Stalin’s Secret Weapon: The Origins of Soviet Biological Warfare

278 Pages·2018·1.39 MB·English

by  Anthony Rimmington

STALIN’S SECRET WEAPON

ANTHONY RIMMINGTON
Stalin’s Secret Weapon
The Origins of Soviet Biological Warfare
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1
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Copyright © Anthony Rimmington, 2018
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ISBN: 9780190928858
Printed in the United Kingdom
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations vii
About the Author xi
Acknowledgements xiii
Introduction 1
1. Origins: The Launch of the Moscow Strand of the Red
Army’s Offensive Biological Warfare Programme 13
2. The Creation of a BW Prison Laboratory:
The Bacteriological Convent 39
3 From Defence to Offence: The Development of the Red
Army’s Biological Warfare Facilities at Vlasikha 53
4. The Soviet Union’s Secret of Secrets: The Creation of BW
Facilities on the Island of Gorodomyla 65
5. The Rise and Fall of a Working-Class Hero: Ivan
Mikhailovich Velikanov, Lead Scientist of the Soviet
Union’s Offensive BW Programme 75
6. From Shikhany to Vozrozhdenie Island: The Selection of
Open-Air Proving Grounds for the Soviet Offensive
BW Programme 87
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CONTENTS
7. The Soviet Union’s Enigma BW Programme: Military
Biological Research in Leningrad 99
8. From Flanders to Glanders: Soviet Military-Veterinary
BW Programmes 129
9. On the Brink of Bacteriological War: Stalin’s BW
Programme and the Second World War 137
10. Stalin’s BW Archipelago: Mapping-Out a New Post-War
BW Network 175
11. From Swords to Ploughshares: The Scientific and Industrial
Achievements of Stalin’s BW Archipelago 187
12. Yesterday Today: Stalin’s Legacy and Russia’s Current
Military Biological Network 203
Notes 207
Index 243
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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Fig. 1: Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (Potsdam Conference, Berlin,
1 August 1945).
Source: US Army Signal Corps (public domain).
Fig. 2: View of Odessa Bacteriological Station, created in 1886 in
late Imperial Russia (postcard from 1902).
Source: Phototypie Scherer, Nabholz & Co, Moscow.
Author: Albert Ivanovich Mei.
Fig. 3: View of the Suzdal Convent of the Intercession (Pokrovsky
Convent), July 2004.
Photo by Datateddy (Wikicommons, public domain).
Fig. 4: Morning in a Pine Grove by Ivan Shishkin and Konstantin
Savitsky, oil on canvas, 1886. Scene set on Gorodomyla Island.
Fig. 5: View of Sayan Canyon, Yenisei River, 17 August 2013.
Photo by Igor’ Shpilenok.
Fig. 6: German personnel participating in the secret Tomka Project
at Shikhany, 1928.
Source: Wikicommons/German Federal Archive (Deutsches
Bundarchiv).
Fig. 7: Shikhany’s coat of arms, Saratov Oblast.
Author: Panther (Wikicommons, public domain).
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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Fig. 8: Turning to Shikhany off the Russian Federal Highway R-228,
20 June 2011.
Photo by Rokoches (Wikicommons, public domain).
Fig. 9: View of Vozrozhdenie Island BW open-air test site, 8
November 1994. Showing Kantubek and Vozrozhdenie
villages on Vozrozhdenie Island (Aral Sea, Uzbekistan),
the former secret Soviet biological warfare laboratory in
Kantubek, and the Vozrozhdenie support facility, drawn by
Julo on the satellite image.
Photo by NASA (public domain).
Fig. 10: Russian photograph of Manchurian plague victims held in
storage, ‘awaiting scientific research’, 1910–11.
Author unknown.
Fig. 11: Zabolotny (centre, labelled no. 1) with medical personnel
involved in the struggle with plague in Manchuria, February
1911.
Source: Iskry (an Imperial Russian journal), no. 7,
13 February 1911, p. 54.
Fig. 12: The Plague Fort (Fort Aleksandr I), Kronstadt,
St Petersburg.
Photo by Andrew Shiva, 14 July 2016 (Andrew Shiva/
Wikipedia/CC BY-SA 4.0).
Fig. 13: Russian Military-Medical Academy, St Petersburg, 2007.
Photo by AndrevA (Wikicommons, public domain).
Fig. 14: View of Russian Orthodox Solovetsky Monastery,
Arkhangelsk region (White Sea), 6 August 2012.
Photo by Aleksei Zalonskii.
Fig. 15: Kuz’minki Institute of Experimental Veterinary Science,
2011.
Photo by shako (Wikicommons, public domain).
Fig. 16: Vyshny Volochek viewed from reservoir, 9 May 2012.
Photo by Boris Mavlyutov.
Fig. 17: View of the Tobol’sk Biofactory, January 2012.
Photo by Pamir235 (Wikicommons, public domain).
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