Andrei Sakharov - Dissident Father of the Hydrogen Bomb
10 Dissidents Who Changed the World: #9
Andrei Sakharov was the inspiration for the democratic movement that polished off the Russian empire. Andrei Sakharov was also the USSR’s leading physicist and the father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb. Andrei Sakharov was a bona fide paradox if ever there was one.
Sakharov was born on May 21, 1921. His father was a private school physics teacher, and devout atheist. His mother was a pious Christian. Both parents raised Sakharov to value human decency, mutual respect, and hard work.
After primary school, he entered Moscow University, where he quickly impressed his professor, Igor Tamm—winner of the 1958 Nobel Prize in physics.
Tabbed as one of his country’s brightest young minds, he was exempted from military service during World War II. Instead, he went to work at a munitions factory.
Hydrogen Bomb Dreams
In June 1948, after Sakharov earned his doctorate, Igor Tamm recruited him to spearhead the development of the hydrogen bomb. Only months after going to work at a top-secret installation, Sakharov dreamed up a new hydrogen bomb design.
But, following a test of one of his bombs in 1955, Sakharov began to be disturbed by his own creation:
When you see the burned birds who are withering on the scorched steppe, when you see how the shock wave blows away buildings like houses of cards, when you feel the reek of splintered bricks, when you sense melted glass, you immediately think of times of war… All of this triggers an irrational yet very strong emotional impact. How not to start thinking of one’s responsibility at this point?
Sakharov began sending letters to Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, and writing articles about the biological hazards of radiation. He explained how halting nuclear tests would directly save hundreds of thousands of lives.
Despite his efforts, on October 30, 1961, the largest bomb ever made was tested over the Arctic Sea.
Tsar Bomba
Codenamed Ivan by its developers, the Soviet hydrogen bomb was known as Tsar Bomba in the West.
The 50 megaton bomb was so big, a parachute had to be attached to make the bomb drop slow enough for the release and observation planes to escape the range of the eventual 25-mile-wide mushroom cloud.
Blast damage reached 600 miles away. The seismic shock was measured circling the earth three times. The energy produced was 1% of the power output of the sun.
Sakharov Turns World Dissident
After failing to prevent further nuclear tests, Sakharov decided he could no longer participate in the murder of innocent people. By the end of 1962, he realized that freedom, compassion, and truth could not coexist with a nuclear arms race and state communism. He risked everything to start campaigning for disarmament, and he denounced the Soviet system’s intolerance of dissent. And his voice did have an effect, such as the Soviets signing the first Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1963.
Then in 1968 Sakharov wrote Reflections on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence, and Intellectual Freedom. In part, the essay reads:
Intellectual freedom is essential to human society — freedom to obtain and distribute information, freedom for open-minded and unfearing debate and freedom from pressure by officialdom and prejudices. Such a trinity of freedom of thought is the only guarantee against an infection of people by mass myths, which, in the hands of treacherous hypocrites and demagogues, can be transformed into bloody dictatorship. Freedom of thought is the only guarantee of the feasibility of a scientific democratic approach to politics, economics and culture.
A copy of the essay was smuggled out from behind the Iron Curtain and published in the New York Times. Following the publication, Sakharov was fired from the Soviet weapons program and found himself in the international human rights spotlight.
Hard-boiled Gorky Exile
Sakharov’s wife of twenty years died in 1969, but he remarried in October 1971. His new bride was fellow human rights activist, Yelena Bonner. With her help, Sakharov became a figurehead in the Soviet dissident movement, and in 1975 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts. Although Sakharov wasn’t allowed to go to Norway, Bonner, who was out of the country for an eye operation, accepted the prize for him and read his acceptance speech.
Then, in 1979, Sakharov denounced the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Soviet authorities had had enough, and were quick to exile Sakharov to Gorky, a small city 250 miles east of Moscow. There, for seven years, he was cut off from friends and colleagues, and constantly harassed by the KGB.
Finally, in December 1986 under the new policies of perestroika and glasnost, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev invited Sakharov to return to Moscow. For the next three years, Sakharov got to travel the world. He died of a heart attack in his home in 1989.
Dissident Hero
Sakharov’s crusade for human rights and his refusal to be silenced have made him a hero to common citizens around the world. And his fight to protect freedom of thought and expression from overwhelming intolerance and fanaticism has made him one of my favorite 10 Dissidents Who Changed the World.
Go to the next article in this series:
Daniel Ellsberg - Dissident Leaker of Pentagon Papers
Go to the previous article in this series:
Samuel Adams - Dissident Founding Father.
Go to the series index:
10 Dissidents Who Changed the World.
Read More: Sakharov, dissident, hydrogen bomb, Tsar Bomba, USSR
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