4 - Subjugating the Creative Mind: The Soviet Biological Weapons Program and the Role of the State

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) invariably carry negative connotations – death and destruction, human suffering, evil intentions, and so on. Yet the process of creativity involved in designing these weapons, which include nuclear, chemical, and biological ones, is, arguably, much more nuanced and less straightforward than simply the intention to cause harm and to commit murder. The motivations for creating WMDs may include a desire to protect one's homeland from external (and internal) enemies, to deter an attack, and consequently, to prevent mass casualties. On the other hand, the weapons' creation may be motivated by the urge to solve purely scientific problems and dilemmas, such as finding ways to battle the plague or creating vaccines for new strands of anthrax or tularemia, for example. It is possible, then, that malevolent and benevolent creativity coexist during the process of WMD creation, which raises the question of how people involved in this process perceive and internalize their actions.

This chapter will explore these questions through the prism of the Soviet biological weapons (BW) program since the end of World War II. Not only was this venture the most massive in scale (and, arguably, ambition) ever undertaken in human history, but it also necessitated a juxtaposition of two seemingly opposite endeavors: the search for and understanding of lifesaving vaccines and the creation of deadly viruses and bacteria capable of killing a great number of people and livestock.