"Such an organization fulfills the needs for secrecy...". Background to the emergence of the Soviet authorities in the closed atomic settlements

This article analyzes the process by which the Soviet authorities created secret «atomic» settlements to serve the Soviet atomic program. One curious feature was the absence of Soviet representative state government bodies at the early stages of their existence. This contradiction of the Constitution of the USSR has not been sufficiently studied due to the limitations of the source base. New historical documents have allowed us to trace this phenomenon from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s. This process has been shown to be influenced by the initial ideas about «atomic» towns as small working settlements. Social issues were secondary in comparison with scientific and industrial problems, accompanied by the need to ensure secrecy associated with state security. The ratio of local and central leadership roles were also considered. All this gave rise to the unique character of the Soviet bodies, enclosed with the constraints of «atomic» departmental affiliation.