The Soviet Union's Agricultural Biowarfare Programme: Ploughshares to Swords

ISBN-13: 9783030738457 / Angielski / Miękka / 2022

Anthony Rimmington

Opis

This book focuses upon the secret agricultural biological warfare programme codenamed Ekologiya – which was pursued by the Soviet Union from 1958 through to the collapse of the USSR in 1991. It was the largest offensive agricultural biowarfare project the world has ever seen and Soviet anti-crop and anti-livestock weapons had the capability to inflict enormous damage on Western agriculture. Beginning in the early 1970s, there was a new focus within the Soviet agricultural biowarfare programme on molecular biology and the development of genetically modified agents. A key characteristic of the Ekologiya project was the creation of mobilization production facilities. These ostensibly civil manufacturing plants incorporated capacity for production of biowarfare agents in wartime emergency. During the 1990s-2000s, the counter-proliferation efforts undertaken by the US and UK played a major role in preventing the transfer of Ekologiya scientists, technologies and pathogens to Iran and other countries of potential proliferation concern.

Anthony Rimmington is a former Senior Research Fellow at Birmingham University’s Centre for Russian, European and Eurasian Studies, UK. He has published widely on the civil life sciences sector in the post-Soviet states and on the Soviet Union’s offensive biological warfare programme, including Stalin’s Secret Weapon: The Origins of Soviet Biological Warfare.

Recenzje

 "The Soviet Union's Agricultural Biowarfare Programme, constructs a compelling narrative of the Soviet agricultural biowarfare program known as Ekologiya. His access to firsthand knowledge of the program through interviews with former participants makes Rimmington's book an important contribution to understanding Soviet military operations related to harming farm animals and food crops. ... the richness and novelty of the information from his interview subjects will be a delight for advanced researchers interested in Soviet science and the history of technology." (Miriam F. Lipton, Technology and Culture, Vol. 63 (2), April, 2022)

Spis treści

Introduction.- 1. Origins: The International Race to Develop Anti-Crop and Anti-Livestock Biological Weapons.

2. Genesis: Khrushchev and the Launch of the Soviet Union’s Large-Scale Agricultural Biowarfare Programme.

3. The Expansion of the Ministry of Agriculture’s Toxic Archipelago.

4. Heart of Darkness: The Role of the Pokrov Biologics Plant in Creating Reserve Mobilisation Capacity for Production of Viral Agents.

5. Through a Glass Darkly: Analysis of the Soviet Union’s Military Agricultural R&D Programmes.

6. From Military to Agro-Industrial Complex: The Legacy of the Agricultural BW Programme.

O autorze

Anthony Rimmington is a former Senior Research Fellow at Birmingham University’s Centre for Russian, European and Eurasian Studies. He has published widely on the civil life sciences sector in the post-Soviet states and on the Soviet Union’s offensive biological warfare programme, including Stalin’s Secret Weapon: The Origins of Soviet Biological Warfare.