Soviet atomic bomb project - Wikipedia. The Soviet project to develop an atomic bomb (Russian: . The project was directed by Soviet nuclear physicist Igor Kurchatov, while the military logistics and intelligence efforts were undertaken and managed by NKVDpeople's commissar. Lavrentiy Beria. The Soviet Union benefited from highly successful espionageefforts on the part of the GRU of the Soviet General Staff, PGUNKGB SSSR/ MGB SSSR. During World War II, the program was started by Joseph Stalin who received a letter from physicist Georgy Flyorov urging him to start the research, as Flyorov had long suspected that many of the Allied powers were already secretly working on a weapon after the discovery of nuclear fission in 1. However, because of the bloody and intensified war with Nazi Germany, large- scale efforts were prevented. The Soviets accelerated the program after the American atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Soviet atomic project was charged with gathering intelligence on the German nuclear energy project as well as the American nuclear efforts. After the war, the Soviet Union expanded its research facilities, military reactors, and employed many scientists. Greatly aided by its successful Soviet Alsos and the atomic spies, the Soviet Union conducted its first weapon test of an implosion- type nuclear device, RDS- 1, codenamed First Lightning, on 2. August 1. 94. 9, at Semipalatinsk, Kazakh SSR. With the success of this test, the Soviet Union became the second nation after the United States to detonate a nuclear device. Nuclear physics in the Soviet Union. The Soviet interest in nuclear physics had begun in the early 1. Me. V, and the first . Even before the Russian revolution and the February Revolution, the mineralogist Vladimir Vernadsky had made a number of public calls for a survey of Russia's uranium deposits. As in the West, the news of fission created great excitement amongst Soviet scientists and many physicists switched their lines of research to those involving nuclear physics, as it was considered a promising field of research. Soviet nuclear research was not far behind Western scientists: Yakov Frenkel did the first theoretical work on fission in the Soviet Union in 1. Georgy Flyorov and Lev Rusinov concluded that 3- 1 neutrons were emitted per fission only days after similar conclusions had been reached by the team of Fr. The research being done was not officially institutionalized until 1. Radium Institute in Petrograd opened. Through the thirties there were various other institutions opened across the nation. It is important to acknowledge that the research and institutions were all a part of civil society. This meant that the military did not directly control the progress being made. In 1. 94. 0, a commission was set up to address the Uranium Problem allowing intelligentsia to study nuclear fission and Uranium. Although significant ground had been broke the majority of research would be abandoned during World War II. Russia would spend the next four years in conflict with Europe and the West. Soviet physicist Georgy Flyorov noticed that in spite of the progress German, British and American physicists had made in research into uranium fission, scientific journals had ceased publishing papers on the topic. Flyorov deduced that this meant such research had been classified, and wrote to Stalin in April 1. He cited the lack of response he had himself encountered trying to generate interest in similar research, and warned Stalin of the consequences of the development of atomic weapons: . Creation in 1. 94. Laboratory No. 2 under the Academy of Sciences of the USSR was the first stage of the Soviet atomic bomb project. In the wake of the atomic bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1. Stalin made the decision to accelerate research and development, expanding the development of military nuclear reactors and research facilities all over the country. When the United States tested the Atom Bomb in 1. Stalin decided to push the intellectuals even harder. They appointed a special committee that was fully funded. This committee was headed by Beria who was now in charge of a large group of specialists in science and industry. Again it is important to make note that Stalin did not include military men. Instead he put those from the party, civilians, and secret police in charge. On April 9, 1. 94. Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted the resolution on creation of Design Office#1. KB- 1. 1) to develop an atomic bomb. Initial thermonuclear bomb designs. Though the espionage did help Soviet studies, the early American H- bomb concepts had substantial flaws, so it may have confused, rather than assisted, the Soviet effort for a nuclear bomb. This idea of a layered fission- fusion- fission bomb led Sakharov to call it the sloika, or layered cake. In the United States they decided to skip the single- stage fusion bomb and make a two- stage fusion bomb as their main effort. Around this time the United States detonated its first super using radiation compression on 1 November 1. Mike. Though the Mike was about twenty times greater than the RDS- 6. S it was not a design that was practical to use, unlike the RDS- 6. S. The Soviet team had been working on the RDS- 6. T concept, but it also proved to be a dead end. In 1. 95. 4, Sakharov worked on a third concept, a two- stage thermonuclear bomb. Unlike the RDS- 6. S boosted bomb, which placed the fusion fuel inside the primary A- bomb trigger, the thermonuclear super placed the fusion fuel in a secondary structure a small distance from the A- bomb trigger, where it was compressed and ignited by the A- bomb. Technical specifications for the new bomb were completed on 3 February 1. RDS- 3. 7. The yield was almost a hundred times greater than the first Soviet atomic bomb six years before, showing that the Soviet Union could compete with the United States. Stalin and Molotov tasked the USSR Academy of Sciences to find a science administrator notable for leading the research in nuclear physics. Abram Fedorovich Ioffe recommended Igor Kurchatov to Molotov, and Molotov advised Stalin to appoint Kurchatov as the formal scientific head of the nascent Soviet nuclear weapons programme. It's still in operation at Tehran University, near the place where Iranians chant, 'Death to America.'. Other important figures included Yuli Khariton, Yakov Zeldovich, Abram Fedorovich Ioffe, Georgii Flyorov, and the future dissident and lead theoretical designer of the hydrogen bomb, Andrei Sakharov. In 1. 94. 4, Stalin handed over the program to the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) and Molotov was replaced by Lavrentii Beria, Chief of NKVD. Under the administration of Beria, the NKVD aided atomic spies of the ring. Beria also infiltrated the German nuclear program. Immediately after the end of WW II, many notable figures in the German nuclear program were forcibly taken to the Soviet Union where they greatly enhanced the Soviet nuclear weapons efforts (see Nikolaus Riehl). Evidence from intelligence sources in the United Kingdom had a role to play in the decision of the Soviet State Defense Committee, in September 1. Soviet atom bomb project. October 18: Lavrentii Beria, head of the Soviet secret police and in charge of the Soviet nuclear program. Publication Date: 1970-01-01 OSTI Identifier: 4115405 Resource Type: Journal Article Resource Relation: Journal Name: Nucl. Through sources in the Manhattan Project, notably Klaus Fuchs, the Soviet intelligence obtained important information on the progress of the United States atomic bomb effort. Intelligence reports were shown to the head of the Soviet atomic project and had a significant impact on the direction of Soviet research. For example, Soviet work on methods of uranium isotope separation was altered when it was reported, to Kurchatov's surprise, that the Americans had opted for the Gaseous diffusion method. While research on other separation methods continued throughout the war years, the emphasis was placed on replicating U. S. Another important breakthrough, attributed to intelligence, was the possibility of using plutonium, instead of uranium, in a fission weapon.
Extraction of plutonium in the so- called . This change was noted by the Russian translators, and alerted the Soviet Union to the problem (which had meant that reactor- bred plutonium could not be used in a simple gun- type bomb like the proposed Thin Man). One of the key pieces of information, which Soviet intelligence obtained from Fuchs, was a cross- section for D- T fusion. This data was available to top Soviet officials roughly three years before it was openly published in the Physical Review in 1. However, this data was not forwarded to Vitaly Ginzburg or Andrei Sakharov until very late, practically months before publication. Once the actual cross- section become known to Ginzburg and Sakharov, the Sloika design become a priority, which resulted in successful test in 1. In the 1. 99. 0s, with the declassification of Soviet intelligence materials, which showed the extent and the type of the information obtained by the Soviets from US sources, a heated debate ensued in Russia and abroad as to the relative importance of espionage, as opposed to the Soviet scientists' own efforts, in the making of the Soviet bomb. The vast majority of scholars. Earlier, e. g., in 1. Fuchs gave to the Soviets a detailed update of the classical super progress, including an idea to use lithium, but did not explain it was specifically lithium- 6. Teller accepted the fact that . It remains an open topic for research, whether the Soviet intelligence was able to obtain any specific data on Teller- Ulam design in 1. Yet, Soviet officials directed the scientists to work on a new scheme, and the entire process took less than two years, commencing around January 1. November 1. 95. 5. It also took just several months before the idea of radiation implosion was conceived, and there is no documented evidence claiming priority. It is also possible that Soviets were able to obtain a document lost by John Wheeler on a train in 1. Logistical problems. The Soviet F- 1 reactor, which began operation in December 1. German atomic bomb project.
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