The creation of the Soviet nuclear bomb, in terms of the complexity of scientific, technical and engineering problems, is a significant, truly unique event that influenced the balance of political forces in the world after World War II. The solution to this problem in our country, which has not yet recovered from the terrible destruction and upheaval of four war years, became possible as a result of the heroic efforts of scientists, production organizers, engineers, workers and the entire people. The implementation of the Soviet nuclear project required a real scientific, technological and industrial revolution, which led to the emergence of the domestic nuclear industry. This labor feat paid off. Having mastered the secrets of nuclear weapons production, our Motherland for many years ensured military and defense parity between the two leading states of the world - the USSR and the USA. The nuclear shield, the first link of which was the legendary RDS-1 product, still protects Russia today.
I. Kurchatov was appointed head of the Atomic Project. From the end of 1942, he began to gather the scientists and specialists needed to solve the problem. Initially, the general management of the atomic problem was carried out by V. Molotov. But on August 20, 1945 (a few days after the atomic bombing of Japanese cities), the State Defense Committee decided to create a Special Committee, headed by L. Beria. It was he who began to lead the Soviet atomic project.
The first domestic atomic bomb had the official designation RDS-1. It was deciphered in different ways: “Russia does it itself,” “The Motherland gives it to Stalin,” etc. But in the official resolution of the USSR Council of Ministers of June 21, 1946, the RDS received the wording “Jet engine “C”.”
The tactical and technical specifications (TTZ) indicated that the atomic bomb was being developed in two versions: using “heavy fuel” (plutonium) and using “light fuel” (uranium-235). The writing of the technical specifications for the RDS-1 and the subsequent development of the first Soviet atomic bomb RDS-1 were carried out taking into account the available materials according to the design of the US plutonium bomb tested in 1945. These materials were provided by Soviet foreign intelligence. An important source of information was K. Fuchs, a German physicist who participated in work on the nuclear programs of the USA and England.
Intelligence materials on the US plutonium bomb made it possible to avoid a number of mistakes when creating the RDS-1, significantly shorten its development time, and reduce costs. At the same time, it was clear from the very beginning that many of the technical solutions of the American prototype were not the best. Even at the initial stages, Soviet specialists could offer the best solutions for both the charge as a whole and its individual components. But the unconditional requirement of the country's leadership was to guarantee and with the least risk to obtain a working bomb by its first test.
The nuclear bomb had to be manufactured in the form of an aerial bomb weighing no more than 5 tons, with a diameter of no more than 1.5 meters and a length of no more than 5 meters. These restrictions were due to the fact that the bomb was developed in relation to the TU-4 aircraft, the bomb bay of which allowed the placement of a “product” with a diameter of no more than 1.5 meters.
As the work progressed, the need for a special research organization to design and develop the “product” itself became obvious. A number of studies conducted by Laboratory N2 of the USSR Academy of Sciences required their deployment in a “remote and isolated place.” This meant: it was necessary to create a special research and production center for the development of an atomic bomb.

Creation of KB-11

April 9, 1946 a closed resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR was adopted on the creation of a Design Bureau (KB-11) at Laboratory No. 2 of the USSR Academy of Sciences. P. Zernov was appointed head of KB-11, and Yu. Khariton was appointed chief designer.

The resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR dated June 21, 1946 determined strict deadlines for the creation of the facility: the first stage was to go into operation on October 1, 1946, the second - on May 1, 1947. The construction of KB-11 (“facility”) was entrusted to the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs. The “object” was supposed to occupy up to 100 square meters. kilometers of forests in the Mordovian Nature Reserve and up to 10 sq. kilometers in the Gorky region.
Construction was carried out without projects and preliminary estimates, the cost of work was taken at actual costs. The construction team was formed with the involvement of a “special contingent” - this is how prisoners were designated in official documents. The government created special conditions to ensure construction. However, construction was difficult; the first production buildings were ready only at the beginning of 1947. Some of the laboratories were located in monastery buildings.

The volume of construction work was great. There was a need to reconstruct plant No. 550 for the construction of a pilot plant on the existing premises. The power plant needed updating. It was necessary to build a foundry and press shop for working with explosives, as well as a number of buildings for experimental laboratories, testing towers, casemates, and warehouses. To carry out blasting operations, it was necessary to clear and equip large areas in the forest.
There were no special premises for research laboratories at the initial stage - scientists had to occupy twenty rooms in the main design building. The designers, as well as the administrative services of KB-11, were to be housed in the reconstructed premises of the former monastery. The need to create conditions for arriving specialists and workers forced us to pay more and more attention to the residential village, which gradually acquired the features of a small town. Simultaneously with the construction of housing, a medical town was erected, a library, a cinema club, a stadium, a park and a theater were built.

On February 17, 1947, by a decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR signed by Stalin, KB-11 was classified as a special security enterprise with the transformation of its territory into a closed security zone. Sarov was removed from the administrative subordination of the Mordovian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and excluded from all accounting materials. In the summer of 1947, the perimeter of the zone was taken under military protection.

Work in KB-11

The mobilization of specialists to the nuclear center was carried out regardless of their departmental affiliation. The leaders of KB-11 searched for young and promising scientists, engineers, and workers in literally all institutions and organizations of the country. All candidates for work in KB-11 underwent a special check by the state security services.
The creation of atomic weapons was the result of the work of a large team. But it did not consist of faceless “staff members”, but of bright personalities, many of whom left a noticeable mark in the history of domestic and world science. Significant potential was concentrated here, both scientific, design, and performing, working.

In 1947, 36 researchers arrived to work at KB-11. They were seconded from various institutes, mainly from the USSR Academy of Sciences: Institute of Chemical Physics, Laboratory N2, NII-6 and the Institute of Mechanical Engineering. In 1947, KB-11 employed 86 engineering and technical workers.
Taking into account the problems that had to be solved in KB-11, the order of formation of its main structural divisions was outlined. The first research laboratories began working in the spring of 1947 in the following areas:
laboratory N1 (headed by M. Ya. Vasiliev) – development of structural elements of an explosive charge that provide a spherically converging detonation wave;
laboratory N2 (A.F. Belyaev) – research on explosive detonation;
laboratory N3 (V.A. Tsukerman) – radiographic studies of explosive processes;
laboratory N4 (L.V. Altshuler) – determination of equations of state;
laboratory N5 (K.I. Shchelkin) - full-scale tests;
laboratory N6 (E.K. Zavoisky) - measurements of central frequency compression;
laboratory N7 (A. Ya. Apin) – development of a neutron fuse;
laboratory N8 (N.V. Ageev) - study of the properties and characteristics of plutonium and uranium for use in bomb construction.
The start of full-scale work on the first domestic atomic charge can be dated back to July 1946. During this period, in accordance with the decision of the Council of Ministers of the USSR dated June 21, 1946, Yu. B. Khariton prepared the “Tactical and technical specifications for the atomic bomb.”

The TTZ indicated that the atomic bomb was being developed in two versions. In the first of them, the working substance should be plutonium (RDS-1), in the second - uranium-235 (RDS-2). In a plutonium bomb, the transition through the critical state must be achieved by symmetrically compressing spherical plutonium with a conventional explosive (implosive version). In the second option, the transition through the critical state is ensured by combining masses of uranium-235 with the help of an explosive (“gun version”).
At the beginning of 1947, the formation of design units began. Initially, all design work was concentrated in a single research and development sector (RDS) KB-11, which was headed by V. A. Turbiner.
The intensity of work in KB-11 was very great from the very beginning and was constantly increasing, since the initial plans, very extensive from the very beginning, increased in volume and depth of elaboration every day.
Conducting explosive experiments with large explosive charges began in the spring of 1947 at the KB-11 experimental sites still under construction. The largest volume of research had to be carried out in the gas-dynamic sector. In connection with this, a large number of specialists were sent there in 1947: K. I. Shchelkin, L. V. Altshuler, V. K. Bobolev, S. N. Matveev, V. M. Nekrutkin, P. I. Roy, N. D. Kazachenko, V. I. Zhuchikhin, A. T. Zavgorodniy, K. K. Krupnikov, B. N. Ledenev, V. M. Malygin, V. M. Bezotosny, D. M. Tarasov, K. I. Panevkin, B. A. Terletskaya and others.
Experimental studies of charge gas dynamics were carried out under the leadership of K. I. Shchelkin, and theoretical questions were developed by a group located in Moscow, headed by Ya. B. Zeldovich. The work was carried out in close cooperation with designers and technologists.

The development of “NZ” (neutron fuse) was undertaken by A.Ya. Apin, V.A. Alexandrovich and designer A.I. Abramov. To achieve the desired result, it was necessary to master a new technology for using polonium, which has a fairly high radioactivity. At the same time, it was necessary to develop a complex system for protecting materials in contact with polonium from its alpha radiation.
In KB-11, research and design work on the most precise element of the charge-capsule-detonator was carried out for a long time. This important direction was led by A.Ya. Apin, I.P. Sukhov, M.I. Puzyrev, I.P. Kolesov and others. The development of research required the territorial approach of theoretical physicists to the research, design and production base of KB-11. Since March 1948, a theoretical department began to be formed in KB-11 under the leadership of Ya.B. Zeldovich.
Due to the great urgency and high complexity of work in KB-11, new laboratories and production sites began to be created, and the best specialists of the Soviet Union seconded to them mastered new high standards and strict production conditions.

The plans drawn up in 1946 could not take into account many of the difficulties that opened up to the participants in the atomic project as they moved forward. By Decree CM N 234-98 ss/op dated 02/08/1948, the production time for the RDS-1 charge was extended to a later date - until the plutonium charge parts were ready at Plant No. 817.
With regard to the RDS-2 option, by this time it became clear that it was not practical to bring it to the testing stage due to the relatively low efficiency of this option compared to the cost of nuclear materials. Work on RDS-2 was stopped in mid-1948.

By decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR dated June 10, 1948, the following were appointed: first deputy chief designer of the “object” - Kirill Ivanovich Shchelkin; deputy chief designer of the facility - Vladimir Ivanovich Alferov, Nikolay Leonidovich Dukhov.
In February 1948, 11 scientific laboratories were hard at work in KB-11, including theorists under the leadership of Ya.B. Zeldovich, who moved to the site from Moscow. His group included D. D. Frank-Kamenetsky, N. D. Dmitriev, V. Yu. Gavrilov. The experimenters did not lag behind the theorists. The most important work was carried out in the departments of KB-11, which were responsible for detonating the nuclear charge. Its design was clear, and so was the detonation mechanism. In theory. In practice, it was necessary to carry out checks and carry out complex experiments again and again.
Production workers also worked very actively - those who had to translate the plans of scientists and designers into reality. A.K. Bessarabenko was appointed head of the plant in July 1947, N.A. Petrov became the chief engineer, P.D. Panasyuk, V.D. Shcheglov, A.I. Novitsky, G.A. Savosin, A.Ya. Ignatiev, V. S. Lyubertsev.

In 1947, a second pilot plant appeared within the structure of KB-11 - for the production of parts from explosives, the assembly of experimental product units and the solution of many other important tasks. The results of calculations and design studies were quickly translated into specific parts, assemblies, and blocks. This, by the highest standards, responsible work was carried out by two factories under KB-11. Plant No. 1 manufactured many parts and assemblies of the RDS-1 and then assembled them. Plant No. 2 (its director was A. Ya. Malsky) was engaged in the practical solution of various problems associated with the production and processing of parts from explosives. The assembly of the explosive charge was carried out in a workshop led by M. A. Kvasov.

Each stage passed posed new tasks for researchers, designers, engineers, and workers. People worked 14-16 hours a day, completely dedicating themselves to their work. On August 5, 1949, a plutonium charge manufactured at Combine No. 817 was accepted by a commission headed by Khariton and then sent by letter train to KB-11. Here, on the night of August 10-11, a control assembly of a nuclear charge was carried out. She showed: RDS-1 meets the technical requirements, the product is suitable for testing at the test site.

A democratic form of governance must be established in the USSR.

Vernadsky V.I.

The atomic bomb in the USSR was created on August 29, 1949 (the first successful launch). The project was led by academician Igor Vasilievich Kurchatov. The period of development of atomic weapons in the USSR lasted from 1942, and ended with testing on the territory of Kazakhstan. This broke the US monopoly on such weapons, because since 1945 they were the only nuclear power. The article is devoted to describing the history of the emergence of the Soviet nuclear bomb, as well as characterizing the consequences of these events for the USSR.

History of creation

In 1941, representatives of the USSR in New York conveyed information to Stalin that a meeting of physicists was being held in the United States, which was devoted to the development of nuclear weapons. Soviet scientists in the 1930s also worked on atomic research, the most famous being the splitting of the atom by scientists from Kharkov led by L. Landau. However, it never came to the point of actual use in weapons. In addition to the United States, Nazi Germany worked on this. At the end of 1941, the United States began its atomic project. Stalin found out about this at the beginning of 1942 and signed a decree on the creation of a laboratory in the USSR to create an atomic project; Academician I. Kurchatov became its leader.

There is an opinion that the work of US scientists was accelerated by the secret developments of German colleagues who came to America. In any case, in the summer of 1945, at the Potsdam Conference, the new US President G. Truman informed Stalin about the completion of work on a new weapon - the atomic bomb. Moreover, to demonstrate the work of American scientists, the US government decided to test the new weapon in combat: on August 6 and 9, bombs were dropped on two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This was the first time that humanity learned about a new weapon. It was this event that forced Stalin to speed up the work of his scientists. I. Kurchatov was summoned by Stalin and promised to fulfill any demands of the scientist, as long as the process proceeded as quickly as possible. Moreover, a state committee was created under the Council of People's Commissars, which oversaw the Soviet atomic project. It was headed by L. Beria.

Development has moved to three centers:

1. The design bureau of the Kirov plant, working on the creation of special equipment.
2. A diffuse plant in the Urals, which was supposed to work on the creation of enriched uranium.
3. Chemical and metallurgical centers where plutonium was studied. It was this element that was used in the first Soviet-style nuclear bomb.

In 1946, the first Soviet unified nuclear center was created. It was a secret facility Arzamas-16, located in the city of Sarov (Nizhny Novgorod region). In 1947, the first nuclear reactor was created at an enterprise near Chelyabinsk. In 1948, a secret training ground was created on the territory of Kazakhstan, near the city of Semipalatinsk-21. It was here that on August 29, 1949, the first explosion of the Soviet atomic bomb RDS-1 was organized. This event was kept completely secret, but American Pacific aviation was able to record a sharp increase in radiation levels, which was evidence of the testing of a new weapon. Already in September 1949, G. Truman announced the presence of an atomic bomb in the USSR. Officially, the USSR admitted to the presence of these weapons only in 1950.

Several main consequences of the successful development of atomic weapons by Soviet scientists can be identified:

1. Loss of the US status as a single state with atomic weapons. This not only equalized the USSR with the USA in terms of military power, but also forced the latter to think through each of their military steps, since now they had to fear for the response of the USSR leadership.
2. The presence of atomic weapons in the USSR secured its status as a superpower.
3. After the USA and the USSR were equalized in the availability of atomic weapons, the race for their quantity began. States spent huge amounts of money to outdo their competitors. Moreover, attempts began to create even more powerful weapons.
4. These events marked the start of the nuclear race. Many countries have begun to invest resources to add to the list of nuclear weapons states and ensure their security.

The first Soviet charge for an atomic bomb was successfully tested at the Semipalatinsk test site (Kazakhstan).

This event was preceded by long and difficult work by physicists. The beginning of work on nuclear fission in the USSR can be considered the 1920s. Since the 1930s, nuclear physics has become one of the main directions of domestic physical science, and in October 1940, for the first time in the USSR, a group of Soviet scientists made a proposal to use atomic energy for weapons purposes, submitting an application to the Invention Department of the Red Army "On the use of uranium as a explosive and toxic substances."

The war that began in June 1941 and the evacuation of scientific institutes dealing with problems of nuclear physics interrupted work on the creation of atomic weapons in the country. But already in the autumn of 1941, the USSR began to receive intelligence information about secret intensive research work being carried out in Great Britain and the USA aimed at developing methods for using atomic energy for military purposes and creating explosives of enormous destructive power.

This information forced, despite the war, to resume work on uranium in the USSR. On September 28, 1942, the secret decree of the State Defense Committee No. 2352ss “On the organization of work on uranium” was signed, according to which research on the use of atomic energy was resumed.

In February 1943, Igor Kurchatov was appointed scientific director of work on the atomic problem. In Moscow, headed by Kurchatov, Laboratory No. 2 of the USSR Academy of Sciences was created (now the National Research Center Kurchatov Institute), which began to study atomic energy.

Initially, the general management of the atomic problem was carried out by the Deputy Chairman of the State Defense Committee (GKO) of the USSR, Vyacheslav Molotov. But on August 20, 1945 (a few days after the US atomic bombing of Japanese cities), the State Defense Committee decided to create a Special Committee, headed by Lavrentiy Beria. He became the curator of the Soviet atomic project.

At the same time, the First Main Directorate under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR (later the Ministry of Medium Engineering of the USSR, now the State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom) was created for the direct management of research, design, engineering organizations and industrial enterprises involved in the Soviet nuclear project. Boris Vannikov, who had previously been the People's Commissar of Ammunition, became the head of the PSU.

In April 1946, the design bureau KB-11 (now the Russian Federal Nuclear Center - VNIIEF) was created at Laboratory No. 2 - one of the most secret enterprises for the development of domestic nuclear weapons, the chief designer of which was Yuli Khariton. Plant No. 550 of the People's Commissariat of Ammunition, which produced artillery shell casings, was chosen as the base for the deployment of KB-11.

The top-secret facility was located 75 kilometers from the city of Arzamas (Gorky region, now Nizhny Novgorod region) on the territory of the former Sarov Monastery.

KB-11 was tasked with creating an atomic bomb in two versions. In the first of them, the working substance should be plutonium, in the second - uranium-235. In mid-1948, work on the uranium option was stopped due to its relatively low efficiency compared to the cost of nuclear materials.

The first domestic atomic bomb had the official designation RDS-1. It was deciphered in different ways: “Russia does it itself,” “The Motherland gives it to Stalin,” etc. But in the official decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR dated June 21, 1946, it was encrypted as “Special jet engine (“S”).

The creation of the first Soviet atomic bomb RDS-1 was carried out taking into account the available materials according to the scheme of the US plutonium bomb tested in 1945. These materials were provided by Soviet foreign intelligence. An important source of information was Klaus Fuchs, a German physicist who participated in work on the nuclear programs of the USA and Great Britain.

Intelligence materials on the American plutonium charge for an atomic bomb made it possible to reduce the time needed to create the first Soviet charge, although many of the technical solutions of the American prototype were not the best. Even at the initial stages, Soviet specialists could offer the best solutions for both the charge as a whole and its individual components. Therefore, the first atomic bomb charge tested by the USSR was more primitive and less effective than the original version of the charge proposed by Soviet scientists in early 1949. But in order to reliably and quickly demonstrate that the USSR also possesses atomic weapons, it was decided to use a charge created according to the American design in the first test.

The charge for the RDS-1 atomic bomb was a multilayer structure in which the active substance, plutonium, was transferred to a supercritical state by compressing it through a converging spherical detonation wave in the explosive.

RDS-1 was an aircraft atomic bomb weighing 4.7 tons, with a diameter of 1.5 meters and a length of 3.3 meters. It was developed in relation to the Tu-4 aircraft, the bomb bay of which allowed the placement of a “product” with a diameter of no more than 1.5 meters. Plutonium was used as fissile material in the bomb.

To produce an atomic bomb charge, a plant was built in the city of Chelyabinsk-40 in the Southern Urals under the conditional number 817 (now the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Mayak Production Association). The plant consisted of the first Soviet industrial reactor for producing plutonium, a radiochemical plant for separating plutonium from irradiated a uranium reactor, and a plant for producing products from metallic plutonium.

The reactor at Plant 817 was brought to its design capacity in June 1948, and a year later the plant received the required amount of plutonium to make the first charge for an atomic bomb.

The location for the test site where it was planned to test the charge was chosen in the Irtysh steppe, approximately 170 kilometers west of Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan. A plain with a diameter of approximately 20 kilometers, surrounded from the south, west and north by low mountains, was allocated for the test site. In the east of this space there were small hills.

Construction of the training ground, called training ground No. 2 of the USSR Ministry of Armed Forces (later the USSR Ministry of Defense), began in 1947, and was largely completed by July 1949.

For testing at the test site, an experimental site with a diameter of 10 kilometers was prepared, divided into sectors. It was equipped with special facilities to ensure testing, observation and recording of physical research. In the center of the experimental field, a metal lattice tower 37.5 meters high was mounted, designed to install the RDS-1 charge. At a distance of one kilometer from the center, an underground building was built for equipment that recorded light, neutron and gamma fluxes of a nuclear explosion. To study the impact of a nuclear explosion, sections of metro tunnels, fragments of airfield runways were built on the experimental field, and samples of aircraft, tanks, artillery rocket launchers, and ship superstructures of various types were placed. To ensure the operation of the physical sector, 44 structures were built at the test site and a cable network with a length of 560 kilometers was laid.

In June-July 1949, two groups of KB-11 workers with auxiliary equipment and household supplies were sent to the test site, and on July 24 a group of specialists arrived there, who were supposed to be directly involved in preparing the atomic bomb for testing.

On August 5, 1949, the government commission for testing the RDS-1 gave a conclusion that the test site was completely ready.

On August 21, 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 warhead.

On August 24, 1949, Kurchatov arrived at the training ground. By August 26, all preparatory work at the site was completed. The head of the experiment, Kurchatov, gave the order to test the RDS-1 on August 29 at eight o'clock in the morning local time and to carry out preparatory operations starting at eight o'clock in the morning on August 27.

On the morning of August 27, assembly of the combat product began near the central tower. On the afternoon of August 28, demolition workers carried out a final full inspection of the tower, prepared the automation for detonation and checked the demolition cable line.

At four o'clock in the afternoon on August 28, a plutonium charge and neutron fuses for it were delivered to the workshop near the tower. The final installation of the charge was completed by three o'clock in the morning on August 29. At four o'clock in the morning, installers rolled the product out of the assembly shop along a rail track and installed it in the tower's freight elevator cage, and then lifted the charge to the top of the tower. By six o'clock the charge was equipped with fuses and connected to the blasting circuit. Then the evacuation of all people from the test field began.

Due to the worsening weather, Kurchatov decided to postpone the explosion from 8.00 to 7.00.

At 6.35, the operators turned on the power to the automation system. 12 minutes before the explosion the field machine was turned on. 20 seconds before the explosion, the operator turned on the main connector (switch) connecting the product to the automatic control system. From that moment on, all operations were performed by an automatic device. Six seconds before the explosion, the main mechanism of the machine turned on the power of the product and some of the field instruments, and one second turned on all the other instruments and issued an explosion signal.

At exactly seven o'clock on August 29, 1949, the entire area was illuminated with a blinding light, which signaled that the USSR had successfully completed the development and testing of its first atomic bomb charge.

The charge power was 22 kilotons of TNT.

20 minutes after the explosion, two tanks equipped with lead protection were sent to the center of the field to conduct radiation reconnaissance and inspect the center of the field. Intelligence revealed that all structures in the center of the field had been demolished. At the site of the tower, a crater gaped; the soil in the center of the field melted, and a continuous crust of slag formed. Civil buildings and industrial structures were completely or partially destroyed.

The equipment used in the experiment made it possible to carry out optical observations and measurements of heat flow, shock wave parameters, characteristics of neutron and gamma radiation, determine the level of radioactive contamination of the area in the area of ​​the explosion and along the trail of the explosion cloud, and study the impact of the damaging factors of a nuclear explosion on biological objects.

For the successful development and testing of a charge for an atomic bomb, several closed decrees of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated October 29, 1949 awarded orders and medals of the USSR to a large group of leading researchers, designers, and technologists; many were awarded the title of Stalin Prize laureates, and more than 30 people received the title of Hero of Socialist Labor.

As a result of the successful test of the RDS-1, the USSR abolished the American monopoly on the possession of atomic weapons, becoming the second nuclear power in the world.

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Research in the field of nuclear physics in the USSR has been carried out since 1918. In 1937, Europe's first cyclotron was launched at the Radium Institute in Leningrad. On November 25, 1938, by decree of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences (AS), a permanent commission on the atomic nucleus was created. It included Sergei Ivanovich Vavilov, Abram Iofe, Abram Alikhanov, Igor Kurchatov and others (in 1940 they were joined by Vitaly Khlopin and Isai Gurevich). By this time, nuclear research was carried out in more than ten scientific institutes. In the same year, the Commission on Heavy Water was formed under the USSR Academy of Sciences, which was later transformed into the Commission on Isotopes.

The first atomic bomb was given the designation RDS-1. This name comes from a government decree, where the atomic bomb was coded as a “special jet engine,” abbreviated as RDS. The designation RDS-1 came into widespread use after the test of the first atomic bomb and was deciphered in different ways: “Stalin’s jet engine”, “Russia does it itself”.

In September 1939, construction began on a powerful cyclotron in Leningrad, and in April 1940 it was decided to build a pilot plant to produce approximately 15 kg of heavy water per year. But due to the outbreak of war, these plans were not realized. In May 1940, N. Semenov, Ya. Zeldovich, Yu. Khariton (Institute of Chemical Physics) proposed a theory of the development of a nuclear chain reaction in uranium. In the same year, work was accelerated to search for new deposits of uranium ores. In the late 30s and early 40s, many physicists already had an idea of ​​what an atomic bomb should look like in general terms. The idea is to quickly concentrate in one place a certain (more than critical mass) amount of material that is fissile under the influence of neutrons (with the emission of new neutrons). After which an avalanche-like increase in the number of atomic decays will begin in it - a chain reaction with the release of a huge amount of energy - an explosion will occur. The problem was obtaining a sufficient amount of fissile material. The only such substance found in nature in acceptable quantities is the isotope of uranium with a mass number (the total number of protons and neutrons in the nucleus) of 235 (uranium-235). In natural uranium, the content of this isotope does not exceed 0.71% (99.28% uranium-238); moreover, the content of natural uranium in the ore is, at best, 1%. Isolating uranium-235 from natural uranium was a rather difficult problem. An alternative to uranium, as it soon became clear, was plutonium-239. It is practically never found in nature (it is 100 times less than uranium-235). It is possible to obtain it in an acceptable concentration in nuclear reactors by irradiating uranium-238 with neutrons. Building such a reactor presented another problem.

Explosion of RDS-1 on August 29, 1949 at the Semipalatinsk test site. The power of the bomb was more than 20 kt. The 37-meter tower on which the bomb was mounted was obliterated, leaving a crater 3 m in diameter and 1.5 m deep underneath, covered with a melted glass-like substance.

The third problem was how it was possible to collect the required mass of fissile material in one place. In the process of even very rapid convergence of subcritical parts, fission reactions begin in them. The energy released in this case may not allow most of the atoms to “take part” in the fission process, and they will fly apart without having time to react.

In 1940, V. Spinel and V. Maslov from the Kharkov Institute of Physics and Technology submitted an application for the invention of an atomic weapon based on the use of a chain reaction of spontaneous fission of a supercritical mass of uranium-235, which is formed from several subcritical ones, separated by an explosive impenetrable to neutrons, destroyed by detonation ( although the “workability” of such a charge is highly doubtful, a certificate for the invention was nevertheless obtained, but only in 1946). The Americans intended to use the so-called cannon design for their first bombs. It actually used a cannon barrel, with the help of which one subcritical part of the fissile material was shot into another (it soon became clear that such a scheme was not suitable for plutonium due to insufficient closing speed).

On April 15, 1941, a resolution was issued by the Council of People's Commissars (SNK) on the construction of a powerful cyclotron in Moscow. But after the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, almost all work in the field of nuclear physics was stopped. Many nuclear physicists ended up at the front or were reoriented to other, as it seemed then, more pressing topics.

Since 1939, both the GRU of the Red Army and the 1st Directorate of the NKVD have been collecting information on the nuclear issue. The first message about plans to create an atomic bomb came from D. Cairncross in October 1940. This issue was discussed at the British Science Committee, where Cairncross worked. In the summer of 1941, the Tube Alloys project to create an atomic bomb was approved. By the beginning of the war, England was one of the leaders in nuclear research, largely thanks to German scientists who fled here when Hitler came to power, one of them was KPD member K. Fuchs. In the fall of 1941, he went to the Soviet Embassy and reported that he had important information about a powerful new weapon. To communicate with him, S. Kramer and radio operator “Sonya” - R. Kuchinskaya were allocated. The first radiograms to Moscow contained information about the gas diffusion method for separating uranium isotopes and about a plant in Wales being built for this purpose. After six transmissions, communication with Fuchs was lost. At the end of 1943, Soviet intelligence officer in the United States Semenov (“Twain”) reported that E. Fermi carried out the first nuclear chain reaction in Chicago. The information came from the physicist Pontecorvo. At the same time, secret scientific works of Western scientists on atomic energy for the years 1940-1942 were received from England through foreign intelligence. They confirmed that great progress had been made in creating the atomic bomb. The wife of the famous sculptor Konenkov also worked for intelligence, and having become close to the leading physicists Oppenheimer and Einstein, she influenced them for a long time. Another resident in the USA, L. Zarubina, found a way to L. Szilard and was included in Oppenheimer’s circle of people. With their help, it was possible to introduce reliable agents into Oak Ridge, Los Alamos and the Chicago Laboratory - centers of American nuclear research. In 1944, information on the American atomic bomb was transmitted to Soviet intelligence by: K. Fuchs, T. Hall, S. Sake, B. Pontecorvo, D. Greenglass and the Rosenbergs.

At the beginning of February 1944, the People's Commissar of the NKVD L. Beria held an extended meeting of the First Soviet Nuclear Bomb and its chief designer Yu. Khariton, the heads of the NKVD intelligence. During the meeting, a decision was made to coordinate the collection of information on the atomic problem. coming through the NKVD and the GRU of the Red Army. and its generalization to create department “C”. On September 27, 1945, the department was organized, leadership was entrusted to the GB Commissioner P. Sudoplatov. In January 1945, Fuchs transmitted a description of the design of the first atomic bomb. Among other things, intelligence obtained materials on the electromagnetic separation of uranium isotopes, data on the operation of the first reactors, specifications for the production of uranium and plutonium bombs, data on the design of a focusing explosive lens system and the size of the critical mass of uranium and plutonium, on plutonium-240, on time and sequence operations for the production and assembly of a bomb, the method of activating the bomb initiator; about the construction of isotope separation plants, as well as diary entries about the first test explosion of an American bomb in July 1945.

Information received through intelligence channels facilitated and accelerated the work of Soviet scientists. Western experts believed that an atomic bomb in the USSR could be created no earlier than in 1954-1955, but its first test took place already in August 1949.

In April 1942, the People's Commissar of the Chemical Industry M. Pervukhin, by order of Stalin, was familiarized with materials on work on the atomic bomb abroad. Pervukhin proposed selecting a group of specialists to evaluate the information presented in this report. On Ioffe’s recommendation, the group included young scientists Kurchatov, Alikhanov and I. Kikoin. On November 27, 1942, the State Defense Committee issued a decree “On uranium mining”. The resolution provided for the creation of a special institute and the start of work on geological exploration, extraction and processing of raw materials. Beginning in 1943, the People's Commissariat of Non-Ferrous Metallurgy (NKCM) began mining and processing uranium ore at the Tabashar mine in Tajikistan with a plan of 4 tons of uranium salts per year. At the beginning of 1943, previously mobilized scientists were recalled from the front.

In pursuance of the resolution of the State Defense Committee, on February 11, 1943, Laboratory No. 2 of the USSR Academy of Sciences was organized, the head of which was Kurchatov (in 1949 it was renamed the Laboratory of Measuring Instruments of the USSR Academy of Sciences - LIPAN, in 1956, on its basis, the Institute of Atomic Energy was created, and currently At the time, this was the Russian Research Center "Kurchatov Institute"), which was supposed to coordinate all work on the implementation of the nuclear project.

In 1944, Soviet intelligence received a reference book on uranium-graphite reactors, which contained very valuable information on determining reactor parameters. But the country did not yet have the uranium necessary to power even a small experimental nuclear reactor. On September 28, 1944, the government obliged the NKCM USSR to hand over uranium and uranium salts to the State Fund and entrusted the task of storing them to Laboratory No. 2. In November 1944, a large group of Soviet specialists, under the leadership of the head of the 4th special department of the NKVD V. Kravchenko, left for the liberated Bulgaria, to study the results of geological exploration of the Gotensky deposit. On December 8, 1944, the State Defense Committee issued a decree on the transfer of the mining and processing of uranium ores from the NKMC to the 9th Directorate of the NKVD, created in the Main Directorate of Mining and Metallurgical Enterprises (GU GMP). In March 1945, Major General S. Egorov, who had previously held the position of deputy, was appointed head of the 2nd department (mining and metallurgical) of the 9th Directorate of the NKVD. Head of the Main Department of Dalstroy. In January 1945, as part of the 9th Directorate, on the basis of separate laboratories of the State Institute of Rare Metals (Giredmet) and one of the defense plants, NII-9 (now VNIINM) was organized to study uranium deposits, solve problems of processing uranium raw materials, obtaining metallic uranium and plutonium . By this time, approximately one and a half tons of uranium ore per week were arriving from Bulgaria.

Since March 1945, after the NKGB received information from the United States about the design of an atomic bomb based on the principle of implosion (compression of fissile material by the explosion of a conventional explosive), work began on a new design that had obvious advantages over the cannon one. In a note from V. Makhanev to Beria in April 1945 about the timing of the creation of the atomic bomb, it was said that the diffusion plant at Laboratory No. 2 for the production of uranium-235 was supposed to be launched in 1947. Its productivity was supposed to be 25 kg of uranium per year, which should be enough for two bombs (in fact, the American uranium bomb required 65 kg of uranium-235).

During the battle for Berlin on May 5, 1945, the property of the Physical Institute of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society was discovered. On May 9, a commission headed by A. Zavenyagin was sent to Germany to search for scientists working there on the Uranium project and to accept materials on the uranium problem. A large group of German scientists was taken to the Soviet Union along with their families. Among them were Nobel laureates G. Hertz and N. Riehl, I. Kurchatov, professors R. Deppel, M. Volmer, G. Pose, P. Thyssen, M. von Ardene, Geib (in total about two hundred specialists, including 33 doctors of science ).

The creation of a nuclear explosive device using plutonium-239 required the construction of an industrial nuclear reactor to produce it. Even a small experimental reactor required about 36 tons of uranium metal, 9 tons of uranium dioxide and about 500 tons of pure graphite. If the graphite problem was solved by August 1943 - it was possible to develop and master a special technological process for producing graphite of the required purity, and in May 1944 its production was established at the Moscow Electrode Plant, then by the end of 1945 the country did not have the required amount of uranium. The first technical specifications for the production of uranium dioxide and uranium metal for a research reactor were issued by Kurchatov in November 1944. In parallel with the creation of uranium-graphite reactors, work was carried out on reactors based on uranium and heavy water. The question arises: why was it necessary to “spread forces” so much and move simultaneously in several directions? Justifying the need for this, Kurchatov in his Report in 1947 gives the following figures. The number of bombs that could be obtained from 1000 tons of uranium ore using different methods is 20 using a uranium-graphite boiler, 50 using the diffusion method, 70 using the electromagnetic method, 40 using “heavy” water. At the same time, boilers with “heavy” water, although they have a number of significant disadvantages, have the advantage that they allow the use of thorium. Thus, although the uranium-graphite boiler made it possible to create an atomic bomb in the shortest possible time, it had the worst result in terms of complete use of raw materials. Taking into account the experience of the United States, where gas diffusion was chosen from four methods of uranium separation studied, on December 21, 1945, the government decided to build plants No. 813 (now the Ural Electro-Mechanical Plant in the city of Novouralsk) to produce highly enriched uranium-235 by gas diffusion and No. 817 (Chelyabinsk-40, now the Mayak chemical plant in the city of Ozersk) to produce plutonium.

In the spring of 1948, the two-year period allotted by Stalin to create the Soviet atomic bomb expired. But by this time, let alone bombs, there were no fissile materials for its production. A government decree of February 8, 1948 set a new deadline for the production of the RDS-1 bomb - March 1, 1949.

The first industrial reactor “A” at Plant No. 817 was launched on June 19, 1948 (it reached its design capacity on June 22, 1948 and was decommissioned only in 1987). To separate produced plutonium from nuclear fuel, a radiochemical plant (plant “B”) was built as part of plant No. 817. Irradiated uranium blocks were dissolved and plutonium was separated from uranium using chemical methods. The concentrated plutonium solution was subjected to additional purification from highly active fission products in order to reduce its radiation activity when supplied to metallurgists. In April 1949, Plant B began manufacturing bomb parts from plutonium using NII-9 technology. At the same time, the first heavy water research reactor was launched. The development of the production of fissile materials was difficult with numerous accidents during the elimination of the consequences of which there were cases of overexposure of personnel (at that time no attention was paid to such trifles). By July, a set of parts for the plutonium charge was ready. To carry out physical measurements, a group of physicists under the leadership of Flerov went to the plant, and a group of theorists under the leadership of Zeldovich went to the plant to process the results of these measurements, calculate the efficiency values ​​and the probability of an incomplete explosion.

On August 5, 1949, the plutonium charge was accepted by the commission headed by Khariton and sent by letter train to KB-11. By this time, work on creating an explosive device was almost completed here. Here, on the night of August 10-11, a control assembly of a nuclear charge was carried out, which received the index 501 for the RDS-1 atomic bomb. After this, the device was dismantled, the parts were inspected, packaged and prepared for shipment to the landfill. Thus, the Soviet atomic bomb was made in 2 years 8 months (in the USA it took 2 years 7 months).

The test of the first Soviet nuclear charge 501 was carried out on August 29, 1949 at the Semipalatinsk test site (the device was located on a tower). The power of the explosion was 22 kt. The design of the charge was similar to the American “Fat Man”, although the electronic filling was of Soviet design. The atomic charge was a multilayer structure in which plutonium was transferred to a critical state by compression by a converging spherical detonation wave. At the center of the charge was placed 5 kg of plutonium, in the form of two hollow hemispheres, surrounded by a massive shell of uranium-238 (tamper). This shell, the first Soviet nuclear bomb, served to inertially contain the core inflating during the chain reaction, so that as much of the plutonium as possible had time to react and, in addition, served as a reflector and moderator of neutrons (neutrons with low energies are most effectively absorbed by plutonium nuclei, causing their fission ). The tamper was surrounded by an aluminum shell, which ensured uniform compression of the nuclear charge by the shock wave. A neutron initiator (fuse) was installed in the cavity of the plutonium core - a beryllium ball with a diameter of about 2 cm, coated with a thin layer of polonium-210. When the nuclear charge of the bomb is compressed, the nuclei of polonium and beryllium come closer together, and the alpha particles emitted by radioactive polonium-210 knock out neutrons from beryllium, which initiate a nuclear chain reaction of fission of plutonium-239. One of the most complex units was the explosive charge, which consisted of two layers. The inner layer consisted of two hemispherical bases made of an alloy of TNT and hexogen, the outer layer was assembled from individual elements that had different detonation rates. The outer layer, designed to form a spherical converging detonation wave at the base of the explosive, is called the focusing system.

For safety reasons, the installation of the unit containing fissile material was carried out immediately before using the charge. For this purpose, the spherical explosive charge had a through conical hole, which was closed with an explosive plug, and in the outer and inner casings there were holes that were closed with lids. The power of the explosion was due to the nuclear fission of about a kilogram of plutonium; the remaining 4 kg did not have time to react and were uselessly dispersed. During the implementation of the RDS-1 creation program, many new ideas arose for improving nuclear charges (increasing the utilization rate of fissile material, reducing dimensions and weight). New types of charges have become more powerful, more compact and “more elegant” compared to the first.

Why did the USSR postpone its project and create an analogue of US nuclear weapons?

In the early 90s, all perestroika publications began to shout at once: they say that the USSR stole the atomic bomb project from the United States. They say that the “scoop” himself was weak-minded, he could only steal and copy. And without America I would not have made either bombs or missiles. This thesis was indirectly confirmed by intelligence memoirists, but the still classified Soviet nuclear scientists simply could not refute it. In light of the recent American test of the B61-12 atomic bomb, it is worth reflecting on the ominous events of August 1945 and 1949.

The explosive atmosphere of Potsdam

The fight was going to be serious. The USA and Great Britain have already developed a plan to divide Germany into several states, mainly agricultural ones. But unexpectedly, the Soviet leader declared on Victory Day that the USSR “is not going to either dismember or destroy Germany.” And in Potsdam he defeated all the arguments of the British Prime Minister Churchill, made territorial claims to Turkey, which infuriated the Western allies. But, most importantly, the USA and Great Britain needed to prevent the USSR from entering the war with Japan before August 9.

Let me remind you that the leaders of the Big Three agreed in Yalta back in the winter that the redistribution of borders would be considered valid only if Stalin met this deadline. The winner of the war with the Japanese received the laurels of the winner throughout World War II, since at the time of Hitler’s defeat, about 60 countries had already declared war on Japan. But the samurai continued to kill in China, attack the Asian possessions of the British, French, Dutch, Americans and were not going to capitulate.
Truman dreamed of becoming famous as the founder of the era of US domination on the planet and was confident that he had control over everyone. On July 16, the day before the Potsdam Conference, the world's first atomic bomb, Trinity, was tested in the desert region of New Mexico. On July 24, the US President, casually, informed Stalin that the United States had “created a new weapon of extraordinary destructive power.” But Stalin did not blink an eye. Truman and Churchill decided that the Soviet leader did not even understand what he was talking about. However, in the evening, according to the marshal Zhukova, Stalin laughed and said to the Minister of Foreign Affairs Molotov: “We’ll have to talk to him today.” Kurchatov about speeding up our work."
And Truman ordered the bomb to be dropped over Japan as soon as possible, but only after he left Potsdam.

Monument to Igor KURCHATOV

For your information
Igor Kurchatov was the coordinator of all work on atomic topics and an intermediary between scientists and the country's leadership. He was the only one who had access to intelligence materials. The creation of the atomic bomb was led by Yuli Khariton. In 1992, in an interview, he said the phrase “... our first atomic bomb is a copy of the American one.” Taken out of context, it became the only argument for the Dempress hysteria that “the Russians stole the secret of the atomic bomb from the Americans.” And the words of the academician that “the calculations of our scientists using one of the designs gave results similar to the American ones” have sunk into oblivion.

Burning August in the East

* On August 6, 1945, in the United States, the Enola Gay, a Boeing B-29 strategic bomber with the Baby atomic bomb, was seen off on its combat mission with a prayer service. Press the button and tens of thousands of Japanese instantly turned into ashes, flying up with the cloud over Hiroshima. Tens of thousands more died from the shock wave. Hundreds of thousands of wounded, burned, affected by radiation.

* On August 9, the Yankees already incinerated Nagasaki. Almost half a million people died as a result of the bombing of the two cities. And only one American went crazy from remorse - the commander of a weather reconnaissance plane Claude Eatherly, who visited Hiroshima after the bombing.
* New evidence of Japan’s attempt to create its own atomic bomb has recently been found: archival documents from 1944 describe equipment for uranium enrichment. At the same time, the Japanese were developing two nuclear projects.
* The bloodless USSR declared war on Japan on time. Having managed to build roads, ferries and transfer over 400 thousand people and a colossal amount of equipment to the Far East. On the night of August 8–9, 1945, troops, together with the Pacific Fleet, began combat operations against Japanese troops on a front stretching more than 5,000 km. The Japanese surrender was signed on September 2, 1945, on board the battleship Missouri. The Second World War ended with the victory of the Soviet Union and its allies.

“Two bombs fell and the war ended.”
Vannivar BUSH, participant in the US atomic program

Do you remember how it all began?

On August 29, 1939, Einstein, in his famous letter to Roosevelt, reported that Nazi Germany had been conducting active research into the fission of uranium for a year, which could result in an atomic bomb. In November, Roosevelt thanked Einstein for the information and announced the beginning of the American project, called the Manhattan Project on September 17, 1943.

This photo revealed many spy secrets. Robert OPPENHEIMER, physicist wife Elsa and Albert EINSTEIN, Margarita KONENKOVA, EINSTEIN's adopted daughter Margot

In the USSR, work in the field of nuclear energy started in 1932. In documents dated March 5, 1938, declassified six years ago, scientists asked Molotov provide the Leningrad Institute of Physics and Technology with two grams of radium and “offer the People’s Commissariat of the USSR, under whose jurisdiction we have now passed, to create all the conditions for completing the construction of the cyclotron at LFTI by January 1, 1939.” And the request was granted. Only talented scientists not involved in the Soviet atomic project in the 1940s sounded the alarm that the West was closely engaged in atomic research, and we, they say, were doing nothing. But in connection with the Second World War, which was going on near our borders, only peaceful atomic research was suspended. Only Stalin and Beria.

He came himself

The pacifist Einstein became nervous, realizing what universal horror he had provoked. If the United States creates a hellish bomb, it will certainly be used. The 29-year-old professor also understood this Klaus Fuchs, who emigrated from Nazi Germany and at the end of 1940 began working in England on the British atomic bomb project “Tube Alloys”. The communist guy was worried that the United States and England, united against Hitler, were jointly developing such a formidable weapon, but were keeping it secret from the Soviet Union. The only one, he believed, was the guarantee that the atom should serve peaceful life on the planet.

The feat of a scout

A 27-year-old machine tool engineer came to meet Fuchs in a bar. Vladimir Barkovsky, recently graduated from SHON - The Special Purpose School trained liaison officers for foreign intelligence officers. Things went swimmingly. Barkovsky held a glass of beer and a magazine with photos of famous athletes.
- Joe Louis is the best boxer in the world! - he shouted as if in ecstasy and began to show everyone his photo.
“No, Jackie Brown is the best of all time,” Klaus’s password was heard. Having argued loudly, the young people went out into the street. For Barkovsky - operational pseudonym Dan - this was his first meeting with an agent in his life. We agreed to call the atomic bomb a “little thing.” Fuchs gave out information in an avalanche until he realized that the contactee did not understand anything from his scientific speech.
- What are you going to convey?! - asked Fuchs. - I will work only with equals. At least read the American textbook on atomic physics.

The intelligence officer slept two to three hours a day for two months, mastered the topic, studied the latest publications, but could not freely use terms in a conversation - there were no transcriptions in the textbooks. And Klaus sent him away again. But Moscow was in a hurry. Dan compiled a “conversational” specialized encyclopedia and during a week of training with a translator for 16 hours a day, he began to speak. All that was left was to convince Fuchs to meet with him again. Both took mortal risks. Beria suspected that misinformation was being sent from London to the USSR through Deng, so that during the “war of engines”, which we no longer had enough of, to distract the country to create a counterweight to new weapons, but if it exists, there is no time to hesitate. And Fuchs passed a tough test at the Manhattan Project Robert Oppenheimer. And in 1943 he suddenly disappeared for a long time.

CIA vs USSR

* By the summer of 1948, the Chariotir plan appeared in the United States. In 30 days, the Yankees wanted to drop 133 atomic bombs on 70 Soviet cities. Of these, eight are to Moscow and seven to Leningrad. And then in two years another 200 atomic and 250 thousand conventional bombs.
* On December 19, 1949, the Committee of Chiefs of Staff approved the Dropshot plan and then the Trojan plan for a preventive war against the USSR and our allies. On January 1, 1950, the United States had 840 strategic bombers in service and 1,350 in reserve, over 320 atomic bombs. Of these, 300 were planned to be dropped on 100 Soviet cities. They calculated that in 6 thousand sorties, 6 - 7 million Soviet citizens would be killed.

Why weren't we bombed?

* On August 29, 1949, the first Soviet atomic bomb RDS-1 was tested at the Semipalatinsk test site.
* On September 25, 1949, TASS reported: “The Soviet Union mastered the secret of atomic weapons back in 1947. ...The Soviet government, despite the presence of atomic weapons, stands and intends to stand in the future on its old position of unconditionally prohibiting the use of atomic weapons.” For the USA it was like a bolt from the blue. Their intelligence missed everything.
The Committee of Chiefs of Staff finished off power. A check in the headquarters game gave an unexpected result: taking into account the defense capabilities of the USSR, the maximum probability of achieving goals is only 70 percent, and the smallest losses of bombers are 53 percent. The group that bombed Nuremberg in March 1944 mutinied, losing only 11.82 percent of its aircraft. She was supported by the entire flight crew at the English bases. What will happen if more than half of the pilots die?

Bear in mind
It recently became known that Fuchs was “attached” to the American project through her lover Einstein by the elegant and incredibly attractive intelligence officer Margarita Konenkova, the wife of the Soviet sculptor, who became the last love of the brilliant physicist.
Klaus and Vladimir met in March 1944 already overseas. This time, Dan passed Fuchs’ exam, presented and transferred to the Center almost 10 thousand pages of their conversations and personally made duplicate keys for the scientist to open safes, since Moscow requested copies of a number of original documents.

Whose is it, RDS-1?

Only 12 people in the country knew about the secret decree “On the organization of work on uranium” that was issued in September 1942. It ordered the exploration of different options for creating an atomic bomb. Scientists have debated whether plutonium is a fissile element. The information received from Fuchs helped to weed out dead-end options and concentrate on original projects.

The uranium plant in the mountains of Tajikistan was already operating in 1945. In August 1946, in the Ural city of Kyshtym they began to dig a foundation pit for a nuclear reactor. And on June 8, 1948, a nuclear reactor was launched for the first time to produce weapons-grade plutonium - the “filling” for a bomb. He produced 100 g per day. And then the country’s leadership decided to create a charge according to the American scheme. They say there is no time to risk testing a completely new design; the country’s security is at stake.
- You cannot say that our first atomic charge was a copy of the American one. What does it mean to “steal a bomb” anyway? - says the famous designer of nuclear weapons Arkady Brish. - Thanks to reconnaissance, we only knew its diagram, and not the design drawings and calculations. The monument at the training ground in Alamogordo is that same scheme. So what? Non-nuclear states grabbed tape measures, measured the sculpture and rushed to make bombs? The technologies for creating a charge according to this scheme are completely domestic. They also dictated a number of design differences. For the Americans, the charge was fired in the barrel, and due to its compression, a chain reaction began. Our scientists used ball compression instead of a barrel. This is a more complex design, but it gave better efficiency.

The monument to the first American bomb in Alamogordo was erected life-size according to a scheme already known to our intelligence

Think about it!
In 1945, the book “Atomic Energy for Military Purposes” was published in the United States. The Americans were sure that it would not be able to help us create an atomic bomb even in 15 years, since the entire cycle of its creation - from theory to industrial implementation - was too complicated.