The aviation minister who persuaded Stalin to buy British jet engines and opened the MiG-15 era
1946. Khrunichev and Yakovlev proposed buying British jet engines. Stalin replied: 'What fool will sell us his secrets?' To his astonishment, the Labour government willingly provided Rolls-Royce Nene engines and blueprints. The reverse-engineered Klimov RD-45 became the heart of the MiG-15.
A miner's son who rose through the militia and factory management to become Soviet Minister of Aviation Industry (1946–1953). During the war, as First Deputy Commissar of Ammunition, he directed the mass production of shells and aerial bombs. After the war, as head of aviation industry, he sought a breakthrough for lagging Soviet jet technology. In 1946 he and designer A. S. Yakovlev persuaded Stalin to purchase British Rolls-Royce Nene engines; reverse-engineered as the Klimov RD-45, they powered the MiG-15 and propelled the USSR into the jet fighter age. His name endures in the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center.
Career Timeline
- 1914–1920Miner's apprentice, horse-driver, hammerer at Shubinsky mine
- 1920–1924Red Army — food commission for 1st Cavalry Army, sapper platoon commander
- 1924–1930Militia officer in Donetsk and Lugansk, head of Lugansk district militia
- 1930–1936Deputy director of Artem plant and Cartridge Factory No. 60; graduated Ukrainian Industrial Academy
- 1936–1937Director, Military Factory No. 184 (Zelenodolsk) — tripled shell and bomb output
- 1937–1942Head of 12th Main Directorate, Defense Industry → Deputy Commissar of Aviation Industry
- 1942–1946First Deputy Commissar of Ammunition — wartime production, Hero of Socialist Labor (1945)
- 1946–1953Minister of Aviation Industry — led jet transition and MiG-15 development
- 1953–1955First Deputy Minister of Medium Machine Building (nuclear industry)
- 1955–1961Deputy Chairman of Council of Ministers, Deputy Chairman of Gosplan, Chairman of State Committee for Coordination of Scientific Research
Related historical events
The Rolls-Royce Nene Purchase — The Gamble That Produced the MiG-15
By early 1946, Soviet jet development had stalled. Designers could not perfect the German-designed HeS-011 axial-flow engine, and Mikoyan's new airframes threatened to outpace the engines needed to power them. Aviation Minister Khrunichev and aircraft designer Alexander Yakovlev made an audacious proposal to Stalin: buy completed jet engines from Britain.
Stalin's response was scornful: "What fool will sell us his secrets?" But reality proved different. Clement Attlee's Labour government and its pro-Soviet Minister of Trade, Sir Stafford Cripps, were perfectly willing to approve the export of Rolls-Royce Nene and Derwent engines. On 17 June 1946, the USSR Council of Ministers formally resolved to purchase British jet engines. In September 1946, Rolls-Royce received permission to sell 10 Nene engines; a further 15 were approved in March 1947. Over the objections of the RAF Air Staff and MI5, a total of 55 Nene and Derwent engines ultimately made their way to the Soviet Union.
The results were dramatic. Vladimir Klimov's design bureau reverse-engineered the Nene into the RD-45 (later the VK-1), and the MiG-15, powered by this engine, made its first flight in December 1947. In the Korean War (1950–1953), the MiG-15 shot down USAF B-29 bombers, shocking the West and vaulting the Soviet Union to the forefront of the jet fighter age. Britain would find itself in aerial combat just three years later, against fighters powered by copies of engines it had sold.
On 22 November 1948, the House of Commons saw angry questions over who had authorized the sale. By then, the clock could not be turned back. Khrunichev's gamble stands as the most successful technology acquisition in Soviet aviation history, and a watershed in the early Cold War arms race.