The Internationalism

Internationalism No. 85, March 2026 Page 15 From the series Atom and industrialisation of science It was only after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in August 1945, that the Soviet Union became fully committed to the project of acquiring the atomic bomb. The alliance of the US, the UK, and the USSR Producing U-235 accounted for 64% of the total cost of the Manhattan Project, while plutonium production made up another 20%; in total, 84% of the expense went toward producing material for the atomic bombs, as against only 4% spent on research and development [ Lotta Comunista , July-August 2018]. In 1945, the most urgent problems to be resolved for Russian imperialism were not tied to the scientific knowledge required for the atomic bomb, but to uranium and its processing. During the Second World War, under the Lend-Lease Act passed on March 11th, 1941, the United States gave its allies food, oil, and supplies worth $46 billion ...

Internationalism No. 84, February 2026 Page 15 From the series Atom and industrialisation of science The course of the war between Germany and the Soviet Union, from Operation Barbarossa — the German attack of June 22 nd , 1941 — up to the Battle of Stalingrad between the summer of 1942 and February 2 nd , 1943, set the timeframes of the Russian nuclear programme. The Battle of Stalingrad The Battle of Stalingrad was the turning point of the Second World War on the Eastern Front. We quote The New York Times of February 3 rd , 1943, to illustrate the climate of the period, within which we need to contextualise Soviet decisions about the nuclear bomb. The daily cited a Moscow bulletin, according to which the Red Army had completely destroyed the elite of Adolf Hitler’s army, trapping 330,000 soldiers. On the basis of Russian announcements, since mid-November 1942, a total of 503,650 soldiers of the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, and...