sabotage case
Sergei Korolev began his design career in aircraft design, becoming a student of Andrei Tupolev and defending his diploma under his leadership in 1929. The idea to start rocket construction came to his mind later, under the influence of the work of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. In 1931, on Korolev’s initiative, a Jet Propulsion Working Group was created in Moscow. While working there, he launched the miniature liquid-fueled rocket GIRD-10, the first in the USSR.
Left: Model of the GIRD-09 rocket named after KE in the State Museum of the History of Cosmonautics. Tsiolkovsky in Kaluga. Right: R-06 rocket, GIRD-10 rocket, R-07 rocket (from top to bottom) at the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics at VDNKh
RIA Novosti/TASS
After that, the engineer worked on various projects at the Jet Research Institute of NK VMD of the USSR. There he created several flight prototypes of anti-aircraft and cruise missiles, as well as a long-range ballistic missile project. None of these developments were developed, and so Korolev worked on creating a rocket-powered interceptor until his arrest in 1938.
The designer was arrested, like millions of other victims of repression. One evening, Korolev’s wife came home and told her husband that two suspicious men in uniform were manning the entrance. “It’s probably up to me,” he replied and offered to listen to the record with Russian folk songs he had bought the same day. On one side – “There was a birch in the field”, on the other – “Blizzard”, as the designer’s daughter recalled. There was a knock on the door at midnight. The search continued until six o’clock in the morning.
The attention of state security officials did not come as a surprise to Korolev – at that time almost the entire leadership of the Jet Institute (since 1937 – NII-3) was arrested. The institute was unlucky because of its founder, Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky. When he was shot in 1937 on charges of conspiracy to seize power, everyone associated with the field marshal was repressed. Before Korolev, other top Soviet rocket scientists were arrested: the director of the Institute Ivan Kleimenov, the creator of Katyusha rockets Georgy Langemak and the top expert on rocket engines Valentin Glushko. According to statements taken under torture, Korolev was detained for “sabotage” on September 27, 1938.
Since the designers’ working papers concerned only rocket science and contained no traces of sabotage or espionage on behalf of capitalist countries, one could only hope that the defendant himself would admit his crimes. How the NKVD obtained confessions is well known, but little is known specifically about the torture of Korolev. According to the stories of Korolev’s daughter, at the first interrogation he was asked if he knew the reason for the arrest, to which the designer answered “no”. After this, state security sergeant Bykov spat in the engineer’s face and hit him in the groin with his boot. Korolev lost consciousness. After the doctor’s examination, the interrogation continued.
Korolev himself never published his memoirs and did not speak publicly about what happened to him in prison. Everything that is known about this period of his life, rather than documentation, was told by relatives or colleagues.
Designer Sergei Korolev (second from left) among employees of the Jet Propulsion Research Group (GIRD), 1932. GIRD became a state research and design laboratory for the development of rocket aircraft, from which the first Soviet liquid ballistic missiles GIRD-09 and GIRD-10 were created and launched
RIA News
However, the interrogation of the rocketeers in the NKVD was described in detail by Korolev’s colleague Glushko. This was called the “conveyor belt”: The defendant did not sleep, eat or drink for days while being interrogated by successive groups of investigators. Accompanied by threats and insults, they beat the person with rubber hoses and metal wires and stuck needle plugs into his skin.
As a result of such interrogation, Korolev, like other scientists of the Jet Institute, admitted sabotage and was transferred to the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR for trial as the most malicious enemy of the “first category”. Soviet regime. Of the ten convicted in this category, an average of eight to nine people were shot, so the future creator of Soviet ballistic and space missiles had every chance of falling into a hole at the Kommunarka execution site near Moscow, where his colleagues Kleimenov were located. and Langeman left. But Korolev was relatively lucky – on September 27, he was sentenced to ten years in forced labor camps.
In the camp, Korolev was rescued by a political prisoner airman
To straighten himself out, the designer was sent to the Maldyak gold mine, seven hundred kilometers from Magadan. Since then, Korolev hated gold all his life, and people who knew this sometimes took off gold jewelry in his presence. The designer especially remembers how prisoners were transported by sea from Vladivostok to Kolyma. More than five thousand prisoners were crammed into the hold of the ship, which was not designed to carry people. There was a terrible stuffiness and stench, people were vomiting on the ground and there were puddles of sewage everywhere under their feet. Under similar conditions, black slaves were transported from Africa to America centuries ago.
Once at the mine, Korolev kept his cool and surprised the other prisoners by exercising every morning. It may seem strange indeed to take care of your health in the Maldyak camp, because by the spring of 1940 only more than a hundred of the five hundred prisoners had survived. Gold mining is not considered a deadly business; The real problem was inhumane working conditions. But it wasn’t hardening that saved the Queen, but luck and a political prisoner airman.
As a result of the investigation into the crash of pilot Valery Chkalov’s plane, Mikhail Usachev ended up in the camps. Usachev was the manager of the Moscow Aviation Plant and, according to investigators, committed criminal negligence in preparing the prototype I-180 aircraft for flight. There was no more truth in this than in Korolev’s “sabotage”. The repressed manager of the factory was a real “athlete”, an amateur boxer and, apparently, a strong and strong-willed person.
When Usachev arrived in Maldyak, he first of all strongly opposed the authority of the local thieves and took his place as headman. During the “transfer of authority” the bandit took the former warden around the camp, introduced him to the situation, and at one point he pointed to a pile of dirty rags. “Here lies the king; One of your men, one of your political men. “He is sick and will probably never get up again.” – said the prisoner.
Looking closely, Usachev saw his old acquaintance lying among the rags – motionless, pale and skeletal Korolev. The headman ordered that the patient be taken to the isolation ward and provided with “additional food” from the thieves’ rations. A decoction of raw potatoes and pine needles helped with scurvy, so Korolev soon got back on his feet.
His daughter Korolev said that her father “carried throughout his life a deep sense of gratitude to his saviors.” In the early 1960s, heading the council of chief designers of the rocket and space industry, he found Usachev and hired him as deputy chief engineer of the pilot plant.
Sergei Korolev at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, 1961
RIA News
Korolev’s mother and many of his influential friends who remained free, including famous pilots Mikhail Gromov and Valentina Grizodubova, worked for Korolev, who was constantly repressed. After working in the mine for almost a year, Korolev was transferred to Moscow – on the way back he almost died of scurvy and lost a total of 14 teeth since his arrest. He was retried in the spring of 1940, sentenced to eight years in prison, and sent to the NKVD’s special prison, TsKB29, popularly known as “Tupolev sharaga”. There he met his former teacher Tupolev, with whom he began working on the Soviet Pe-2 and Tu-2 bombers. Conditions at Sharaga were far from torture and the designers were fed “restaurant style”, but it was still a prison. Korolev was released only in 1944.
Survivor Chief Designer
The main brainchild of Korolev is the R-7 missile family. The first of them was intended for the delivery of nuclear weapons, but in this capacity the “seven” was not very suitable due to liquid fuel. Space rockets turned out to be much better – Sputnik-1, Yuri Gagarin and Luna-9, which were the first to land on the Earth’s satellite, flew on them. Even the modern Soyuz-2 is an updated version of the same “Seven”.
Left: The first ICBMs R-7A and R-7 designed by SP Korolev. Right: Vostok rocket at VDNKh in Moscow
Wikimedia Commons/
Korolev’s leadership in the Soviet space industry is recognized by all who dealt with him. He received this status not only because of his talent as a designer: after all, most of the engineering solutions of other rocket scientists working both in the USSR and in Western countries were no worse, and sometimes better. But in terms of working ability, leadership qualities and readiness for bold decisions, no one can compare with Korolev. Thanks to these character traits of the Queen, the USSR managed to surpass the USA in launching the first satellite, the first cosmonaut and the first lunar landing station.
On March 16, 1966, the chief designer died at the age of 59 due to rectal sarcoma. Before that, they tried to save him with the help of abdominal surgery performed by the honored Soviet surgeon Boris Petrovsky. According to his memories, During anesthesia, doctors were unable to place a breathing tube in Korolev’s mouth because his jaw did not open wide. “I have no doubt that the Queen’s jaw was broken during the interrogations in 1938.” – said the surgeon. As a result, an emergency tracheotomy had to be performed, but the operation was still unsuccessful – the heart of the great Russian designer and pioneer of space technology stopped beating 30 minutes after its completion.
Sergei Korolev on vacation with his wife Nina and Yuri Gagarin (right), 1961
RIA News
Korolev lived in space and dreamed of one day sending people to Mars, and thanks to his indisputable authority, he had a chance to persuade the Soviet leadership to at least start such a project. The indigenous manned lunar program, which was canceled in 1974 after several failures during tests of the N-1 superheavy rocket, could have turned out differently.
“I believe in the role of the individual in history, and if Korolev had not left in 1966, we would be on the moon. I think this is the real reason [для неудач программы]because no one can compare with him neither in talent, nor in organizational ability, nor in authority.” said Academician Mikhail Marov, Korolev’s partner and one of the leaders of the Soviet program for Venus research, said in an interview with socialbites.ca.
The Chief Designer was unknown to the public during his lifetime. However, after his death, his portrait was published in newspapers for the first time, along with an obituary. In 1972, based on Korolev’s biography, a film about astronautics pioneers, Taming of Fire, was released. However, the chief designer in the films bears the surname Bashkirtsev, and he spent his whole life doing his favorite job, never once being in the Gulag or subjected to torture interrogation in the NKVD.
Source: Gazeta
Barbara Dickson is a seasoned writer for “Social Bites”. She keeps readers informed on the latest news and trends, providing in-depth coverage and analysis on a variety of topics.