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Introduction

On 21 January 1977, at 11.20 a.m., the first reactor of the Loviisa Nuclear Power (LNP) plant, located in the beautiful archipelago of South-East Finland, went critical. Two months later LNP was officially inaugurated by President Urho Kekkonen from Finland and Chairman Alexei N. Kosygin from the Soviet Union.

Especially the latter had good reason to celebrate. From a Moscow point of view, LNP was a dream that had come true. The Soviet nuclear power company Technopromexport had searched intensively for ways to get a technological reference for its nuclear technology from the other side of the Iron Curtain. Eastern European satellite states were already conquered, but Western European countries refused to even consider Soviet nuclear technology. Finland, which considered itself as belonging to Western Europe but had a much more ambiguous relation to the Soviet Union, faced a tougher choice than other Western countries: Neither President Kekkonen nor Imatran Voima (the operating power company) wanted to purchase nuclear technology from the Soviet Union, but the Cold War political realities left little room to negotiate. Finland was chosen as the platform for a march of Soviet nuclear power towards Western markets.

For Finland, the establishment of Loviisa nuclear power plant on the basis of Soviet reactor technology was problematic. First, in political terms Finland had tried to stay out of the Cold War ideological struggles, but nuclear power was without doubt one of the hottest political technologies in the post-World War II era. If a Soviet reactor was built in Finland, a permanent nuclear connection was built across the Finnish-Soviet border. As a part of package, the Soviet Union offered to supply the reactor with enriched uranium and to recycle the used fuel.

Secondly, since the beginning of the 20^th century, Finland had tried to become a true ‘European’ country. European cultural and social values were emphasized and in the political forums Finland liked to portrait herself as the guardian of European values on the border to the Soviet Union. Technologically, Finland belonged to the west and large technological systems in Finland were predominantly western in origin.

Thirdly, nuclear power was a giant economic investment. According to the estimations, Finnish electricity supply was going to run in major trouble by the end of the 1970’s. The consumption of electricity was increasing rapidly and Finland had already exhausted most of her hydro power resources. Gas and oil were two alternatives, but they were equally complex and politically insecure. Nuclear power was without doubt the most appealing one, because the nuclear age, at that time, seemed to promise unrestricted amount of electricity practically free of charge.

However, there was another side of the coin. Nuclear power became the symbol of the cultural struggle between the Communist East and the Capitalist West. Finland wanted to be identified as a free country and technology was one way to express this desire. Finnish power companies (both the state owned and private) had studied Soviet as well as American and Western European nuclear power technologies and had come to the conclusion that Western alternatives were by far superior, being cleaner, safer, more sophisticated and reliable.

This is why 21 January 1977 was such a critical day. That was the day when Finland was connected to the Soviet nuclear family and Soviet technological systems. Other family members represented Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia. This was not the family Finland wanted to be part of.

IP aims and objectives

This project has two aims. First to write a high quality dissertation on the topic described above. The work will be assigned to PhD student, who is hired for a four year term. The PhD project will investigate the concept of ‘criticality’ from the perspective of nuclear power in Finland. What makes an infrastructure critical? In recent literature the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks have dominated the discussion. Terrorism poses a great threat to key infrastructures, such as electricity, water supply and air traffic. However, there are other threats. We argue in this project that technology, if linked to unstable and unreliable political, cultural and economic contexts, can also create significant threats to key infrastructures. This was especially true during the Cold War. Two global superpowers struggled to gain political and ideological hegemony not only in politics, but also in technology. The arms race and nuclear power were arenas where the perhaps toughest battles were fought. Both superpowers tried to extend their hegemony as wide as possible and this led to situations described earlier.

The PhD project focuses on the political and technological decision making process that preceded the LNP project. The negotiations in Moscow and in Helsinki lasted more than three years and they involved not only political, but also technological issues. Engineers, managers and politicians from both sides discussed patiently weeks and months, but it was difficult to reach the closure. The critical issues concerned safety and reliability. In addition, the Finnish delegation demanded access to the factories, where key components of the power station were manufactured. This was an impossible request to the Soviets. Hence, LNP did not become a critical infrastructure, but is was ‘critical’ from the very beginning and during the negotiations both parties tried to define and eliminate the threats.

The second aim of this project is to write a research article in which the LNP case is compared to other transnationally related infrastructure projects in Finland during the Cold War. Finland purchased crude oil from the Soviet Union and was connected to Soviet natural gas networks in the middle of the 1970s (cf. IP 1). These infrastructures were not regarded as ‘critical’ although they played a major role in the Finnish energy strategy. Why did natural gas and oil differ from nuclear power? We argue that the answer is found in the cultural, social and political dimensions of technology.

We also argue that the LNP case as well as the other infrastructure projects between Finland and the Soviet Union had broader international consequences. Political scientists have shown how the Soviet Union used small countries, like Finland, to test political, ideological and technological concepts before they were taken to the more challenging markets. Finland, on the hand, tried to gain international recognition and enhance political status by challenging the Soviet technological hegemony. This interplay between a super power and small independent nation became an everyday practice in Europe during the Cold War. Finland struggled to maintain her political and ideological status against the eastern influence, while the small countries in Western Europe (for instance Iceland) struggled to regulate the American technological, cultural and political influence.

Added value

This IP addresses several questions that are currently on the research agenda of history of technology research agenda:

1. Historians of technology, especially in Europe, have moved beyond national framing of historiography to tackle trans-national issues, which are relevant also to European history. One of these issues is the ideological gap between the east and west during the Cold War. It has been a permanent topic in the political history, but we believe that history of technology could contribute significantly to this discussion. (See; Michelsen and Sarkikoski; Suomalainen Ydinvoimalaitos, Helsinki 2005)

2. Social scientists have constructed theories and models to study the interaction between technology and society. Social construction of technology (SCOT) and the Actor Network Theory (ANT) have opened new avenues to understand complex questions. However, we believe that culture as a shaping force of technological change has been neglected. The LNP case provides an excellent opportunity to investigate how cultural differences in Europe and outside Europe come into conflict when critical infrastructures are negotiated. (See; Michelsen; Viides Saaty. Insin55rit Suomalaisessa Yhteiskunnassa. Helsinki 2000.)

3. European borders are loaded with tensions, both political and ideological. Wars and conflicts as well as economic agreements have moved European borders. Nation states are created and lost during this process. We argue that by studying border regions and critical infrastructures, which cross the European borders, it is possible to enhance understanding of these fundamental tensions. (See; Sarkikoski, Outo Malmi, Helsinki 2005)

Our hypothesis is that there was something typical “European” in the negotiations between the Finns and the Soviets in Moscow and Helsinki during the later part of the 1960’s. European values and ideas conflicted with the values of the Soviet state. Paul Josephson has shown, how technological culture in the Soviet Union was shaped by the super power status and political arrogance of the Communist party, while in Europe technological cultures were diverse and closely connected to national cultures. Therefore, to become connected to a completely different kind of technological culture could have devastating consequences. This is what has happened in the Baltic States and in most Eastern European countries, which developed independent technological cultures during the early part of the 20^th century, but lost them during the Cold War.

Methodology

This IP is multidisciplinary and several research methods will be used to scrutinize the research questions. We will, on the one hand, apply familiar methodological concepts developed in the history of technology and sociology of technology during the past three decades (large technological systems, actor network theory and social construction of technology). However, we will also use sociological methods and methods developed by political scientists when analyzing negotiations in Moscow and Helsinki.

The concepts of trans-national reliability and interdependency have been studied by social scientists focusing on national and international organizations and institutions. Similar studies can be found in the current history of technology scholarship, which investigates infrastructure-related international organisations from a ‘bottom up’ perspective. The key questions are how such large-scale organizations are governed and how they are used in shaping trans-national infrastructures.