When once again in the press there are reports about the suspension of the operation of any equipment or the next scheduled technical inspections at the Rostov NPP, each time you think about national security in the use of atomic energy. Especially when Chernobyl today can become another bargaining chip for the machinations of the new authorities, who have received in their so far clumsy hands a formidable weapon, the beginning of which was laid before the Great Patriotic War.
20s. The beginning of atomic science
“The foundation of atomic science and technology was laid in 1922 by the organization of research institutes in Leningrad:
1. Roentgenological and Radiological Institute (director MI Nemenov).
2. Physicotechnical X-ray Institute (later transformed into the Leningrad Physicotechnical Institute, LFTI). Director A. F. Ioffe.
3. Radium Institute (director V. I. Vernadsky).
In 1928, the Ukrainian Institute of Physics and Technology (UPTI, Kharkov) was also established. Director I. V. Obreimov.
In 1932, on the initiative of Ioffe, a laboratory for nuclear physics was created at LPTI, in which the future scientific leader of the Soviet atomic project Kurchatov and others worked under his leadership. Of the Central Archive of the State Atomic Energy Corporation "Rosatom").
It can be considered that since 1932 a period of intensive fundamental research began, which formed the basis for subsequent work on the atomic bomb.
However, these studies were criticized both by the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry and by the Academy of Sciences.
Particularly indicative was the special session of the LPTI Academy of Sciences, held in 1936, where young scientists were harshly "smashed" by the leading figures of science for their research, which, in the eyes of the aged academicians, were not only hopeless, but also harmful. On the basis of this meeting, very harsh conclusions followed, which were adopted by the People's Commissariat: along its line, the director of the LPTI, Academician Ioffe, was reprimanded for organizing such studies. However, a similar situation developed not only in this area: many fundamental and innovative ideas inevitably collided with the icebreaker of established concepts and norms that young scientists still had to overcome. And they were able to do it in the end, having received strong support from almost all state institutions and institutions. But while there was a period of struggle in the courtyard, the sprouts of a new one were only looking for their own path and no one in the world had a consensus on the final choice of this atomic path: scientists were only trying to grope and understand the principle of a completely new, hitherto unknown nucleus.
If Ioffe "got off" with a reprimand, then the director of the UPTI Lepunsky A. I. “In 1937 he was expelled from the party with the wording“for loss of vigilance”and removed from the post of director. On June 14, 1938, he was arrested and accused of helping "the enemies of the people, defending LD Landau, LV Shubnikov, A. Vaisberg and inviting foreign scientists F. Houtermans and F. Lange to work at LPTI." But already in August 1938 Leipunsky A. I. was released from prison "(quotation from the article" A brief outline of the development of the nuclear industry Rossim, V. V. Pichugin, Director of the Central Archives of the State Atomic Energy Corporation "Rosatom").
Paradoxically, later Leipunsky worked in the 9th department of the NKVD, organized to work with German specialists invited to work in the atomic project. Soon, however, Leipunsky went to work in laboratory "B" in Obninsk and became its scientific director.
In the pre-war period at LPTI, Kurchatov and his research group carried out a large cycle of studies on the interaction of neurons with the nuclei of various elements, according to their results, many scientific articles were published in Soviet and foreign journals.
Nobel laureates "licked" the reports of Soviet nuclear scientists
“The experiments of G. N. Flerov were of great fundamental importance. and Rusinov L. I., employees of the Kurchatov laboratory, on measuring the number of secondary neutrons per one act of fission of the uranium-235 nucleus. They found that this number was 3 + 1, which meant that a chain reaction of fission of the uranium-235 nucleus was possible. They made their measurements independently of Joliot, Halban and Kovarsky (France), Fermi and Andersen, Szilard and Zinn (USA) ", - stated in the book of A. K. Kruglova "How the atomic industry of the country was created" (M., 1995).
Who ran faster than Kurchatov
During experiments at LPTI with short-lived radionuclides, sometimes curious situations arose. Flerov GN, a student of Kurchatov, the author of letters to Stalin about the need to resume research on atomic energy, recalls: “The experimenter, after irradiating the foil, so as not to lose precious impulses, rushed to the counter: the lifetime of the induced radioactivity was only about 20 seconds. Once, when I met Kurchatov, I happily said: "Do you know, Igor Vasilyevich, that I run a few seconds faster than you and had a better last experiment!"
In the literal and figurative sense, the race of atomic schools of different countries began, and the one who turned out to be the leader conquered new defense priorities for his country.
“In 1934 Tamm I. Ye. developed the currently accepted concept of the nature of nuclear forces, for the first time indicating that they are the result of particle exchange. Frenkel Ya. I. presented a droplet model of the nucleus (1936).
Kurchatov devoted a lot of time to the construction of a cyclotron at the Leningrad Physicotechnical Institute, launching and setting up experiments at the first cyclotron in Europe at the Radium Institute, where a beam of accelerated protons was obtained in 1937. Research in nuclear physics and radiochemistry was carried out at the Radium Institute under the leadership of V. G. Khlopin.
Experimental work on the interaction of particles under the leadership of Leipunsky was widely developed at LPTI; in 1938, a large electrostatic generator was launched. In 1939-1940 Zeldovich Ya. B. and Khariton Yu. B. substantiated the possibility of a nuclear fission chain reaction in uranium, and G. N. Flerov. and Petrzhak K. A. discovered the phenomenon of spontaneous fission of uranium nuclei, which is of fundamental importance for ensuring the safe start-up and operation of nuclear reactors”(AK Kruglov,“How the country's nuclear industry was created”).
The list of publications on nuclear physics in the pre-war years contains over 700 articles and reports at international conferences, among which the most representative are: L. A. Artsimovich, I. V. Kurchatov, L. V. Mysovsky. and others "Slow Neutron Absorption" (1935); Leipunsky A. I. "Absorption of slow neutrons at low temperatures" (1936); Landau L. D. "Towards the Statistical Theory of Nuclei" (1937); Frenkel Ya. I. "On the statistical theory of the decay of atomic nuclei" (1938); Pomeranchuk I. Ya "Scattering of slow neutrons in a crystal lattice" (1938); Zeldovich Ya. B., Zysin Yu. A. "Towards the theory of the collapse of nuclei" (1940); Zeldovich Ya. B., Khariton Yu. B. “On the chain decay of uranium under the influence of slow neutrons. Kinetics of Uranium Chain Decay”(1940); Nuclear Fission Mechanism (1941); Kurchatov I. V. “Fission of heavy nuclei (1941); Landau L. D., Tamm I. E."On the Origin of Nuclear Forces" (1940), etc.
The results of theoretical and experimental research in nuclear physics were discussed at the neutron seminar at the Leningrad Physics and Technology Institute, as well as at the all-Union conferences on the physics of the atomic nucleus, which were annually held in the country.
“At different times at the All-Union conferences the following reports were heard:“The chemical nature of the fission products of heavy nuclei (VG Khlopin); “Fission of nuclei (Leipunsky AI); “Experiments on fission of uranium (Rusinov LI, Flerov GN); "On the issue of fission of uranium nuclei in the capture of slow neutrons" (Leipunsky AI, Maslov VA) and others.
At the end of February 1940, Kurchatov made a detailed report "On the Problem of Uranium" at a meeting of the Physics and Mathematics Department of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In his report, he, in particular, pointed out the need to expand the scope of research in nuclear physics ", - indicated in the book" Atomic Project of the USSR: Documents and Materials "(in 3 volumes, 1999).
The authority of Soviet science was so great that many leading foreign scientists came to the annual meetings on nuclear physics, who later became Nobel Prize laureates: Niels Bohr, Wolfgang Pauli, Joliot Curie, Werner Heisenberg and others. Soviet colleagues have established friendly business ties with many foreign scientists.
All these discussions stimulated new research in nuclear physics, raised their scientific level, and most importantly, helped to lay the foundation for subsequent work on the creation of atomic weapons.
In search of uranium
In the pre-war period, Soviet geologists were not engaged in exploration of new uranium deposits, since there was “no demand” for uranium, then no one could imagine how much it would be required in the near future. There was only a small mine with a pilot plant in Taboshary, near the city of Leninabad (in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan), which was subordinate to the People's Commissariat of Non-Ferrous Metallurgy and produced a small amount of radium. However, time posed the most difficult task for the country to create atomic weapons, and uranium was required to solve it.
Academicians Vernadsky V. I. and Khloponin V. G., not yet knowing the future needs for uranium, already in June 1940 sent a note to the academician-secretary of the Department of Geological and Geographical Sciences of the USSR Academy of Sciences P. I. Stepanov, which said: “… urgent measures must be taken to speed up the exploration and production of uranium ores and the production of uranium from them. This is necessary so that by the time the question of the technical use of intra-atomic energy is resolved, we have the necessary reserves of this precious source of energy. Meanwhile, in this respect, the situation in the USSR is currently extremely unfavorable. We have no uranium reserves at all. This metal is extremely scarce at the present time. Its production has not been established. Explored powerful deposits of this metal on the territory of the Union are not yet known. Exploration of known deposits and prospecting for new ones are being carried out at an absolutely insufficient pace and are not united by a common idea. Therefore, we ask the Department of Geological and Geographical Sciences to discuss the state of prospecting and exploration of uranium deposits, outline a plan for the deployment of these works and enter the Government with a draft of relevant measures."
In the fall of 1940, it was decided to send a brigade of the USSR Academy of Sciences under the leadership of Academician A. E. Fersman to the main uranium deposits in Central Asia. Eight people went on a long business trip, among whom there was only one woman - Rozhanskaya E. M., the brigade's secretary. By the way, there were very few women in the Atomic Project. It is known that in 1944 a researcher at the State Research Institute Ershova Z. V. received the first uranium ingot.
A natural question arose - how much uranium is needed to launch the first industrial nuclear reactor and how much it will be required in the future. LPTI Director Academician Ioffe spoke about the prospects for the development of uranium mining: “One can hardly expect practical benefits from uranium fission in the near future. Another thing is the study of this process … Here it is necessary to expand the scope of work … It is too early to talk about the urgent creation of a uranium-producing industry."
Another answer to this question was given by his student Kurchatov in a memo to V. M. Molotov. on the work of Laboratory No. 2 for the first half of 1943: “To create a boiler from metallic uranium and a mixture of uranium with graphite, it is necessary to accumulate 100 tons of uranium in the coming years. The explored reserves of this element in the USSR are estimated at 100-120 tons. Proceeding from this, the GOCO planned to produce two tons of uranium in 1943 and 10 tons in 1944 and in subsequent years.
Even without being an expert in this matter, based on the given figures, one can conclude that an atomic bomb in the USSR could appear only in 10 years, if the situation with the exploration and development of new deposits does not change.
A detailed description of the deposit in Taboshary is presented in the certificate of V. A. Makhnev, deputy member of the State Defense Committee L. P. Beria, on the state of work on the uranium problem dated November 2, 1944: “Exploration of uranium deposits. Over the past two years, due to insufficient attention and poor material and technical equipment of geological exploration parties, the exploration of uranium deposits has hardly budged."
According to the GARF (fund 10208), “In 1943 the People's Commissariat for Flowers had only a few enterprises. Uranium ore was mined by: “a mining shop at the Taboshar deposit, consisting of 47 workers; diligent artel in Maili-Su, consisting of 80 workers; diligent artel in Uygursay, consisting of 23 workers. Ore was processed: plant "B" (in Taboshary) with a capacity of 4 tons of uranium salts per year; a chemical shop for ore processing in Leninabad; experimental workshop at the Institute "Giredmet" for the production of lump uranium.
In fact, in 1944 (for nine months) the People's Commissariat of Agriculture mined 2370 tons of uranium ore, processed 755 tons and produced 1300 kilograms of uranium oxide and 280 kg of metallic (lumpy) uranium”.
Based on the note by V. A. Makhnev, which was also prepared by the heads of the NKVD A. P. Zavenyagin. and Chernyshev V. V., the Defense Committee on December 8, 1944 adopted a detailed GKO Resolution No. 7102 "On measures to ensure the development of mining and processing of uranium ores", containing 30 points of various instructions to the people's commissariats.
The decree reflected practically all organizational issues related to the formation of uranium mining. First, the exploration and mining of uranium was transferred to the jurisdiction of the NKVD, mainly because it had specific capabilities up to the use of forced labor of prisoners.
Secondly, the deputy chief of the NKVD Zavenyagin A. P. was appointed a responsible person in the NKVD for the organizational work on uranium.
"Thirdly, as part of the Main Directorate of the camps of mining and metallurgical enterprises of the NKVD of the USSR, the Uranium Directorate" Special Metallurgical Directorate of the NKVD of the USSR "was formed (data from the book" State Power of the USSR. Supreme Bodies of Power and Management and Their Leaders. "1923-1991. Historical -bibliographic reference).
Fourthly, a new research institute for uranium was formed - the "Institute of Special Metals of the NKVD" (Inspecmet of the NKVD). Subsequently, this institute received the name NII-9 and was subordinate to the First Main Directorate (PSU).
It was decided to locate the Inspectorate and the plant for the production of uranium and uranium compounds within the boundaries of Moscow. The institute was indeed located on the territory of the VIEM, and the uranium plant was not built here.
Many government decrees were issued to expand the volume of geological exploration and the organization of mining enterprises, which in the conditions of hostilities was a difficult matter. In the certificate of the Special Met Office of the NKVD dated April 16, 1945, it was indicated that "the total reserves of uranium oxide in all known deposits are 430 tons," of which 350 tons are in the Taboshary deposit (Combine No. 6).
Thus, by the beginning of the deployment of work on the Atomic Project, the situation with providing it with uranium was critical. Therefore, it is no coincidence that V. A. On April 8, 1945, he sent Beria a note with a proposal to send to Germany to clarify the characteristics of the Schmiedeberg uranium deposit (Upper Silesia) and develop proposals for its use in order to obtain uranium ore.
The hard work of Soviet geologists also yielded long-awaited results.
Unique uranium deposits were discovered on the territory of the USSR. One of them is the Melovoe sedimentary deposit (1954) with complex (uranium, phosphorus, rare earth elements and others) ores in Paleogene clays enriched with bone detritus, on the Mangyshlak Peninsula near the city of Shevchenko (now the city of Aktau - the Republic of Kazakhstan). On the basis of this deposit, the Caspian Mining and Metallurgical Combine and the Mangyshlak Power Plant with a fast neutron reactor BN-350 and desalination plants for power supply to the nearby city were created.
“Many millions of years ago there was an ocean, part of which was eventually separated by a piece of land and turned into an inland sea. It is known that seawater contained uranium, which was absorbed by marine fish and deposited in their bones. Then the whole sea gradually dried up, all the fish died, forming a multi-kilometer layer of fish bones containing uranium. When we went down to the bottom of the quarry, we saw a layer of black ore with a thickness of 1-1, 2 meters. A walking excavator loaded the ore into powerful 40-ton dump trucks, which transported it to the surface. The ore was loaded into railway dum cars and delivered to the processing plant. We were shown the large vertebrae and teeth of prehistoric sharks and were allowed to hold them in our hands, although they had some alpha activity. Then we went up to the operator's cab and watched the operation of the walking bucket wheel excavator. For me, who held in my hands uranium blocks of industrial reactors, encased in an aluminum shell, everything I saw was of exceptional interest and left unforgettable impressions,”recalls GV Kiselev, Doctor of Technical Sciences these days.
The first uranium mining enterprise in the USSR was Combine No. 6, which was later renamed into the Leninabad Mining and Chemical Combine (the city of Chkalovsk, Tajik SSR). Then, a mining and chemical mining administration was created in the city of Lermontov in the North Caucasus and the Eastern Mining and Processing Plant (the city of Yellow Waters in the Dnieper Region of the Ukrainian SSR) on the basis of the Pervomaisky and Zheltorechensky iron-uranium deposits. On the basis of the newly discovered uranium deposits, large mining and processing and mining and chemical plants were subsequently built: the Kyrgyz mining plant based on the Taravak coal-uranium deposit, the Tselinny plant in Northern Kazakhstan (the city of Stepnogorsk), Navoi in Western Uzbekistan, the already mentioned Prikaspiyskiy, Priargunsky in Transbaikalia and others. Thorium deposits were explored and developed in the Murmansk, Sverdlovsk, Chita regions, and the Krasnoyarsk Territory.
Two ways to create an atomic bomb
The time from September 28, 1942 (this is the date of the first GKO decree on uranium) to August 1945, when the GKO decree carried out the organizational formalization of the work on the creation of the atomic bomb, can be considered the second period of preparatory work, which can be called the period of conceptual research.
Indeed, during this period, Kurchatov and his "team" carried out a lot of computational studies to determine the directions for further work on the creation of the atomic bomb. In addition to their own data, they also used information about foreign research obtained by our intelligence.
Based on all the information, two main directions were chosen. The first is the production of plutonium as the main fissile material for the bomb. The second is the production of highly enriched uranium for the bomb, as well as uranium-233 as a backup option.
At this time, Kurchatov got access to confidential information about work abroad on nuclear topics, mined by our intelligence. He got acquainted with these materials, drew up conclusions on the usefulness, prepared questions for residents. Foreign information allowed Kurchatov to determine those scientific directions that needed to be developed, as well as those that needed additional verification. It should be emphasized that literally all calculations and experiments were carried out by Soviet specialists. Sometimes they did not even know that there was any foreign data. However, it cannot be denied that foreign information contributed to the solution of the problem of the earliest possible creation of the atomic bomb.
Triumvirate created by Stalin in 1945
In August 1945, the Soviet government was forced to take decisive organizational measures to accelerate the creation of its own nuclear weapons in connection with the US atomic bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima (August 6) and Nagasaki (August 9).
The organizational forms of this activity were developed during the Great Patriotic War, when, along with state authorities, various committees with special powers were formed, and special commissioners were appointed. For example, the State Defense Committee (GKO) chaired by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Stalin. When the task of forcing the creation of a domestic atomic bomb arose, Stalin acted in a similar way, deciding to organize a Special Committee under the State Defense Committee headed by Beria and the First Main Directorate (PGU) under the leadership of the former People's Commissar for Ammunition B. L. Vannikov.
It should be noted that the candidacy of Mikhail Georgievich Pervukhin was more suitable for all characteristics than Beria. As indicated above, it was Stalin who in 1942 appointed Pervukhin together with S. V. Kaftanov. senior officials responsible in the government for the work on the use of nuclear fission energy for military purposes.
“Mikhail Pervukhin graduated from the Moscow Institute of National Economy named after G. V. Plekhanov, worked as an engineer at Mosenergo, then as a senior engineer, shop manager, director of the Kashirskaya GRES, and since 1938 - Deputy People's Commissar of Heavy Industry, since January 1939 - People's Commissar for Power Plants and Electrical Industry, since May 1940 - Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars. In 1942 he was appointed concurrently as People's Commissar of the Chemical Industry. Subsequently, he was appointed deputy head of the PSU "(data from" State power of the USSR. Supreme authorities and management and their leaders. "1923-1991. Historical and bibliographic reference).
“Boris Lvovich Vannikov, participant in the civil war, party member since 1919, graduate of the Moscow Higher Technical School; from 1933 to 1936 he worked as director of the Tula arms factory, from December 1937 he was appointed deputy people's commissar of the defense industry, from January 1939 - the people's commissar of armaments of the USSR. In early June 1941, he was removed from office, arrested and was held in the internal prison of the NKVD after a dispute with Zhdanov and Stalin about the production of artillery weapons. After the outbreak of the war, Stalin returned him back to the People's Commissariat, to the post of Deputy People's Commissar of Armaments. Vannikov was presented with a certificate stating that he had been arrested due to a misunderstanding and was considered fully rehabilitated. At the beginning of 1942, he was again appointed People's Commissar of Ammunition "(data from" State Power of the USSR. The supreme bodies of power and administration and their heads”. 1923-1991. Historical and bibliographic reference book).
However, Stalin decided to appoint Beria as chairman of the Special Committee and, therefore, made him responsible for solving the atomic problem in the country. It should be noted that Beria, who had headed the NKVD since 1939 and had been a member of the USSR State Defense Committee since 1941, knew the work of the military-industrial complex well. NS
Vannikov left interesting memories in his book At the Origins of Soviet Atomic Weapons. He spoke about his meeting with Stalin when discussing the structure of management of atomic affairs, when the question of appointing him deputy head of the Special Committee, head of the PSU and chairman of the technical council at the Special Committee was being decided: !). At the same time, Vannikov was not released from the post of People's Commissar of Ammunition, which was done later.
Zavenyagin was appointed first deputy head of the PSU, who at the same time remained in the post of deputy people's commissar of the NKVD of the USSR; he was entrusted with overseeing the issues of mining and processing of uranium ore and the construction of nuclear facilities. Stalin's choice of Vannikov, Zavenyagin and Pervukhin, who have extensive experience in organizational work on a national scale during the war, and their appointment as leaders of the PGU turned out to be very successful, their subsequent activities made it possible to solve the task of creating nuclear weapons.
TK for the first aerial bomb
So, in May 1946, a technical assignment "For the body of a high-explosive aerial bomb" was prepared. Clause 1 of this TK was as follows: “The body of an aerial bomb must be adapted for fastening inside its charge, enclosed in a strong metal shell. The weight of the charge with the shell is two tons, the diameter of the charge in the shell is 1.3 meters. The attachment must be non-permanent, i.e. bolted or fastened, not welded.
Paragraph 2. The space inside the housing on both sides of the charge should be kept as much as possible for filling with an explosive.
Item 3. The bomb must be designed to be lifted by a heavy bomber.
Suspension systems must be developed independently, both inside the hatches (if dimensions permitting stable flight) and outside.
Item 4. Maintaining the shape of the hull when entering the ground is not necessary.
Clause 5. The bomb must be supplied in the warhead with two independently operating instant fuses.
Item 6. A circular opening with a diameter of 120 mm must be opened and hermetically sealed in the side wall of the body of a high-explosive aerial bomb opposite the center of the charge.
Clause 7. One bomb of the specified type is taken on the plane."
Signed by Y. Khariton.
