Entering the Nuclear Arms Race: The Soviet Decision to Build the Atomic Bomb, 1939-45

1. Quoted by Herbert York, in The Advisors: Oppenheimer, Teller and the Superbomb (San Francisco, Calif.: W. H. Freeman & Co., 1976), 29.

2. Arnold Kramish, Atomic Energy in the Soviet Union (London: Oxford University Press, 1960); York, op. cit. note 1; George Modelski, Atomic Energy in the Communist Bloc (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1959). Modelski's book does not add much to Kramish's account of the early Soviet atomic work (Kramish had published some papers at Rand before 1959).

3. Of those who are mentioned later in this paper, Yu. B. Khariton, K. D. Sinel'nikov and A. I. Leipunskii did research in Cambridge, V. I. Vernadskii and D. V. Skobel'tsyn in Marie Curie's Institute, and L. D. Landau in Copenhagen; I. K. Kikoin worked in Munich with Walter Gerlach. I have used the standard mode of translating Soviet names; in some cases this does not correspond exactly with the English versions given in scientific publications. The most important differences are Flyorov (Flerov), Kapitsa (Kapitza) and Cherenkov (Cerenkov).

4. Alexander Weissberg, The Accused (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1951).

5. M. S. Sominskii, A. F. Ioffe (Moscow & Leningrad: Nauka, 1964), 361.

6. V. V. Igonin, Atom v SSSR: Razvitie Sovyetskoi yadernoi fiziki [The Atom in the USSR: The Development of Soviet Nuclear Physics] (Saratov: Izd. Saratov skogo Universiteta, 1975), 29.

7. Sominskii, op. cit. note 5, 362.

8. Igonin, op. cit. note 6, 301-05.

9. A. A. Armand, Nauchno-rssledavatel'skie instituty tyazheloi promyshlen nosti [Heavy Industry's Research Institutes] (Moscow & Leningrad: NKTP, 1935), 26-29.

10. Weissberg, op. cit. note 4, passim; see also Arthur Koestler's introduction to this book. Further accounts of the Khar'kov Institute may be found in J. G. Crowther, Soviet Science (London: Kegan Paul, 1936), and in Lucie Street (ed.), I Married a Russian: Letters from Khar'kov (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1944).

11. L. Gumilevskii, V. I. Vernadskii (Moscow: Molodaya Gvardiya, 1967); Ig onin, op. cit. note 6, 407-08.

12. See Armand, op. cit. note 9, 86-94, for a description of Semenov's Institute in the mid-1930s.

13. See I. M. Frank, 'Nachalo issledovanii po yadernoi fizike v FIAN i nekotorye sovremennye problemy stroyeniya atomnykh yader [The Beginning of Research on Nuclear Physics in FIAN and some Contemporary Problems of the Structure of Atomic Nuclei]', Uspekhi Fizicheskikh Nauk [Advances in the Physical Sciences, hereafter UFN ] (January 1967), 11-27; Sominskii, op. cit. note 5, 274-79; Vospominaniya ob A. F. Ioffe [Memoirs about A. F. Ioffe] (Leningrad: Nauka, 1973), 98.

14. Vestnik Akademii Nauk SSSR [hereafter VAN] (1938), No.11-12, 129.

15. A. P. Aleksandrov mentions that defence needs were making resources tighter in 1938, in 'Yadernaya fizika i razvitie atomnoi tekhniki v SSSR [Nuclear Physics and the Development of Atomic Engineering in the USSR]', Oktyabr' Nauchnyl Progress [October and Scientific Progress] (Moscow: Novosti), Vol. 1 (1967), 179-216, at 193.

16. VAN, loc. cit. note 14, 129.

17. Golovin writes that a letter from Frederic Joliot-Curie to Ioffe in 1938 in formed Soviet physicists of the discovery of nuclear fission, but this cannot have been so because of the timing. See I. N. Golovin, I. V. Kurchatov (Moscow: Atomizdat, 3rd edn, 1978), 45. Probably the letter reported on Irene Curie's ex periments with the bombardment of uranium with neutrons; these experiments near ly led to the discovery of fission. Other Soviet sources say that Soviet scientists learn ed of the discovery when the foreign journals arrived in February. See, for example, Igonin, op. cit. note 6, 387.

18. L. I. Rusinov and G. N. Flyorov, 'Opyty po deleniyu yadra [Experiments on the Fission of the Nucleus]', Izvestiya AN SSSR: Seriya fizicheskaya [Bulletin of the USSR Academy of Sciences: Physical Series, hereafter IAS] (1940), No. 2, 310-14. On the early Soviet research on fission see Kramish, op. cit. note 2, 15-30.

19. See Igonin, op. cit. note 6, 416ff.

20. Golovin, op. cit. note 17, 46-47.

21. A. I. Leipunskii, 'Delenie yader [The Fission of Nuclei]', IAS (1940), No.2, 291-99.

22. S. Ya. Nikitin, 'Vsesoyuznoe soveshchanie po voprosam atomnogo yadra [The All-Union Conference on Problems of the Atomic Nucleus]', UFN (February 1940), 200.

23. A. P. Vinogradov, 'Soveschanie po izotopii [The Conference on Isotopes]', VAN (1940), No. 7, 35-38.

24. Ya. B. Zel'dovich and Yu. B. Khariton, 'Kinetika tsepnogo raspada urana [The Kinetics of a Chain Decay of Uranium]', Zhurnal eksperimental'nol teoreticheskoi fiziki [The Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics, hereafter ZhETF] (1940), No. 4, 477.

25. K. A. Petrzhak and G. N. Flyorov, 'Spontannoe delenie urana [The Spon taneous Fission of Uranium]', ZhETF (1940), No. 9-10, 1013-17; see also the ac count of the experiments in Golovin, op. cit. note 17, 48-49, and in P. T. Astashenkov, Akademik I. V. Kurchatov (Moscow: Voenizdat, 1971), 122-27.

26. Golovin, op. cit. note 17, 47; Sergei Snegov, 'Tvortsy [The Creators]', Znamya [The Banner] (1976), No. 5, 7-103, at 19-20. Snegov's work is a 'dramatized documentary' of the early years of Soviet nuclear physics. Wherever I can check, it appears to be very accurate; and so I have felt able, within fairly narrow limits, to use it as a source.

27. Snegov, op. cit. note 26, 20-21; Kurchatov did make a report on the spon taneous fission of uranium in May 1940, VAN (1940), No. 6, 56.

28. Quoted in V. S. Emel'yanov, 'U istokov atomnoi promyshlennosti [At the Origins of the Atomic Industry]', Voprosy istorit [Problems of History] (1975), No. 5, 123-39, at 133.

29. Emel'yanov, op. cit. note 28, 134.

30. Ibid.; for the decree, see VAN (1940), No. 8-9, 103-04.

31. Emel'yanov, op. cit. note 28, 134; VAN, loc. cit. note 30.

32. The Soviet accounts do not agree on the chronology here. This is my best assessment. See Igonin, op. cit. note 6, 54, 396; Golovin, op. cit. note 17, 50; Aleksandrov, op. cit. note 15, 194-95; Astashenkov, op. cit. note 25, 135 ff.; Snegov, op. cit. note 26, 24.

33. Aleksandrov, op. cit. note 15, 195.

34. UFN (February 1941), 169.

35. Ibid.

36. Snegov, op. cit. note 26, 25; none of the contemporary reports of the con ference mentions Khlopin's contribution; Golovin, however, does say that the ques tion of approaching the government for large sums to build the first uranium pile was raised sharply at the conference (see Golovin, op. cit. note 17, 50). 'Manilov shchina' is a term for futile day-dreaming, taken from Manilov, a character in Gogol's Dead Souls.

37. Quoted by I. V. Obreimov, in Vospominaniya..., op. cit. note 13, 47. This is supported by a passage in a lecture given by Ioffe in November 1940: see Ioffe, Nekotorye problemy sovremennoi fiziki [Some Problems of Modern Physics] (Moscow: Gossotsekizdat, 1941), 13-14.

38. Sominskii, op. cit. note 5, 339.

39. Golovin, op. cit. note 17, 50.

40. On the lack of a reply from the government to Semenov's letter, see Snegov, op. cit. note 26, 32; any reply to Semenov's letter would be likely to be mentioned in other sources, especially if it were favourable.

41. Quoted in Astashenkov, op. cit. note 25, 139.

42. Snegov, op. cit. note 26, 26; Astashenkov, op. cit. note 25, 129. The Volkhov Hydroelectric Station was one of the big construction projects of the early years of Soviet power.

43. David Joravsky, The Lysenko Affair (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Universi ty Press, 1970), 107.

44. 'Organizatsiya nauchnykh issledovanii v gody voiny. Beseda s professorom S. V. Kaftanovym [The Organization of Scientific Research in the War Years. A Conversation with Professor S. V. Kaftanov]', Voprosy istorii yestyestvoznaniya i tekhniki [Problems of the History of Natural Science and Technology, hereafter VIYeT] (1975), No. 2, 25.

45. Ibid.

46. A. S. Fyodorov, 'Nauka i tekhnika v gody velikoi ostechestvennoi voiny [Science and Technology in the Years of the Great Fatherland War]', VIYeT(1975), No. 2, 7.

47. V. M. Tuchkevich and V. Ya. Frenkel', 'Fiziko-tekhnicheskii institut imeni A. F. Ioffe v gody voiny [The A. F. loffe Physico-Technical Institute in the War Years]', VIYeT (1975), No. 2, 13-20.

48. Golovin, op. cit. note 17, 50-51; Snegov, op. cit. note 26, 30-32.

49. Golovin, op. cit. note 17, 52-55.

50. Ibid., 51.

51. VAN (1941), No. 9-10, 9-10. Several versions of this speech were published. See the discussion in Kramish, op. cit. note 2, 40-44.

52. In this speech Kapitsa commented that 'a future war will become even more intolerable', and that scientists ought to warn people about this danger: VAN (1941), No. 9-10, 10.

53. Golovin, op. cit. note 17, 55-57; Astashenkov, op. cit. note 25, 176-79; Snegov, op. cit. note 26, 43-48.

54. Quoted by Astashenkov, op. cit. note 25, 177.

55. Golovin, op. cit. note 17, 57.

56. Ibid.

57. Ibid.; also Snegov, op. cit. note 26, 27, 49.

58. Kaftanov, loc. cit. note 44, 28; Golovin, op. cit. note 17, 57; Snogov, op. cit. note 26, 49.

59. Richard G. Hewlett and Oscar E. Anderson, Jr, The New World, 1939-46 (University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1962), 25-26.

60. On the letter to Stalin, see Snegov, op. cit. note 26, 50, and Golovin, op. cit. note 17, 58.

61. Kaftanov, loc. cit. note 44, 29.

62. On Kaftanov's visit to Berlin, see Robert Jungk, Brighter Than a Thousand Suns (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1958), 262n; on his reply and the State Defence Committee's decision, see Kaftanov, loc. cit. note 44, 29 and Snegov, op. cit. note 26, 55.

63. Snegov, op. cit. note 26, 50. According to Golovin, op. cit. note 17, 58, Flyorov wrote to Stalin in May; thus the decision was taken very quickly. Snegov (50-55) indicates that opinions had already been solicited on the uranium problem after some German material had fallen into Kaftanov's hands. This might explain the speed of the decision.

64. Golovin, op. cit. note 17, 58; Sengov, op. cit. note 26, 58; Kaftanov, loc. cit. note 44, 29. See also P. T. Astashenkov, Podvig Akademika Kurchatova [Academi cian Kurchatov's Feat] (Moscow: Znanie, 1979), 31-32.

65. Golovin, op. cit. note 17, 58; Astashenkov, op. cit. note 25, 170; Aleksan drov, op. cit. note 15, 196.

66. Golovin, op. cit. note 17, 60; Snegov, op. cit. note 26, 57.

67. David Dallin, Soviet Espionage (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1955), 458.

68. Astashenkov, op. cit. note 25, 175.

69. Golovin, op. cit. note 17, 60.

70. Snegov, op. cit. note 26, 53-54.

71. Vojtech Mastny, Russia's Road to the Cold War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979), 37-72.

72. Snegov, op. cit. note 26, 54; Astashenkov, op. cit. note 64, 32.

73. Snegov, op. cit. note 26, 56; Aleksandrov, op. cit. note 15, 196, writes that 'some information about work in Germany had ... been obtained by our govenr ment'.

74. Snegov, op. cit. note 26, 58, 60-62; Astashenkov, op. cit. note 25, 172. One source mentions that a representative from the High Command, presumably from military intelligence, was present at the meeting with Ioffe and the others. He told them of information received from 'other sources' about German and Allied work. See Ye. Parnov, Kurchatov: Problema 92 (Moscow: Molodaya Gvardiya, 1972), 187-98. But this source does not seem very reliable in other respects.

75. In the period 1941-43, Fuchs would have been able to tell the Soviet Union that Britain considered the uranium bomb a definite possibility. He provided the results of his own calculations on the theory of the gaseous diffusion process for separating the isotopes of uranium, and told the Soviet Union that U-235 produced in this way might be used in an atomic bomb. See Alan Moorehead, The Traitors (New York: Harper and Row, rev. edn, 1963), 92. As is clear from the Soviet discus sions of 1940, most of this information would not have been new. Fuchs's role has not been made clear by Soviet sources. It has never been acknowledged by the Soviet Union that he passed information. At this early stage what he had to say was pro bably not very important, except that it would have alerted the Soviet Union to British interest in the bomb. Along with the evidence of American and German work, this would have impelled the Soviet Union to launch its own project. What happened to the information Fuchs passed in 1944 and 1945 is not altogether clear.

76. See the work cited in note 74. In one of his confessions Fuchs noted that questions had come back to him from the Soviet Union about the derivation of the Bethe-Feynman formula for estimating bomb efficiency. Fuchs had passed on the formula, which was basically a heuristic device, and evidently it had reached the ap propriate Soviet physicists. (Interview with Hans Bethe, 20 April 1979.)

77. I. K. Kikoin, 'Igor' Vasil'evich Kurchatov', Atomnaya Energiya (1963), No. 1, 8.

78. Golovin, op. cit. note 17, 63.

79. Ibid., 61; Aleksandrov, op. cit. note 15, 197-98.

80. Aleksandrov, op. cit. note 15, 197-98.

81. Ibid.; Snegov, op. cit. note 26, 78; Golovin, op. cit. note 17, 61-63.

82. Golovin, op. cit. note 17, 67.

83. Snegov, op. cit. note 26, 102; Snegov refers to rabotniki.

84. Golovin, op. cit. note 17, 66-69.

85. See I. K. Kikoin, in the introduction to I. V. Kurchatov, Yadernuyu energiyu - na blago chelovechestva [Nuclear Energy - for the Welfare of Mankind] (Moscow: Atomizdat, 1978), 8.

86. Margaret Gowing, Britain and Atomic Energy, 1939-45 (London: Mac millan, 1964), 350.

87. Max Steenbeck, Impulse und Wirkungen, Schritte auf meinem Lebensweg [Impulses and Effects, Steps on my Path through Life] (Berlin: Verlag der Nation, 1977), 170.

88. Manfred Von Ardenne, Ein gluckliches Leben fur Technik und Forschung [A Fortunate Life for Engineering and Research] (Berlin: Verlag der Nation, 4th edn, 1976), 149.

89. On these men, see David Irving, The German Atomic Bomb (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967), passim. This book was published in Britain as The Virus House (London: Kimber, 1967).

90. The remark was made to Hans Bethe (interview with Bethe, 20 April 1979).

91. Von Ardenne, op. cit. note 88, 152-53; Makhnyov was responsible for liaison with the Academy of Sciences, though whether for the NKVD or the Red Ar my is not clear; Zavenyagin was an NKVD, not a military, general.

92. Solzhenitsyn writes of Zavenyagin: 'The newspaper hacks wrote of him: "the legendary builder of Noril'sk"! Did he lay bricks with his own hands? Realiz ing... that from above Beria loved him dearly and that from down below him the MVD man Zinovyev spoke highly of him, we suppose he was an out-and-out beast. Otherwise he would not have built Noril'sk' (The Gulag Archipelago Two [London: Collins/Fontana, 1976], 517). Von Ardenne valued Zavenyagin's 'good sense, tact and humanity', op. cit. note 88, 153.

93. Heinz Barwich, Das Rote Atom [The Red Atom] (Munchen & Bern: Scherz Verlag, 1967), 41.

94. Von Ardenne, op. cit. note 88, 154, 158.

95. Irving, op. cit. note 89, 124; Barwich, op. cit. note 93, 31-32.

96. V. Kravchenko, I Chose Freedom (London: Robert Hale, 1947), 404.

97. Von Ardenne, op. cit. note 88, 155 ff.

98. I. V. Stalin, Socheneniya [Works], tom 13 (Moscow: Politizdat, 1951), 38.

99. Istoriya vtoroi mirovoi voiny, 1939-45 [The History of the Second World War, 1939-45], Vol. 1 (Moscow: Voenizdat, 1973), 257-58.

100. See Julian Cooper, Defence Production and the Soviet Economy, 1929-41 (Birmingham: CREES Discussion Paper, Birmingham University, 1976).

101. On radar see M. M. Lobanov, Iz proshlogo radiolokatsii [From the History of Radar] (Moscow: Veonizdat, 1969), 166 ff. See also John Erickson, 'Radio- location and the Air Defence Problem: the Design and Development of Soviet Radar 1934-40', Science Studies, Vol. 2 (1972), 241-68. On rockets see, for example, V. P. Glushko, Put' v raketnoi tekhnike [Journey in Rocket Technology] (Moscow: Mashinostroeniye, 1977), 490, 494.

102. Mastny, op. cit. note 71, 267-306.

103. Hewlett and Anderson, op. cit. note 59, 347 ff.; Martin J. Sherwin, A World Destroyed (New York: Random House [Vintage Books], 1977), 165 ff.

104. Harry S. Truman, 1945: Year of Decisions (New York: Doubleday, 1965), 458.

105. G. K. Zhukov, Vospominaniya i Razmyshleniya [Reminiscences and Reflec tions], Vol. 2 (Moscow: Novosti, 2nd rev. edn, 1974), 418.

106. S. M. Shtemenko, General'nyi Shtab v gody vorny [The General Staff in the Years of the War] (Moscow: Voenizdat, 1968), 359.

107. Golovin, op. cit. note 17, 70; Aleksandrov, op. cit. note 15, 199. Kurchatov and his colleagues received the news of the Alamogordo test with a mixture of vexa tion, satisfaction and apprehension. They were vexed that the Americans had built the bomb before they had. They were satisfied that conclusive proof had now been provided of the feasibility of the bomb; they could no longer be reproached by other scientists with wasting resources. They were apprehensive about the use to which atomic energy would be put: would it be used for military or for peaceful purposes? (Golovin, ibid.)

108. Moorehead, op. cit. note 75, 97-102.

109. There were some signs that the tension had relaxed in the summer of 1945, even while plans for expansion were going ahead. See Golovin, op. cit. note 17, 68-69. Censorship on atomic energy was eased in May and June; see Kramish, op. cit. note 2, 86.

110. Quoted by A. Lavrent'yeva in 'Stroiteli novogo mira [Builders of a New World]', V mire knig [In the World of Books] (1970), No. 9, 4. This article reviews a biography of Vannikov by G. Ustinov, but, as far as I can discover, this biography was never published.

111. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1945, Vol. V (Washington, DC: Department of State, 1967), 923.

112. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1945, Vol. II (Washington, DC: Department of State, 1967), 83.

113. Aleksandrov, op. cit. note 15, 199.

114. Mastny, op. cit. note 71, 304.

115. M. Rubinstein, 'The Foreign Press and the Atomic Bomb', New Times (1 September 1945), 12-17.

116. Sherwin, op. cit. note 103, 238; G. F. Harken, American Diplomacy and the Atomic Bomb, 1945-47 (unpublished PhD thesis, Princeton University, 1974), 101, 121.

117. W. Averell Harriman and Elie Abel, Special Envoy to Churchill and Stalin, 1941-46 (New York: Random House, 1975), 518-21.

118. Quoted by Kramish, op. cit. note 2, 90.

119. Golovin, op. cit. note 17, 71.

120. Ibid.

121. Emel'yanov, op. cit. note 28, 139.

122. Golovin, op. cit. note 17, 71-72.

123. G. D. Smit, Atomnaya Energiya dlya voennykh tselei [Atomic Energy for Military Purposes] (Moscow: Transzheldorizdat, 1946).

124. Robert J. Donovan, The Devastating Time: Truman, The Hydrogen Bomb, China and Korea (Washington, DC: ISSP, Wilson Center, Working Paper No. 6, 1979), 20; David Holloway, 'Soviet Thermonuclear Research', International Securi ty, Vol. 4, No. (Winter 1979/80), 192-97.

125. Emel'yanov, op. cit. note 28, 126.

126. Quoted in I. Ye. Tamm, 'Yakov Il'ich Frenkel',' UFN (March 1962), 415.

127. Joseph Haberer, Politics and the Community of Science (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1969), 163-81.