Survivalist sects of the 1960s: bunkers, gas masks and waiting for Armageddon

Survivalist sects emerged in the 1960s and prepared for a Third World War between the USSR and the USA by building bunkers and stockpiling food. The movement declined with the détente of the late 1980s and all but disappeared in the 1990s.

The name comes from the English word "survival". And that was the whole point: surviving what they believed would be Armageddon, the Third World War, the clash between the USSR and the USA that many considered a foregone conclusion at the height of the Cold War. The journal **Lenguajes artificiales (Siglos XIX-XXI)** (Artificial Languages, 19th–21st Centuries) recounts how these fringe religious groups reacted to the arms race in a rather peculiar way: instead of waiting for the end of the world with their hands in their laps, they started digging.

## Bunkers, gas masks and underground power stations

Sects sprang up across Europe and the United States. In Italy, Denmark, the USA. Bunkers and entire fortified villages were built. Tons of food. Stored drinking water. Personal protective equipment was bought en masse: respirators, gas masks, coveralls. Some built underground power stations to keep the heating running through a "nuclear winter". Logistics were no minor detail: we are talking about infrastructure designed to last months, perhaps years, underground.

Most of these sects were organised along military lines. Strict discipline, combat training, constant drills to repel attacks by the "forces of evil" during Armageddon. Curiously, the religious side took a back seat. Some drew up plans to reorganise the world after the nuclear catastrophe, convinced that only they would survive and that, well prepared, they would assume a dominant position in the "renewed" world.

## Decline with détente

The détente between the superpowers in the late 1980s took away their main argument. With no Third World War in sight, the movement declined and practically disappeared by the late 1990s. A few isolated sects remain, mostly in the United States.

Today's survival enthusiasts look more like hobbyist clubs. They meet online to discuss knife-sharpening techniques, bunker construction, what to take to the taiga, how to escape falling missiles. **ELbichito-19** briefly revived interest, but not for long. Extreme preparedness has something of a cycle about it: it returns when antiestéticar returns.