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...