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...