'Of course we thought about our counterparts in the West... but they did their jobs and we did ours.' Wladimir (ex-USSR Strategic Rocket force combat crew member). An exploration of the parallels between Soviet/CIS and US nuclear weapons and launch facilities, past and present, through photographic details. Comparisions of the designs and approaches expose the sides ethnologically and the minutia are symbolic of greater political meaning. A humanised perspective and palpability reveal our complacency in addressing an ongoing, if psychological, war. This year the Doomsday Clock is 2 minutes closer to midnight than the year of the Cuban missile crisis.
These pictures are a unique slice through a defining part of the human story. It takes the time and space of passing generations to retell and make sense of its near and far history, and if we make no attempt to do so, we are of course liable to repeat all its horrors. The pictures have a serenity and a stillness at odds from the grim purpose of the objects depicted. Such a tension is an important, silent warning against complacency and passivity.
Atomic war has been part of the cultural make up of both East and West for so long that it is often forgotten how many thousands of warheads still exist. Each has many, many times the destructive power of those used in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and they remain silently ranged against a vast array of targets all over the world.
This Atomic age has brought a new kind of war; one that is human, psychological and possibly never ending. These photographs reveal the facts of the personal involvement of those on the front line through the very objects they used and in some cases still use. It’s an invitation to wonder at the systems of mutual deterrent and examine the understated reality of the veneer that protects us from an apocalypse.
The matter-of-fact style reminds the viewer of ordinariness of these objects in the daily life of missile combat crews and the decades of use that they have received. The traces of their work remain as the fingerprints of a history that was almost as secretive and unknown to their opposite numbers as to the rest of the world.
While it remains pertainent to remember that there are still many large “Closed Cities†in the CIS with no access for anyone but those registered as living and working there. We are in an era where our relationship to the reporting of current affairs has changed slowly but completely beyond recognition and these images remind us of a recent and as mysterious past in which it was easier to control the flow of information at governmental level.
Children born after Perestroika may find it hard to imagine a world where significant international events were reported from the perspectives of two main, diametrically opposed ideologies. The confidence of each side that it occupied the higher moral, philosophical and economic ground, and their respective capacities to prosecute this point of view within their huge spheres of influence, is one that is at odds with the advent of social media and internet activisim. There remain few paradigms that have not had their practical and ideological limitations laid bare, and twists of international fortune that might have appeared unthinkable in the eighties are our new reality.
The microcosmic mirrors the macrocosmic, with the tiniest details revealing the contrasts that existed on a vaster scale. The ideology of both the US and Soviets can be seen in the design and aesthetic approaches taken. For example, almost all the US components come with company names and even logos, an indication of the focus on industrial competition and the individual, those from the USSR are merely numbered - why would one need to know which company they came from when the state would take care of such things?
A lock on the Perspex cabinet that holds the flag is a symbol of the importance of the object. The flag itself was situated 30 meters below the surface in the command center in the most protected part of highly classified complex. Traditionally, the 'Red Corner' (krasnyi ugol) was a place in a house for religious icons. Soviet leaders, as part of their attempt to eradicate religious superstition, changed the name to Little Red Corner (krasnyi ugolok) flags and propaganda populated these spaces. This cabinet would have been the representation of the 'Red Corner' in the (ironically circular) last bastion of USSR if a missile strike had occurred.
Carefully and tightly framed, directing the viewer's attention to the tiniest of clues that indicate evidence of the greater whole, the pictures describe the parallel worlds that hide in plain sight. The very subtle depth of field of a large format camera subtly leads the eye to elements of interest and their composition suggests the claustrophobic nature of the silos themselves.
The Soviet command center is particularly small. Designed to fit into a standard missile duct, it reduced the production time and associated costs. This meant that the space for the combat crew and their auxiliaries had to fit into a suspended four-meter diameter circular area, with a useable area much smaller than this. Indeed, much of the Soviet approach was influenced by their submarine designs. This was very different from the designs of the Titan silos, which were developed with each installation undertaken.
It is true that mutually assured destruction remains a spectre that has prevented catastrophe for many decades. It is also important to remember that those involved in maintaining these agents of the apocalypse have a particular burden to bear and sometimes the work they undertake is highly dangerous. The collection of patches on the RFHCO suits are clear evidence. The rocket fuels used are highly toxic and any small scratch needed to be carefully examined and repaired - the suits themselves a log of individual hazards navigated. A drama in still life.
Likewise, the broken wire coming out of the wall under the command phone symbolizes the severing of ties to the old Soviet Union. This phone line was direct. This very wire shown leads directly to Moscow's centre, over 1000km away protected deep underground with no exchanges or substations. It was a remarkable feat of engineering requiring a huge undertaking from a vast number of people. The US solution uses low frequency antennas buried underground and so protected the event of a strike, but only allowing incoming communication. More complex as technology but simpler logistically.
The images of the command chairs are yet another example. In a pre-emptive strike there would most likely be a substantial earthquake and the combat crew could have been injured or disorientated. In the USSR despite the huge concrete protective measures and being suspended 35 meters below the surface in the duct, seismic lateral movement could cause the crew to fall out of their chairs and injure themselves, thus preventing retaliation. Large straps were attached to the chairs so the crew would remain tethered to them even in the worst-case scenario. The US on the other hand attached vast springs to the bulk of the crew area including the kitchen and the sleeping area, as such the whole area was protected from even the very worst seismic catastrophe. Indeed, it was said that the crew were unable to feel the launch of the huge Titan II this approach was so effective. The importance of the individual in the workings of the whole seems differently valued in each scenario.
The appearance of their designs was as one would expect from their stereotypes; the Soviet functional and utilitarian and the American clean and sophisticated, but beneath the surface of the Soviet lay unexpected ingenuity and the beneath the American rugged simplicity. Notwithstanding, it was no surprise to find the distances between the control desks required to turn the keys for launch was too far apart for a single missileer in the US, and that the Soviet launch buttons are similarly placed. Or for that matter that no one person was allowed to be on their own at any time in either of the complexes, everyone was required to work in twos.
One cannot help but reflect on the consequences of photographing and dissemination of such the materials that you see in this book. For what once would have been espionage becomes the province of the merely curious. The parallels of these two sides are often reflected in the compositional echoes in the pictures. The designs are partially convergent as the technology of ICBM's require similar fundamental parts, but it is also likely that designs would have been known to both sides to some degree through espionage and inteligence. Such knowledge came at a high cost.
The after life of the objects is also fascinating to consider: it is apparent from that while the remaining US artifacts are beautifully maintained, the Soviet collection is in danger of decay. There is sadly much less funding and less political drive. This is a reflection of the extent to which these artefacts have been, or not, deliberately incorporated into a presentation of recent history.
This is one of the many thought-provoking aspects of this collection of pictures, which is a hugely important comment, as well as a lucid, luminous and definitive triumph of aesthetic and technical ability.
These images do not resemble any others in contemporary current affairs. They are not part of the visual language of our cultural landscape, and they are not really part of the political conversation either. And yet nuclear capabilities have grown, not shrunk. Disarmament is no longer a fashionable trope, a common concern among young people, a cause. The small steps taken towards disarmament have been completely undermined by the massive increase in power and accuracy of the latest generation of missiles. Although there is more access than ever before to information, the global nuclear situation has sunk from view, and this is potentially very dangerous. The famous ‘Doomsday Clock’ of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has the world nearer to midnight than it was during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Meanwhile, the collective will is tranquilised & distracted by consumerism, celebrity culture, bad food, anxiety; false goods and false fears. These pictures are silent reminders of grave threats unresolved. The generation growing up in the West removed from the immediate horrors of world war is a statistical anomaly, and would be advised to cultivate an alert concern to extend this privileged state.