Environmental protection in the USSR

Communism and environmentalism: a doctrine-based review of similarities and differences

“…Some of them are reiterated by other authors: Mazursky (1991) mentions the lack of information on environmental degradation and absence of law enforcement; Ostergren and Jacques (2002) account for the depletion of resources and pollution, but also on the lack of laws (the first appeared after 1980) and -similar to Earnhart (1997) -enforcement (laws were merely setting goals rather than providing means of control). Glassheim (2006) accounts for environmental disaster among the many failures of communism, considering that there are ideological causes (worldly possessions privileged over non-economic values, heavy-industrial push) and practical causes -communist economic priorities explain the failure to stop pollution, because people and nature were subjugated to the demands of the production process; Glassheim (2006) believes that the environmental and social devastation in Bohemia is also due to the fact that the area was seen as a laboratory during the communist regime; and Weissenburger (1987) shows that the environmental protection goals were not achieved after 1975. Jehlicka (2003) shows that, as a consequence of communist ideologies, Visegrad countries are not likely to support the European Union environmental policies; moreover, restrictions in consumption by communism lead to a negative environmental attitude when the consumption of resources is no longer restricted by the democratic regime.…”