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

Other than the bonuses, work with hazardous substances did have its perks for some. Every employee working in hazardous conditions had a yearly paid vacation of thirty-six working days. Employees with a master’s degree received an additional week of vacation time, and those with a doctorate got an additional two weeks of vacation. They could take their holidays free of charge at a special resort for people in the chemical industry, which was located in Yalta on the Black Sea coast. GOSNIIOKhT employees who regularly worked with chemical agents could also opt for early retirement. Women could retire at the age of 45, if they had worked with chemical agents for at least 8 years, while men could retire at the age of 50 if they had 10 years of hazardous work. GOSNIIOKhT had a lunch cafeteria that was free for all employees except the laboratory and departmental chiefs, though this could hardly be called a “benefit” because the food quality and choice were so poor. GOSNIIOKhT’s leadership managed to skim enough funds from the main employee lunch cafeteria to allow themselves their own separate senior staff cafeteria, where the food quality and choice were arguably better.

From my very first day on the new job, I shuddered when I thought about the arrangements, because I understood how difficult it would be for me to fit in there.

The important part was to pass the exam on safety technique given by the Deputy Director of Scientific Work, who was also head of one of the divisions at the enterprise.

There were several such divisions. Work connected with the synthesis of new chemicals or physical-chemical and medical-biological research and its associated analytical security work, were all carried out in specialized departments, under the supervision of Deputy Director Aleksander Shchekotikhin. According to the words of several senior scientists, he “committed atrocities” with his exam on safety technique.

When I came to take the exam, I was taken aback by his sad invalid state, which was incongruous with his status as a deputy director. When Shchekotikhin was a colonel working as a senior researcher at TSNIIVTI, [13] In the 1950s, the Soviet military directed the chemical weapons pipeline by controlling the research and development efforts, which took place at the Central Military Scientific Research Technical Institute in Moscow. At that time, GOSNIIOKhT was a civilian organization and its only military work was related to developing production technologies for the agents that the military’s central research institute discovered. In October 1960, Nikita Khrushchev, General Secretary of the Communist Party, decided that the research of chemical agents was too dangerous for a major metropolitan area and moved the Central Military Scientific Research Technical Institute to a town near the Volga River in southern Russia called Shikhany. Most of the military’s senior scientists, which included civilian as well as military researchers, were reluctant to relocate to Shikhany and instead “retired” to GOSNIIOKhT. they were in the process of synthesizing fluoro-ethers, and the retort flask his reaction was running in exploded. He was missing part of his right arm up to his wrist, and in its place was a shining prosthesis. He was also missing two fingers from his left hand. The expression on his face was haughty and sarcastic. He gave the impression of a man who had already decided that anyone who came to him must know that the way things would turn out would depend on his superior will. He seemed pleased by his ability to give an unsatisfactory grade to someone with a higher scientific rank than his – to a doctor of science or a professor.

Shchekotikhin was not lacking in talent. He had graduated from the Military Academy of Chemical Defense with a gold medal and had a master’s degree in chemistry. All the same, he was not working at a job engaged in real science, and he understood his vulnerability in this respect very well. In the time I got to know him, he turned into some sort of human weathervane, trying to anticipate the orders of the Director of GOSNIIOKhT, Ivan V. Martynov, providing his boss with an ideological screen.

At the meetings and conferences of the Science Council, where he presided with great pleasure when the director was absent, he squandered his previously prepared witticisms, and made a practice of peppering the text of his speeches with satire. Often it was about people who were falling out of favor or candidates for demotion.

Possibly a science bureaucrat needed these qualities to be successful, and Shchekotikhin certainly had more than his fair share of them. In certain circles, he could blurt out remarks to scientists of well-known ethnicity, such as: “They’ve turned the institute into a synagogue, you understand.” But this did not save him from the caustic gossip of other anti-Semitic types like Aleksei Beresnev, Konstantin Karavanov and others, because they said Shchekotikhin was half Jewish himself, and his wife was also Jewish.

It seems to me that Shchekotikhin was a sincere believer in the greatness of Stalin, and he did not conceal his admiration for the man, to his very last day on the job at GOSNIIOKhT. When he invited me for first time into his office for my formal introduction, his first question to me was: “So, Vil Sultanovich. You’re a Tatar. Tell me how you oppressed us all for 400 years under the Tatar yoke!” I was horrified by this taunt. I was educated well enough to know that according to Russian historians Tatars did that, [14] According to Western historians, there wasn’t any Tatar Yoke after the Tatar-Mongols were conquered at the beginning of 13th Century. The opposite is true: the Tatars are the real founders of the united Russian State. See, for instance, Donald Ostrowski , Muscovy and the Mongols. Cross-Cultural Influences on the Steppe Frontier, 1304-1589 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Boris Ischboldin , Essays on Tatar History . (New Delhi India: New Book Society of India, 1963); Janet Martin, Medieval Russia 980-1584 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995). but even if it had happened it was so long ago. Weren’t all nations supposedly equal under Communist friendship in the USSR, enjoying socialist development?

I could only blurt out, “Sorry. The Mongols destroyed our state first – the Bulgar State”. The former colonel was more than satisfied by his offense and my discomfort. He continued, “Right now people began to forget who gave us a great victory and armed us against the imperialists. Surely you know who are responsible for this turmoil. They are pygmies in comparison with our great genius Stalin.” After this introduction he took a magazine down from the bookshelf. It was the March 1953 issue of the journal Proceedings of the Academy of Science of the U.S.S.R ., in which a large memorial portrait of Stalin was printed, on the occasion of his death. In this very same issue there was an article by the same Shchekotikhin, which was published when he was a graduate student under the Lieutenant General and Academician, Ivan Knunyantz. [15] I.L. Knunyants, A.I. Shchekotikhin, A.V. Fokin, Izvestia AN SSSR , otdelenie khim.nauk, no. 2 (1953), p. 282-289.

Unfortunately, many of the departmental and laboratory heads I was soon to get acquainted with, thanks to my work in the Department of Analytical Chemistry, possessed equal or lesser qualifications than those of their Deputy Director of Science. Many of them admitted that they were engaged in “politics”, lobbying for new rooms, laboratories, equipment, instruments and increases in staff and bonuses. For this, it was essential to become a “necessary man” to the director of the institute. At that time, Director Martynov had become a genuine gourmand in his choice of executives.