Stalin's Secret Weapon: The Origins of Soviet Biological Warfare by Anthony Rimmington (review)

The origin of the Soviet biological warfare (BW) program was fear. With Stalin's Secret Weapon, Anthony Rimmington casts a revealing light onto one of the Soviet Union's most closely guarded secrets—the existence of a program (initially multiple efforts) to develop biological weapons and defenses against such weapons. Rimmington maintains that Soviet leaders' interest in BW was a direct "response to, and extension of" German operations during the First World War. He contends that the research program of the Soviet Central Veterinary Bacteriological Laboratory "closely resembled" that of the military bacteriological laboratory in Berlin. Fear also played a significant and recurring role in hindering Soviet BW research, notably during the Great Terror under Iosif Stalin. Many notable and talented scientists were suspected, surveilled, and arrested, some escaping back to relative safety while others were executed or died in captivity (pp. 3, 17, 19).

The role of Stalin himself is an aspect of this history that Rimmington considers important and insufficiently addressed by the existing literature. Rimmington seeks with this book to fill a "significant gap" in the military and scientific history of the Soviet Union, as well as to provide a "deeper understanding" of the global development of BW, supported by newly available source material from the British Secret Intelligence Service and Russian archives. In addition to shedding new light on Stalin's role in Soviet BW development, Rimmington also believes that the study of the Soviet program can illuminate how modern states might pursue clandestine BW programs, that the Soviet program may have played a role in deterring German use of biological weapons during World War II, and that the Soviet program may have been "much more extensive than previously believed, easily outstripping that of the major Western powers." Finally, Rimmington wants to present a more "nuanced and balanced" consideration of Ivan Mikahilovich Velikanov, the lead scientist of the Soviet BW program for many years (pp. 1–12, 17–20).

Rimmington achieves his goals for the book. He follows through on his promise to examine the Soviet BW program in considerable detail, with chapters devoted to the origins of the effort, the transition from a defensive focus to research exploring the offensive application of BW, various research facilities that came online during the period of focus, Ivan Velikanov, and—although the book focuses mainly on the origins of Soviet biological weapons research—developments that took place during and after World War II, including scientific and industrial achievements as well as a brief discussion connecting this history to post-Soviet Russian BW activities. Rimmington's narrative merits a close reading, not least because of the large number of individuals involved, the various and changing names of Soviet research efforts and facilities, and the sheer complexity of the history being explored. Various organizational and bacteriological acronyms also contribute to this density—a table of abbreviations would have been a helpful addition to the book. Rimmington fails to accomplish only one of his stated objectives—demonstrating the potential of Stalin's BW program to "shed much light" on how modern states might secretly be engaging in similar activities (p. 2)—apart from discussing government totalitarian controls (p. 57) and safety failures (pp. 67–68). This omission aside, Rimmington succeeds in bringing detailed focus to the early period of Soviet BW research, highlighting Stalin's role, and explaining the German-Soviet standoff over the deployment of biological weapons during World War II (pp. 39–56, 56–63, 137–174).

Finally, Rimmington brings the narrative forward to consider later developments, Stalin's legacy, and even current Russian military biological research. This coverage, though brief, highlights post–World War II developments (pp. 176–186); scientific and industrial achievements, including a live culture anthrax vaccine reported to be more effective than non-live U.S. or British vaccines (pp. 187–202); and Stalin's legacy in the current Russian BW effort (pp. 203–206). Rimmington observes that, in addition to...