"Verbal abuse" isn't a concept that existed in the Soviet Union. Giving or receiving instructions with as many "suka blyat" inserted between each word as possible wasn't abnormal.

>, there are several high profile examples of American leaders/directors/business men acting in openly abusive ways.

What an out of touch statement.

Have you ever worked in a restaurant or on a construction site?

Nothing the ruling class or their useful idiot cronies does publicly even approaches what's not considered abuse in those contexts.

It was a drama TV show, not a documentary. Whey compare it with TV shows, like Simpsons or movies like The China Syndrome, it was accurate.

"according to INSAG-1, the main cause of the accident was the operators' actions, but according to INSAG-7, the main cause was the reactor's design."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investigations_into_the_Cherno...

How does it make sense that the show ignores INSAG-7 when the whole plot point about the design of the control rods increasing the reactivity isn't from INSAG-1 but from INSAG-7? The same with the plotline about this defect being known, but kept from the operators. And Legasov lying about all this at the IAEA meeting? All-in-all INSAG-1 paints a picture of operator failure, INSAG-7 paints a picture of systemic failure and the show paints a picture of systemic failure.

And to nitpick: INSAG-7 doesn't disagree with INSAG-1 about the power rising just before AZ-5. From page 8 of INSAG-7: "When the turbine was tripped, the four pumps it was powering began to slow down as the turbine speed was reduced and the associated generator voltage fell. This reduced rate of core flow caused the void content of the core to rise and caused an initial positive feedback of reactivity which was at least in part the cause of the acci- dent." (page 8) This happens ~30 seconds before AZ-5 is pushed.

The same event described in Table I on page 21-22 of INSAG-1, with the part deprecated by INSAG-7 marked with {}:

01:23:04 {The personnel blocked the two-TG trip signal.} Emergency stop valve to the turbine was closed. The reactor continues operating at a power of 200 MW(th).

01:23:10 One group of automatic control rods start driving out

01:23:21 Two groups of automatic control rods begin reinsertion.

01:23:31 Net reactivity increasing with subsequent slow increase in reactor power.

01:23:40 Operator pushes AZ-5 button (reactor trip).

The textual description on page 25 of INSAG-1 isn't much different: "When the emergency stop valve to the turbine was closed, the steam pressure began to rise. The flow through the core started to drop because four of the main cooling pumps were running down with the generator. Increasing pressure, reduced feedwater flow and reduced flow through the reactor are competing factors which determine the volumetric steam quality and hence the power of the reactor. It should be emphasized that the reactor was then in such a state that small changes in power would have led to much larger changes in steam void, with consequent power increases. The combination of these factors ultimately led to a power increase begninning at about 01:23:30."

A scanned copy of INSAG-1: https://ilankelman.org/miscellany/chernobyl.pdf

The Soviet report to IAEA in 1986: https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/...

Simplified characters and strongly amplified and invented extra drama and events.

I worked in the soviet nuclear industry (Sredmash) in the 1980s.

The dialogs and characters are completely unrealistic and made me cringe. Everyone looks overemotional and infantile.

The hierarchical interactions are comical - a minister would never go to talk to miners, he would just phone a subordinate and tell them to organize people, they don't need armed soldiers present to enforce something, it is not the Wild West. The authors have no clue about the soviet mentality and how soviet society operated.