August 29, 1949 at 7 am Moscow time at the Semipalatinsk training ground No. 2 of the Ministry Armed Forces successfully tested the first Soviet atomic bomb RDS-1.
The first Soviet atomic bomb RDS-1 was created at KB-11 (now the Russian Federal Nuclear Center, VNIIEF) under the scientific supervision of Igor Vasilievich Kurchatov and Yuli Borisovich Khariton. In 1946, Yu. B. Khariton drew up the terms of reference for the development of an atomic bomb, structurally reminiscent of the American Fat Man bomb. The RDS-1 bomb was a plutonium aviation atomic bomb of a characteristic “drop-shaped” shape with a mass of 4.7 tons, a diameter of 1.5 m and a length of 3.3 m.
Before atomic explosion the operability of systems and mechanisms of the bomb when dropped from an aircraft was successfully tested without a plutonium charge. On August 21, 1949, a plutonium charge and four neutron fuses were delivered to the test site by a special train, one of which was to be used to detonate a military product. Kurchatov, in accordance with the instructions of L.P. Beria, ordered the testing of RDS-1 on August 29 at 8 am local time.
On the night of August 29, the charge was assembled, and the final installation was completed by 3 o'clock in the morning. Over the next three hours the charge was raised to the test tower, equipped with fuses and connected to a subversive circuit. Members of the special committee L.P. Beria, M.G. Pervukhin and V.A. Makhnev supervised the progress of the final operations. However, due to the worsening weather, it was decided to carry out all the work provided for by the approved regulations with a shift one hour earlier.
At 6:35 a.m. the operators turned on the power of the automation system, and at 6:48. the test field machine was turned on. Exactly at 7 am on August 29 at the test site in Semipalatinsk, the first atomic bomb of the Soviet Union was successfully tested. In 20 minutes. after the explosion, two tanks equipped with lead shielding were sent to the center of the field to conduct radiation reconnaissance and inspect the center of the field.
October 28, 1949 L.P. Beria reported I. V. Stalin about the test results of the first atomic bomb. For the successful development and testing of the atomic bomb by the Decree of the Presidium Supreme Council USSR dated October 29, 1949, a large group of leading researchers, designers, and technologists was awarded orders and medals of the USSR; many were awarded the title of laureates of the Stalin Prize, and the direct developers of the nuclear charge - the title of Hero of Socialist Labor.
Lit .: Andryushin I. A., Chernyshev A. K., Yudin Yu. A. Taming the nucleus: pages of the history of nuclear weapons and nuclear infrastructure of the USSR. Sarov, 2003; Goncharov G. A., Ryabev L. D. About the creation of the first domestic bomb // Atomic project of the USSR. Documents and materials. Book. 6. M., 2006. S. 33; Gubarev B. White archipelago: some little-known pages from the history of the creation of the A-bomb // Science and Life. 2000. no. 3; Nuclear tests of the USSR. Sarov, 1997. T. 1.
The development of Soviet nuclear weapons began with the extraction of samples of radium in the early 1930s. In 1939, Soviet physicists Yuli Khariton and Yakov Zel'dovich calculated the chain reaction of nuclear fission of heavy atoms. The following year, scientists from the Ukrainian Institute of Physics and Technology submitted applications for the creation of an atomic bomb, as well as methods for producing uranium-235. For the first time, researchers proposed using conventional explosives as a means to ignite the charge, which would create a critical mass and start a chain reaction.
However, the invention of the Kharkov physicists had its shortcomings, and therefore their application, having managed to visit various authorities, was ultimately rejected. The decisive word was left to the director of the Radium Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Academician Vitaly Khlopin: “... the application has no real basis. In addition, there is in fact a lot of fantastic in it ... Even if it were possible to realize a chain reaction, then the energy that is released is better used to drive engines, for example, aircraft.
The appeals of scientists on the eve of the Great Patriotic War to People's Commissar of Defense Sergei Timoshenko. As a result, the project of the invention was buried on a shelf labeled "top secret".
- Vladimir Semyonovich Spinel
- Wikimedia Commons
In 1990, journalists asked Vladimir Shpinel, one of the authors of the bomb project: “If your proposals in 1939-1940 were duly appreciated at the government level and you were given support, when could the USSR have atomic weapons?”
“I think that with such opportunities that Igor Kurchatov later had, we would have received it in 1945,” Spinel replied.
However, it was Kurchatov who managed to use in his developments the successful American schemes for creating a plutonium bomb obtained by Soviet intelligence.
nuclear race
With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, nuclear research was temporarily stopped. The main scientific institutes of the two capitals were evacuated to remote regions.
The head of strategic intelligence, Lavrenty Beria, was aware of the developments of Western physicists in the field of nuclear weapons. For the first time, the Soviet leadership learned about the possibility of creating a superweapon from the "father" of the American atomic bomb, Robert Oppenheimer, who visited Soviet Union in September 1939. In the early 1940s, both politicians and scientists realized the reality of getting nuclear bomb, as well as the fact that its appearance in the arsenal of the enemy will endanger the security of other powers.
In 1941, the Soviet government received the first intelligence from the United States and Great Britain, where the active work to create a superweapon. The main informant was the Soviet "atomic spy" Klaus Fuchs, a German physicist involved in the US and British nuclear programs.
- Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, physicist Pyotr Kapitsa
- RIA News
- V. Noskov
Academician Pyotr Kapitsa, speaking on October 12, 1941 at an anti-fascist rally of scientists, said: “One of important funds modern war are explosives. Science indicates the fundamental possibilities to increase the explosive force by 1.5-2 times ... Theoretical calculations show that if modern powerful bomb can, for example, destroy an entire city block, then an atomic bomb of even a small size, if feasible, could easily destroy a large metropolitan city with several million inhabitants. My personal opinion is that the technical difficulties that stand in the way of using intra-atomic energy are still very great. So far, this case is still doubtful, but it is very likely that there are great opportunities here.
In September 1942, the Soviet government adopted a resolution "On the organization of work on uranium". spring next year Laboratory No. 2 of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR was created to produce the first Soviet bomb. Finally, on February 11, 1943, Stalin signed the decision of the GKO on the program of work to create an atomic bomb. Lead at first important task instructed the Deputy Chairman of the GKO Vyacheslav Molotov. It was he who had to find the scientific director of the new laboratory.
Molotov himself, in a note dated July 9, 1971, recalls his decision as follows: “We have been working on this topic since 1943. I was instructed to answer for them, to find such a person who could carry out the creation of an atomic bomb. The Chekists gave me a list of reliable physicists who could be relied upon, and I chose. He summoned Kapitsa to himself, an academician. He said that we were not ready for this and that the atomic bomb was not a weapon of this war, but a matter for the future. Ioffe was asked - he, too, somehow vaguely reacted to this. In short, I had the youngest and still unknown Kurchatov, he was not given a go. I called him, we talked, he made a good impression on me. But he said he still had a lot of ambiguities. Then I decided to give him the materials of our intelligence - the intelligence officers did a very important job. Kurchatov spent several days in the Kremlin, with me, over these materials.
Over the next couple of weeks, Kurchatov thoroughly studied the data obtained by intelligence and drew up an expert opinion: “The materials are of tremendous, invaluable importance for our state and science ... The totality of information indicates the technical possibility of solving the entire uranium problem in a much shorter time than our scientists think who are not familiar with the progress of work on this problem abroad.
In mid-March, Igor Kurchatov took over as scientific director of Laboratory No. 2. In April 1946, for the needs of this laboratory, it was decided to create a design bureau KB-11. The top-secret object was located on the territory of the former Sarov Monastery, a few tens of kilometers from Arzamas.
- Igor Kurchatov (right) with a group of employees of the Leningrad Institute of Physics and Technology
- RIA News
KB-11 specialists were supposed to create an atomic bomb using plutonium as a working substance. At the same time, in the process of creating the first nuclear weapon in the USSR, domestic scientists relied on the schemes of the US plutonium bomb, which was successfully tested in 1945. However, since the production of plutonium in the Soviet Union was not yet involved, physicists at the initial stage used uranium mined in Czechoslovak mines, as well as in the territories of East Germany, Kazakhstan and Kolyma.
The first Soviet atomic bomb was named RDS-1 ("Special Jet Engine"). A group of specialists led by Kurchatov managed to load a sufficient amount of uranium into it and start a chain reaction in the reactor on June 10, 1948. The next step was to use plutonium.
"This is atomic lightning"
In the plutonium "Fat Man", dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, American scientists laid 10 kilograms of radioactive metal. The USSR managed to accumulate such a quantity of substance by June 1949. The head of the experiment, Kurchatov, informed the curator of the atomic project, Lavrenty Beria, that he was ready to test the RDS-1 on August 29.
A part of the Kazakh steppe with an area of about 20 kilometers was chosen as a testing ground. In its central part, experts built a metal tower almost 40 meters high. It was on it that the RDS-1 was installed, the mass of which was 4.7 tons.
The Soviet physicist Igor Golovin describes the situation that prevailed at the test site a few minutes before the start of the tests: “Everything is fine. And suddenly, with a general silence, ten minutes before “one”, Beria’s voice is heard: “But nothing will work out for you, Igor Vasilyevich!” - “What are you, Lavrenty Pavlovich! It will definitely work!" - exclaims Kurchatov and continues to watch, only his neck turned purple and his face became gloomy and concentrated.
To Abram Ioyrysh, a prominent scientist in the field of atomic law, Kurchatov’s condition seems similar to a religious experience: “Kurchatov rushed out of the casemate, ran up an earthen rampart and shouted “She!” waved his arms widely, repeating: “She, she!” and a gleam spread across his face. The pillar of the explosion swirled and went into the stratosphere. Approaching the command post shock wave, clearly visible on the grass. Kurchatov rushed towards her. Flerov rushed after him, grabbed him by the arm, forcibly dragged him into the casemate and closed the door. The author of the biography of Kurchatov, Pyotr Astashenkov, endows his hero with following words: “This is atomic lightning. Now she is in our hands ... "
Immediately after the explosion, the metal tower collapsed to the ground, and only a funnel remained in its place. A powerful shock wave threw highway bridges a couple of tens of meters away, and the cars that were nearby scattered across the open spaces almost 70 meters from the explosion site.
- Nuclear mushroom ground explosion RDS-1 August 29, 1949
- Archive RFNC-VNIIEF
Once, after another test, Kurchatov was asked: “Are you not worried about the moral side of this invention?”
“You asked a legitimate question,” he replied. But I think it's misdirected. It is better to address it not to us, but to those who unleashed these forces... It is not physics that is terrible, but an adventurous game, not science, but the use of it by scoundrels... When science makes a breakthrough and opens up the possibility for actions that affect millions of people, the need arises to rethink the norms of morality in order to bring these actions under control. But nothing of the sort happened. Rather the opposite. Just think about it - Churchill's speech in Fulton, military bases, bombers along our borders. The intentions are very clear. Science has been turned into an instrument of blackmail and the main determinant of politics. Do you think morality will stop them? And if this is the case, and this is the case, you have to talk to them in their language. Yes, I know that the weapon we have created is an instrument of violence, but we were forced to create it in order to avoid more heinous violence!” - the answer of the scientist in the book of Abram Ioyrysh and nuclear physicist Igor Morokhov "A-bomb" is described.
A total of five RDS-1 bombs were manufactured. All of them were stored in the closed city of Arzamas-16. Now you can see the model of the bomb in the nuclear weapons museum in Sarov (former Arzamas-16).
Creation of the Soviet atomic bomb (military-strategic part of the "USSR Atomic Project")- story fundamental research, development of technologies and their practical implementation in the Soviet Union, aimed at creating weapons mass destruction using nuclear energy. These events were to a large extent stimulated by activities in this direction. scientific institutions and the military industry of the West, including in Nazi Germany, and in the future - the United States.
In 1930-1941, work was actively carried out in the nuclear field.
In this decade, fundamental radiochemical research was also carried out, without which any understanding of these problems, their development, and, even more so, their implementation, would be inconceivable. All-Union conferences of the USSR Academy of Sciences on nuclear physics were held, in which domestic and foreign researchers took part, working not only in the field of atomic physics, but also in other related disciplines - geochemistry, physical chemistry, inorganic chemistry and etc.
Science centers
Work, since the beginning of the 1920s, has been intensively developed at the Radium Institute and at the first Phystech (both in Leningrad), at the Ukrainian Institute of Physics and Technology, and at the Institute of Chemical Physics in Moscow.
Academician V. G. Khlopin was considered an indisputable authority in this area. Also, a serious contribution was made, among many others, by the employees of the Radium Institute: G. A. Gamov, I. V. Kurchatov and L. V. Mysovsky (creators of the first cyclotron in Europe), Fritz Lange (created the first project - 1940), and also founder of the Institute of Chemical Physics N. N. Semyonov. Soviet project supervised by the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR V. M. Molotov.
In 1941, research on atomic problems was classified. The attack of Germany on June 22, 1941 on the Soviet Union largely led to the fact that in the USSR they were forced to reduce the volume of nuclear research, including research on the possibility of a fission chain reaction, while in the UK and the USA, work on this problem continued vigorously .
The role of the activities of the Radium Institute
Meanwhile, the chronology of research carried out by employees of the Radium Institute in Leningrad suggests that work in this direction were not curtailed completely, which was largely facilitated by pre-war fundamental research, and which affected their subsequent development, and, as will be clear from the future, was of paramount importance for the project as a whole; in retrospect, and looking ahead, we can state the following: back in 1938, the first laboratory of artificial radioactive elements in the USSR was created here (headed by A. E. Polesitsky); in 1939, the works of V. G. Khlopin, L. V. Mysovsky, A. P. Zhdanov, N. A. Perfilov and other researchers on the fission of a uranium nucleus under the action of neutrons were published; in 1940, G. N. Flerov and K. A. Petrzhak discovered the phenomena of spontaneous fission of heavy nuclei using uranium as an example; - under the chairmanship of V. G. Khlopin, the Uranium Commission of the USSR Academy of Sciences was formed, in 1942, during the evacuation of the institute, A. P. Zhdanov and L. V. Mysovsky opened the new kind nuclear fission - the complete collapse of the atomic nucleus under the action of multiply charged particles cosmic rays; in 1943, V. G. Khlopin sent a letter to the State Defense Committee and the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, giving justification for the mandatory participation of the Radium Institute in the "uranium project"; - The Radium Institute was entrusted with the development of a technology for separating eka-rhenium (Z = 93) and eka-osmium (Z = 94) from neutron-irradiated uranium; in 1945, with the help of a cyclotron, the first domestic preparation of plutonium in pulsed quantities was obtained; - under the leadership of B. S. Dzhelepov, work began on beta and gamma spectroscopy of nuclei; - The Radium Institute was entrusted with: checking and testing methods for plutonium separation, studying the chemistry of plutonium, developing technological scheme separation of plutonium from irradiated uranium, issuance of technological data to the plant; in 1946, the development of the first domestic technology for obtaining plutonium from irradiated uranium was completed (headed by V. G. Khlopin); The Radium Institute, together with the GIPH designers (Ya. I. Zilberman, N. K. Khovansky), issued the technological part of the design assignment for object "B" ("Blue Book"), containing all the necessary primary data for the design of a radiochemical plant; in 1947, G. M. Tolmachev developed a radiochemical method for determining the utilization factor of nuclear fuel at nuclear explosions; in 1948, under the leadership of the Radium Institute and on the basis of the acetate precipitation technology developed by it, the first radiochemical plant in the USSR near Chelyabinsk was launched; by 1949, the amount of plutonium necessary for testing nuclear weapons had been produced; - the first development of polonium-beryllium sources as a fuse for nuclear bombs of the first generation was carried out (headed by D. M. Ziv).
Foreign intelligence information
As early as September 1941, the USSR began to receive intelligence information about the conduct of secret intensive research work in the UK and the USA aimed at developing methods for using atomic energy for military purposes and creating atomic bombs of enormous destructive power. Among the most important documents received back in 1941 by Soviet intelligence is the report of the British "MAUD Committee". From the materials of this report, received through the intelligence channels of the NKVD of the USSR from Donald McLean, it followed that the creation of an atomic bomb was real, that it could probably be created even before the end of the war and, therefore, influence its course.
Intelligence information about work on the problem of atomic energy abroad, which was available in the USSR at the time of the decision to resume work on uranium, was received both through the channels of the NKVD intelligence and through the channels of the Main Intelligence Directorate General Staff(GRU GSH) Red Army.
In May 1942, the leadership of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff informed the Academy of Sciences of the USSR about the presence of reports of work abroad on the problem of using atomic energy for military purposes and asked to be informed whether this problem currently has a real practical basis. The answer to this request in June 1942 was given by V. G. Khlopin, who noted that for Last year the scientific literature almost completely does not publish works related to the solution of the problem of the use of atomic energy.
Official letter from the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs L.P. Beria addressed to I.V. Stalin with information on the work on the use of atomic energy for military purposes abroad, proposals for organizing these works in the USSR and secret acquaintance with the materials of the NKVD of prominent Soviet specialists, the versions of which were prepared by the NKVD officers back in late 1941 - early 1942, were sent to I.V. Stalin only in October 1942, after the adoption of the GKO order to resume work on uranium in the USSR.
Soviet intelligence had detailed information about the work on the creation of an atomic bomb in the United States, which came from specialists who sympathized with the USSR, in particular, Klaus Fuchs, Theodor Hall, Georges Koval and David Gringlas. However, according to some, a letter addressed to Stalin in early 1943 by the Soviet physicist G. Flerov, who managed to explain the essence of the problem in a popular way, was of decisive importance. On the other hand, there is reason to believe that G. N. Flerov's work on the letter to Stalin was not completed and it was not sent.
Launch of the nuclear project
It was adopted just a month and a half after the launch of the US Manhattan Project. It prescribed:
The order provided for the organization for this purpose at the USSR Academy of Sciences of a special laboratory of the atomic nucleus, the creation of laboratory facilities for the separation of uranium isotopes and the implementation of a complex experimental work. The order obligated the Council of People's Commissars of the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic to provide the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in Kazan with a room of 500 square meters. m to accommodate the laboratory of the atomic nucleus and living space for 10 researchers.
Work on the creation of the atomic bomb
On February 11, 1943, GKO resolution No. 2872ss was adopted on the start practical work to build the atomic bomb. The general leadership was entrusted to the Deputy Chairman of the GKO, V. M. Molotov, who, in turn, appointed I. Kurchatov as the head of the atomic project (his appointment was signed on March 10). The information received through intelligence channels facilitated and accelerated the work of Soviet scientists.
On April 12, 1943, Academician A. A. Baikov, vice-president of the USSR Academy of Sciences, signed an order on the creation of Laboratory No. 2 of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Kurchatov was appointed Head of the Laboratory.
State Defense Committee Decree of April 8, 1944 No. 5582ss obliged People's Commissariat chemical industry(M. G. Pervukhina) to design in 1944 a workshop for the production of heavy water and a plant for the production of uranium hexafluoride (raw material for plants for the separation of uranium isotopes), and the People's Commissariat for Non-Ferrous Metallurgy (P. F. Lomako) - to provide in 1944 to obtain 500 kg of metallic uranium at a pilot plant, to build a workshop for the production of metallic uranium by January 1, 1945, and to supply Laboratory No. 2 in 1944 with tens of tons of high-quality graphite blocks.
post-war period
After the occupation of Germany in the United States was created special group, the purpose of which was to prevent the USSR from capturing any data on nuclear project Germany. She also captured German specialists who were not needed by the United States, who already had their own bomb. On April 15, 1945, the American technical commission organized the removal of uranium raw materials from Stassfurt, and within 5-6 days all the uranium was removed along with the documentation related to it; the Americans also completely removed the equipment from the mine in Saxony, where uranium was mined.
Beria reported this to Stalin, who, however, did not raise a fuss; in the future, "lack of interest in uranium" and determined the figure of "10-15 years", which analysts reported to the US president about the estimated time frame for the development of an atomic bomb in the USSR. Later, this mine was restored, and the Wismuth joint venture was organized, which employed German specialists.
However, the NKVD still managed to extract several tons of low-enriched uranium at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute.
On July 24, 1945, in Potsdam, US President Truman informed Stalin that the United States "now has a weapon of extraordinary destructive power." According to Churchill's memoirs, Stalin smiled, but did not become interested in the details, from which Churchill concluded that he did not understand anything and was not aware of the events. Some modern researchers believe that this was blackmail. That same evening, Stalin instructed Molotov to talk with Kurchatov about speeding up work on the atomic project.
On August 20, 1945, to manage the atomic project, the GKO created a Special Committee with emergency powers, headed by L.P. Beria. Under the Special Committee, an executive body was created - the First Main Directorate under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR (PSU). People's Commissar for Armaments B. L. Vannikov was appointed head of the PGU. Numerous enterprises and institutions from other departments were transferred to the PSU, including the scientific and technical department of intelligence, the Main Directorate of Camps for Industrial Construction of the NKVD (GULPS) and the Main Directorate of Camps for Mining and Metallurgical Enterprises of the NKVD (GULGMP) (with a total of 293 thousand prisoners). Stalin's directive obliged PGU to ensure the creation of atomic bombs, uranium and plutonium, in 1948.
On September 28, 1945, the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR "On the additional involvement of scientific institutions, individual scientists and other specialists in the work on the use of intra-atomic energy" was adopted.
In the annex to the document, a list of institutions of the atomic project was given (number 10 was the Physical-Technical Institute of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences and its director K. D. Sinelnikov).
The first priority was to organize industrial production plutonium-239 and uranium-235. To solve the first problem, it was necessary to create experimental, and then industrial nuclear reactors, the construction of radiochemical and special metallurgical shops. To solve the second problem, the construction of a plant for the separation of uranium isotopes by the diffusion method was launched.
The solution of these problems turned out to be possible as a result of the creation of industrial technologies, the organization of production and the development of the necessary large quantities pure metallic uranium, uranium oxide, uranium hexafluoride, other uranium compounds, high purity graphite and a number of other special materials, the creation of a complex of new industrial units and devices. Insufficient production uranium ore and obtaining uranium concentrates in the USSR during this period was compensated by trophy raw materials and products of uranium enterprises of the countries of Eastern Europe with which the USSR entered into relevant agreements.
In 1945, hundreds of German scientists who were related to the nuclear problem were brought from Germany to the USSR on a voluntary-compulsory basis. Most of(about 300 people) were brought to Sukhumi and secretly placed in the former estates of Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich and millionaire Smetsky (Sinop and Agudzery sanatoriums). Equipment was taken to the USSR from the German Institute of Chemistry and Metallurgy, the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physics, Siemens electrical laboratories, and the Physical Institute of the German Post Office. Three of the four German cyclotrons, powerful magnets, electron microscopes, oscilloscopes, transformers high voltage, high-precision instruments were brought to the USSR. In November 1945, the Directorate of Special Institutes (9th Directorate of the NKVD of the USSR) was created as part of the NKVD of the USSR to manage the work on the use of German specialists.
Sanatorium "Sinop" was called "Object" A "" - it was led by Baron Manfred von Ardenne. "Agudzers" became "Object" G "" - it was headed by Gustav Hertz. Outstanding scientists worked at objects A and G - Nikolaus Riehl, Max Vollmer, who built the first heavy water production plant in the USSR, Peter Thyssen, designer for uranium separation Max Steenbeck and owner of the first Western patent for a centrifuge Gernot Zippe. On the basis of objects "A" and "G", the Sukhumi Institute of Physics and Technology was later created.
In 1945, the Government of the USSR made the following major decisions:
- on the creation on the basis of the Kirov Plant (Leningrad) of two special experimental design bureaus designed to develop equipment for the production of uranium enriched in the isotope 235 by the gaseous diffusion method;
- on the start of construction in the Middle Urals (near the village of Verkh-Neyvinsky) of a diffusion plant for the production of enriched uranium-235;
- on the organization of a laboratory for work on the creation of heavy water reactors on natural uranium;
- site selection and construction start Southern Urals the country's first enterprise for the production of plutonium-239.
The structure of the enterprise in the South Urals was to include:
- uranium-graphite reactor on natural (natural) uranium (Plant "A");
- radiochemical production for the separation of plutonium-239 from natural (natural) uranium irradiated in the reactor (plant "B");
- chemical and metallurgical production for the production of high-purity metallic plutonium (Plant "B").
Construction of Chelyabinsk-40
For the construction of the first enterprise in the USSR for the production of plutonium for military purposes, a site was chosen in the Southern Urals near the location of the ancient Ural cities of Kyshtym and Kasli. Site selection surveys were carried out in the summer of 1945; in October 1945, the Government Commission found it expedient to place the first industrial reactor south coast lake Kyzyl-Tash, and under the residential area the choice of a peninsula on the southern shore of Lake Irtyash.
Over time, a whole complex was erected on the site of the selected construction site industrial enterprises, buildings and structures interconnected by a network of roads and railways, a system of heat and power supply, industrial water supply and sewerage. At different times, the secret city was called differently, but the most famous name is Sorokovka or Chelyabinsk-40. Currently industrial complex, originally named plant No. 817, is called the Mayak production association, and the city on the shore of Lake Irtyash, in which Mayak workers and their families live, was named Ozyorsk.
In November 1945, geological surveys began at the selected site, and from the beginning of December, the first builders began to arrive.
The first head of construction (1946-1947) was Ya. D. Rappoport, later he was replaced by Major General M. M. Tsarevsky. The chief construction engineer was V. A. Saprykin, the first director of the future enterprise was P. T. Bystrov (from April 17, 1946), who was replaced by E. P. Slavsky (from July 10, 1947), and then B. G Muzrukov (since December 1, 1947). I. V. Kurchatov was appointed scientific director of the plant.
Construction of Arzamas-16
From the end of 1945, a search began for a place to place a secret facility, which would later be called KB-11. Vannikov instructed to inspect plant No. 550, located in the village of Sarov, and on April 1, 1946, the village was chosen as the location of the first Soviet nuclear center, later known as Arzamas-16. Yu. B. Khariton said that he personally flew around on an airplane and inspected the sites proposed for placing a secret object, and he liked the location of Sarov - a rather deserted area, there is infrastructure (railway, production) and not very far from Moscow.
On April 9, 1946, the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted important decisions concerning the organization of work on the atomic project of the USSR.
Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 803-325ss "Issues of the First Main Directorate under the Council of Ministers of the USSR" provided for a change in the structure of the PSU and the unification of the Technical and Engineering and Technical Councils of the Special Committee into a single Scientific and Technical Council as part of the PSU. B. L. Vannikov was appointed Chairman of the Scientific and Technical Council of PSU, and I. V. Kurchatov and M. G. Pervukhin were appointed Vice-Chairmen of the Scientific and Technical Council. On December 1, 1949, I. V. Kurchatov became the chairman of the Scientific and Technical Council of PSU.
By Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 805-327ss "Questions of Laboratory No. 2", sector No. 6 of this Laboratory was transformed into Design Bureau No. 11 at Laboratory No. 2 of the USSR Academy of Sciences for the development of the design and manufacture of prototypes of jet engines (the code name for atomic bombs).
The resolution provided for the deployment of KB-11 in the area of the village of Sarova on the border of the Gorky region and the Mordovian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (now the city of Sarov, Nizhny Novgorod region, formerly known as Arzamas-16). P. M. Zernov was appointed head of KB-11, and Yu. B. Khariton was appointed chief designer. The construction of KB-11 on the basis of plant No. 550 in the village of Sarov was entrusted to the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs. For all construction works A special construction organization was created - Stroyupravlenie No. 880 of the NKVD of the USSR. Since April 1946, the entire personnel of plant No. 550 was enlisted as workers and employees of Construction Department No. 880.
Products
Development of the design of atomic bombs
Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 1286-525ss "On the plan for the deployment of KB-11 at Laboratory No. 2 of the USSR Academy of Sciences" defined the first tasks of KB-11: the creation under the scientific supervision of Laboratory No. 2 (Academician I. V. Kurchatov) of atomic bombs, conventionally named in the decree "Jet engines C", in two versions - RDS-1 and RDS-2.
Tactical and technical specifications for the design of the RDS-1 and RDS-2 were to be developed by July 1, 1946, and the designs of their main components - by July 1, 1947. The fully manufactured RDS-1 bomb was to be presented for state tests for an explosion when installed on the ground by January 1, 1948, in an aviation version - by March 1, 1948, and the RDS-2 bomb - by June 1, 1948 and January 1, 1949, respectively. be carried out in parallel with the organization in KB-11 of special laboratories and the deployment of these laboratories. Such tight deadlines and organization parallel work also became possible thanks to the receipt in the USSR of some intelligence data on American atomic bombs.
Research laboratories and design units of KB-11 began to deploy their activities directly in Arzamas-16 in the spring of 1947. In parallel, the first production workshops of pilot plants No. 1 and No. 2 were created.
Nuclear reactors
The first experimental nuclear reactor F-1 in the USSR, which was built in Laboratory No. 2 of the USSR Academy of Sciences, was successfully launched on December 25, 1946.
On November 6, 1947, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR, V. M. Molotov, made a statement regarding the secret of the atomic bomb, saying that "this secret has long ceased to exist." This statement meant that the Soviet Union had already discovered the secret of atomic weapons, and they had these weapons at their disposal. US scientific circles regarded this statement by V. M. Molotov as a bluff, believing that the Russians could master atomic weapons no earlier than 1952.
In less than two years, the building of the first nuclear industrial reactor "A" of plant No. 817 was ready, and work began on the installation of the reactor itself. The physical launch of the reactor "A" took place at 00:30 on June 18, 1948, and on June 19 the reactor was brought to design capacity.
On December 22, 1948, the first products with nuclear reactor. At Plant B, the plutonium produced in the reactor was separated from uranium and radioactive fission products. All radiochemical processes for Plant B were developed at the Radium Institute under the guidance of Academician V. G. Khlopin. A. Z. Rothschild was the general designer and chief engineer of the plant “B” project, and Ya. I. Zilberman was the chief technologist. B. A. Nikitin, Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, was the supervisor of the start-up of Plant B.
First batch finished products(plutonium concentrate, consisting mainly of plutonium and lanthanum fluorides) in the refining department of plant "B" was obtained in February 1949.
Obtaining weapons-grade plutonium
The plutonium concentrate was transferred to plant "B", which was intended for the production of high-purity plutonium metal and products from it.
The main contribution to the development of technology and design of plant "V" was made by: A. A. Bochvar, I. I. Chernyaev, A. S. Zaimovsky, A. N. Volsky, A. D. Gelman, V. D. Nikolsky, N P. Aleksakhin, P. Ya. Belyaev, L. R. Dulin, A. L. Tarakanov, etc.
In August 1949, Plant B produced high-purity metallic plutonium parts for the first atomic bomb.
Tests
The successful test of the first Soviet atomic bomb was carried out on August 29, 1949 at the constructed test site in the Semipalatinsk region of Kazakhstan. It was kept secret.
On September 3, 1949, an aircraft of the US Special Meteorological Intelligence Service took air samples in the Kamchatka region, and then American specialists found isotopes in them, which indicated that a nuclear explosion had been carried out in the USSR.
American Robert Oppenheimer and Soviet scientist Igor Kurchatov are officially recognized as the fathers of the atomic bomb. But in parallel, deadly weapons were developed in other countries (Italy, Denmark, Hungary), so the discovery rightfully belongs to everyone.
The first to deal with this issue were the German physicists Fritz Strassmann and Otto Hahn, who in December 1938 for the first time managed to artificially split atomic nucleus uranium. And six months later, at the Kummersdorf test site near Berlin, the first reactor was already being built and urgently purchased uranium ore from the Congo.
"Uranium project" - the Germans start and lose
In September 1939, the Uranium Project was classified. To participate in the program attracted 22 authoritative scientific centers, Minister of Armaments Albert Speer oversaw the research. The construction of an isotope separation plant and the production of uranium for extracting an isotope from it that supports a chain reaction was entrusted to the IG Farbenindustry concern.
For two years, a group of the venerable scientist Heisenberg studied the possibilities of creating a reactor with and heavy water. A potential explosive (the isotope uranium-235) could be isolated from uranium ore.
But for this, an inhibitor is needed that slows down the reaction - graphite or heavy water. The choice of the last option created an insurmountable problem.
The only plant for the production of heavy water, which was located in Norway, after the occupation was put out of action by local resistance fighters, and small stocks of valuable raw materials were taken to France.
The explosion of an experimental nuclear reactor in Leipzig also prevented the rapid implementation of the nuclear program.
Hitler supported the uranium project as long as he hoped to obtain a super-powerful weapon that could influence the outcome of the war he unleashed. After the cuts in public funding, the programs of work continued for some time.
In 1944, Heisenberg managed to create cast uranium plates, and a special bunker was built for the reactor plant in Berlin.
It was planned to complete the experiment to achieve a chain reaction in January 1945, but a month later the equipment was urgently transported to the Swiss border, where it was deployed only a month later. AT nuclear reactor there were 664 cubes of uranium weighing 1525 kg. It was surrounded by a graphite neutron reflector weighing 10 tons, an additional one and a half tons of heavy water was loaded into the core.
On March 23, the reactor finally started working, but the report to Berlin was premature: the reactor did not reach a critical point, and a chain reaction did not occur. Additional calculations have shown that the mass of uranium must be increased by at least 750 kg, proportionally adding the amount of heavy water.
But the reserves of strategic raw materials were at the limit, as was the fate of the Third Reich. On April 23, the Americans entered the village of Haigerloch, where the tests were carried out. The military dismantled the reactor and transported it to the United States.
The first atomic bombs in the USA
A little later, the Germans took up the development of the atomic bomb in the United States and Great Britain. It all started with a letter from Albert Einstein and his co-authors, immigrant physicists, sent by them in September 1939 to US President Franklin Roosevelt.
The appeal stressed that Nazi Germany was close to building an atomic bomb.
About work on nuclear weapons(both allies and opponents) Stalin first learned from intelligence officers in 1943. They immediately decided to create a similar project in the USSR. The instructions were issued not only to scientists, but also to intelligence, for which the extraction of any information about nuclear secrets has become a super task.
The invaluable information about the developments of American scientists, which Soviet intelligence officers managed to obtain, significantly advanced the domestic nuclear project. It helped our scientists avoid inefficient search paths and significantly speed up the implementation of the final goal.
Serov Ivan Aleksandrovich - head of the operation to create a bomb
Of course, the Soviet government could not ignore the successes of German nuclear physicists. After the war, a group of Soviet physicists was sent to Germany - future academicians in the form of colonels of the Soviet army.
Ivan Serov, the first deputy commissar of internal affairs, was appointed head of the operation, which allowed scientists to open any doors.
In addition to their German colleagues, they found reserves of uranium metal. This, according to Kurchatov, reduced the development time of the Soviet bomb by at least a year. More than one ton of uranium and leading nuclear specialists were also taken out of Germany by the American military.
Not only chemists and physicists were sent to the USSR, but also skilled labor - mechanics, electricians, glass blowers. Some employees were found in POW camps. In total, about 1,000 German specialists worked on the Soviet nuclear project.
German scientists and laboratories on the territory of the USSR in the postwar years
A uranium centrifuge and other equipment were transported from Berlin, as well as documents and reagents from the von Ardenne laboratory and the Kaiser Institute of Physics. As part of the program, laboratories "A", "B", "C", "D" were created, which were headed by German scientists.
The head of laboratory "A" was Baron Manfred von Ardenne, who developed a method for gaseous diffusion purification and separation of uranium isotopes in a centrifuge.
For the creation of such a centrifuge (only in industrial scale) in 1947 he received Stalin Prize. At that time, the laboratory was located in Moscow, on the site of the famous Kurchatov Institute. The team of each German scientist included 5-6 Soviet specialists.
Later, laboratory "A" was taken to Sukhumi, where a physico-technical institute was created on its basis. In 1953, Baron von Ardenne became a Stalin laureate for the second time.
Laboratory "B", which conducted experiments in the field of radiation chemistry in the Urals, was headed by Nikolaus Riehl - a key figure in the project. There, in Snezhinsk, the talented Russian geneticist Timofeev-Resovsky worked with him, with whom they were friends back in Germany. The successful test of the atomic bomb brought Riel the star of the Hero of Socialist Labor and the Stalin Prize.
The research of laboratory "B" in Obninsk was led by Professor Rudolf Pose, a pioneer in the field of nuclear testing. His team managed to create fast neutron reactors, the first nuclear power plant in the USSR, and designs for reactors for submarines.
On the basis of the laboratory, the A.I. Leipunsky. Until 1957, the professor worked in Sukhumi, then in Dubna, at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Technologies.
Laboratory "G", located in the Sukhumi sanatorium "Agudzery", was headed by Gustav Hertz. The nephew of a famous 19th-century scientist gained fame after a series of experiments that confirmed the ideas quantum mechanics and the theory of Niels Bohr.
The results of his productive work in Sukhumi were used to create an industrial plant in Novouralsk, where in 1949 they made the filling of the first Soviet bomb RDS-1.
The uranium bomb that the Americans dropped on Hiroshima was a cannon-type bomb. When creating the RDS-1, domestic nuclear physicists were guided by the Fat Boy, the “Nagasaki bomb”, made from plutonium according to the implosive principle.
In 1951 for fruitful activity Hertz was awarded the Stalin Prize.
German engineers and scientists lived in comfortable houses, they brought their families, furniture, paintings from Germany, they were provided with a decent salary and special food. Did they have the status of prisoners? According to academician A.P. Alexandrov, an active participant in the project, they were all prisoners in such conditions.
Having received permission to return to their homeland, the German specialists signed a non-disclosure agreement about their participation in the Soviet atomic project for 25 years. In the GDR, they continued to work in their specialty. Baron von Ardenne was twice a laureate of the German National Prize.
The professor headed the Physics Institute in Dresden, which was created under the auspices of the Scientific Council for the Peaceful Applications of Atomic Energy. The Scientific Council was headed by Gustav Hertz, who received the National Prize of the GDR for his three-volume textbook on atomic physics. Here in Dresden Technical University, Professor Rudolf Pose also worked.
The participation of German specialists in the Soviet atomic project, as well as the achievements of Soviet intelligence, do not diminish the merits of Soviet scientists, who, with their heroic labor, created domestic atomic weapons. And yet, without the contribution of each participant in the project, the creation of the atomic industry and the nuclear bomb would have dragged on for indefinite
