Struggle in Soviet Russia

Staring at the swamp in front of him for a long time, Victor seemed to have thought of something. He took another breath and said to Varenka without looking back, "Go and bring the map."

After hearing this, Varenka hurried back to the car, took out a briefcase from the front of the passenger seat, opened the zipper, and pulled out a folded map. He threw it back into the car, stretched out the map, walked back to Victor, and said, "The map is here."

Victor nodded, leaned beside him, and looked down at the map.

This is a topographic map of the Karelia region, but in some places, some circles are drawn with a red pen. From the position of these circles, it should be marked with the location of the city.

After staring at the map for a while, Viktor took out a small notebook from his jacket pocket, flipped through it carefully, and muttered: "The conditions given by Comrade Igor Vasilievich are too general, Maybe we also need some experts from the Academy of Sciences to arrange a field trip."

"That's right, that's my opinion too," Varenka said, "You haven't had time to take a good rest these days. In fact, we can leave it to more professional people to do things like inspections. Comrade Igor Vasilievich can directly arrange for someone to do it, they are not only more professional, but also have more say.”

Victor smiled and shook his head, but said nothing.

The Igor Vasilievich that he and Valenka talked about was referring to Kurchatov, who is currently the main person in charge of the Union's nuclear weapons research and development project. Recently, Comrade Kurchatov has been "selection of a site" within the Union, which is related to an important national project of the Union.

The project was led by the Soviet Academy of Sciences and jointly promoted by the People's Commissariat of State Security, the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs and the Special Committee of the People's Commissariat. power station.

At present, this project is still a top-secret project. There are very few people who really know the inside story and can participate in it. At least one thing is certain is that all states in the alliance, and even most of the republics. Leaders, who know nothing about it, let alone exert influence over site selection.

The idea of ​​building a nuclear power plant was born by Soviet nuclear physics experts, including Comrade Kurchatov, during the process of building the first artificial nuclear reactor. Before Viktor left the People's Commissariat of State Security, he came into contact with the report submitted by Kurchatov. Its general meaning is that after the successful operation of the nuclear reactor, Soviet and German experts involved in related projects proposed a report. Assumption: The nuclear reactor can be used as a "neutron source", and based on this, it can provide a large number of neutrons and isotopes for the research and development of nuclear weapons. In addition, considering that a nuclear reactor will generate a large amount of thermal energy during its operation, if a nuclear reactor is used as a "heat source", can it be used for heating, power generation or even power.

It is such an idea that the nuclear energy experts of the Academy of Sciences came up with the initial idea of ​​building a nuclear power plant. Some of them have even been ready to start this project, because in their opinion, inventing and building a nuclear power plant that can be used to generate electricity. , more fulfilling than building a nuclear weapon to kill and destroy.

Just last month, just before Viktor was about to come to Karelia to take office, the application materials submitted by the Soviet Academy of Sciences were approved by the Politburo, and the project code name was "PдC-5", which corresponds to the research and development of nuclear weapons. The project's "PдC-1" designation.

At present, what Victor wants to do is to attract this project to Karelia. As the former chairman of the People's Commissariat of National Security, he still has a certain advantage in fighting for this project. At least, he knows The location of this project is being selected, and in the entire alliance, whether it is the republic or the state-level leading cadres, among the people who know this is the case, apart from Victor himself, there is only one Khrushchev left. Of course, as the head of Leningrad Oblast, Comrade Kuznetsov also knows some things, but the situation in Leningrad Oblast is too special, just like Moscow Oblast, it is impossible to establish a nuclear power plant.

In Victor's view, keeping the first nuclear power plant construction project of the Union in the Karelia region not only has certain political significance, but at the same time, it can also play a certain role in promoting the economic construction of the region.

From the perspective of promoting the economy, the construction project of a nuclear power plant has absolutely no small amount of work. Whether it is the necessities of the project participants, or the life of the workers of the nuclear power plant, certain supporting facilities are required, which in themselves can drive local economy.

In addition, according to Victor's knowledge, the scale of the planned nuclear power plant is about 5,000 kilowatt-hours, that is, the power generation per hour is about 5,000 degrees. For the alliance, a power station of this size is irrelevant. Therefore, Moscow should value its experimentation more. If it turns out that the nuclear power plant project can indeed be put into operation, then it will be Moscow that will build a larger-scale nuclear power plant later. need to be considered.

For the alliance, such a small-scale nuclear power plant is irrelevant. If the nuclear power plant project is left in the Karelia region, then it is estimated that the alliance will not build a power access network specifically for such a nuclear power plant. The power produced by the nuclear power plant is transferred to other industrially developed regions. In other words, the power energy produced by the nuclear power plant is expected to remain in the Karelia region and be absorbed locally.

How important is this for the Karelia region? Just compare the data. Before the outbreak of the war, the electricity penetration rate in Karelia was almost 47%. The reason for this is that a large part of Karelia today belongs to Finland. For example, Almost the entire Karelian Isthmus, when the Finns turned almost the entire Karelian Isthmus into a massive border fortification in order to deter a possible Soviet attack. Although there were some hydropower projects in Central Karelia at that time, which could solve some local electricity problems, but in the subsequent brutal Soviet-Finnish war, these hydropower projects were basically scrapped.

Then, in the brief period of Soviet occupation, the Union did not have time to take post-war reconstruction work locally, and the Great Patriotic War broke out again. In the following years, the entire Karelia region has been turned into ruins, until now.

Today, according to the data in the hands of Victor, the self-sufficiency rate of electricity in the entire Karelia region is less than 20%, and the basic power supply of several major cities needs to be supplied by the power grid in the direction of Arkhangelsk. After the transmission, considering that the reconstruction work in various places is very heavy, the electricity consumption in Karelia will probably be limited in the next few years.

If such a nuclear power plant project is located in Karelia, it will naturally relieve the local electricity shortage problem to a certain extent, or at least give Karelian people a hope.

As for the political significance, it is also obvious that as long as Victor can pull this project to Karelia, it is enough to prove his ability and prove his position in the core of Moscow's power. At that time, even if not Considering these, only considering the benefits the project itself can bring to the Karelia region, it is estimated that Comrade Kuxinin will choose to cooperate with him, at least provide him with support on a series of issues.

It is for these factors that Victor takes this project so seriously. As the first secretary of the Karelian-Finnish Soviet Republic, he can of course choose to sit in his office and leave all site selection issues to the technical staff of the Academy of Sciences, but in that case, how does it reflect his commitment to this project? attention? The most important thing is that he will make a report to Comrade Stalin on the issue of staying in Karelia for this project later. If he lacks understanding of the specific problems of the project, what should he do with this report?

Having been with Comrade Stalin for so long, Viktor didn't know much about his temperament. In his opinion, this comrade leader was indeed a serious and unsmiling person, but when dealing with people who were serious enough in his work, he It is always possible to appear more tolerant, so, in any work issue, Viktor did not want to give Comrade Stalin the impression of being insincere and industrious.

The "PдC-5" project is, after all, the first nuclear power plant project operated by the Soviet Academy of Sciences. In this regard, even the Americans who have successfully developed nuclear weapons have not mastered the relevant technology - interestingly, in the future In the propaganda, scientists in the United States who have contributed to the research and development of nuclear weapons, such as Einstein and Oppenheimer, seem to be benevolent people, and they all regret their contributions in this regard, while Soviet experts who also participated in the development of nuclear weapons were rarely reported in the newspapers. But the problem is, whether Einstein or Oppenheimer, they only made contributions to the research and development of nuclear weapons, but never thought of going further and using nuclear energy for the benefit of mankind.

It is precisely because of lack of experience that the Academy of Sciences does not have a systematic conclusion on the specific matters that need to be paid attention to in site selection. Therefore, the standard Victor currently has in his hands seems too simple.