The USA had the atomic bomb before the USSR . Am I right to say " Thank God it wasn't the other way around?

Question

Answerer one seems to be pretty naive. If Joe Stalin had ever had sole use of the atomic bomb he would have dropped A-bombs on any country that refused to go communist. So would his successor Kruschev. The Americans,by dropping two atomic bombs on Japan no doubt saved countless millions of lives, including ,of course, a lot of Japanese.

"wego", you idiot, of course Joe Stalin didn't use nuclear weapons because the Americans also had them. My point is that although the Americans had sole use of the atomic bomb for some years they did not try to achieve world domination. I'm sure that if Russia had been in that position they would have taken over the world,in the same way that they enslaved Eastern Europe.

Answer 1

Most of the USSR's "research" was being smuggled out of Oak Ridge and Los Alamos then translated by Khurchatov at night. The next morning he would put the papers on the Soviet nuclear scientists' desks and direct them from there.

Stalin did not have the rocketry to deliver large, bulky atomic weapons at the time. Bombing with airplanes would of course have been possible but what would he have bombed that would not have put fallout back onto the Soviet Union?

In the end, the weapons race bankrupted the Soviet Union. That and the fear of reporting anything but smashing success, which then lead to tragedies like Chernobyl. The dumping ground around Novya Zemla and the area around the weapons manufacturing (Mayak & the Techa River) stand as grim reminders of the costs still to be paid by even unexploded weaponry.

Answer 2

You are correct in your assumption. You have to think back about the mentality of both Stalin and Khrushchev.

Stalin had just defeated the German Invasion and had turned the USSR into a major superpower.

Khrushchev was involved in the U2 incident, the building of the Berlin Wall, the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

There is no doubt the USSR would have either used the atomic bomb or threaten to use the atomic bomb before the United States perfected theirs.

The educated guess would be for the USSR to use the bomb or to threaten to use the bomb to prevent the US from developing their version and by supressing the US, there would be no one in the way to prevent their domination of the rest of Europe or Asia.

This is happening now, on a lesser scale, with Iran.

Answer 3

If the Russians had the A bomb before the Americans, we would probably be all speaking Russian by now, or still fearing if a nuclear strike was likely. As any history buff will tell you, the two things that made the United Soviet Socialist Republic a dangerous enemy was the battl of Stalingrad, and by the fact that their cold-war army was only across the barb wire from that of the Western Nations, if the Russians had the Atomic Bomb before the Americans, it wouldn't have been just berlin that was ground underneath Soviet tank tracks, Paris, London and Washington DC would have all been captured

Answer 4

you ask this question to be provocative but, really, it's just common sense. The bomb won the war, and would have for either side. Now, technicallly USSR and USA were on the same side of that war, but we all know that's not really the truth. Sure everyone wanted Hitler and Japan out of the picture, but by the time the bombs dropped, it was posturing between the two big boys. The cold war had begun, and it started with a h*ll of a big bang. And yes, thank God it wasn't the other way around....

Answer 5

I don't really know what Stalin would have done if he had obtained nuclear technology for Russia first. I don't believe it would have been good for the world, but we will never know. What I can say without reservation is that considering the technology was advanced mostly by German scientists, thank goodness Hitler didn't get it first, or the world would definitely be a different place today.

Answer 6

An irrelevant question. History didn't happen like this. I don't see the point of this 'reds under the bed' historical revisionism. Stalinism is dead. Communism is all but long gone. We won. I can't say that the current state of world affairs fills me with deep joy at this thought.
The nuclear powers of the USA and UK haven't needed their ultimate weapon of mass destruction to have made a hash of what is going on in Iraq and Afghanistan. I doubt the people of those countries would agree with you of the benign status of the western democracies.

Answer 7

What's your point? Only the country that had them first would have used them.? The Soviets had atomic and nuclear weapons shortly after we had ours. Had the Soviets been first, we would have been right behind. However, the Soviets got the technology from spies at Los Alomos, Tennessee and other inside sources. Stalin died in 1953, after having both bombs for 5 or 6 years and never used them. You hypothetical inquiry does'nt mean anything, cause, that's what it, is, hypothetical.

Answer 8

No! God that dead beat had nothing to do with it. You want to thank someone thank Franklin Roosevelt, Albert Einstein, Gen. Groves and most of all thank Oppenheimer. These people made the bomb possible not some boogie man. On the other hand if they hadn't built a bomb the Russians wouldn't of known how or would even be interested.

Answer 9

No...USSR has never used the atomic bomb against civilians, the USA has. What other country besides the USA has used the atomic bomb
against civilians? No other country. USA could have carpetbombed
the Japanese military, police, government and royalty to oblivion, and that would have achieved the same result, because the Japanese would have been vulnerable. I don't see the point of bombing people who can't defend themselves like the very young and the very old. I don't buy that
US propoganda that was the only way to stop them. You can take our
their military and police, not to mention their leaders, and they would have no choice but to surrender, because who is left?

Answer 10

Both at the same time after the second war, both countries took scientist from Germany and got them to develope the bomb at the same time.