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

During a break I tried to speak with Murashev, but he wasn’t available. I was worried that GOSNIIOKhT and other enterprises of the military-chemical complex were still receiving the same governmentally budgeted funds as before, despite a decision by the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. to significantly cut military expenses. The new allocations were presumably meant for chemical industry, not for defense establishments, but this was a dangerous trick. At that time I wasn’t really sure that even Gorbachev or others in high positions knew anything about this. So, I wrote a brief note to Murashev, explaining the situation and asked him to meet with me. He was a popular People’s Deputy of the Supreme Soviet and a co-chairman of the “Inter-Parliamentary Group”, the first opposition faction in the history of the U.S.S.R.

Unfortunately, Murashev never found the time to meet with me, although I was sitting not far from him. I saw him read my note and look around to see who the author was. When I pointed to the note and to myself, he nodded in response. A few years later the KGB prosecuted me, and my lawyer asked Murashev to testify about my appeal to him as to a People’s Deputy, but he “didn’t remember” my request.

Back in June of 1990, I realized that my relatively independent life at GOSNIIOKhT couldn’t continue forever, and I decided to ask Deputy Director Kurochkin to transfer our group to the Department for Fundamental Research, which he headed. He agreed and started “working on” Petrunin. To his credit, Kurochkin didn’t stipulate any prerequisite conditions regarding my activities with the DDR, even though he remained a loyal C.P.S.U. member until it completely collapsed.

During one of our conversations, I candidly told him that I was going to struggle with the ruling clique of the military-chemical complex, which prevented Russia from pursuing a peaceful policy, in spite of the changes taking place in the country and in the whole world. Kurochkin thought my ideas, regarding the complete termination of research work on the development of chemical weapons, were too radical. I was afraid that it would be very difficult in the future for the CWC to control research, because there was no clear interpretation of this process. Also, according to the draft of the CWC, development was to be prohibited, but in my opinion, the terms were not clearly defined. Kurochkin agreed with me, but he said he thought that the problem couldn’t be settled completely. We had to be ready for dirty tricks, so we had to continue our scientific research. Naturally, I was absolutely sure that the ruling clique of the military-chemical complex would jump at the opportunities opened up by the lack of precise definitions in the wording of the CWC.

I was impatient to share my misgivings with people openly in the press, but the question was – how to do it. There was no doubt that all matters relating to chemical weapons were top secret. I couldn’t just go to the director of GOSNIIOKhT and ask him to let me publish an article that described how he had hindered the process of conversion at the institute. I couldn’t expect him to agree to let me state in the press that the institute continued to develop and test new kinds of chemical weapons. Unfortunately, this is exactly what I was supposed to do, according to the standing instructions, which prohibited any independent correspondence stating a personal opinion, and any independent correspondence that qualified as “a personal opinion”. Only the director of GOSNIIOKhT and his deputies had this right.

The local DDR organization was especially worried about conversion at GOSNIIOKhT. In our leaflets we openly pointed out that a peaceful policy was only formally pursued at GOSNIIOKhT. We presented our suggestions at our workers’ conferences, but it was clear that the director and his confidants were not anxious to move in our direction.

Then several events took place, which became something of a turning point for me. At the end of February of 1991, the director of GOSNIIOKhT signed an order to transfer my group to Kurochkin’s department. But the order wasn’t put into effect! Polyakov and Skripkin openly ignored it. They prohibited the transfer of any people or laboratory equipment. It was strange to see such overt insubordination on the part of the director’s assistants. In this situation all the signs pointed to the fact that the real boss at the institute was Deputy Director Victor Polyakov, not Director Petrunin. The situation was further aggravated by the fact that we had already contracted and started our practical work, conducting ecological evaluations of a number of areas in Moscow.

Two months later the director cancelled his transfer order. I finally realized that my opponents wanted me to give up and be humbled. They acted on the request of Chekist Aleksander Martynov, who had conclusive information about my activities within DDR and my attitude toward chemical weapons.

One day at the end of April 1991, a festive atmosphere set in at GOSNIIOKhT. Tables were decked out with a banquet in the Directorate, and toasts were loudly proposed. It was the same in a number of departments. My friend Victor Dmitriev said that they were celebrating the Lenin Prizes that had been awarded to Director Petrunin, General Kuntsevich, and other “scientists”.

“For what?” I wondered.

“For a binary compound,” he replied.

I was really amazed, because this problem was very far from being solved. I thought that Igor Vasiliev was still “lucky” in spite of his love of adventure. I wasn’t at all surprised that his name wasn’t on the list of award recipients. This was completely in line with Soviet practice, when the real author or inventor was given only the crumbs from the table of the power lords. I thought this was the case again.

However I was mistaken about the cause of all this revelry – which substance this highly touted binary compound was based on.

In his last conversation with me, Kurochkin asked what my objective was. I clearly explained that I saw only one way to solve the problem of chemical weapons – to ban all kinds of work in this area, including scientific research. I thought that GOSNIIOKhT should no longer serve military purposes and I was determined to fight for this with all means available.

My former patron only shook his head in reply. I realized that he disagreed with me completely. “Someone inside this incubator of death should assume the initiative,” I encouraged myself. Unfortunately, I started having problems with my health.

With great difficulty, I got permission to take my regular vacation at the end of July in 1991. I went to Baranovskoe, a settlement near Moscow, where I had a little plot of land. I was planning to build a dacha (summer house) there. There was a lot of work and that helped me to recover a bit.

On August 21 st, the truck driver who brought us concrete for the foundation said that a lot of tanks were moving along the highway towards Moscow. We ran over to our neighbors’ house, where there was a radio and a TV, and that’s how we found out that there was a coup in progress against the government in Moscow. The weather was overcast, dull and rainy, but we decided to finish our work. My assistants talked me out of going back to Moscow, and we followed the events in the capital without switching off the radio for a minute.

By that time I was becoming less enthusiastic about the leaders in the DDR. Nobody there was willing to address the pressing problems that were developing. Their main idea was to seize power. Then, they said, they would decide about everything else.

I still sympathized with Boris Yeltsin, but I felt that there were no selfless people around him, no scientists or prominent specialists who had any programs or plans which ordinary people could understand. The nomenklatura in control at the time saw this, and they knew their power was unshakeable. The DDR leaders were mostly dilettantes, former instructors of Marxism-Leninism, representatives of the Soviet press, or just plain rascals. All these people combined presented little danger to the Communist regime. These demagogues couldn’t attract sharp young minds and train them to be intelligent and honest politicians. Experts, erudite and otherwise competent people also had no illusions about the economists surrounding Boris Yeltsin. There never was any real science of economics in the U.S.S.R. The primary objective of the Soviet “economists” was to explain the basics of socialism and Communism, from the point of view of Marxist-Leninist “philosophy.” If anyone has any doubts about this, let them read the dissertations by these scientists in the Russian State Library.