Soviet Atomic Bomb Project - Administration and Personnel

Administration and Personnel

Initially in 1940, the administration of this program was given to the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs with Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov as being its first administrator. 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. Other important figures included Yuli Khariton, Yakov Zeldovich, Georgii Flyorov, Abram Fedorovich Ioffe, and the future dissident and lead theoretical designer of the hydrogen bomb, Andrei Sakharov.

But, by the 1944, the Soviet Foreign Affairs Ministry and Foreign Minister Molotov as well proved to be an incapable and politically weak administrator for running this large magnitude project. Soon, the program suffered a major setback under Molotov who lost the focus of this program because of the war with Germany. In 1944, Stalin handed over the program to People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) and Molotov was replaced by ruthless Lavrentii Beria, Chief of NKVD, in 1944. As ruthless and dangerous as Beria was, the NKVD aided atomic spies operated under the administrative ring, directly reported to Beria. Beria also infiltrated and ruthlessly penetrated the German nuclear program, with many notable figures in German nuclear program were forcefully taken to Soviet Union where the German figures greatly enhanced the Soviet nuclear weapons efforts.