By the widely used term “USSR Atomic Project” it is customary to understand an extensive complex of fundamental scientific research, the purpose of which was to create weapons of mass destruction based on nuclear energy. This also included the development of appropriate technologies and their practical implementation in the framework of the military-industrial complex of the Soviet Union.
How was nuclear porridge brewed?
The birth of the USSR atomic project began in the 1920s, and related work was carried out mainly by employees of the scientific centers created in Leningrad - the Radievsky and Physicotechnical Institutes. Along with them, Moscow and Kharkov specialists worked. In the 30s and until the beginning of World War II, the main emphasis was placed on research in the field of radiochemistry, a science that studies the processes associated with the decay of radioactive isotopes. The successes achieved precisely in this field of knowledge paved the way for the subsequent implementation of plans to create the most deadly weapons in the history of mankind. During the perestroika period, documents were issued related to the first atomic project in the USSR. A photo of one of these publications is placed in our article.
During the years of World War II, the work that had been started before did not stop, but their volumes were significantly reduced, since most of the material, technical and human resources were used to achieve victory over fascism. The studies that were carried out were carried out in a regime of increased secrecy and were controlled by the NKVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs) of the USSR. The atomic project and all the developments associated with it were given special importance, as a result of which they were constantly in the field of view of the country's top party leadership and personally of I.V. Stalin.
Soviet agents in the West
It should be noted that other states, such as the USA and Great Britain, which conducted the development of atomic programs and took part in the Second World War, energetically continued their research during this period. In September 1941, information was received from foreign intelligence channels that the staff of their research centers had achieved results that allowed them to create and use the atomic bomb before the war ended, and thereby affect its outcome in a direction that was beneficial to them. Confirmation of this was the report received in Moscow by the British diplomat Donald McLain, recruited by the NKVD officers in the mid-30s and becoming their secret agent.
At the beginning of 1942, on the initiative of Colonel L. R. Kvasnikov, head of the NKVD scientific and technical department, active measures were taken to obtain data on the results of research conducted in American scientific centers with a view to their use in the USSR atomic project. Solving the tasks set for it, Soviet intelligence relied heavily on the assistance of a number of prominent American physicists who understood the danger to mankind that a monopoly on the possession of nuclear weapons could pose, in whatever hands it might be. Among them were such prominent researchers as Theodore Hall, Georges Cowal, Klaus Fuchs, and David Greenglas.
Fearless Vardo and her husband
However, the main merit in obtaining the most valuable information belongs to a couple of Soviet intelligence agents who acted in the United States under the guise of employees of a trade mission - Vasily Mikhailovich Zarubin and his wife Elizaveta Yulievna, whose true name remained hidden under the pseudonym Vardo for many years. Being a Romanian Jew by her origin, she was fluent in five European languages. Gifted by nature with a rare charm, and having perfectly mastered the recruitment method, Elizabeth managed to make many employees of the American nuclear center voluntary or involuntary employees of the NKVD.
According to colleagues, Vardo was among them the most qualified agent, and it was she who was entrusted with the most critical operations. On the basis of information obtained by her and her husband, a message was sent to Moscow that the leading American physicist Robert Oppenheimer, in collaboration with a number of his colleagues, had begun to create some kind of superweapon, which meant the atomic bomb.
Soviet intelligence network in America
The key figures in the creation of the agent network, which was used to receive and transmit valuable information to Moscow, were two people: the NKVD resident in San Francisco, Grigory Kheifits, who appeared in the reports under the pseudonym Charon, and his closest assistant, intelligence colonel S. Ya. Semenov (pseudonym Twain). They managed to establish the exact location of the secret laboratory in which work was underway to create nuclear weapons.
As it turned out, it was located in the city of Los Alamos (New Mexico), in the territory that once belonged to the juvenile delinquency colony. In addition, the code of the atomic project and the exact composition of its developers were established, among which were several people who participated at the invitation of the Soviet government in Stalin's construction projects and openly showed leftist views. A relationship was established with them, and after a thorough recruitment through them, documents and materials, essential for the implementation of the USSR atomic project, began to arrive through Moscow.
The recruitment conducted among the employees of the American nuclear center and the introduction of their agents into their composition brought the expected result: as evidenced by a number of archival materials, only twelve days after the assembly of the world's first nuclear bomb was completed, its detailed technical description was delivered to Moscow and presented for consideration by the competent authorities. This has greatly reduced the cost of the "Atomic Project of the USSR" and significantly reduced the time for its implementation.
Post-war achievements of Soviet intelligence
The work of Soviet agents in America continued after the end of World War II. So, in July 1945, secret documents were transferred to Moscow containing a report on a nuclear bomb test explosion conducted at the Alamogordo test site (New Mexico). Thanks to this information, it became known that a potential adversary was developing a new, at that time, method of electromagnetic separation of uranium isotopes, which was then used in the atomic project of the USSR.
It is curious to note that all information obtained by Soviet agents was transmitted over the radio in the form of encrypted reports and became the property of American radio interception services. However, neither the location of the spy radios nor the contents of the messages they sent could be established for many years thanks to a special encryption method developed on the instructions of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the USSR. American specialists managed to solve this problem only in the early 50s, after the creation of a new generation of computers, but by this time hundreds of documents obtained and intended for the implementation of the USSR atomic project had already been included in domestic developments.
Important Government Initiative
However, one should not think that thermonuclear weapons appeared in the arsenals of the Soviet Union only thanks to the efforts of foreign intelligence. This is far from the case. It is known that on September 28, 1942, a government decree was issued on measures to accelerate the development of the atomic project in the USSR. The start date of this next stage of scientific research is not accidental. At the end of April this year, the battle for Moscow ended victoriously, which, in the opinion of historians, determined the outcome of the entire Second World War, and the Kremlin leadership in its entirety faced a question related to the further alignment of forces on the world stage. In this regard, possession of nuclear weapons could play a key role.
Among the documents and materials of the USSR atomic project stored in the archives of the Armed Forces there is a government circular dating from the beginning of October 1942 and addressed directly to the head of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Academician A.F. Ioffe. It ordered as soon as possible to resume work carried out earlier, but suspended in connection with the outbreak of war, on the fission of the uranium nucleus and the creation of the latest atomic weapons based on this technology. The progress of research should be reported to the country's top leadership. In the same document, the NKVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs) and the State Defense Committee were indicated as curators of the USSR atomic project.
Emergency measures
The work began immediately, and already in April of that year, a secret "Laboratory No. 2" was created on the basis of the USSR Academy of Sciences, where under the leadership of its head - Academician I. V. Kurchatov (the future "father of the Soviet atomic bomb") - the interrupted earlier resumed research.
At the same time, the People’s Commissariat of the Chemical Industry and its leader M. G. Pervukhin were given the task: to build a number of enterprises for the production of raw materials for plants serving to separate uranium isotopes within the framework of the Atomic Project of the USSR. It is noted that by the end of 1944 the bulk of the work had been completed, and at the first, then still experimental installation, 500 kg of uranium metal was obtained, and “Laboratory No. 2” received all the necessary number of graphite blocks at that time.
Chasing atomic trophies
As you know, the Third Reich nuclear scientists also worked on creating an atomic bomb, and only the surrender of Germany, signed in May 1945, prevented their completion. The results of their research represented a rich trophy and attracted the attention of the governments of the victorious countries.
Since by the time World War II ended, America already had its own atomic bomb, it was important for her not so much to get German technical documentation as to stop the Soviet special services from doing this. In addition, the uranium stocks located in the occupied territory were of significant interest to both parties. The head of the main center for American nuclear research, Robert Oppenheimer, insistently demanded that the army command find them and export them to the United States. The authors of the atomic project in the USSR pursued the same goals, the implementation of which was approaching its final stage.
In the spring of 1945, a real hunt for the German nuclear legacy began, the success in which, sadly, turned out to be on the side of our ideological opponents. They seized and exported to America not only technical documents, but also German specialists themselves, although they were not of interest to them, but could benefit the opposing side. In addition, large reserves of radioactive uranium and the equipment of the mines in which it was mined became their property.
In this case, the State Defense Committee, directly supervising the Atomic Project of the USSR, and the NKVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs) proved to be powerless. This was briefly reported back in the time of the Khrushchev thaw, and more detailed information became available to the general public only during the years of perestroika. In particular, this issue was covered in detail in published memoirs of the Soviet intelligence and saboteur Pavel Sudoplatov, who said that the NKVD officers still managed to capture several tons of enriched uranium from the repositories of the German research center Kaiser Wilhelm.
Imbalance in the world arena
After the American Air Force launched a nuclear attack on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and Nagasaki suffered the same fate three days later, the political situation in the world underwent dramatic changes and demanded that the implementation of the atomic project in the USSR be accelerated as much as possible. The goals of the authors of this document, formulated back in the late 30s and then adjusted to reflect the conditions of wartime, received new outlines in connection with the imbalance of the balance of power on the world stage.
Now that the destructive power of nuclear weapons has been clearly demonstrated, their possession has become not only a factor determining the status of a state, but also the most important condition for its existence in the regime of confrontation between two political systems. In this regard, the further costs of creating an atomic bomb began to exceed many times all other costs of the defense industry of the Soviet Union.
"Nuclear shield", which has become a reality
Thanks to the efforts made, the creation of the “nuclear shield of the Motherland,” as atomic weapons were called in those years, was in full swing. The experimental design bureaus, who were tasked with creating equipment capable of producing uranium enriched on the basis of the 235 isotope, were created in Leningrad, Novosibirsk, and also in the Middle Urals, near the village of Verkh-Neyvinsky. In addition, several laboratories appeared in which the development of heavy water reactors designed for plutonium 239 was carried out. Every year an increasing number of highly skilled specialists were involved in the implementation of the Atomic Program.
The first successful test of the Soviet atomic bomb took place on August 29, 1949 at a training ground in Semipalatinsk (Kazakhstan). Despite the fact that the experiment was conducted in an atmosphere of increased secrecy, after three days, the Americans, taking air samples in the Kamchatka region, discovered radioactive isotopes in them, indicating that from now on they had lost a monopoly on the deadliest weapons in human history. Since that time, a deadly race has begun between states located on opposite sides of the Iron Curtain, whose leader was determined by the level of nuclear potential at his disposal. This served as an incentive for further, even more intensive work within the framework of the USSR atomic project, which is briefly described in our article.