"Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster" by Svetlana Alexievich, translated from the Russian by Keith Gessen
I'm a product of my time. I'm a believing Communist. Now it's safe to curse at us. It's fashionable. All the Communists are criminals. Now we answer for everything, even the laws of physics.
I was the First Secretary of the Regional Committee of the Communist Party. In the papers they write that it was, you know, the Communists who were at fault: They built poor, cheap nuclear power plants, they tried to save money and didn't care about people's lives. People for them were just sand, the fertilizer of history. Well, the hell with them! The hell! It's the cursed questions: What to do and whom to blame? These are questions that don't go away. Everyone is impatient, they want revenge, they want blood.
Others keep quiet, but I'll tell you. The papers write that the Communists fooled the people, hid the truth from them. But we had to. We got telegrams from the Central Committee, from the Regional Committee, telling us: You have to prevent a panic. And it's true, a panic is a frightening thing. There was fear, and there were rumors. People weren't killed by the radiation, but by the events. We had to prevent a panic.
What if I'd declared then that people shouldn't go outside? They would have said: "You want to disrupt May Day?" It was a political matter. They'd have asked for my Party ticket. [Calms down a little.] They didn't understand that there really is such a thing as physics. There is a chain reaction. And no orders or government resolutions can change that chain reaction. The world is built on physics, not on the ideas of Marx. But if I'd said that then? Tried to call off the May Day parade? [Gets upset again.] In the papers they write that the people were out in the street and we were in underground bunkers. I stood on the tribune for two hours in that sun, without a hat, without a raincoat! And on May 9, the Day of Victory, I walked with the veterans. They played the harmonica, people danced, drank. We were all part of that system. We believed! We believed in the high ideals, in victory! We'll defeat Chernobyl! We read about the heroic battle to put down the reactor that had gone out of control. A Russian without a high ideal? Without a great dream? That's also scary.
But that's what's happening now. Everything's falling apart. No government. Stalin. Gulag archipelago. They pronounced a verdict on the past, on our whole life. But think of the great films! The happy songs! Explain those to me! Why don't we have such films anymore? Or such songs?
In the papers — on the radio and television they were yelling, Truth! Truth! At all the meetings they demanded: Truth! Well, it's bad, it's very bad. We're all going to die! But who needs that kind of truth? When the mob tore into the convent and demanded the execution of Robespierre, were they right? You can't listen to the mob, you can't become the mob. Look around. What's happening now? [Silent.] If I'm a criminal, why is my granddaughter, my little child, also sick? My daughter had her that spring, she brought her to us in Stavgorod in diapers. It was just a few weeks after the explosion at the plant. There were helicopters flying, military vehicles on the roads. My wife said: "They should stay with our relatives. They need to get out of here". I was the First Secretary of the Regional Committee of the Party! I said absolutely not. "What will people think if I take my daughter with her baby out of here? Their children have to stay". Those who tried to leave, to save their own skins, I'd call them into the regional committee. "Are you a Communist or not?" It was a test for people. If I'm a criminal, then why was I killing my own child? [Goes on for some time but it becomes impossible to understand what he's saying.]
Source: The Paris Review
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