On August 29, 1949, seventy years ago, the first Soviet atomic bomb was detonated at the Semipalatinsk test site. The United States lost its monopoly on nuclear weapons. The whole bourgeois world suffocated in surprise and fear. Looking back now, over the past decades, we are more and more clearly understanding the great role of this event in all post-war history, we understand the greatness of this feat of the Soviet people. A country ravaged by Hitler’s invasion, which was in dire need of the most necessary, has boldly challenged America, which has become war-ridden, to the entire capitalist world — we will defend the cause of socialism in the Soviet Union and contrast Soviet atomic power with your cannibalistic plans for the atomic bombing of our country! This feat could be accomplished only by a socialist country with a single planned economy, capable of mobilizing all economic and human resources into a steel fist, only a single Soviet people, led by the Bolshevik CPSU (b), led by the wise strategist I.V. Stalin.
How was it? Eyewitnesses testify. On August 26, L.P.Beria arrives at the test site. Having examined the acts of preparation, I.V. Kurchatov in accordance with the personal order of L.P. Beria set the time of the test - August 29, 1949, at 8-00 local time. On August 28, the bombers carried out the last inspection of the tower, prepared for the destruction of the automation. K.I. Shchelkin (in the future - three times Hero of Socialist Labor) ordered the removal of the "device" from the workshop and its installation on the tower. In order to avoid problems associated with bad weather, I.V. Kurchatov with the consent of L.P. Beria decides to reschedule the time of the explosion from 8 to 7 in the morning. 20 seconds before the explosion, a switch was turned on, connecting the circuit of the “device” with the control automation system. From that moment on, all detonation operations were carried out automatically. Exactly at 7-00 a.m. on August 29, 1949, the entire area of the deserted Kazakh steppe was illuminated with a dazzling light ... It happened! The huge work of hundreds of thousands of people of the entire Soviet country was successfully completed. “Do not forget, we had a super task: to create weapons as soon as possible that could protect our Motherland! When we managed to solve this problem, we felt relief, even happiness! ”- the creators of the bomb thought so.
The possibility of creating an atomic bomb was discovered by scientists before the war, when in 1939 two German physicists - Hahn and Strassmann discovered a chain reaction of fission of uranium nuclei by neutrons. And these results were not at all secret. Messages about this were published in our press, the newspaper Izvestia. The chain reaction itself (in its chemical form) was discovered by the Soviet scientist N.N. Semenov, organizer and permanent leader of the Institute of Chemical Physics, USSR Academy of Sciences. In open publications of 1939 and 1940, Soviet scientists found out the conditions of an atomic explosion and received reasonable estimates of the critical mass of uranium-235. The secret of the atomic bomb was in another - which of the belligerent powers would dare to throw colossal economic and technical resources into the organization of new industries necessary to create an atomic bomb that could give a decisive advantage in the war. This was, first of all, a large-scale economic problem. The Soviet leadership, Stalin, were well aware in 1940-1945 about the problem itself, and about the actions of the USA, Germany, and England. Thanks to Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria - under his leadership, Strategic Intelligence worked wonderfully! The United States began full-scale work on the atomic bomb in 1940, and not much later, Germany, where Goering supervised these studies. The Soviet Union, the Soviet government in 1941-1943 was forced to solve only one problem - the country fought hard to destroy Hitler’s plans for a “blitzkrieg”. With the Stalingrad victory, all the Germans' hopes for a “blitzkrieg” were dispelled. After Stalingrad, pre-war work on the uranium project could also be resumed. February 11, 1943, Stalin signed a government decree on the organization of work on the use of atomic energy for military purposes. Their leader in the years 43-45 was V.M. Molotov. Against whom was the use of the future Soviet atomic bomb thought at that time? Of course, against our enemy in World War II - Nazi Germany. Already after the end of the war, scouts and scientific experts found out with certainty - Germany, despite its excellent scientific and raw materials capabilities, could not even come close to creating an atomic bomb!
The Americans made the bomb in five years. They tested it in the summer of 1945 and almost immediately bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They practically bombarded Japan, but they intimidated the Soviet Union with the atomic bomb. It is enough to cite Truman’s two phrases, which he said in 1945: “the Russians will soon be put in their place”, “whether we want this or we not, we are obliged to admit that the victory we achieved has placed on the American people the burden of responsibile for further leadership of the world.” And it was not only astute rhetoric. The United States was the financial master of the post-war capitalist world. World War II, almost without interruption, turned into a "cold war" against socialism. A terrible danger loomed over the Soviet Union! And Stalin reacted immediately. On August 20, 1945, a Special Interdepartmental Committee was established at the State Defense Committee (GKO) to solve the atomic problem. The head of this committee from the moment of its creation until 1953 was Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria. And this is far from accidental. Beria was a very intelligent person, with good technical acumen, brilliant organizational skills. For services to the development of Soviet defense industry in 1945, he was awarded the title Hero of Socialist Labor.
The Special Interdepartmental Committee was a unique, unparalleled organization. The main principles: complete secrecy, no red tape, pace, pace, and again the pace! From the GKO Decree: “No organizations, institutions and persons without special permission from the GKO (GKO) have the right to intervene in the administrative, economic and operational activities of the First Main Directorate (CCP, the executive body of the Special Committee), its enterprises and institutions, or require certificates of its work or work performed on orders of the First Main Directorate. All reports on these works are sent only to the Special Committee under the GKO ”. PSU organizations were allowed the order to start any business, any construction, to make any order for equipment without approved projects and estimates. Cadres decide everything! And it was taken into account from the very beginning. Nuclear-related institutes and institutions had the right to preferential recruitment of graduates of any universities. Those researchers who were needed were taken here. One of Arzamas-16 veterans recalls: “... Honestly, I didn’t want to go here ... But then I didn’t regret that I got here. Here we saw the real level of work - both scientific and engineering. He was not at all lower than the western one ... A year passed from an idea, from a completely fresh idea to how it came to life. ”
Well, what was the attitude of the program managers towards its participants and subordinates? The security service decided to remove one of the leading scientists from the facility. The chief designer had to directly call Beria and say that this employee does a lot of useful work. The conversation was limited to the only question that followed after a long pause: "Do you really need it?" Having received an affirmative answer and saying: “Well then,” Beria hung up. The incident was over. Another phrase of L.P. is significant. Beria in defense of another participant in the work: “All the people who are working on this project are personally selected by me. I am ready to be responsible for the actions of each of them. These people are working and will honestly work on the project entrusted to us. "
Of course, I.V. Stalin. The personal notes of I.V. Kurchatov, made by him immediately after an hour-long meeting with Stalin on the evening of January 25, 1946. Only Molotov and Beria participated in the conversation. During the conversation, Stalin did not advise doing small work or looking for cheap ways. He emphasized that it is necessary to act “broadly, with a Russian scale”, that all-round assistance will be rendered in this regard. Stalin noted that our scientists are very modest people and "sometimes they don’t notice that they live poorly." From the recording of I.V. Kurchatova: “in relation to the scientists, Stalin was preoccupied with the thought, as if ... to help them in material and domestic terms and in bonuses for great things, for example, for solving our problem ... It was proposed to write about activities that would be necessary to expedite the work , all that is needed". All that is needed, the country really gave. There was a period when in the USSR for several months it was impossible to buy a medical thermometer - an essential item. Why? Nuclear scientists needed mercury, a lot of mercury! They were given everything! The atomic bomb was created in the USSR, ravaged by the war against the Nazis, in four years!
The first Soviet atomic bomb was called RDS-1. The name was conditional, but the people deciphered it in their own way: the RDS is Stalin's Rocket Engine! Two months after the explosion of the first atomic bomb, a closed resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR of October 29, 1949, signed by Stalin, was issued. Several particularly distinguished participants in the work were awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor, and were awarded (dachas, cars, IV Kurchatov's dacha stands in the Crimea in Miskhor on the seashore). The whole color of Soviet science was involved in the work on the atomic problem: physicists, chemists, mathematicians, biologists, geologists, metallurgists, etc. In the literal sense of the word, it was a great victory for the entire Soviet people! Everyone worked for their united Motherland - the USSR. These were people of many, many nationalities. Soviet scientists were no longer catching up with the hydrogen bomb, but ahead of the Americans, having experienced on August 12, 1953 a real thermonuclear charge, ready for use in the form of a bomb. Soviet nuclear power
Industry and science have steadily developed. The atomic charges themselves, and their means of delivery and use cases, improved. The peaceful professions of the atomic explosion were also investigated: the taming of gas fountains, the creation of underground storage facilities, the creation of artificial reservoirs and much more.
Despite the importance of the technological achievements of the Soviet Union in the field of mastering nuclear energy, it is important to understand that the creation of a nuclear missile shield was an essential component of the Soviet policy of the struggle for peace, opposing the hateful intentions of American imperialism and its allies that unleashed the Cold War, divided the just liberated from fascists to Europe on the principle of belonging or not belonging to NATO - the bloc created by them in 1949. Back in June 1946, the Soviet delegation to the UN Atomic Energy Commission introduced the draft International Convention on the Prohibition of the Production and Use of Weapons Based on the Use of Atomic Energy for the Mass Destruction, which, of course, was rejected by an obedient pro-American majority. The Americans needed something completely different. In November 1948, US President G. Truman approved the plan of the Committee of the Chiefs of Staff of the US Armed Forces to conduct an atomic war against the USSR (Pincher Plan), which envisaged the attack of 70 atomic bombs on 50 cities of the Soviet Union, including Moscow and Leningrad. May 1955 Without a positive reaction, the USSR’s appeal to all nuclear states with a proposal to take commitments to end nuclear testing remained. Only when the obvious and universally recognized nuclear parity of the USA and the USSR was reached, when American politicians realized this objective reality, the impossibility of changing it in any way, did efforts to reduce the nuclear danger and reduce the gigantic stockpiles of atomic weapons become possible. However, the entire negotiation process between the USSR and the United States was inherently endless attempts by the United States to either bypass the USSR using various diplomatic tricks, or to deceive, misleading, misleading the opposing side, as was the case with the missile defense talks.
At present, seventy years after the creation of Soviet atomic weapons, the Russian Federation faces the most difficult question - what policy should be pursued regarding the reduction of atomic weapons? After all, the United States, after the destruction of the USSR, did not at all reduce its military spending, paying special attention to atomic and precision weapons, continuing the policy of aggression and enslavement against all countries that dare to at least give a hoot in response to the American dictatorship. All this shows the falsehood of the "perestroika" slogans of the so-called "democrats": "Democratic Russia" has no enemies! America is our best friend! The modern world turned out to be incomparably harder and more complex than they imagined and tried to convince those around them with permission to say “democrats”. Analyzing the question of the role of atomic weapons for the Russian Federation at present, we are obliged to take into account the catastrophic destruction caused by the "democrats" of the power of the former Soviet Army in conventional weapons, in the system of training and education of military personnel, in the education of youth. We must not forget about the powerful “blow” to the worldview of millions of citizens in the course of the destruction of socialism and the triumph of criminal capitalism.
In reality, we see that the nuclear shield is, in fact, the only guarantee of non-aggression against Russia by the capitalist military powers. We can confidently say that nuclear weapons have been and remain the most reliable guarantor of the sovereignty and independence of our country in the face of a powerful bloc of bourgeois states led by the United States, in the context of their continuous increase in military spending, the creation and improvement of new types of offensive weapons (both conventional and atomic), the persistent pursuit of a global dictate in the current seething world in a fierce struggle.
S.V. Khristenko
From the author. All my working life passed in the walls of the Order of Lenin and the Order of the October Revolution of the Institute of Chemical Physics of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Both these orders and the institute's enormous authority were due to its leading role in developing ideas and implementing plans for creating Soviet atomic weapons, testing them at the testing ground, and comprehensively studying the damaging factors of atomic weapons. The task of the Soviet government was successfully completed. I came to the Institute of Chemical Physics as a student in 1963 and I happened to be “close” to see many who previously worked or continued to work on the “atomic problem”. I will not name names. Not in this case. They were different people, but all of them were fully characterized by such qualities as clarity of character, truthfulness, openness in communication. These were real Soviet people.
