Spetsnaz: The Inside Story of the Soviet Special Forces

by Viktor Suvorov

  criminals of the twentieth century. The majority of the Soviet ministers,

  designers and engineers connected with the development of nuclear energy

  were kept in prisons, and not only in Stalin's time. All nuclear plants are

  built with prison labour. I have personally seen thousands of convicts

  working in the uranium mines in the Kirovograd region. (See V. Suvorov,

  Aquarium). The convicts have no incentive whatsoever to turn out good

  quality work.

  Sooner or later this was bound to end in disaster. The paper

  Literaturnaya Ukraina reported on the criminal attitude to construction

  work and the use of defective materials and obsolete technology at

  Chernobyl. The paper issued a warning that several generations of people

  would have to pay for the irresponsible attitude of the people in charge of

  the building work. But nobody paid any attention to this article or others

  like it; a month later the catastrophe took place.