In the poor Koshkin family living in the Yaroslavl province, in December 1898, son Michael was born on December 3. The boy was left without a father early and from the age of eleven began to work at the Moscow Confectionery Factory. During the Civil War of 1917 he went to the front. After being wounded in the same year, in August, he was discharged. After a course of rehabilitation treatment, he returned to military service as a volunteer. He took part in the battles near Tsaritsyn (1919), in the battles with Wrangel. For this period of time Mikhail Koshkin managed to get sick with typhus. The biography of the design engineer will be considered in this article.
First steps towards a dream
The twentieth century was famous for its massive enthusiasm for people with various techniques. People have learned how to control hardware constructed from iron and powered by a motor. Man was subdued by the power of these machines and was delighted with the capabilities of his own brain. Almost every Soviet engineer of that time dreamed of conquering earth and sky. The zeal of engineers was of great benefit to the dying empire. The gaining power of the Country of the Soviets set itself the tasks in which machines were supposed to work in the fields, transport goods and people, and defend borders. Everyone invested in the technical development of that time: money, labor, ideas, people's lives. Before those who designed the equipment (tanks, cars, planes), they bowed, idolized them.
Koshkin was sent to study at the Moscow Communist University immediately after the end of military service in 1921. In 1924, after graduating, he was appointed director of the confectionery factory of the city of Vyatka. In 1927, Mikhail Koshkin joined the Vyatka Provincial Party Committee, where he became the head of the department of agitation and propaganda. In 1929, he was among the workers who were recruited to universities to prepare replacement (by party personnel) for old specialists (intelligentsia).
At the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute, Mikhail Koshkin studied at the Department of Automobiles and Tractors. In 1934, becoming a certified specialist, he went to work as a designer at the experimental engineering plant No. 185 of the city of Leningrad. He was one of the designers of the T-29-5, T-46-5 in the Security Committee . It took him only a year to become deputy general designer. And in 1936, Koshkin Mikhail Ilyich received the Order of the Red Star.
The hard way of a leader
In December 1936, on December 18, People's Commissar Grigory Konstantinovich Ordzhonikidze issued an order to appoint Mikhail Ilyich Koshkin to the post of head of the TKB of Plant No. 183. At this time, the security committee had a difficult personnel situation. With a note “for sabotage” his predecessor Afanasy Osipovich Firsov was taken into custody, and interrogations of the designers were conducted.
The summer of 1937 brought changes to the safety committee, the employees had to divide responsibilities and split into two camps: the first carried out experimental design work, the second - engaged in serial production of equipment.
The BT-9 tank project was the first project that Koshkin was involved in, but because of the presence of design errors and non-compliance with the requirements of the tasks, it was rejected. The Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army of the Armored Command ordered the plant No. 183 to create a new BT-20 tank.
In view of the weakness of the enterprise’s safety committee, a separate design bureau was created at the plant, and Adolf Dick, adjutant of the Military Academy of Mechanization and Motorization of the Worker and Peasant Red Army, was appointed its head. It included some engineers from the plant’s design bureau and graduates of this academy. Work on the development took place in difficult conditions: the arrests taking place at the plant did not stop.
Koshkin Mikhail Ilyich, whose biography is brought to your attention in the article, despite the chaos around us, along with the engineers working at Firsov, he worked on the drawings, which were to become the basis for the development of a new tank.
With a delay of almost two months, the design bureau under the direction of Dick developed the BT-20 project. Due to work that was not completed on time, an anonymous letter was written on the head of the security committee, which entailed the arrest of Dick and his subsequent conviction for a term of twenty years. Although Adolf Dick spent little time on the issue of machine mobility, his contribution to the development of the T-34 was considerable (installation of the chassis, another track roller).
hit or miss
For the experiments, a pair of T-34 tanks were created, and on February 10 in 1940 they were sent for testing. In 1940, in March, Mikhail Ilyich traveled from Kharkov to Moscow, tanks get on their own, despite the weather conditions and condition of the equipment (they were very worn out after testing). Government representatives familiarized themselves with tanks on March 17 of the same year. After testing in the suburbs, it was decided to immediately begin their production.
A magnificent designer without higher education, Morozov Alexander in technical matters became the right hand of M. Koshkin. Also involved in the process was designer Kucherenko Nikolay, a former deputy. Firsova. Together with their families, they could take a walk on a weekend in Gorky Park, go to football with the whole composition of the security committee. But they could work 18 hours without rest. Koshkin came to the plant as an outsider, but managed under his command to unite different people doing a common thing.
He came up with a name for his offspring a long time ago, his meeting with Kirov played the main role in 1934, it was then that the first steps began to create the tank of his dreams, so the T-34.
Irreparable loss
M. Koshkin had to pay dearly for this success. The combination of a number of reasons provoked pneumonia. Despite this, he continued to lead the work until the disease worsened. This led to the removal of one of the lungs. Koshkin Mikhail Ilyich died in 1940 on September 26 during a rehabilitation course in a sanatorium near Kharkov.
Unfortunately, it was not possible to save the grave of this great designer. Since in 1941, Hitler declared Koshkin personally his enemy. German pilots were given the task of destroying his grave - they attacked the cemetery.
Mikhail Ilyich Koshkin, whose brief biography is described in the article, died, but the tanks created according to his idea throughout the war were irreplaceable assistants.
Oblivion
Voroshilov asked to give the tank the name of the leader, but Koshkin agreed. Perhaps this played one of the important roles in the fate of the tank and its creator.
In 1982, it became known that Mikhail Koshkin did not receive a single award for his services. All other participants in the creation of the T-34 bore the title Hero of the Soviet Union. For 50 years they were silent about his feat. Mikhail Koshkin was the only one who insisted that the wheel-tracked tank should be left in the past. He paid with his life for the timely start of the creation of T-34 tanks. This is what made it possible to release 1225 T-34 tanks by June 22, 1945, which helped reduce human losses in battles.
Residents of Pereslavl did not suspect that their fellow countryman M.I. Koshkin was the very creator of the T-34 victory tank. In 1982, a request was written to confer the title of Hero of the Soviet Union M.I. Koshkin, who did not receive approval (since it is not timed to a round date). Pereslavlians concluded that the name of the creator of the T-34 is not accidentally deleted from the historical pages.
The reward that found the hero
Denial of war and labor veterans did not stop. They expressed their disagreement with the decision made and asked as a gift to the current generation to assign Koshkin the posthumously deserved title of Hero of the Soviet Union twice, timed to coincide with the 45th anniversary of the Great Victory. The letter was addressed to the President of the USSR in 1990. Koshkin Mikhail Ilyich, whose main dates in your life are already known, by a presidential decree of the USSR on May 9, 1990, was posthumously awarded the title Hero of Socialist Labor.
Rewards Received
Koshkin MI, whose life story can serve as a vivid example for many generations, was awarded the following awards:
- Order of the Red Star.
- Stalin Prize (posthumous).
- Hero of Socialist Labor (posthumous).
- The order of Lenin.
Koshkin through the eyes of his children
Koshkin was married. His wife Vera Koshkina (nee Shibykina) gave birth to three daughters: Elizabeth, Tamara and Tatyana. They managed to survive the Great Patriotic War. After graduation, they remained to live in different cities. Elizabeth in Novosibirsk (after the collapse of the USSR she came there from Kazakhstan), Tamara and Tatyana in Kharkov. They say about his father that he was cheerful, was fond of football, cinema. He was not a scandalous person. They do not remember the case when Koshkin spoke in high tones. He had one very bad habit - smoking.
To remember
A monument to Koshkin has been standing in Kharkov since May 1985, but next to the village where Mikhail Ilyich (Brynchagi) was born, a monument was erected to his brainchild - the T-34 tank. In Brynchagi there is a monument to the designer himself. In the city of Kirov on Spasskaya street, 31, there is a memorial plaque of M.I. Koshkin, because he lived in this house. The same board was installed at his place of study in Kharkov (Pushkina, 54/2).
Director V. Semakov made the film "Chief Designer" about the life and work of Mikhail Koshkin. The main character in this film was played by Boris Nevzorov.
The hero of Socialist Labor, Koshkin Mikhail Ilyich, the father of the T-34 tank, is one of the examples of that selfless and somewhat unique generation. Bright memory to this wonderful person.