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The Social Costs of Modernization: Ecological Problems in the USSR

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

David E. Powell
David E. Powell
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
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Extract

Virtually all of the existing literature on modernization is concerned with the virtues of modernity. It focuses on the gains to be derived from modernization—industrialization, material progress, social welfare, political rationality, etc. But experience suggests that gains are usually achieved at some cost: the drive toward modernity seems invariably to produce new social and personal problems. In the USSR—perhaps the world's most developed underdeveloped country—the modernization process has been accompanied by massive social costs.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 23 , Issue 4 , July 1971 , pp. 618 - 634
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1971

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References

1 The Dialectics of Nature, as cited in Literaturnaya gazeta, December 20, 1967.

2 See Lidova Democracie, July 26, 1970; Zycie Warszawy, October 8, 1970; Scientia, March 19 and July 16, 1970.

3 Pravda, July 27, August 17 and November 21, 1967, February 11, 1970; Literaturnaya gazeta, March 15, 1966 and August 9, 1967; Sovetskaya Rossia, April 12, 1970, in Current Digest of the Soviet Press [hereafter cited as CDSP], XXII, No. 48 (December 1970), 8; Nauchnotet (hnicheskyye obshchestva SSSR [hereafter cited as NTO], No. 2 (1968), in Joint Publications Research Service [hereafter cited as JPRS], No. 45, 666, 14; Okfyabr, No. 10 (1966), in CDSP, XVIII, No. 48 (December 1966), 16.

40 Pravda and Izvestia, December 14, 1968; Pravda and Izvestia, December 20, 1969; Izvestia, April 28, 1970.

5 Perhaps one-tenth of this effluent undergoes biochemical purification (thus removing 80–95 per cent of the impurities). Another third of the waste water is subjected to less thorough purification, removing perhaps 40 per cent of the impurities, and the remaining waste water empties into other bodies of water without undergoing any decontamination whatsoever. NTO (fn. 3).

6 Literatumaya gazeta, May 14, 1969; Pravda, June 21, 1965 and December 15, 1969; Izvestia, July 9, 1968; Sovetskaya Rossia, November 14, 1968, in JPRS No. 47,065, 39–40, 48.

7 Izvestia, September 17, 1968; Pravda, April 8, 1966.

8 Pravda, December 11, 1966 and November 16, 1967.

9 Izvestia, August 11, 1966.

10 Literatumaya gazeta, May 14, 1969; NTO (fn. 3). See also Pravda, in JPRS No. 36, 384, 69.

11 Izvestia, December 17, 1965; Pravda, April 2, 1966; Oktyabr (fn. 3), 15.

12 Pravda, July 28, 1969.

13 Komsomolskaya pravda, May 25, 1967 and January 6, 1968.

14 Vedomosti verkhovnogo soveta RSFSR, No. 44 (370), November 4, 1965, in CDSP, XVII, No. 46 (December 1965), 3.

15 Pravda, June 21 and November 12, 1965; Izvestia, September 3, 1968.

16 Pravda, March 24, 1969; Ekonomicheskaya gazeta, No. 28 (1966), in JPRS No. 37, 534, 16.

17 During the summer of 1967, for example, more than 100 persons (out of a total of 230–240) left their jobs at the Baikalsk purification installation. Literaturnaya gazeta, October 11, 1967.

18 Pravda, February 28, 1965, December 23, 1966, June 26, 1967, and December 9, 1968; Vedomosti verkhovnogo soveta RSFSR (fn. 14), 3; Izvestia, April 15, 1969.

19 Ekonomicheskaya gazeta (fn. 16), 16.

20 Pravda Ukrainy, August 29, 1967.

21 Izvestia, April 25, 1965.

22 Pravda Ukrainy, September 10, 1967.

23 Literaturnaya gazeta, February 23, 1965; Izvestia, November 14, 1968; Pravda, June 26, 1967. A 1965 conference of conservationists and fishing industry representatives adopted a resolution requesting the Ministry of the Fishing Industry “to prohibit the awarding of bonuses to officials of enterprises that have failed to take steps to eliminate and prevent the pollution of fishing waters.” Literaturnaya gazeta, March 1, 1966.

24 Ekpnomika selskpgo khozyaistva, No. 2 (1970), in CDSP, XXII, No. 19 (June 1970), 9.

25 Izvestia, January 20, 1968.

26 Pravda, March 24, 1969. See also Izvestia, December 29, 1968.

27 Literaturnaya gazeta, August 9, 1967. See also Pravda, February 12, 1969.

28 Pravda, June 21, 1965; Pravda Ukrainy, August 29, 1967; Vedomosti verkhovnogo soveta RSFSR (fn. 14), 4; Oktyabr (fn. 3), 16.

29 See, e.g., Literaturnaya gazeta, July 12, 1962 and December 20, 1967; Pravda, June 26, 1967.

30 Izvestia, November 14, 1968.

31 Komsomohkaya pravda, April 27, 1960.

32 Izvestia, December 17, 1965 and January 22, 1967; Pravda, June 20, 1968; Sovetskaya Rossia, February 15, 1970, in CDSP, XXII, No. 17 (May 1970), 20.

33 See fn. 4.

34 Izvestia, April 1, 1959; Meditsinskaya gazeta, November II, 1969, in CDSP, XXI, No. 48 (December 1969), 14; Vedomosti verkhovnogo soveta RSFSR, No. 22 (608), May 28, 1970, in JPRS No. 50, 956, 76.

35 Literaturnaya gazeta, July 12, 1967; Izvestia, September 24, 1966, January 20, May 15, and November 14, 1968.

36 NTO (fn. 3), 13; Izvestia, September 24, 1966; Komsomolskaya pravda, April 27, 1960; Pravda, November 12, 1965.

37 Izvestia, September 24, 1966.

38 Izvestia, July 27, 1968.

39 Literatumaya gazeta, November 15, 1967; Sovetskaya Rossia, February 15, 1970.

40 Pravda, August 31, 1969; Literatumaya gazeta, March 1, 1966; Izvestia, April 28, 1970.

41 Nedelya, No. 9 (February 23-March 1, 1970); Izvestia, February 15, 1967 and May 1, 1970.

42 Literatumaya gazeta, August 9, 1967.

43 Pravda, December 15, 1969.