On the eve of the 75th anniversary of the Russian atomic industry, the State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom has published a secret order to create a Soviet atomic bomb, which the USSR government gave to Design Bureau No. 11 (KB-11) in June 1946.
The documents were published on the portal "History of Rosatom", in a special section "The Russian nuclear industry - 75 years." Among them - an order from the first head of the nuclear industry Boris Vannikov to the director of KB-11 Pavel Zernov to create "under the scientific supervision of Laboratory No. 2 of a jet engine "C" (RDS) in two versions with the use of heavy fuel (C-1) and with the use of light fuel (C-2)”.
Instruction to create a Soviet atomic bomb.
“Jet engine“C”was then called the atomic bomb,“heavy fuel”- weapon-grade plutonium, and“light fuel”- weapon-grade uranium. In addition to the plan and timing, Vannikov said in a letter that the Council of Ministers "ordered IV, PM and Yu. B." to report monthly on the work in KB-11. The test of the atomic charge for the RDS-1 took place on August 29, 1949 at the Semipalatinsk test site.
KB-11 was the main design organization for the creation of the atomic bomb (now it is the Russian Federal Nuclear Center - the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Experimental Physics in Sarov in the Nizhny Novgorod Region). Laboratory No. 2 of the USSR Academy of Sciences was the scientific headquarters of the Soviet atomic project (now the Kurchatov Institute).
From the headquarters of the Soviet nuclear industry to Rosatom
The Russian nuclear industry dates back to August 20, 1945, when the Soviet leadership decided to create a number of organizational structures necessary for the development of the domestic nuclear industry and the implementation of the USSR atomic project.
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On that day, the chairman of the State Defense Committee, Joseph Stalin, signed a decree on the creation of a Special Committee under the State Defense Committee. The new body was empowered to attract any resources to work on the atomic project. The head of the Special Committee was the Deputy Chairman of the State Defense Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Lavrenty Beria.
The same decree provided for the creation of the headquarters of the Soviet nuclear industry - the First Main Directorate under the Council of People's Commissars. The first head of the PGU was the People's Commissar of Ammunition Boris Vannikov.
Subsequently, PSU was transformed into the Ministry of Medium Machine Building of the USSR, later Minatom became its successor. Now all nuclear assets in Russia are managed by the state corporation Rosatom, created in 2007 on the basis of the federal agency of the same name.