Atom Projects

Events and People

Boris Ioffe

• Publisher: WSPC
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9789813146037
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Electrical Engineering & Telecommunications
• Index: Technology & Engineering

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This book is a collection of personal memories about the people who participated in the USSR atomic project — Landau, Alikhanov, Pomeranchuk, Alikhanian, Migdal Jr., Gribov, Zeldovich, Sakharov, Kurchatov, Vannikov, Eldian. As the author is the only living person who was involved in the project, these personal recollections are interesting and unique for a broad audience who has been unfamiliar with the details so far.

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Contents:

• The Beginning of WW2
• On the Way to A-Bomb
• German Atomic Project
• Soviet Atomic Project
• Soviet H Bomb
• Why USSR Needed Nuclear Bombs
• Main Reasons for the Chernobyl Disaster
• A Story of an Accident on a Soviet Submarine (with Happy End)
• How I Became a Theoretical Physicist
• How I Prevented a Nuclear Accident at ITEP
• Nuclear Reactors and Politics
• Heisenberg Visits Bohr in 1941
• The Attitude of Soviet Physicists towards the Soviet Nuclear Project
• An Outlook for the Future

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Readership: Scientists and students who are interested in physics and history of science.
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Introduction

Practically all outstanding physicists (as well as chemists and engineers) took part in the Anglo-American atom project, leaving whatever purely scientific work in which they were engaged at the time. They dedicated all their time and all their energy to the atom project, they produced new ideas, they worked with full dedication. And this brought success: suffice it to say that the atom project in Britain and the USA began in 1940, and the first nuclear reactor was started up as early as in 1942. It was understood that plutonium, element

X, could be used as the explosive for the bomb, therefore huge factories were built for the production of plutonium and for the separation of uranium isotopes 235 and 238. At the time of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (in 1945), the United States had another 10 nuclear bombs in their arsenal.

There is little discussion in Russian literature of the reasons that inspired the dedication of British and American scientists to their work on the atom project. Neither is there much discussion of the reasons that made so many American scientists leave the atom project once the war against Germany and Japan had ended (the Oppenheimer case).

The intensity of the work done by British and American scientists was so great because of their fear that Hitler’s Germany would be the first to produce an atom bomb and that the bomb would be used as a weapon in war. This would have resulted in a worldwide victory for Fascism and the end of democracy.

If Germany won, those scientists who were Jewish could expect total annihilation of all Jews. (The policy of annihilation had indeed been decided by the leaders of Germany in 1943 at the Wannsee conference. It was actively applied in territories under German occupation.)

The political leaders of Britain and the USA clearly understood the danger of Germany building an atomic weapon. This is why Roosevelt, immediately after he received Einstein’s letter, ordered the funding of the atom project, created its administrative structure, and later continued to fund the project as it developed.

The Soviet atom project did not have the same motivation. Real action was taken only after Truman informed Stalin at the Potsdam Conference in summer 1945, once Germany had been defeated, that the American atom bomb had already been produced. In September 1945 a Special Committee headed by Beria was created. It included leading members of the Party and Government (and also two scientists — Kurchatov and Kapitza); furthermore the First Primary Directorate (FMD, in Russian PGU of the Sovnarkom — cabinet of Ministers) was formed, headed by Vannikov. Its task was to produce atom bombs. It is usually said that the motivation for the production of the Soviet atom bomb was: since “they” had been able to produce it, then we should also do it. (This is put in the coded name of the Soviet bomb: RDS — Russia will Do it herSelf). Such a view does not stand up to criticism — there was no threat to the USSR.

The USSR must have had a different and strong motivation for devoting its main effort to the creation of the atom bomb in a country that had just survived its greatest ever war, whose population was hungry, badly clothed, and lacked proper housing (many towns in the European part of Russia had been almost completely destroyed).

In my previous book “Without Retouching” (Fazis, 2004) I wrote about some people who had taken part in the Soviet atom project (not all of them: only about the ones whom I had known personally), and described their human characteristics. Their participation in the atom project was not mentioned there. In the present book I describe their participation in the Soviet atom project and (briefly) assess their scientific achievements. My main aim, however, is to show them as living people with their merits and weaknesses, to describe their attitudes towards the atom project and the way in which these changed with time. The main sources which I have used are listed in the complete bibliography, entries [1–9].

This book is meant for the general reader who has no deep knowledge of Physics. Some formulæ are included occasionally, to elucidate a point for a reader familiar with Physics. They may be ignored by the general reader without loss to his understanding of the main content of the book.

B. Ioffe

January 2017

Acknowledgments

I want to thank Professor Wladimir von Schlippe who took the burden of translation of my manuscript from Russian to English. I am very grateful to Elliot Leader for polishing the English text.

Events

2.1.Who Initiated the Second World War? [1]

I will begin with a description of the conditions in the world before World War II since, as I have said in the Introduction, the Anglo-American atom project was launched because the leaders of Britain and the USA feared that Hitler would get an atom bomb.

The Second World War was initiated by Hitler and Stalin — they wanted to dominate the world or at least half of it. Their declarations were setting out lofty aims. Hitler was going to create a thousand-year Reich, giving the German nation living space in which the Germans (Aryans) would be the commanding race, and all the other races would labour for them and serve them. He particularly hated the Jews for their sceptical attitude and their lack of obedience to authority, which had its roots in the ancient prophets. In 1935 the Nürnberg laws were proclaimed, according to which Jews were forbidden to occupy a range of professions. In particular, they were forbidden to engage in the sciences and to teach in universities. (Hitler followed the example of the Roman emperor Hadrian, who barred Jews from engaging in religious sciences after the suppression of the Bar-Kochba rebellion.) All this caused a mass emigration from Germany of Jews, and not only of Jews but of all those who were opposed to the Hitler regime. (The Hungarian Jews Leό Szilárd, Eugene Wigner, Edward Teller and John von Neumann, who had been working in Germany, left for Britain and the USA and contributed greatly to the atom project — this was a sort of a present that Hitler gave to his enemies [13].) Such people — Jews and opponents of the Hitler regime — were put in concentration camps which had been set up for this purpose. One had to greet each other exclaiming “Heil Hitler!” and raising one’s right arm. Some people who did not support Hitler sought to avoid this ritual. The Nobel prize winner Laue, who was not in favour of the Nazi regime, when leaving home always carried in one hand a briefcase and something else in his other hand, so both hands were busy.

On the 9th of November 1938 all over Germany and Austria synagogues, enterprises and shops belonging to Jews were destroyed. According to some sources 91 Jews were killed, according to others many more; many Jews were put in concentration camps (the so-called “Kristallnacht”). This was the first step towards the “final solution of the Jewish question”, in other words, to the extermination of the Jews.

Hitler persecuted not only Jews but also those supporters of his who did not recognize his authority (Röhm, Schleicher and others — in the “Night of the Long Knives” most of them were murdered). Anti-Fascists were put in concentration camps and frequently killed. The kidnapping of anti-Fascists was practised in other countries: they were forcibly taken to Germany where a tragic fate was awaiting them.

Stalin wanted to build a worldwide Communist society. Such “lofty” plans could be realised only by way of a world war.

Hitler came to power in 1933 actually thanks to Stalin. In the Reichstag elections of November 1932, the National Socialists got 11.7 million votes, the Social Democrats 7.2 million, and the Communists 6 million. If the Social Democrats and the Communists had presented their candidates for the election jointly, Germany would have got a democratic government. But Stalin used the Comintern to give a strong directive to the Communists not to unite with the Social Democrats. As a result Hitler became the Reichs-Chancellor. It was exactly with this aim in mind that Stalin had supported Hitler: with a democratic German government there would have been no world war in Europe, and Stalin’s aim would have been frustrated.

For Germany, the first obstacle was the Treaty of Versailles which limited the size of the German army and the assortment of its weapons (tanks were not allowed); a demilitarised zone was established 50 kilometers deep along the right bank of the Rhine. The Saar region was put under the administration of the League of Nations, and 15 years later a referendum was to be held to decide whether it was to become part of Germany or part of France. Various territories of the former German Empire were granted to other countries — France, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, and Belgium. Hitler’s first step in his preparation for a new war was the remilitarization of the Rhine region — German troops were moved into that region. Britain and France confined themselves to diplomatic representations, the US assumed an isolationist policy, and Hitler understood that he could make the next moves.

Stalin thought that preparations for a new war 15 to 20 years after the Civil War would give rise to protests by intellectuals and by the more or less prosperous peasantry, which had just about begun to revive. These peasants (kulaks) were deported to the North and to Siberia, and collective farms (kolkhozes) were established (it is easier to handle kolkhozes than individual peasants). This campaign involved millions of people and caused wide-spread famine — after all, the prosperous peasants were the main producers of bread. Rationing of bread and other produce was introduced in towns.

I have seen this myself. In Moscow in 1933 (I was 7 years old), we were issued grey and sticky bread purchased with ration-cards. But it so happened that I could go with my mother for nine months to Poland. To get permission to travel abroad was very difficult, almost impossible, but we were lucky: an uncle of mine had an acquaintance — A.Kh. Artuzov, who was at that time the Head of the Foreign Department of the OGPU (NKVD). Before the revolution, my uncle, Efim Lvovich Zukerman, had been a barrister in St. Petersburg, and had had an office and a flat there. (Vyshinsky, the Attorney General in 1937 and one of the principal agents of the Great Terror, was an assistant to a barrister. My uncle knew him and spoke of him with great contempt.) My uncle sympathized with the revolutionaries and used to give Artuzov money for their needs. In the Revolution his office and flat were taken away from him, he moved to Moscow and worked as a legal adviser for various Soviet institutions. He had no more contact with Artuzov, but when he approached Artuzov with the request for permission for us to travel to Poland, Artuzov did remember their acquaintance before the revolution and we got our permission. Moreover, we had, of course, no Polish money. But at the Polish border station somebody came up to us and handed my mother some Polish money. In 1937, Artuzov was shot.

Once we had boarded the Polish train, I saw a man in a white apron walking along the gangway with a tray holding cups of coffee and white rolls. I asked my mother to get me some of both. The taste of coffee and rolls is one of the strongest impressions of my childhood.

Then the trials of intellectuals began: the Shakhty trial, the Industrial Party trial, and then the trials of 1935–37. It was not important for Stalin whom to arrest, whom to declare to be an “enemy of the people”: what was important was to weaken the intellectuals as a class and to sow fear among the people.

A document has survived in which the Party Secretary of the Kirov District requested permission to increase the quota of the “first category” (i.e. the number of people to be shot) by 300. Stalin crossed out the 300, replaced it by 500 and his signature: I. Stalin. To Stalin it was of no importance who these people were, which among them was guilty and of what. What was important was their number: to spread fear among the people — the fear of a knock at the door at night. (As a rule, people were arrested at night.)

At the same time the deification of the personality of Stalin proceeded.

Large-scale repressions took place among the commanding officers of the Red Army and Navy. About 40 thousand people were repressed: 3 out of 5 Marshals perished, both first-rank Army Commissars, 3 out of 5 first-rank Army Commanders were shot, all of the 12 second-rank Army Commanders, 60 out of the 67 Corps Commanders fell victim to repression, and so on. Repression struck even commanders of regiments and battalions. Even after the war had already started, in October 1941, 16 people were shot, including Yakov Smushkevich, twice Hero of the Soviet Union, Head of the Soviet Air Force (he had fought in Spain). These were replaced by people who were poorly qualified for the job but who were terrified of Stalin and of the Special Services. It is impossible to find an explanation for what Stalin did. He must have realised that he was actually beheading the Red Army. It is inconceivable that he could have genuinely thought that the army was preparing a coup, even less a broadly based one. There is a version that the Gestapo leaked a forged document about Tukhachevsky’s treachery to Beneš, the President of Czechoslovakia, who believed it and passed it on to Stalin. But even if one could accept this version, it is inconceivable that as many as 40 thousand people were involved in this conspiracy, and that it had not been disclosed at its earliest stage.

Scientists were also persecuted: biologists, physicists and scientists of other disciplines. In Leningrad University, the walls of a long corridor were decorated with portraits of professors. When a professor was arrested, his portrait was taken down. The students gave this corridor the name “Arrestometer”. Heavy purges struck the Ukrainian Institute of Physics and Technology in Kharkov (the UPTI case): Shubnikov (an outstanding condensed matter physicist), Gorsky and Rosenkevich (co-author of a book by Landau) were executed, Obreimov, Leipunsky and many others were arrested. Out of 400 aircraft designers, about 350 were arrested.

The “Main Enemy” was Trotsky, who had been the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs at the Brest peace negotiations. Lenin had offered Trotsky the post of Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars. Trotsky declined because he considered that the most senior post in Russia ought not be occupied by a Jew. During the Civil War he was the Chairman of the Revolutionary War Council (up to 1925), and the de facto creator of the Red Army. In his “Testament” Lenin described him as the most talented person in the Party leadership. In 1928 Trotsky was exiled to Alma Ata and in 1929 he was expelled from the USSR. While abroad, Trotsky was the victim of repeated assassination attempts by the NKVD. In 1940 he was killed with an icepick — the murderer was his secretary Mercader, who in reality was an NKVD agent. Later Mercader was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. The attitude adopted towards “the main enem...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Events
• 3. Participants in the Soviet Atom Project
• 4. The People and their Attitude towards the Atom Project
• 5. A Look to the Future
• Bibliography