Вил Мирзаянов - State Secrets - An Insider's Chronicle of the Russian Chemical Weapons Program

Unfortunately, interesting lectures and seminars didn’t constitute a significant part of the overall student schedule. There was an abundance of subjects that literally sucked our souls dry, making our prime years a misery. I am sure that we wasted about 70 percent of our academic time during the first three years for nothing.

Almost every day, there were lectures and seminars on the history of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which were followed by the so-called “principles of Marxism-Leninism” course and philosophy. “Military” classes were just as frequent. There was a military department at the institute, which was composed of elderly colonels and lieutenant colonels, graduates of the Voroshilov Academy of Chemical Defense. These old campaigners had snugly settled into the capital, and they took special pleasure in mocking the students. They thought that students should work for the privilege of avoiding military service, by being diligent in their meaningless classes.

There was something sad and at the same time funny about the column of girls and boys in civilian clothing, marching along the embankment of the Moscow River. When a colonel called them up in front of the line, some students had difficulties with the reports that they had to deliver. Either they forgot things and mixed up the word order, or they saluted with their left hand like the German soldiers in war movies. Colonels especially enjoyed themselves when “student K” had to suffer through this procedure. He couldn’t coordinate his arms and legs while marching, and that is why this student was considered a persistent slacker in military science and had serious academic problems.

Classes in chemical defense were total dogma. We had to remember all the physical and chemical constants (melting and boiling points, vapor pressure, density, etc.), as well as the chemical and physiological properties of all the chemical agents. God forbid that you attempt to express something in your own words or to elaborate on the definition or answer provided by the textbook. This was considered to be an unforgivable mistake.

“Well, what is the distinguishing effect of nitrogenic mustard gas, compared with the effect of ordinary mustard gas?” asked Lieutenant Colonel Xenia Knyazeva. I explained that the difference is that the poisoning was evident only after a period of time, not immediately.

“Wrong!” she exulted. “This property is called the… c..u..m..u..l..a..t..i..v..e effect. You should read the instructions, young man!”

At that time, it wasn’t a laughing matter for me, because I had the highest grades in all my subjects and I was counting on receiving a higher scholarship. In a heartbeat, I had lost this chance by not using the favorite word of a pretty woman in military uniform.

Later, it felt like I got my revenge when I was taking an oral exam in Colonel Aleksander Shvarts’ class. He was a great boaster, and he liked to tell us tall tales about his war experience. Although according to his colleagues, Shvarts had spent the whole war in the smoke screens divisions and wasn’t in any real battles, he was the classical example of a petty nitpicker. Mostly he taught us how to darn the respirator haversack, while he explained why the gas mask filter held back the fumes of chemical agents. Then he checked on our mastery of the subject.

“Now tell me – thanks to what force does the filter of the gas mask keep back the fumes of various chemical agents?” asked the colonel. Each student explained this quite correctly, describing in his or her own way the adsorption of molecules to the surface of activated charcoal. But the colonel was implacable and dismissed them for failing to properly grasp the academic material. Finally, it was my turn for this torture.

“Well, what keeps the molecules of chemical agents on the filter after all?” he repeated his question.

Something enlightened me at that moment and I solemnly and slowly uttered, “Cohesion forces”.

The colonel jumped up with joy, and he almost kissed me. He was beside himself with happiness, because a student had remembered his favorite phrase. He even forgave all the other unlucky students and announced that everyone had passed his test.

Every year, our studies at the Military Department became more and more difficult. We had to study numerous machines for degassing military equipment and military uniforms, including clothes and gas masks. It was downright impossible to remember their characteristics. These machines were absolutely useless because the uniforms were completely spoiled after the neutralization treatment. In the military camps we made sure many times that this was so.

In the summer after our second year, we were taken to the military camps in Florichi, which is not far from Nizhny Novgorod (the city was called Gorky then). This place was very swampy and sandy with a pine forest. We lived in tents – one unit in each. We were dressed in terribly uncomfortable soldier uniforms and had tarpaulin boots, our feet being covered in fabric foot wraps. Sometimes it was more than 35 degrees Celsius, and our feet became swollen.

Young soldiers, who had just finished the regimental school that trained sergeants and lance corporals, gave us the orders. Marshal Zhukov was then the Soviet Minister of Defense. He was notorious for his cruelty and his loud mouth. Soldiers were punished for the smallest offence. Then they were put into the guardhouse, or even sent to the penal battalion. The time that a soldier spent in these “establishments” wasn’t included in his term of military service. If he lost some piece of his uniform or equipment, or if it was stolen, he had to pay for that loss. It was his own business where he would find the money. Usually the soldier who was robbed made up for the loss by stealing from others, especially from the rookies.

Soon I experienced firsthand the consequences of this kind of discipline in the glorious Soviet Army.

I entered the soldier’s toilet where 8-10 people were doing what they had to at the same time. I took off my belt, hung it on the nail on the wall, and squatted. When I raised my head, I saw that my belt was no longer on the nail. The situation was terrible and I immediately reported the incident to my unit commander, a guy with a vacant herpetic face and foolish blue eyes. He ordered me to pay and promised to give me the new belt after that. I had just enough money for this fine and for a whole month I had no money left to buy cigarettes or any sweets. In the cafeteria, we received only two tiny pieces of sugar for tea.

This kind of discipline was applied to us, the students, with special refinement. The sergeants didn’t hide their hatred for those who opted for higher education, and whenever the opportunity arose they demonstrated savage cruelty, so that the students would always remember their pettiness. We were marched to the cafeteria, singing a compulsory song. As soon as we sat down at the table, Sergeant Korytko ordered, “Finish-sh!” For some reason, he pronounced the “sh” sound with a wheeze. I thought I could eat very fast, but I didn’t even have time to deal with the soup. Feverishly, and already on the move, I swallowed my millet porridge with a piece of fat pork. The moment we sat down at the table we stuffed two pieces of black bread into our pockets, and this saved us from constant hunger, which we felt as soon as we left the cafeteria.

Thanks to the commander of our unit, one more shocking memory was added to my inventory of impressions of my experience with our “glorious and invincible” army.

Near our tents, there were other tents housing former soldiers who were summoned for re-training. Again, the sergeant made us march near those tents. “Sing!” he ordered. We didn’t want to sing. Then he ordered, “Double quick march!” We ran for some time turning back and forth on command. “Quick march!” the next command followed. Then, this dumb-faced commander ordered again, “Sing!” One of the soldiers who had been observing us from his tent, couldn’t control himself and said bluntly, “Son of a bitch!” I don’t know how this happened, but I reacted automatically, “Even more than that!”