The role of Beria in the creation of atomic and missile weapons has not yet been properly assessed
Seventy years ago, in the spring of 1946, events took place in the USSR that marked the beginning of the implementation of two major defense projects - the atomic and the missile.
On April 9, Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 805-327ss was adopted, according to which sector No. 6 of laboratory No. 2 of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR was reorganized into Design Bureau No. 11. General P. M. Zernov was appointed Chief of the Design Bureau, before that - Deputy Minister of Transport Engineering of the USSR. Professor Yu. B. Khariton became the chief designer of KB-11 "for the design and manufacture of experimental jet engines". This is how the largest national center for the development of nuclear weapons was founded - the All-Russian Research Institute of Experimental Physics in Sarov (Arzamas-16).
But when the country, rising from the ruins, began its atomic project, it immediately set the task of creating intercontinental means of delivering the "atomic argument" to the territory of a potential aggressor. And on April 29, Stalin held a representative meeting, already related to missile problems. This story is worth remembering, as well as the fact that the curator of the Soviet atomic project L. P. Beria played an outstanding role in the organization of rocket work.
In the beginning there were the Germans
Work on guided ballistic missiles (BR) in the USSR has been going on for a long time, in particular, the famous future "Chief Designer of Cosmonautics" SP Korolev was engaged in this. But we began to work seriously on the BR only after the end of the war, when we managed to fully find out how far away from everyone - not only from the USSR, but also from the United States - the Germans with their fantastic at that time BR V-2 (Fau- 2).
In the spring of 1945, Soviet specialists examined the German missile research center in Peenemünde, and on June 8 of the same year, the People's Commissar of the Aviation Industry A. I. and structures with a total area of over 200 thousand square meters. The capacity of the surviving power plant of the institute is 30 thousand kilowatts. The number of employees at the institute reached 7,500 people."
Work began on dismantling the equipment and transporting it to the USSR from Peenemünde, from the Rheinmetall-Borzig rocket plant in the Berlin suburb of Marienfelde, and from other places. They also took away those German missilemen, whom the Americans did not manage to capture, although Wernher von Braun, General Dornberger, and many others had already voluntarily gone to the latter.
In Germany itself at that time the Nordhausen Institute was operating, the head of which was Major General of Artillery L. Gaidukov, and the chief engineer was S. Korolev, the same … Both Soviet specialists and Germans worked there.
On April 17, 1946, a note was sent to Stalin on the organization of research and experimental work in the field of missile weapons in the USSR. It was signed by L. Beria, G. Malenkov, N. Bulganin, D. Ustinov and N. Yakovlev - the head of the Main Artillery Directorate of the Red Army. Note that Beria was the first to sign on the document, and this was not in alphabetical order.
The note said, in particular, that in Germany 25 research organizations were engaged in missile weapons issues, up to 15 samples were developed, including the V-2 long-range missile with a maximum range of 400 kilometers. The note ended with the words: "To discuss all these issues, it would be advisable to convene a special meeting with you."
On April 29, such a meeting with Stalin took place in the composition of: I. V. Stalin, L. P. Beria, G. M. Malenkov, N. A. Bulganin, M. V. Khrunichev, D. F. Ustinov, B. L. Vannikov, I. G. Kabanov, M. G. Pervukhin, N. N. Voronov, N. D. Yakovlev, A. I. Sokolov, L. M. Gaidukov, V. M. Ryabikov, G. K. Zhukov, A. M. Vasilevsky, L. A. Govorov.
The meeting lasted from 21.00 to 22.45, after which only Bulganin and Malenkov remained with Stalin. Soon a special committee on jet technology was formed under the Council of Ministers of the USSR, headed at first by Malenkov, and then (already as Committee No. 2) by Bulganin.
Beria had enough business even without long-range missiles - he had already harnessed himself to the atomic project as his curator. But on December 28, 1946, N. E. Nosovsky, authorized by the Special Committee on jet technology in Germany, through Colonel-General I. A. "Nordhausen".
Ivan Serov, on a cover letter to the report, imposed a resolution, addressing one of Beria's assistants: “Comrade. Ordyntsev! When LP Beria has free time, I ask you to show some of the documents, and most importantly - photographs. 1946-29-12. Serov.
On December 31, the report was received by Beria's secretariat, and from there - to the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) Malenkov. It is curious and indicative that Serov offered Ordyntsev to acquaint Beria with important documents that were not directly related to the People's Commissar when he had free time. In general, less tedious activities are associated with this concept than reading voluminous and content-rich business paper. But this, it turns out, was Lavrenty Pavlovich's "free" pastime.
This is all to the fact that many still have a persistent delusion that the "voluptuous" Beria in his free time was carried away exclusively by the harem of young Muscovites caught up in the "black funnel", who, after the pleasures, were dissolved either in sulfuric, or in salt, or in some other dodgy acid. In reality, there was nothing like it.
There was daily long hours of work, the result of which was the growing power of the Soviet Union and the well-being of its peoples. Ivan Serov knew the real, not the demonized Beria well, and therefore put it this way. Serov understood that he was writing because he knew that during his working time Beria was busy with what Stalin had specifically entrusted to him. But in his free time he will be able to be distracted by the study of those problems that are objectively important for the state, but are not currently included in the sphere of working interests. Moreover, today long-range missiles for Beria are an optional elective, and tomorrow, you see, - a direct order from Comrade Stalin.
Beria, of course, read the report from "Nordhausen", but the supervision of long-range missiles was then entrusted to someone else. However, as we will see, these works did not do without Lavrenty Pavlovich.
Collective Beria
On May 10, 1947, in the Special Committee of Reactive Technology under the Council of Ministers of the USSR, in accordance with a particularly important decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 1454-388 "Questions of jet technology", a "change of the guard" took place. The first paragraph of the document, the Special Committee for Reactive Technology was renamed into Committee No. 2, but the essence was in the second (there were five of them), which read: “To appoint the Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, Comrade N. Bulganin, Chairman of Committee No. 2 under the Council of Ministers of the USSR, having satisfied Comrade Malenkov GM's request to release him from this duty."
This leading leapfrog, perhaps, does not need special comments - and it is so clear that Malenkov has failed. But something needs to be clarified. Malenkov's replacement with Bulganin had nothing to do with the so-called aviation business, when the first was removed from the secretariat of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks due to the fact that, as it was said in the decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee, he was “morally responsible for those outrages” that were revealed in the Ministry aviation industry of the USSR and the Air Force. It turned out that during the war, the People's Commissar Shakhurin released the NKAP, and the Air Force of Aviation Marshal Novikov received poor-quality aircraft.
However, this is not the point. Malenkov was the main "rocketman" - Bulganin became the main "rocketman". And the rockets still did not fly or did not fly well. Why?
Neither Malenkov nor Bulganin were mediocre managers - such were not included in Stalin's team. Even Khrushchev did not get out of the team for many years. So both Malenkov and Bulganin worked a lot and sensibly before the war, and during, and after it. But with the Special Committee No. 2, neither one nor the other did not go well.
Malenkov was busy with work in the Central Committee, Bulganin in the Council of Ministers, but after all, Beria, the chairman of the atomic special committee, also had extensive responsibilities in the USSR Council of Ministers, like Bulganin. But Beria was doing well both in the Special Committee and with overseeing the development of the Kometa anti-ship cruise missile, and later the Berkut air defense system of Moscow. Why is that?
Is it because by the turn of the 40s and 50s neither Malenkov, nor Bulganin, like other members of the Stalinist team, had either that taste for new things that Beria had, or such an interest in people?
All post-war defense problems were distinguished by an unprecedented novelty: atomic weapons, jet aircraft, rocketry of various classes, multifunctional radar, electronics, digital computers, exotic, previously unproduced materials. Even the tried and tested "Stalinist bison" were lost, but Beria was not!
First, because he was more talented - he had a quick and accurate reaction, immediately grasped the essence, and thought broadly. Secondly, he stood out for his phenomenal productivity and also used his free time for work. And, finally, Beria was able not only to find people who would do with him what was entrusted by the Motherland and Stalin, but also not to waste time on trifles, trusting them. On this score, there is, for example, the testimony of a person who is not at all disposed to Beria - the famous missile engineer Boris Chertok. In the major work "Rockets and People", he reports that Dmitry Ustinov, having headed the emerging rocket industry, by 1949 understood the entire absurdity of the structure of the leading research institute of the industry - NII-88, but did not dare to reorganize, since the apparatus of the Defense Department of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (b) led by Ivan Serbin, nicknamed Ivan the Terrible. Without his approval, no changes, encouragements, etc. were possible, and Chertok recalls that he had the opportunity to see for himself more than once: the ministers of this apparatchik were afraid and never risked arguing with him.
But in the atomic and in the Berkut project, everything was, according to Chertok, fundamentally different, and he even with some sadness reports that where Lavrenty was in charge, all personnel decisions, for example, were made by Vannikov, coordinating them with Kurchatov and presenting for Beria's approval.
Here Chertok, of course, went through - he made key personnel decisions himself, starting with the involvement of the same Vannikov in atomic work and ending with the appointment of heads of enterprises, as was the case, in particular, with the director of the "plutonium" plant No. 817 B. G. Muzrukov, whom Beria, knowing as an intelligent person even from the war, snatched from Uralmash.
But it is significant that, according to Chertok, the apparatus of the Special Committee No. 1 was small. The secretariat of the atomic special committee had many responsibilities, including the preparation of draft resolutions of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, which Beria submitted to Stalin for signature. But this small team worked extremely efficiently. Why?
Yes, because Beria's style was to trust those who deserved. And one more feature of his style was extremely productive, including because it is not so widespread among managers, but appreciated by his subordinates. This refers to Beria's obvious taste for collective thinking, his ability to involve in the development of decisions all who could usefully express themselves on the merits of the issue. “Every soldier should know his own maneuver” is still a more effective phrase than a business principle. But every officer, and even more so a general, must know and understand his maneuver.
It was so with Beria, and an analysis of his business resolutions says a lot about him. As a rule, Beria's resolutions contain the words: “Tt. so and so. Please discuss … "," Please give your opinion … ", etc.
As you know, mind is good, but two is better. But analyzing how Beria led, you are convinced: he accepted this truth in an improved version for execution: "The mind is good, but twenty is better." At the same time, what was said in no way means that he shared his personal responsibility for the decision with many. The final decision, if it required Beria's level, was made by himself, without hiding behind the backs of his subordinates.
In fact, Stalin led the same way, with the only difference that he was responsible for his decisions not to someone personally, but to the people and history.
By the beginning of 1949, the uranium problem, which was being solved under the leadership of Beria, showed close success, and at the end of August the first Soviet atomic bomb RDS-1 was tested. With the creation of rocketry - under the leadership of Bulganin - things went much worse.
On January 8, 1949, the head of the leading rocket research institute-88 Lev Honor and the party organizer of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks at the NII-88 Ivan Utkin turned to Stalin with a particularly important memorandum, where they reported that work on the creation of rocket weapons was being carried out slowly, the government decree from On April 14, 1948, No. 1175-440cc is under threat of disruption … "It seems to us," reported Honor and Utkin, "that this is due to the underestimation of the importance of work on rocket weapons on the part of a number of ministries …" And further - what is worth highlighting: " The question of … the work of the main subcontractors … has repeatedly been the subject of discussion by Committee No. 2 under the Council of Ministers of the USSR … however, all attempts to dramatically improve their work, and most importantly - to raise the heads of departments and major enterprises a sense of responsibility for the quality and timing of work did not give the desired results."
The reader will remember that the Special Committee of Beria was also working in the USSR at that time. And the possible measures of repressive (if we put the question like this) on the negligent were not greater for Lavrenty Pavlovich than for the leadership of Special Committee No. 2. And the results differed fundamentally.
It's not about repression
Those who think that the successes of Special Committee No. 1 were achieved under pain of death will be interested in the testimony of one of the outstanding atomic scientists, three times Hero of Socialist Labor KI Shchelkin: during the leadership of Beria atomic works not a single person was repressed.
Honor and Utkin ended their note with a request: "We ask for your personal intervention in order to radically improve the missile production."
Everything, however, went on as before - neither wobbly nor roll. By the end of August 1949, Committee No. 2 under the Council of Ministers of the USSR was liquidated, the responsibility for the development of long-range missiles by the especially important Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 3656-1520 was assigned to the Ministry of the Armed Forces. By order of its head Marshal Vasilevsky No. 00140 of August 30, 1949, the formation of the Directorate for Rocket Armaments of the USSR Ministry of Forces was initiated.
Of course, nothing good came of it. And this could be understood, by the way, already from the analysis of Vasilevsky's order - there are many words, but few sensible thoughts and concrete ideas.
Today, no one can say for sure whether the liquidation of Committee No. 2 was connected with the fact that the atomic project under the leadership of Beria achieved its first historical success - the RDS-1 bomb exploded. It is possible that Stalin immediately wanted to load Beria with long-range missiles, as soon as there was an encouraging clearance in atomic work … However, it is possible that the military balked here and, deciding that they "themselves with a mustache," took the missile work under their wing.
So it was or not, but developing new equipment and commanding troops are different classes and no particular successes were noticed by the Directorate for Rocket Armaments of the USSR Ministry of Forces. And then the air defense project "Berkut" arrived in time, for the implementation of which on February 3, 1951, by Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 307-144ss / op, the Third Main Directorate was formed, which closed on Beria.
The result was expected - on August 4, 1951, Stalin signed Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 2837-1349 with the stamp “Top secret. Of particular importance ", which began as follows:" The Council of Ministers of the USSR DECIDES:
1. In view of the fact that the development of long-range missiles R-1, R-2, R-3 and the organization of serial production of the R-1 missile are related to the work on the Berkut and Komet, to entrust the supervision of the work of ministries and departments to create the specified missiles to the Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, comrade Beria LP.
And the situation with the development of long-range missiles in the USSR, and this was becoming an increasingly important task, immediately began to improve. Already on December 10, 1951, the R-1 long-range missile with a flight range of 270 kilometers with a warhead containing 750 kilograms of explosive with a dispersion in range of plus or minus eight kilometers, lateral - plus or minus four kilometers, was adopted for service. This was only the beginning - not very successful, but after all, back in the summer, Beria's predecessors could not establish mass production of the P-1 at the Dnepropetrovsk Automobile Plant (the future Yuzhmash).
They began to prepare engineering personnel for the emerging rocket industry, improve the life of the developers - everything went according to the business scheme worked out by Beria and his associates …
Let's return to the spring days of 1946, when on April 14 and 29 in Stalin's Kremlin office two meetings were held on the topic of missiles, and on May 13 the Council of Ministers of the USSR issued Decree No. 1017-419ss "On issues of jet armament."
As the reader already knows, then a Special Committee on Reactive Technology was formed under the chairmanship of G. M. Malenkov. Composed of: Ministers of Armament and Communications Industry D. F. Radar under the USSR Council of Ministers Academician A. I. Berg, Minister of Agricultural Engineering (the "peaceful" name covered up the defense profile) P. N. Goremykin, Deputy Chief of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (since December 1946 - Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR) And A. Serov, Head of the 1st Main Directorate of the USSR Ministry of Armaments N. E. Nosovsky.
Let us note here Pyotr Ivanovich Kirpichnikov (1903-1980). Lavrenty Pavlovich noticed him at the beginning of the war. There were other people in Malenkov's Special Committee who had long and firmly associated with Beria in a business way: the same Ivan Serov and Dmitry Ustinov. Let us refer to PI Kachur, the author of the article “Missile technology of the USSR: the post-war period until 1948” in No. 6 of the journal of the Russian Academy of Sciences “Energia” for 2007: “In fact, LP Beria was in charge of rocketry. GM Malenkov did not deal with organizational and production issues and was the formal chairman of the committee …
The role of personality
B. Ye. Chertok confirms that Malenkov and Bulganin, who soon replaced him, “did not play a special role in the formation … of the industry. Their high role was reduced to viewing or signing draft resolutions that were prepared by the committee staff."
Everything repeated itself, as in the case of the "aviator" Malenkov and the "tankman" Molotov during the war. They were presiding then, and Beria pulled the cart, although this was not immediately formalized.
Moreover, the role of the latter in the formation of the Soviet missile industry is all the more significant since the developers of this technology, in addition to Beria, had only one influential supporter in the country's top leadership at first - Stalin himself. Aircraft designers, excluding Lavochkin, looked at the new type of weapon, to put it mildly, with restraint. As, however, at first, and for jet aircraft. According to the testimony of the same Chertok, Alexander Sergeevich Yakovlev “was unfriendly to … work on BI (missile interceptor Bereznyak and Isaev with LRE Dushkin. - S. B.) and to the work of A. M. Cradle on the first domestic version of a turbojet engine”and even published a sensational article in Pravda, where he characterized German work in the field of jet aircraft as the agony of fascist engineering thought.
The generals did not favor the new technology (which had yet to become a weapon). In 1948, at a meeting with Stalin, Marshal of Artillery Yakovlev sharply spoke out against the adoption of missiles for service, explaining the refusal by their complexity and low reliability, as well as the fact that the same tasks are being solved by aviation.
Sergei Korolev was equally sharp in favor, but in 1948 Marshal Yakovlev and “Colonel” Korolev were sizes of very different calibers. But Beria supported the project immediately. Actually, the fact that missile affairs initially began to be supervised by the People's Commissar of Armaments Ustinov (who to some extent can be considered "Beria's man"), and not the People's Commissar of the aviation industry Shakhurin (so to speak, "Malenkov's protégé") immediately reveals the influence of Lavrenty Pavlovich.
But in vain we will look for his name in the annals of Soviet rocketry. Well at least our current "nuclear" history did not disdain the "satrap" and "executioner" Beria, and his outstanding role in the national atomic project is now universally recognized. Meanwhile, this major figure of his time, falsely accused in 1953, has not been rehabilitated to this day.
It's time to …
After Beria became the officially appointed curator of not only the atomic, but also the missile program, the industry began to firmly stand on its feet. The development of work on long-range missiles proceeded at an ever-increasing pace. On February 13, 1953, the USSR Council of Ministers adopted a resolution No. 442-212ss / op "On the plan for development work on long-range missiles for 1953-1955." By October, for test tests, it was required to submit an R-5 ballistic missile with an aiming range of 1200 kilometers with a maximum deviation: in range - plus or minus six kilometers, lateral - plus or minus five kilometers. It was already a success. And by August 1955, R-12 missiles with a range of 1,500 kilometers were expected with the same maximum deviations from the target as for the R-5. But Lavrenty Pavlovich could no longer rejoice at the successful results, including his personal efforts.
