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

We knew that these instruments were on the list of equipment prohibited for trade to the U.S.S.R., but native ingenuity, and certainly the generosity of our trade agents in the West (who made deals through intermediary firms organized by the KGB), easily allowed us to circumvent all the trade barriers. Since the Western firms could not have written “to GOSNIIOKhT” on the invoices for the instruments, this work continues at the so-called open institutes. We became familiar with Mircotec chromatographs in Laboratory 25, and with Varian at the Institute of Synthetic Alcohols. I was part of a group that worked together with English engineers, to make adjustments to the chromatographs for the first time.

These renovations at GOSNIIOKhT were the result of the kind of work they were conducting. Our institute was equipped for modern research and nicely supplied with imported instruments, though not as lavishly as would come to pass in 1972.

My work was stimulated to a considerable extent by the receipt of the new chromatographs, since they made it possible to selectively determinate phosphoorganic chemical agents and their precursors.

Let us return to the question of the selection of the Party Committee secretary, since this will help us to understand more about our work.

Yuri Mochalov, who worked on the start-up section crew in the Kazan Plant for Organic Synthesis that produced ethylene oxide, had learned more than everyone else about the Party Committee secretary’s work at GOSNIIOKhT. His only “positive” quality was his naïve and total belief in Communism, which he demonstrated with great expression once during a meeting of his work unit’s party group. During his speech, with a passionate oath of loyalty to the ideals of Lenin, he gestured dramatically, even ripping off part of his shirt.

Yuri spoke very poorly while sharing his thoughts, and for this reason he decided to disguise the defects in his thinking with the drama. It was of no use. After this they noticed him and promoted him to the position of secretary of the Party Committee. All the same, Yuri never, until the end of his days as secretary, learned to articulate. However, that didn’t stand in his way when he wanted to lecture some poor professor from the party meeting rostrum. “This means, Nicolai Aleksandrovich, you understand, the party can’t stand by indifferently….. It means for you, you understand, bedroom business. We, you understand, had to shake out your sheets… it means, you understand…”

Behind this nonsense tirade was the true menacing control of the Communist Party over the lives of the people. The ubiquitous presence and the interference of the Communist Party into the private lives of researchers only intensified the bureaucratic tangles at GOSNIIOKhT. The institute’s Party Committee actively engaged in the “moral upbringing” of its employees, which amounted to nothing more than the petty settling of personal scores between individuals. Veterans of GOSNIIOKhT can recall how the Party Committee wrapped its tentacles around Boris Medvedev, a young physical chemist who fell in love with his research assistant. In meeting after meeting, the Party Committee openly subjected him to insults and mockery. When Medvedev couldn’t stand this persecution anymore, he deliberately exposed himself to Substance 33, the VX analog. He simply entered his workroom, took the ampoule of Substance 33, poured it into a glass with water and drank the mixture. Medvedev’s death was so quick and violent that laboratory colleagues and doctors from GOSNIIOKhT’s Medical Department could do little but helplessly watch him suffer and die. [16] Within seconds to minutes after exposure to a lethal dose of nerve agent by ingestion, skin exposure, or inhalation, a person will begin vomiting violently and go into seizures, eventually losing consciousness. Even when antidotes are available, these factors can make medical treatment much more difficult. U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense, Medical Management of Chemical Casualties Handbook , 3rd ed. (Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD: Chemical Casualty Care Division, 1999): 105-37. No wonder so many scientists at GOSNIIOKhT, stifled by party control and interference into their lives and bureaucratic lies, simply turned to the bottle for escape.

Nevertheless, Mochalov proved to be ambitious and even finished a party school affiliated with the Moscow City Committee of the CPSU. He was even selected to become a member of this committee, but such high ambitions brought him down. One night he drank himself half to death and was lying in the street. He was picked up by the police and sent to the “sobriety station”. Mochalov decided to scare the official with his membership certificate to such a high organization. Apparently, they were accustomed to clients who were much higher VIPs than Mochalov, so the supervisor of the drunk-tank reported “where he had to”. Shortly after that, our secretary exchanged his party career for a trade union, where he was not able to run away from his swift defeat.

Another Party Committee Secretary, the one who replaced Mochalov, was Nikolai Golosov. He was an incredible colorless dim-wit, but he was able to make his way through the apparatus of the Chemistry Department of the Central Committee of the CPSU. Once more, this showed everyone what kind of person was needed in those days, to work in the higher organs of power in the country.

I remember during the height of the battle by the organization “Democratic Russia”, for further democratization of the country through the destruction of the CPSU’s monopoly of power, that the party bosses came to the institute and Golosov was among them. One of the local members of “Democratic Russia” had said that there were no practical ways for working out alternative decisions and legislation in a one-party system in the country. In response to this comment, Golosov proclaimed “First of all, we prepare several variants for each decision in our department.” As they say, it was useless to comment on this.

The advancement of Deputy Director Konstantin Guskov up the career ladder at Post Office Box 702, serves as a good example of how things worked. All departments and laboratories, which were engaged in researching the technological processes that were to be introduced into existing and new start-up factories, were placed under his command. He was also First Deputy Director of GOSNIIOKhT for a long time, and had right to sign the financial documents.

Guskov completed his master’s degree at the Mendeleev Chemical Technical Institute of Moscow, while he was studying the technology of chemical agents. After that he came to work at Post Office Box 702, as the head of the experimental plant. He did everything that was required of him and became a member of the Party Committee. Then he became the paid secretary, automatically guaranteeing him the ability to get an even higher appointment, with the agreement of the Central Committee of the CPSU.

Shortly thereafter, Guskov became a deputy director. In all fairness, I must say that he was a rather talented engineer, able to quickly grasp the essence of a problem. He was not afraid of making tough decisions, which required considerable responsibility, because of their potential consequences. I was aware of this soon after the beginning of my work at the Post Office Box.

In the beginning of the 1930s, our enterprise had researched methods of developing ethylene oxide from ethylene, and from that step it was easy to get the military blistering agent known as mustard gas. It is well known that ethylene oxide also serves as a wonderful initial reagent for the synthesis of many chemical products (polymers, anti-freeze and others), and currently more than several hundred thousand tons are produced annually by the industrialized countries of the world. You can also produce ethylene sulfide from ethylene oxide. This can be transformed into diethylaminoethyl-mercaptan, which is a precursor for the chemical agent Substance 33. A special department existed in the enterprise, known as Technology of Organic Synthesis (TOS), and its goal was to research the technology of the compounds that carry the title “dual use” agents.