1945-1955 - Shelters, Evacuation, and Dispersal
Although some sources refer to basement shelters constructed in new apartment buildings as early as 1946,155 the general consensus puts the year around 1948 when German POWs reported sighting shelter buildings being inspected and supervised in recent construction. It was believed that civil defense officials had authority to conduct these inspections to insure that construction was meeting certain regulations. However, it was also noted that priority was given to shelter protection for industrial, administrative, and economic facilities and to major cities, thus disregarding a greater part of the population,156 particularly the agrarian community. The most prevalent shelters, those of World War II vintage, were not capable of protecting more than 10 to 15 percent of the population against fallout, and new shelters were designed merely to withstand the collapse of the building. This did not account for the thermal and blast effects of nuclear explosion.
The advantage of existing underground structures was demonstrated in 1954 when shelter construction was begun in subways. The preceding data were partly responsible for spurring the civil defense debates of the late 1950's over the cost-benefits of updating present shelters to withstand nuclear attack. It was not until then that a massive evacuation program was promoted to compensate for both the shortage and inadequacy of the existing shelters.
Very little emphasis was accorded to a formal evacuation program prior to 1958. Although one source said there was "fairly reliable evidence" that industrial evacuation plans were updated in 1950, an interview in 1953 with Moscow citizen did not yield any evidence of a city-wide air raid drill during the two-year period the interviewer had been a resident there. A summary of rules the population was to follow during a "critical situation" involved learning the location of the nearest air raid shelters, and when none exist to "prepare trenches, dugouts, and similar facilities," indicating the inefficiencies of the shelter program.
Also, implied is the Soviets' reliance on early warning of attack. Civil defense elements maintained close communications with the "local elements of the air defense command . . . especially VNOS," the ground observation early warning service. This approach may have been appropriate when bomber attack was the primary threat, but dependence on such a primitive early warning system (which later improved with more advanced radar technology) in order to prepare the population, was hardly an efficient and secure plan.
According to observations during a 1961 trip, which could easily apply to this early period, Leon Goure theorized that the population was indifferent to civil defense, possibly because of the effects of World War II destruction. He noted that the general fear of war and feeling of helplessness against the weapons of war left the people with little confidence in shelter programs. "Mere physical survival was not reassuring when they knew the great damage brought by war: and were still recovering from World War II." If this is true and if the leadership of the Soviet Union considered the civil defense programs as a propaganda tool in boosting the morale and nationalistic altitudes of the population, then they were unsuccessful in attaining this goal.
Uncertainty exists concerning the relationship of industrial dispersal in the Soviet Union and civil defense activities. However, it seems that the reasons for relocation of industry to the Ural regions during the 1930's and from 1941-1945 were attributed primarily to both protection from conventional military invasion and the discovery of new locations of resources, from which air and civil defense would only indirectly benefit. Budgetary considerations alone would make such a transfer impractical except in extreme cases. Although one source assigns to the MPVO the peacetime functions of "town planning" (and thus the ability to ensure proper dispersal of plants and provisions for air raid facilities in new building construction), it is doubtful that it was able to do more than recommend guidelines for such purposes.
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