Andrei Sakharov,
the son of a science teacher, was born in Russia
on 21st May 1921. An exceptional student he studied physics at Moscow
State University and was awarded a doctorate in 1947 for his work
on cosmic rays.
Sakharov played
an important role in the development of the Soviet hydrogen bomb and
in 1953 became the youngest man ever to be admitted as a full member
of the Soviet Academy of Sciences.
In 1961 Sakharov
spoke out against the plans of Nikita
Khrushchev to
test a 100-megaton hydrogen bomb in the atmosphere. He argued that
the test would create widespread radioactive fallout.
Sakharov caused
further controversy when he published Progress,
Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom in 1968. In the book
he called for nuclear arms reductions. He
also advocated the integration of the communist and capitalist systems
to form what he called democratic socialism. As a result of the book
Sakharov was removed from top-secret work and all his privileges removed.
In 1970 Sakharov
joined with Valery Chalidze, Igor Shafarevich, Andrei Tverdokhlebov
and Grigori Podyapolski to establish the Committee for Human Rights.
In 1975 Sakharov was awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize and three years later published Alarm
and Hope.
In December 1979,
Sakharov spoke out against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The
following month the Soviet government stripped him of his honours
and exiled him to the closed city of Gorky. His wife, Yelena Bonner,
a human-rights activist, was also sent into exile.
Sakharnov and
his wife remained in captivity until the Mikhail
Gorbachev gained
power in the Soviet Union. In December 1986
the couple were released and allowed to return to Moscow.
Andrei Sakharov
was elected to the Congress
of People's Deputies in April 1989. However, Sakharov died nine months
later in Moscow on 14th December, 1989.
(1)
Andrei Sakharov, autobiography (1974)
In 1945 I began to read
for my doctorate at the Lebedev Institute, the department of physics
in the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. My teacher there was the great
theoretical physicist, Igor Evgenyevich Tamm.
He influenced me enormously
and later became a member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and
a winner of the Nobel Prize for physics. In 1947 I defended my thesis
on nuclear physics, and in 1948 I was included in a group of research
scientists whose task was to develop nuclear weapons. The leader of
this group was I.E. Tamm.
For the next 20 years I
worked under conditions of the highest security and under great pressure,
first in Moscow and subsequently in a special secret research centre.
At the time we were all convinced that this work was of vital significance
for the balance of power in the world and we were fascinated by the
grandeur of the task. In the foreword to my book Sakharov Speaks,
as well as in My Country and the World, I have already described
the development of my socio-political views in the period 1953-68
and the dramatic events which contributed to or were the expression
of this development. Between 1953 and 1962 much of what happened was
connected with the development of nuclear weapons and with the preparations
for and realization of the nuclear experiments. At the same time I
was becoming ever more conscious of the moral problems inherent in
this work. In and after 1964 when I began to concern myself with the
biological issues, and particularly from 1967 onwards, the extent
of the problems over which I felt uneasy increased to such a point
that in 1968 I felt a compelling urge to make my views public.
(2)
Andrei Sakharov, speech when awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize on 11th December, 1975.
Peace, progress,
human rights - these three goals are insolubly linked to one another:
it is impossible to achieve one of these goals if the other two are
ignored. This is the dominant idea that provides the main theme of
my lecture. I am grateful that this great and significant prize, the
Nobel Peace Prize, has been awarded to me, and that I have been given
the opportunity of speaking to you here today. It was particularly
gratifying for me to note the Committee's citation, which emphasizes
the defense of human rights as the only sure basis for genuine and
lasting international cooperation. I consider that this idea is very
important; I am convinced that international confidence, mutual understanding,
disarmament, and international security are inconceivable without
an open society with freedom of information, freedom of conscience,
the right to publish, and the right to travel and choose the country
in which one wishes to live. I am likewise convinced that freedom
of conscience, together with the other civic rights, provides the
basis for scientific progress and constitutes a guarantee that scientific
advances will not be used to despoil mankind, providing the basis
for economic and social progress, which in turn is a political guarantee
for the possibility of an effective defense of social rights. At the
same time I should like to defend the thesis of the original and decisive
significance of civic and political rights in moulding the destiny
of mankind. This view differs essentially from the widely accepted
Marxist view, as well as the technocratic opinions, according to which
it is precisely material factors and social and economic conditions
that are of decisive importance. (But in saying this, of course, I
have no intention of denying the importance of people's material circumstances.)
There is a great deal to
suggest that mankind, at the threshold of the second half of the twentieth
century, entered a particularly decisive and critical period of its
history.
Thermonuclear missiles,
which in principle are capable of annihilating the whole of mankind,
exist; this is the greatest danger threatening our age. Thanks to
economic, industrial, and scientific advances, the so-called "conventional"
arms have likewise grown incomparably more dangerous, not to mention
chemical and bacteriological instruments of war.
There is no doubt that
industrial and technological progress is the most important factor
in overcoming poverty, famine, and disease. But this progress leads
at the same time to ominous changes in the environment in which we
live and the exhaustion of our natural resources. In this way mankind
faces grave ecological dangers.
Rapid changes in traditional
forms of life have resulted in an unchecked demographic explosion
which is particularly noticeable in the developing countries of the
Third World. The growth in population has already created exceptionally
complicated economic, social, and psychological problems, and will
in the future inevitably pose still more serious problems. In a great
many countries, particularly in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, the
lack of food will be an overriding factor in the lives of many hundreds
of millions of people, who from the moment of birth are condemned
to a wretched existence on the starvation level. In view of this,
future prospects are menacing, and in the opinion of many specialists
tragic, despite the undoubted success of the "green revolution".
Available
from Amazon Books (order below)
