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Efim Pavlovich Slavsky

Heading for about thirty years, from 1957 to 1986, the Ministry of Medium Machine Building [Secondary Engineering] of the USSR, the talent of Efim Pavlovich Slavsky as a major organizer and leader was most fully revealed. He made an invaluable contribution not only to the formation and development of the industry, but also ensured the fulfillment of important government tasks for the creation of nuclear weapons and the use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes.

For direct participation in the development of the first prototype of nuclear weapons in 1949, Yefim Pavlovich was awarded the title Hero of Socialist Labor, and in 1954 for a set of work to ensure the development, manufacture and testing of the first thermonuclear charge, E.P. Slavsky is assigned a second time the title of Hero of Socialist Labor. In 1962, Yefim Pavlovich was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor for the third time for the development and testing of the world's most powerful thermonuclear bomb.

Each of the leaders met the requirements of his time, and new appointments took place at turning points in the history of our state or when the country's top leadership changed. So, the head of the First Main Directorate B.L. Vannikov stopped working in this position in March 1953 in connection with the reorganization of management that occurred after the death of I.V. Stalin. Minister of secondary engineering V.A. Malyshev in February 1955 was replaced by another leader, as "a man G.M. Malenkova ”, which at that time gradually began to move to second roles in government. M.G. Pervukhin was removed from the post of minister in the summer of 1957 during the "debunking of the anti-Party group of Malenkov-Molotov-Kaganovich."

After the first thermonuclear explosion, he becomes twice a Hero of Socialist Labor. And in 1957 he held the post of Minister of Medium Engineering. Efim Pavlovich Slavsky stood at the origins of the creation of this department, and then until 1986, for nearly thirty years, headed an industrial empire called Sredmash, which included hundreds of settlements, mining enterprises, concentration plants, factories, nuclear power plants, research centers, research and design institutes, design bureaus, the so-called "closed cities", educational institutions, training grounds and military units. Carriers of all classes, from artillery shells to intercontinental ballistic missiles with multiple warheads, were equipped with nuclear weapons created at the enterprises.

According to academician Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov ".... Efim Pavlovich Slavsky was appointed instead of Pervukhin to the post of Minister of the CM - and he remains to them now, after a quarter of a century! Slavsky is an engineer by training, it seems a metallurgist. A man of undoubtedly great ability and capacity for work, decisive and courageous, rather thoughtful, intelligent and striving to form a clear opinion for himself on any subject, at the same time stubborn, often intolerant of other people's opinions; a person who can be gentle, polite, and very rude. According to political and moral attitudes, the pragmatist, it seems to me sincerely endorsing Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization and Brezhnev’s “stabilization”, ready to “hesitate with the party” (an expression from the joke), with contempt for whiners, resonators and doubters, sincerely carried away by the case, led by it is delivered, both by its military aspects and by various peaceful applications, deeply fond of equipment, machinery, construction, and without sentimentality relating to such trifles as radiation diseases of nuclear personnel..."

Efim Pavlovich Slavsky was born on October 26, 1898 in the village of Makeevka of the Taganrog district of the Cossack Don Army (Donbass, Ukraine) into a peasant family. His father, Fayvel Slavsky, the former Nikolaev soldier, was a real hero. Fathoms of growth, energetic and hardworking, he had a small allotment, which he processed. While the father was alive, the family did not live in poverty. He died at the age of seventy, and Yefim, who was then 8 years old, became a subservient. He began to work from an early age - he was hired by a farm laborer, grazing cattle on summer pastures, and was able to finish only three classes of the parish school. He worked for almost seven years, then went to the mine, worked as a horse-drawn driver, chopped coal. Growing up and going strong, he went to his father, so that he earned bread for himself and his mother. However, there is no information about her, as well as about her brothers and sisters.

At 13, he entered the Makeevka Metallurgical Plant, a foundry. Then he worked as a mechanic at the mine, and a year later he returned to the factory - the First World War began, there weren’t enough working hands, so they took very young people to the workshops. Yefim Slavsky was distinguished by great physical strength, he was instructed to process the shells of artillery shells. At the factory, he began to participate in strikes, in the spring of 1918 joined the ranks of the Bolshevik party.

In 1918, Yefim became a Red Guard, then fought with the Petliurites in one of the parts of the so-called "Ukrainian veil". In the years 1918-1923. Yefim Slavsky fought on the fronts of the Civil War. He served in the ranks of the First Horse Army, personally knew the legendary commanders Dybenko, Budenny, Frunze. Standing out with remarkable strength and riding skills, he first becomes a fighter of the 1st cavalry corps, and at the end of the courses in December 1919, he became the platoon commander of the 1st Cavalry Army. With Konarmia, he traveled from Donbass to Poland. After its disbandment in 1923, he was sent to political courses, at the end of which he became commissar of the regiment, and then of the cavalry brigade. Retired in 1928. In memory of the military service, Yefim had the cavalry-guard broadsword given by Semyon Budyonny with a personal engraving.

In his memoirs, Andrei Sakharov wrote: “... In the past, Slavsky was one of the commanders of the 1st Horse; with me he liked to recall episodes from this period of his life ... To match Slavsky's character, his appearance was a high powerful figure, strong arms and broad sloping shoulders, large features of a bronze-red face, a loud, confident voice. Once I saw his wife and was struck by the contrast of their looks - she looked like an intelligent, already middle-aged, quiet woman, in some kind of old-fashioned hat. He treated her with emphasized attention and extraordinary gentleness ... ”

E.P. Slavsky served in the army for another five years, until 1928. He graduated from war in the fall of 1923 as the commissar of the regiment of the Separate Special Cavalry Division of the First Cavalry Army. Then he worked as a warehouse manager, at the same time receiving secondary education, and in 1933 he graduated from the Institute of Non-Ferrous Metals and Gold, defending a thesis on lead production technology.

From an ordinary engineer to a director - such is the path of a young specialist Yefim Slavsky at the Electrozinc plant in the city of Ordzhonikidze, where he began working after graduation. In 1940, E.P. Slavsky led the Dnieper Aluminum Plant in Zaporozhye. By 1941, this enterprise produced two-thirds of domestic aluminum.

A week before the start of World War II, Yefim Pavlovich was approved by the Deputy People's Commissar for non-ferrous metallurgy. However, he did not manage to take up a new post. E.P. Slavsky returned to Zaporozhye to hand over the affairs to the new director, but he already had to organize the evacuation of the Dnieper plant to the Urals under enemy fire. For the implementation of this complex event, E.P. Slavsky was awarded his first of ten Order of Lenin.

At the end of 1941, he led the construction and then the work of the Ural Aluminum Plant (Kamensk-Uralsky), which during the war was the only enterprise that supplied the country with aluminum. Under the leadership of E.P. Slavsky aluminum production at the plant increased from 20 thousand tons to 75 thousand tons. For this work, E.P. Slavsky was awarded two more orders of Lenin.

In those years, the characteristic feature of Yefim was manifested - the desire for universal leadership, covering all aspects of the life of the enterprise. Uaz old-timers recall a case in the fall of 1941, when during the day he decided the issue of food for the children of factory workers. The situation was awful: the war, there was a catastrophic lack of food, violating the instructions of the State Defense Committee and redistributing work rations to children was almost a jury. Then Slavsky decided to produce products on his own in order to feed not only the workers, but also their children. On his order, three subsidiary farms were organized. They provided factory workers with additional food, and were engaged in government deliveries. And while these UAZ farms did not gain strength, Yefim managed to agree on the receipt of off-stock food products at the plant.

In the smelting of aluminum and magnesium, graphite electrodes are used. This circumstance was the reason and reason for turning in the fate of metallurgical engineer EP Slavsky. To build an atomic reactor, graphite of high purity was needed, and in large quantities. In 1943, as a specialist in the production of graphite electrode mass, Yefim Pavlovich met with I.V. Kurchatov , which attempts to obtain the desired graphite qualities desired for the first nuclear reactor, a long time ended unsuccessfully.

Short term - from 1945 to 1946. - E.P. Slavsky worked as deputy commissar of non-ferrous metallurgy of the USSR - head of the main department of aluminum industry of the USSR.

April 9, 1946 E.P. Slavsky was appointed deputy head of the First Main Directorate under the Council of Ministers of the USSR, and from that period all the activities of Yefim Pavlovich were associated with the creation of the nuclear industry and the nuclear shield of the Motherland.

The 1st Main Directorate under the USSR Council of Ministers was organized by order of Stalin to lead the creation of the atomic bomb. It was headed by Boris Vannikov. Immediately after Slavsky’s appointment, he assigned him responsibility for the construction of a uranium-graphite reactor, on which weapons-grade plutonium was to be produced. At the same time, the production of weapons-grade uranium in gas diffusion centrifuges was created. There was a kind of competition in the championship in the production of nuclear stuffing for the bomb. Efim Slavsky won it.

E.P. Slavsky was an active participant in the "uranium problem." The first task he had to solve in the framework of the Soviet atomic project was to obtain ultrapure graphite for the construction of the first experimental reactor F-1 in Laboratory No. 2 (the future Institute of Atomic Energy named after I.V. Kurchatov). We had to start in the full sense from scratch - the specialists of the Moscow Electrode Plant, who were entrusted with the production of graphite, at first had no idea what the true purity of the materials needed to create a reactor was. This important problem, despite all its difficulties, has been successfully resolved. Then it was possible to obtain the necessary purity of uranium.

On December 25, 1946, the first F-1 uranium-graphite research reactor in Europe and Asia was launched. In this busy period, E.P. Slavsky became closely acquainted with I.V. Kurchatov, to which all subsequent years treated with great respect and love to have survived to the end of his life. Immediately after the commissioning of the F-1 reactor, intensive construction began in the Urals of an industrial plant No. 817 (base-10, PO Mayak), where plutonium production for the atomic bomb was created. July 10, 1947 L.P. Beria appointed E.P. Slavsky director of the newly created plant.

The construction was carried out in incredibly difficult conditions, on the “bare” territory remote from large cities and transport communications. E.P. Slavsky proved himself to be a principled and proactive production organizer, a talented engineer and leader with an analytical mindset, able to quickly understand complex situations and quickly make the right decisions.

He had to work a lot, it happened, he slept two or three hours a day. In 1947, 41 thousand builders and installers worked at Base No. 10. But this was not enough to meet the deadline appointed by Stalin. E.P. Slavsky addressed the Chairman of the Special Committee L.P. Beria with a request to send another 15-18 thousand workers and engineers, and was supported by the Special Commissioner of the USSR Council of Ministers for Construction, General I.M. Tkachenko and First Deputy L.P. Beria V.V. Chernyshev, who was constantly at the construction site. By the end of the year, the number of builders reached 52 thousand people and a large number of installers were already employed.

But due to untimely deliveries of electrical and other equipment, the terms of construction work were disrupted, which served as a formal reason for removing him from the post of director, although he worked in this position for only five months. On November 12, 1947, by Decree of the USSR Council of Ministers No. 3909-1327, Plant No. 817 was renamed Combine No. 817, and B.G. Muzrukov , first deputy director and chief engineer - EP Slavsky.

On June 8, 1948, the “A” reactor was physically launched at the plant No. 817, and on December 22, 1948, the first irradiated uranium blocks from the “A” reactor began to go to the plant B for processing. At 7 a.m. on August 29, 1949, at the Semipalatinsk test site, the first Soviet atomic bomb made from plutonium obtained at Combine No. 817 was detonated.

On October 29, 1949, a closed Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Council “On conferring the title of Hero of Socialist Labor on Scientific, Engineering and Technical and Executive Officers of Research, Design Organizations and Industrial Enterprises” was issued, which Yefim Pavlovich Slavsky was for exceptional services to the state in performing a special task awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor with the award of the Order of Lenin and the gold medal "Hammer and Sickle".

Due to the imperfection of the technology and lack of experience, the plant repeatedly had accidents and various incidents, including nuclear ones, and Efim Pavlovich was always in the danger zone in the forefront. The radiation dose he had gained over the years of work at the Mayak Production Center was much higher than the permissible dose.

After the Mayak production company steadily earned money, Yefim Pavlovich moved to Moscow. In 1953, he became the first deputy minister of secondary engineering, and since 1957 - the minister of the famous Sredmash.

The “atomic” task was not an easy one for a country that survived the worst war in its history. Efim Pavlovich put a lot of effort and skill into the establishment of a new industry, carefully followed the work not only in production, but also in research teams. He was deeply respected among scientists and engineers, workers and technicians, all simple and honest workers.

E.P. Slavsky headed the Ministry of Secondary Engineering of the USSR from 1957 to 1986. It was here that his talent as a major organizer and leader was most fully revealed, he made an invaluable contribution to the formation and development of the industry, ensured the fulfillment of important government tasks to create nuclear weapons and use atomic energy for peaceful purposes. In 1954, for a set of works to ensure the development, manufacture and testing of the first thermonuclear charge Slavsky is again awarded the title Hero of Socialist Labor.

Under Efim Pavlovich, the Ministry of Medium Engineering acquired the status of “a state in the state”, increasing production and scientific-technical capacities.

In 1962, Yefim Pavlovich was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor for the third time for the development and testing of the world's most powerful thermonuclear bomb, which was sent abroad by N.S. Khrushchev, nicknamed "Kuzkin’s mother." This test demonstrated the possibility of increasing the energy of a single nuclear weapon to gigantic values.

In the period 1963-1965. Minsredmash was transformed into the State Production Committee on secondary engineering. Efim Pavlovich remained its chairman, that is, he continued to work as a minister.

Over these thirty years, the industry had taken one of the leading places in the national economy of the country, has become its powerful part, which includes the scientific, industrial and construction sectors of the state.

With the direct participation of E.P. Slavsky created the nuclear shield of our state, put into operation nuclear power plants and plants for various purposes, as soon as possible the raw materials sub-industry of the nuclear industry was developed, the largest, based on the latest achievements of science and technology, mining and processing plants were built, unique production technologies were developed and introduced uranium, gold, the production of mineral fertilizers, the use of isotopes in medicine, agriculture, in other sectors of the economy.

Much has been done in the field of the social sphere, a whole series of closed cities and towns, sanatoriums and rest houses, as well as medical institutions of the nuclear industry have been created, the modern cities of Shevchenko (Aktau), Navoi, Zarafshan, Stepnogorsk, Krasnogorsk have been built.

At the post of Minister Sredmash, the full talent of E.P. Slavsky as a major and wise leader, his dedication and enormous capacity for work emphasized the multi-color palette of the image of this man, who played a huge role in the formation of the nuclear industry.

Taking an active part in all the affairs and undertakings undertaken by the ministry, Yefim Pavlovich proved to be an active, competent and energetic leader. Participants of numerous, often intense scientific and technical councils recall that he always carefully listened to the opinions of scientists. At the same time, he, as a man of the command system, was characterized by rigidity and exactingness in solving the tasks outlined. At the same time, he remained simple, accessible, and truly democratic in communication with ordinary employees of the nuclear industry, especially with young people. Many recall his openness, the absence of any swagger, the rude humor inherent in those who have repeatedly been in remakes.

On April 26, 1986, the largest man-made accident occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. May 20, by order of the Minister of Secondary Engineering of the USSR, E. Slavsky, to eliminate the consequences of the Chernobyl accident, the Construction Department No. 605 was created, and the very next day a group of specialists from the Ministry of Environment and Economy headed by Minister E.P. Slavsky flew to Chernobyl. In the future, E.P. Slavsky repeatedly visited the Chernobyl zone.

In those years, the Chernobyl NPP was under the jurisdiction of the USSR Ministry of Energy and Electrification. The Ministry of Energy also designed, built, and operated the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, and the fatal experiment that led to the accident was carried out according to its program. Nevertheless, many of the main responsibility for what happened was assigned to the developers of the reactor and its control and protection systems, as well as to the leadership of the Ministry of Secondary Engineering.

E.P. Slavsky did not use the now fashionable word "systematic approach." But in his stories about mining cities, industrial cities of the industry, in the interweaving of purely technical and personnel decisions with high social requirements for ensuring the lives of people involved in a particular industry, one could see firsthand the existence of a system - complex, flexible, mutually affecting in its structures.

In this “Sredmash system”, under his leadership and with his direct participation, in a short time a unique branch of the most advanced scientific and technical thought was created, atomic science and technology were developed in the USSR and countries of Eastern Europe and Asia, the country's nuclear shield was strengthened, commissioned nuclear power plants and plants for various purposes. In the shortest possible time, the raw materials sub-industry of the nuclear industry was developed, the largest mining and processing plants based on the latest achievements of science and technology were built, unique technologies for the extraction of uranium, gold, the production of mineral fertilizers, the use of isotopes in medicine, agriculture and others were developed and implemented branches of the national economy, new modern "atomic cities" were erected.

In addition to the development of main production, Efim Pavlovich was constantly and productively engaged in the creation and development of the necessary social infrastructure for working cities, workers' settlements and the building up of an effective agricultural base in his subsidiary farms. It is characteristic that the yield of grain and vegetable crops, livestock productivity on the farms of the Ministry of Environment was constantly higher than the average for the regions of Russia and Kazakhstan, although subsidiary farms were located in the northern part of the regions of these republics.

Efim Pavlovich was a high-party man, through all years with honor carried the title of communist. He was never ashamed of this and was proud that he had justified the confidence of the party. He was a principled and demanding leader, bold in judgments, and defended his convictions, despite the highest ranks and departments, right up to the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee.

November 21, 1986 E.P. Slavsky at the age of 88 was dismissed. The Chernobyl accident, in the liquidation of which the Ministry of Medium Engineering took a leading role, put an end to the nearly thirty-year career of the Slavsky Minister. He had concrete proposals on the work of the industry, which he wanted to make to the Secretary General of the Central Committee of the CPSU M.S. Gorbachev, however, the meeting did not take place. He had hoped so much for her! In general, Efim Pavlovich Slavsky’s relations with the leader of the “perestroika” were long-standing and rather complicated. They go back to the conflict between the first secretary of the Stavropol Regional Committee of the CPSU M.S. Gorbachev and E.P. Slavsky in deciding on the need to build a mineral fertilizer plant in this region. Disagreements, unfortunately, left an imprint on their future relationship. In November 1986, shortly after a conversation with N.I. Ryzhkov, Efim Pavlovich at the age of 88 wrote a statement and retired. It’s hard to describe the farewell of the employees of the ministry’s apparatus in the college hall. The pain of parting with the industry and colleagues with Yefim Pavlovich remained until the end of his life.

The work of Yefim Pavlovich Slavsky was highly appreciated by the state: he was awarded three of ten orders of Lenin for work at the enterprises of the People's Commissariat of Metals (1942-1945), the rest of the orders he received for work in the Ministry of Environment. He is also a laureate of the Stalin Prize of the 1st degree (1949 and 1951), the Lenin Prize (1980) and the State Prize of the USSR (1984), and was awarded other orders and medals of the USSR, East Germany and Czechoslovakia.

After his resignation, Efim Pavlovich lived for five years, died on November 28, 1991, a month before the collapse of the Soviet Union. He was buried as a soldier, with all military honors, at the Novodevichy cemetery. None of the then leadership of the country came to say goodbye to Slavsky.

E.P. Slavsky was an Honorary Citizen of several cities: Tomsk-7, Obninsk, Krasnoyarsk-45, Ust-Kamenogorsk. Monuments E.P. Slavsky installed in Makeevka and Ust-Kamenogorsk. Plaques are opened on the building of Rosatom (Moscow, Bolshaya Ordynka St., 24) and at the entrance of the Ural Aluminum Plant. In the name of E.P. Streets in Makeevka, Rybinsk, Seversk, Belokurikha, Stepnogorsk, Dimitrovgrad, Kurchatov and Moscow, the embankment in Ust-Kameonogorsk and the boulevard in Kamensk-Uralsky are named Slavsky.

Academician Evgeny Velikhov, Secretary of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation, decided to leave the organization after the end of his powers in the third convocation of the OP in January 2012. The scientist who headed the Public Chamber since its foundation in 2006, noted that three terms for him - "maximum". According to Velikhov, managers in general should change regularly. The academician explained that too long work in one position "destroys the psyche," since the boss has too many "unnecessary" connections. As an example, he cited the Secretary General of the Central Committee of the CPSU Leonid Brezhnev and the head of the Ministry of Secondary Engineering of the USSR Yefim Slavsky. According to Velikhov, they should have left their posts 20 years earlier than they did.