The first test of the Soviet atomic bomb
On 29 of August 1949 of the year, exactly 70 of years ago, the first test of the Soviet atomic bomb was carried out. Nuclear weapon It has become a real shield for our country, and still possessing it is one of the key arguments in the confrontation with hostile powers.
In the 1940s, the United States and the Soviet Union developed almost simultaneously the development of the latest and most powerful weapons - the atomic bomb. The Americans, who started research and development a little earlier, were able to achieve their cherished goal faster - on July 16, 1945, two months after the end of the war with Germany, a nuclear bomb was tested at the Trinity American training ground in New Mexico. Three weeks later, it was put into practice - aviation The US has bombarded Japanese cities. Hiroshima was attacked on August 6, and Nagasaki on August 9, 1945.
In this situation, it was impossible to hesitate with the tests of Soviet nuclear weapons. Relations between yesterday’s allies in the anti-Hitler and anti-Japanese coalitions began to deteriorate rapidly after the end of World War II. It was clear that a new phase of confrontation was opening - the capitalist West against the Soviet Union and the countries of the socialist camp. And there was no doubt that the United States would use nuclear weapons against the USSR if the latter did not have the opportunity to deliver a preventive or retaliatory strike.
By the summer of 1949, all the main work on the development of the Soviet atomic bomb, called the RDS-1, was completed. The abbreviation RDS stands for "special jet engine." Naturally, after the creation of the RDS-1, it was required to test new weapons.
Little is worth saying about those people without whom the creation of a nuclear bomb would not have been possible. First of all, this is the legendary scientist - physicist Igor V. Kurchatov. At the time of testing, he was 46 years old. By today's standards, he is a rather young scientist, but in those years Kurchatov was a luminary of Soviet nuclear physics, a true "father - founder" of the Soviet bomb. He was the founder and first director of the Institute of Atomic Energy of the USSR.
45-year-old Soviet physicist Yuli Borisovich Khariton headed the Design Bureau-1946 (Arzamas-11) in Sarov since 16. In fact, it was he who was responsible for the atomic project, to which the best physicists of the Soviet Union were involved. By decision of the Soviet leadership, Julius Borisovich Khariton was appointed and responsible for conducting the RDS-1 tests.
The state commission for testing was headed by Mikhail Georgievich Pervukhin — deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and Minister of the Chemical Industry of the USSR. Pervukhin, like Khariton, was 45 years old.
A typical representative of the Stalinist galaxy of People's Commissars, Pervukhin in his youth managed to take part in the Civil War, joined the Komsomol and the party, received a higher engineering education and worked in the field of energy, where he quickly made a dizzying career. In 33 of the year he became deputy People's Commissar of Heavy Industry Lazar Kaganovich, in 34 of the year he headed the People's Commissariat of Power Plants and the Electricity Industry, and in 35 of the year he became deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR.
Pervukhin was well versed in technical matters, enjoyed the confidence of Stalin himself and his closest associates, so it was he who was entrusted with the task of leading the State Commission for Testing Nuclear Weapons. The tests themselves, it was decided to produce at the Semipalatinsk test site in the Kazakh SSR.
Today it is the East Kazakhstan region of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Its center, the city of Semey, was called Semipalatinsk until 2007. But the authorities of post-Soviet Kazakhstan, in their policy of de-Russification, ultimately renamed the city founded as the Semipalatinsk fortress back in 1718 by the governor Vasily Cheredov.
160 kilometers from Semipalatinsk, which during the events described was the regional center of the Semipalatinsk region, a special testing ground for testing new weapons was equipped. The location turned out to be extremely successful - the relief allowed for nuclear explosions underground, including in adits and wells. Before the opening of the landfill, the Chinese Consulate was withdrawn from Semipalatinsk.
On 21 of August 1947 of the year, the USSR Council of Ministers transferred the training ground to the USSR Ministry of Armed Forces (the Ministry of Defense was then called) and it received the official name "Training Ground No. 2" (military unit 52605). The first chief of the Semipalatinsk test site was appointed lieutenant general of artillery Pyotr Mikhailovich Rozhanovich - a veteran of the Great Patriotic War, a combat officer who commanded an artillery division and a corps. However, in 1948, the 42-year-old Rozhanovich died.
Preparation of the Semipalatinsk test site for the upcoming tests of the atomic bomb was very thorough. The experimental field was a circle with a radius of 10 kilometers, which was divided into 14 sectors, including 2 fortification and physical sectors, the civilian construction sector, the sector of the Armed Forces and military branches, and the biological sector with animals.
The Soviet leadership was interested in what the consequences of a nuclear explosion would be for infrastructure facilities, for military equipment. Therefore, sections of subway tunnels and runways were built in the test zone. Separate samples were also placed at the landfill. tanks, self-propelled artillery, rocket launchers, aircraft. A special metal structure was put in the center of the experimental field - a tower 37,5 meters high, on which the RDS-1 bomb was mounted.
Exactly in 7: 00 in the morning of 29 in August 1949, a bright light illuminated the vicinity of the landfill, an explosion occurred. The atomic bomb, the first in the Soviet storieshas been successfully tested. Despite the precautionary measures taken, as a result of the explosion several servicemen were injured, who were at the command post, located at a great distance from the place of the explosion. 20 minutes after the test, two lead tanks were sent to the blast site. Scouts and managed to establish what happened in the epicenter of the explosion and at a distance of a kilometer from it.
The power of the RDS-1 was about 22 kilotons. As a result of the explosion, the 37-meter tower on which the bomb was mounted was completely destroyed, and in its place a funnel with a depth of 1,5 meter and a diameter of 3 meter was formed. A building made of reinforced concrete structures with a bridge crane, located 25 meters from the tower, was partially destroyed.
The T-34 tank and artillery guns located within a radius of 500-550 meters from the center of the explosion received light damage. Were damaged and aircraft located at a distance of 1,5 kilometers. All 10 cars burned, located at a distance of a kilometer from the center.
Two residential three-story houses, built at a distance of 800 meters, were completely destroyed. Destroyed all the log and panel houses of the urban type, specially erected in a radius of 5 kilometers.
The explosion threw and distorted the railway bridge erected at a distance of a kilometer, and the highway bridge at a distance of one and a half kilometers. Wagons and cars placed on bridges were discarded 50-80 meters from the installation site. The animals were blown away. In general, from 1538 experimental animals, 345 animals died.
During 1949-1950. in the city of Sarov, on the basis of the plant of the People's Commissariat for Agricultural Engineering, the 550 assembly plant was created at the 11 design bureau. The production capacity of the plant was determined in 20 RDS per year. By the end of the 1949 year, another 2 RDS-1 bomb was manufactured, and in the 1950 year, another 9 RDS-1 atomic bomb was manufactured.
By the spring of 1951, the Soviet Union had 15 plutonium nuclear bombs RDS-1. They were placed on the territory of the factory number 550 in Sarov in a special reinforced concrete storage. The bombs were kept in disassembled condition, and the territory of the plant itself was under heavy guard, which was carried out by troops of the USSR Ministry of State Security.
If necessary, the engineering and technical personnel had to collect bombs, transport them to the place of military use, and bring them to the highest combat readiness. The preparation of the bombs for combat use was assigned to the assembly brigade operating as part of the KB-11, and the tasks of bombing the RDS-1 were to be carried out by pilots of bomber aircraft of the Soviet Air Force.
The work of Soviet designers was rewarded according to merit. 29 October 1949 year the title of Hero of Socialist Labor received Igor V. Kurchatov and Julius Borisovich Khariton. Mikhail Georgievich Pervukhin, who led the State Commission at the Semipalatinsk test site, also became a hero of Socialist Labor.
Interestingly, Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria, whose contribution to the organization of creating nuclear weapons was not even disputed by his fierce haters, did not receive a second Golden Star - he became the Hero of Socialist Labor six years earlier, in 1943.
On 29 of August 1949 of the year, the post-war world has completely and irrevocably changed. The United States lost its main advantage over the Soviet Union, which they possessed for four years after the end of World War II. The appearance of the Soviet Union’s own atomic bomb meant that now the United States could also have very dire consequences in the event of an armed conflict with the Soviet state.
However, officially the appearance of the atomic bomb in the Soviet Union was announced only six months after the first test of the RDS-1 at the Semipalatinsk test site. March 8 1950, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Marshal of the Soviet Union Clement Efremovich Voroshilov officially announced that the USSR had nuclear weapons.
For the USSR, testing the atomic bomb was really a real breakthrough. And the merit in this breakthrough belongs to both physicists, design engineers, technical personnel, and the political and military leadership of the USSR, security personnel, military personnel who created all the necessary conditions for the appearance of an atomic bomb - from material and technical to informational and organizational.
The appearance in the Soviet Union of its nuclear weapons was appalled with horror in the West. In Washington, the atomic bomb was considered one of the trump cards in dialogue with the Soviet state, but after the appearance of its own weapons of mass destruction in the USSR, a balance was established between the parties. There is no doubt that the world that we observed in the second half of the 20th century, the beginning of the 21st century, could exist in its form precisely because the Soviet Union established this balance in the field of nuclear weapons.
Soviet atomic project
In the 1940s, the United States and the Soviet Union developed almost simultaneously the development of the latest and most powerful weapons - the atomic bomb. The Americans, who started research and development a little earlier, were able to achieve their cherished goal faster - on July 16, 1945, two months after the end of the war with Germany, a nuclear bomb was tested at the Trinity American training ground in New Mexico. Three weeks later, it was put into practice - aviation The US has bombarded Japanese cities. Hiroshima was attacked on August 6, and Nagasaki on August 9, 1945.
In this situation, it was impossible to hesitate with the tests of Soviet nuclear weapons. Relations between yesterday’s allies in the anti-Hitler and anti-Japanese coalitions began to deteriorate rapidly after the end of World War II. It was clear that a new phase of confrontation was opening - the capitalist West against the Soviet Union and the countries of the socialist camp. And there was no doubt that the United States would use nuclear weapons against the USSR if the latter did not have the opportunity to deliver a preventive or retaliatory strike.
By the summer of 1949, all the main work on the development of the Soviet atomic bomb, called the RDS-1, was completed. The abbreviation RDS stands for "special jet engine." Naturally, after the creation of the RDS-1, it was required to test new weapons.
Little is worth saying about those people without whom the creation of a nuclear bomb would not have been possible. First of all, this is the legendary scientist - physicist Igor V. Kurchatov. At the time of testing, he was 46 years old. By today's standards, he is a rather young scientist, but in those years Kurchatov was a luminary of Soviet nuclear physics, a true "father - founder" of the Soviet bomb. He was the founder and first director of the Institute of Atomic Energy of the USSR.
45-year-old Soviet physicist Yuli Borisovich Khariton headed the Design Bureau-1946 (Arzamas-11) in Sarov since 16. In fact, it was he who was responsible for the atomic project, to which the best physicists of the Soviet Union were involved. By decision of the Soviet leadership, Julius Borisovich Khariton was appointed and responsible for conducting the RDS-1 tests.
The state commission for testing was headed by Mikhail Georgievich Pervukhin — deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and Minister of the Chemical Industry of the USSR. Pervukhin, like Khariton, was 45 years old. A typical representative of the Stalinist galaxy of People's Commissars, Pervukhin in his youth managed to take part in the Civil War, joined the Komsomol and the party, received a higher engineering education and worked in the field of energy, where he quickly made a dizzying career. In 33 of the year he became deputy People's Commissar of Heavy Industry Lazar Kaganovich, in 34 of the year he headed the People's Commissariat of Power Plants and the Electricity Industry, and in 35 of the year he became deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR.
Pervukhin was well versed in technical matters, enjoyed the confidence of Stalin himself and his closest associates, so it was he who was entrusted with the task of leading the State Commission for Testing Nuclear Weapons. The tests themselves, it was decided to produce at the Semipalatinsk test site in the Kazakh SSR.
Semipalatinsk Test Site
Today it is the East Kazakhstan region of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Its center, the city of Semey, was called Semipalatinsk until 2007. But the authorities of post-Soviet Kazakhstan, in their policy of de-Russification, ultimately renamed the city founded as the Semipalatinsk fortress back in 1718 by the governor Vasily Cheredov.
160 kilometers from Semipalatinsk, which during the events described was the regional center of the Semipalatinsk region, a special testing ground for testing new weapons was equipped. The location turned out to be extremely successful - the relief allowed for nuclear explosions underground, including in adits and wells. Before the opening of the landfill, the Chinese Consulate was withdrawn from Semipalatinsk.
On 21 of August 1947 of the year, the USSR Council of Ministers transferred the training ground to the USSR Ministry of Armed Forces (the Ministry of Defense was then called) and it received the official name "Training Ground No. 2" (military unit 52605). The first chief of the Semipalatinsk test site was appointed lieutenant general of artillery Pyotr Mikhailovich Rozhanovich - a veteran of the Great Patriotic War, a combat officer who commanded an artillery division and a corps. However, in 1948, the 42-year-old Rozhanovich died.
Preparation of the Semipalatinsk test site for the upcoming tests of the atomic bomb was very thorough. The experimental field was a circle with a radius of 10 kilometers, which was divided into 14 sectors, including 2 fortification and physical sectors, the civilian construction sector, the sector of the Armed Forces and military branches, and the biological sector with animals.
The Soviet leadership was interested in what the consequences of a nuclear explosion would be for infrastructure facilities, for military equipment. Therefore, sections of subway tunnels and runways were built in the test zone. Separate samples were also placed at the landfill. tanks, self-propelled artillery, rocket launchers, aircraft. A special metal structure was put in the center of the experimental field - a tower 37,5 meters high, on which the RDS-1 bomb was mounted.
The first Soviet nuclear explosion
Exactly in 7: 00 in the morning of 29 in August 1949, a bright light illuminated the vicinity of the landfill, an explosion occurred. The atomic bomb, the first in the Soviet storieshas been successfully tested. Despite the precautionary measures taken, as a result of the explosion several servicemen were injured, who were at the command post, located at a great distance from the place of the explosion. 20 minutes after the test, two lead tanks were sent to the blast site. Scouts and managed to establish what happened in the epicenter of the explosion and at a distance of a kilometer from it.
The power of the RDS-1 was about 22 kilotons. As a result of the explosion, the 37-meter tower on which the bomb was mounted was completely destroyed, and in its place a funnel with a depth of 1,5 meter and a diameter of 3 meter was formed. A building made of reinforced concrete structures with a bridge crane, located 25 meters from the tower, was partially destroyed.
The T-34 tank and artillery guns located within a radius of 500-550 meters from the center of the explosion received light damage. Were damaged and aircraft located at a distance of 1,5 kilometers. All 10 cars burned, located at a distance of a kilometer from the center.
Two residential three-story houses, built at a distance of 800 meters, were completely destroyed. Destroyed all the log and panel houses of the urban type, specially erected in a radius of 5 kilometers.
The explosion threw and distorted the railway bridge erected at a distance of a kilometer, and the highway bridge at a distance of one and a half kilometers. Wagons and cars placed on bridges were discarded 50-80 meters from the installation site. The animals were blown away. In general, from 1538 experimental animals, 345 animals died.
Start of atomic bomb production
During 1949-1950. in the city of Sarov, on the basis of the plant of the People's Commissariat for Agricultural Engineering, the 550 assembly plant was created at the 11 design bureau. The production capacity of the plant was determined in 20 RDS per year. By the end of the 1949 year, another 2 RDS-1 bomb was manufactured, and in the 1950 year, another 9 RDS-1 atomic bomb was manufactured.
By the spring of 1951, the Soviet Union had 15 plutonium nuclear bombs RDS-1. They were placed on the territory of the factory number 550 in Sarov in a special reinforced concrete storage. The bombs were kept in disassembled condition, and the territory of the plant itself was under heavy guard, which was carried out by troops of the USSR Ministry of State Security.
If necessary, the engineering and technical personnel had to collect bombs, transport them to the place of military use, and bring them to the highest combat readiness. The preparation of the bombs for combat use was assigned to the assembly brigade operating as part of the KB-11, and the tasks of bombing the RDS-1 were to be carried out by pilots of bomber aircraft of the Soviet Air Force.
The work of Soviet designers was rewarded according to merit. 29 October 1949 year the title of Hero of Socialist Labor received Igor V. Kurchatov and Julius Borisovich Khariton. Mikhail Georgievich Pervukhin, who led the State Commission at the Semipalatinsk test site, also became a hero of Socialist Labor.
Interestingly, Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria, whose contribution to the organization of creating nuclear weapons was not even disputed by his fierce haters, did not receive a second Golden Star - he became the Hero of Socialist Labor six years earlier, in 1943.
The consequences of the atomic bomb test
On 29 of August 1949 of the year, the post-war world has completely and irrevocably changed. The United States lost its main advantage over the Soviet Union, which they possessed for four years after the end of World War II. The appearance of the Soviet Union’s own atomic bomb meant that now the United States could also have very dire consequences in the event of an armed conflict with the Soviet state.
However, officially the appearance of the atomic bomb in the Soviet Union was announced only six months after the first test of the RDS-1 at the Semipalatinsk test site. March 8 1950, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Marshal of the Soviet Union Clement Efremovich Voroshilov officially announced that the USSR had nuclear weapons.
For the USSR, testing the atomic bomb was really a real breakthrough. And the merit in this breakthrough belongs to both physicists, design engineers, technical personnel, and the political and military leadership of the USSR, security personnel, military personnel who created all the necessary conditions for the appearance of an atomic bomb - from material and technical to informational and organizational.
The appearance in the Soviet Union of its nuclear weapons was appalled with horror in the West. In Washington, the atomic bomb was considered one of the trump cards in dialogue with the Soviet state, but after the appearance of its own weapons of mass destruction in the USSR, a balance was established between the parties. There is no doubt that the world that we observed in the second half of the 20th century, the beginning of the 21st century, could exist in its form precisely because the Soviet Union established this balance in the field of nuclear weapons.
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