Soviet ecology presents us with an extraordinary set of historical ironies. On the one hand, the USSR in the 1930s and '40s violently purged many of its leading ecological thinkers and seriously degraded its environment in the quest for rapid industrial expansion. The end result has often been described as a kind of "ecocide," symbolized by the Chernobyl nuclear accident, the assault on Lake Baikal, and the drying up of the Aral Sea, as well as extremely high levels of air and water pollution. On the other hand, the Soviet Union developed some of the world's most dialectical contributions to ecology, revolutionizing science in fields such as climatology, while also introducing pioneering forms of conservation. Aside from its famous <em>zapovedniki</em>, or nature reserves for scientific research, it sought to preserve and even to expand its forests.<p class="mrlink"><p class="mrpurchaselink"><a href="http://monthlyreview.org/index/volume-67-number-2" title="Vol. 67, No. 2: June 2015" target="_self">Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the <em>Monthly Review</em> website.</a></p>
Assessment of water pollution near the deep oil seep in Lake Baikal
