 is new, and they need to be tested. Thus, if we receive them for therapeutic purposes through the Ministry of Health, then the Ministry pays for them (…) Three years ago I tried Glavatom institutes to negotiate that they give us the isotopes (…) for testing. But they can’t do it! This must be done by the authorities at the highest level. [138]

82 An assemblage of the “high level” (the Council of Ministers) with strong arguments (112 min half-life) ensured the success of the enterprise. Zedgenidze was forced to resign in the early 1970s. The Timofeev-Ressovsky department was disbanded. The free-wheeling spirit in the city of institutes disappeared. But direct shipments of short-lived isotopes from IPPE to IMR were established. In an effort to provide access to short-lived isotopes, researchers and managers created exceptions to the rules, established connections that were impossible under other circumstances, entered into non-trivial alliances, taking topological rationality – spatial connectivity and neighborhood – as the basis for decisions.

83 In the presence of short-lived isotopes, the rhythm of work was subject to the rhythm of nuclides supplied by Izotop in voluntarist manner. Ryabukhin, pointed out the tension between the life cycles of short-lived isotopes (sodium-24 and potassium-42) and the cycle of seasonal mobilization of Soviet scientists for field works: “Today we get an isotope, and tomorrow we must go to a collective farm, and the isotope half-life is 14 hours. Apparently, I should not plan any work with isotopes for the summer period.” [139]

84 The so-called “patronage of agriculture” was a duty of urban organizations at the end of the Soviet era. Scholars involved in potato harvesting became a well-recognized figure of Late Socialism. However, the case of Obninsk stood out against the general background. After the suppression of institute freedoms in 1968, the subordination of scientists to the party dictate was established through the collective farm theme:

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Obkom was “hanging on the shoulders” of institutions with this agricultural assistance, reports were demanded from the directors of institutes, the subordinated farms were allocated in the most remote and least fertile areas, the institutions spent millions on transportation. [140]

86 The Ryabukhin triangle, which linked the short life of sodium-potassium, spontaneous supplies from Izotop, and collective farm works, did not relieve the IMR from agricultural duty. However, it did give those who worked with radionuclides room to maneuver. The heads of isotope labs, who used short-lived isotopes, had both the right to speak neutrally on uncomfortable topics and a chance to strengthen their agency by standing up for active short-lived matter, which participated in the producing and transforming local (techno)social order.