Vadim Birstein - The Perversion of Knowledge

It is possible that Mairanovsky also worked with narcotics, since some narcotics were used in the 1940s during interrogations to force prisoners to sign falsified interrogation transcripts. In the late 1980s, the minister and marshal of aviation, Aleksandr Novikov, recalled that during his arrest in 1945, “I was given a kind of a cigarette and I lost completely the understanding of where I was and what was going on.” 223In this state Novikov signed papers given to him by the MGB interrogator Mikhail Likhachev in the presence of Minister Abakumov.

In 1966, Sudoplatov claimed that a very narrow circle of people knew about the results of experiments on humans. 224These reports were kept in a concealed envelope that could be opened only on the special order of the MGB minister or his first deputy. The reports were signed by those who conducted the experiments and persons who knew about the experiments. All these documents supposedly disappeared during Sudoplatov’s arrest in August 1953, and their whereabouts are not known. Bobryonev and Ryazentsev mentioned also that the executioner Vasilii Blokhin had his own list of names of all people brought for Mairanovsky’s experiments. Before he retired, Blokhin ordered that the notebook be destroyed. 225

Sudoplatov also mentioned that Arkady Gertsovsky, head of the Department “A” (Archive) from 1943 to 1953, provided prisoners for experiments. Gertsovsky had the responsibility of carrying out death sentences and, therefore, could send some prisoners condemned to death to Mairanovsky’s laboratory. In fact, the list of the First Special (later “A”) Department’s officers who selected and brought prisoners to Mairanovsky’s laboratory was much longer. Besides Gertsovsky, it included Petrov, Leonid Bashtakov (in 1940, head of the NKVD First Special Department), A. M. Kalinin (in 1940, first deputy head of the same department), I. N. Balishansky, and Vladimir Podobedov. 226

Later, in 1942–1947, Bashtakov became Head of the special High NKVD/NKGB/MGB School. Ilya Dzhirkvelov, a former pupil of this school, recalled: “General Bashtakov [was] an unusually short man for whom a special chair had been made with legs longer than normal so that when he was sitting at a table his small stature was less noticeable. General Bashtakov always delivered his lectures sitting down and when he congratulated us on being accepted for the course he shook our hands without moving from behind the table.” 227As for Kalinin, his signature appeared under many reports on executions and cremation of sentenced victims. 228In other words, he was present at executions carried out by the main NKVD/MGB executioner, Vasilii Blokhin.

Along with work on chemicals, it was necessary to develop methods of poison injection. This was done in cooperation with the NKVD Second Special Department (Operational Equipment) headed by Yevgenii Lapshin. The idea of constructing umbrellas, ballpoint pens, and walking sticks, all of which could shoot very small bullets, seemed to be the best. 229Special small bullets with holes containing poison were invented. All these tools were tested on humans and cost many lives. On September 23, 1953, Mairanovsky testified:

During the research we introduced poisons through food, various drinks and used hypodermic needles, a cane, a fountain pen and other sharp objects especially outfitted for the job. We also administered poisons through the skin by spraying or pouring oxime (fatal for animals in minimal doses). But this substance proved not to be lethal for people, causing only severe burns and great pain. 230

If a prisoner did not die during the first administration of the poison, he was subjected to another one. Filimonov himself shot prisoners with poisoned bullets. These shootings were performed in the basement where executions of prisoners condemned to death took place. According to Bobryonev and Ryazentsev, later, during the interrogations, Mairanovsky testified to the following: “I used one prisoner for two or three experiments. But the last case was a rare one. I want to say in this instance that if there is no lethal outcome after administration of the poison and the subject improves, then another poison is tested on him.” 231Even Muromtsev, Mairanovsky’s colleague, who himself used fifteen prisoners or more for his own experiments, said during the interrogation on March 4, 1954, that “Mairanovsky shocked me with his bestial, sadistic treatment of the prisoners.” 232

All these descriptions are similar to materials from the Nuremberg Doctors’ trial. 233Also, one can compare Mairanovsky’s attitude to his victims to that of Japanese experimenters: “It is said that some of the doctors associated with the experimentation cried tears of regret when their valuable experimental materials were wasted [e.g., when prisoners died during the experiments].” 234

However, it seems that today the present Russian secret service is not ashamed of the past. A fountain pen that could fire poisoned bullets is kept at the Historical Demonstration Room (a museum) of the Federal Security Service, or FSB. 235Sudoplatov used to provide his agents with such pens for the assassination of “anti-Soviet enemies” in Europe. 236

Mairanovsky’s work on mustard gas and other substances requires a general comment. These chemicals appeared in Mairanovsky’s laboratory not only because they were known toxins but also because they were chemical and biological weapons.

In the late 1920s to early 1930s, Soviet leaders, military, and security were obsessed with the idea of chemical and toxicological warfare. The first production of poison-gas shells in Russia began earlier, in 1915, during World War I, at a factory in Petrograd and two factories in Moscow. 237At least one of these installations, the Olgin Chemical Plant two miles from Moscow, was converted in 1927 into a pilot plant for testing new methods of producing poison gases. Professor Ye. Spitalsky, who was previously in charge of a study on poison gases at the Karpov Chemical Institute, was appointed its head. The Karpov Institute, established in 1918 and completely reorganized in 1922, was headed by Academician Bach (later Mairanovsky’s supervisor as Director of Institute of Biochemistry) and his deputy, Boris Zbarsky (later a consultant of the OGPU on narcotics and then a victim of the Doctors’ Plot case). The Karpov Institute was subordinated to the Presidium of the Supreme Council of National Economy (VSNKh), chaired by Felix Dzerzhinsky. Spitalsky was a specialist on the production of mustard gas and another chemical weapon, phosgene. Early in 1929, he was arrested by the GPU. When Academician Ipatieff went to Krzhizhanovsky, chairman of the State Planning Committee (Gosplan) (who was among the “elected” academicians in 1929, see Chapter 1), and tried to defend Spitalsky, Krzhizhanovsky said that “Spitalsky apparently was a very dangerous man who had planned to poison many outstanding Communists at a large meeting [in 1924]… He [i.e., Krzhizhanovsky] showed me [i.e., Ipatieff] a small vial filled with water to demonstrate how little poison Spitalsky needed.” 238At that meeting, Spitalsky gave a speech about chemical weapons and “held a small bottle of water before the audience, and explained that if the liquid were a modern poison gas it would be enough to poison all those present.” 239Unfortunately for Spitalsky, the infamous Iosif Unshlikht, a former deputy of Dzerzhinsky, deputy commissar of defense, and head of the Military Intelligence, presided over that meeting and evidently decided that Spitalsky planned to assassinate the participants of the meeting.

Spitalsky was sentenced to death, but in a year, the death sentence was commuted to ten years’ solitary confinement. In fact, Spitalsky was forced to work as a prisoner at the Olgin Plant. He died soon from a heart attack, and his wife was exiled from Moscow. However, a replacement for Spitalsky was found. In November 1929, Professor Kravets, another highly positioned chemist who was a member of the Chemical Committee of the VSNKh, was arrested and sentenced to forced labor at the Olgin Plant. 240This was the beginning of the sharashki system of forced labor by imprisoned scientists.