Chernobyl

meursault

awavey wrote:

tbf reading that New Yorker article, it strikes me as the writer just wants to be contrarian about it, the write something that drives click thrus to their site, but doesnt really understand what theyve seen.

my takeaway from the series wasnt this is some indepth documentary look at a Stalinist russian system and how communism works vs capitalism, it was the mid 80s the Reykjavík summit was only 6 months away.

It was rather here was this major man made catastrophe that we all thought we knew about, but look how it was actually dealt with, what caused it and how faced with this monstorous problem the people and the systems they clinged to reacted.

Yes, there is a difference between Stalinism (Deformed workers state, Cuba and China too) and what communism actually is, or supposed to be. USSR was well on the way to collapse at this time, Chernobyl may have been the final nail in the coffin. The bureacratic dictactorship crumbled and individuals didn't know how to cope with it until it imploded. Look at how the ex soviet states descended into barbarism, Serbia, Croatia, Kosovo etc.

rjsterry

meursault wrote:

awavey wrote:

tbf reading that New Yorker article, it strikes me as the writer just wants to be contrarian about it, the write something that drives click thrus to their site, but doesnt really understand what theyve seen.

my takeaway from the series wasnt this is some indepth documentary look at a Stalinist russian system and how communism works vs capitalism, it was the mid 80s the Reykjavík summit was only 6 months away.

It was rather here was this major man made catastrophe that we all thought we knew about, but look how it was actually dealt with, what caused it and how faced with this monstorous problem the people and the systems they clinged to reacted.

Yes, there is a difference between Stalinism (Deformed workers state, Cuba and China too) and what communism actually is, or supposed to be. USSR was well on the way to collapse at this time, Chernobyl may have been the final nail in the coffin. The bureacratic dictactorship crumbled and individuals didn't know how to cope with it until it imploded. Look at how the ex soviet states descended into barbarism, Serbia, Croatia, Kosovo etc.

The Balkans rivalries go back long before communism was even thought of. It managed to hold itself together without communism from the time it broke away from the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918 until 1946. Of course when any long running leadership of whatever political flavour falls, there is fight for succession and an opportunity for people to exploit.

meursault

rjsterry wrote:

meursault wrote:

awavey wrote:

tbf reading that New Yorker article, it strikes me as the writer just wants to be contrarian about it, the write something that drives click thrus to their site, but doesnt really understand what theyve seen.

my takeaway from the series wasnt this is some indepth documentary look at a Stalinist russian system and how communism works vs capitalism, it was the mid 80s the Reykjavík summit was only 6 months away.

It was rather here was this major man made catastrophe that we all thought we knew about, but look how it was actually dealt with, what caused it and how faced with this monstorous problem the people and the systems they clinged to reacted.

Yes, there is a difference between Stalinism (Deformed workers state, Cuba and China too) and what communism actually is, or supposed to be. USSR was well on the way to collapse at this time, Chernobyl may have been the final nail in the coffin. The bureacratic dictactorship crumbled and individuals didn't know how to cope with it until it imploded. Look at how the ex soviet states descended into barbarism, Serbia, Croatia, Kosovo etc.

The Balkans rivalries go back long before communism was even thought of. It managed to hold itself together without communism from the time it broke away from the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918 until 1946. Of course when any long running leadership of whatever political flavour falls, there is fight for succession and an opportunity for people to exploit.

Communism was thought of, as a type of society, sometime about the 1850's. I'm not arguing that the Balkans REQUIRED Stalinism (not communism, again) but that the descent into barbarism, was caused by the break up of ex-soviet states.

rjsterry

meursault wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

meursault wrote:

awavey wrote:

tbf reading that New Yorker article, it strikes me as the writer just wants to be contrarian about it, the write something that drives click thrus to their site, but doesnt really understand what theyve seen.

my takeaway from the series wasnt this is some indepth documentary look at a Stalinist russian system and how communism works vs capitalism, it was the mid 80s the Reykjavík summit was only 6 months away.

It was rather here was this major man made catastrophe that we all thought we knew about, but look how it was actually dealt with, what caused it and how faced with this monstorous problem the people and the systems they clinged to reacted.

Yes, there is a difference between Stalinism (Deformed workers state, Cuba and China too) and what communism actually is, or supposed to be. USSR was well on the way to collapse at this time, Chernobyl may have been the final nail in the coffin. The bureacratic dictactorship crumbled and individuals didn't know how to cope with it until it imploded. Look at how the ex soviet states descended into barbarism, Serbia, Croatia, Kosovo etc.

The Balkans rivalries go back long before communism was even thought of. It managed to hold itself together without communism from the time it broke away from the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918 until 1946. Of course when any long running leadership of whatever political flavour falls, there is fight for succession and an opportunity for people to exploit.

Communism was thought of, as a type of society, sometime about the 1850's. I'm not arguing that the Balkans REQUIRED Stalinism (not communism, again) but that the descent into barbarism, was caused by the break up of ex-soviet states.

Exactly. The various Balkan rivalries date back to the Middle Ages, and the expansion of the Ottoman Empire into part of what became Yugoslavia. Various regimes have kept a lid on things since, and barbarism only erupted when there was no-one in charge. The last one out happened to be stalinist/communist.

meursault

I feel super cosy in our agreement. Genuinely.

rjsterry

meursault wrote:

I feel super cosy in our agreement. Genuinely.

Like a duvet. 8)

knedlicky

The series has just finished on Russian TV and came in for a lot of criticism – false scenarios (especially about getting people to enter the complex, and talk of executing people), over-exaggerated (melo-)drama to draw in TV viewers, a fictional re-writing of the situation and circumstances in the mould of re-writing history, incorrect cliche-ed remarks and behaviour by involved politicians and scientists, and subtle propaganda about/against political systems.

Maybe a defensive take was to be expected in Russia, although on the other hand they should know better how things really were than the American production team.
The series starts this evening in Ukraine and it will be interesting to see how Ukranians regard it, since not only did it happen there, but also from a political point-of-view they nowadays don't have the need to react defensively.

pblakeney

Well, that would say that. Wouldn't they?
Looking forward to the Russian version with a CIA mole.

bompington

knedlicky wrote:

The series has just finished on Russian TV and came in for a lot of criticism – false scenarios (especially about getting people to enter the complex, and talk of executing people), over-exaggerated (melo-)drama to draw in TV viewers, a fictional re-writing of the situation and circumstances in the mould of re-writing history, incorrect cliche-ed remarks and behaviour by involved politicians and scientists, and subtle propaganda about/against political systems.

Maybe a defensive take was to be expected in Russia, although on the other hand they should know better how things really were than the American production team.
The series starts this evening in Ukraine and it will be interesting to see how Ukranians regard it, since not only did it happen there, but also from a political point-of-view they nowadays don't have the need to react defensively.

This article points out some of the subtler ways that the series misrepresents Soviet society:

NY wrote:

Unfortunately, apart from these striking moments, the series often veers between caricature and folly. In Episode 2, for example, the Central Committee member Boris Shcherbina (Stellan Skarsgård) threatens to have Legasov shot if he doesn’t tell him how a nuclear reactor works. There are a lot of people throughout the series who appear to act out of fear of being shot. This is inaccurate: summary executions, or even delayed executions on orders of a single apparatchik, were not a feature of Soviet life after the nineteen-thirties. By and large, Soviet people did what they were told without being threatened with guns or any punishment.

Similarly repetitive and ridiculous are the many scenes of heroic scientists confronting intransigent bureaucrats by explicitly criticizing the Soviet system of decision-making. In Episode 3, for example, Legasov asks, rhetorically, “Forgive me—maybe I’ve just spent too much time in my lab, or maybe I’m just stupid. Is this really the way it all works? An uninformed, arbitrary decision that will cost who knows how many lives that is made by some apparatchik, some career Party man?” Yes, of course this is the way it works, and, no, he hasn’t been in his lab so long that he didn’t realize that this is how it works. The fact of the matter is, if he didn’t know how it worked, he would never have had a lab.

Resignation was the defining condition of Soviet life.