State commission chair for the first atomic bomb test, technocrat demoted for opposing Khrushchev
"I told Stalin I'm an energy engineer and know chemistry poorly. He replied: 'You're a good organizer. A Bolshevik will come to love whatever work he is assigned.'" — on his 1942 appointment as Chemical Industry Commissar
A Soviet industrial administrator, born the son of a blacksmith and trained as an electrical engineer. As People's Commissar of the Chemical Industry during World War II, he rebuilt military-chemical production, and from 1943 he served as the chief economic administrator of the Soviet atomic bomb project alongside Igor Kurchatov. He chaired the state commission for the first nuclear test in 1949 and became First Deputy Premier in 1955. In 1957 he joined the Presidium majority that criticized Khrushchev's unilateral decision-making (the 'Anti-Party Group' affair) and was politically demoted, yet he continued working at Gosplan as an energy and territorial-planning specialist until the end of his life.
Career Timeline
- 1929–1936After graduating from the Moscow Economic Institute, rises from engineer to director of Kashira Power Station
- 1937–1939Chief engineer of Mosenergo, head of Glavenergo, then First Deputy Commissar of Heavy Industry
- 1939–1940People's Commissar of Power Stations and Electrical Industry, directing energy-infrastructure expansion
- 1942–1950People's Commissar (then Minister) of Chemical Industry and deputy premier, rebuilding and expanding wartime chemical output
- 1943–1949Chief economic administrator of the atomic bomb project; chairman of the state commission for the RDS-1 nuclear test, August 1949
- 1952–1957Member of the CPSU Presidium and First Deputy Premier; demoted after the 1957 Anti-Party Group affair
- 1958–1962Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the GDR
- 1965–1978Department head and collegium member at Gosplan, serving on state commissions accepting new nuclear power plants
Related historical events
- 1928–1937The Five-Year Plans and the Soviet TransformationFirst Deputy People's Commissar of Heavy Industry
- 1941–1945The Great Patriotic WarPeople's Commissar for the chemical industry, oversaw explosives and chemical production
- 1943–1949The Soviet Atomic ProjectChairman of the State Commission for the Atomic Bomb Test
- 1957The Anti-Party GroupA wavering memberA technocrat who sided with the majority and was demoted.
- 1961The Building of the Berlin WallSoviet ambassador to the GDR, who reported on the open border's corrosive effectPervukhin reported that Berlin's open border prompted the population to compare the two halves of the city, a comparison that rarely favoured East Berlin.
The 1941 Evacuation Council: Moving Soviet Industry East
On 24 June 1941, the third day of the German invasion, Pervukhin was appointed deputy chairman of the Evacuation Council under the Council of People's Commissars. As the front collapsed, from July to December 1941, under his direction 1,523 industrial enterprises were relocated to the Urals, the Volga region, Western Siberia, Kazakhstan, and Central Asia, an industrial redeployment operation without precedent in world history.
Pervukhin was also tasked with organising additional power supply for the relocated factories. In the first half of 1942 alone, the evacuated heavy-industry plants produced roughly 10,000 aircraft and 54,000 artillery pieces. This output became the material foundation for the defence of Moscow in the winter of 1941 and the subsequent Stalingrad counteroffensive.
At the same time, the State Defence Committee appointed him plenipotentiary for the Red Army's Military-Chemical Defence Directorate, preparing defensive measures against possible chemical-weapons use. This dual assignment illustrates Pervukhin's central position in the wartime Soviet industrial mobilisation system.
Chief Economic Administrator of the Soviet Atomic Bomb Project, 1943–1949
Mikhail Pervukhin was Igor Kurchatov's administrative and economic counterpart in the Soviet atomic bomb project, the man who turned nuclear physics into a production reality. In the autumn of 1942, acting on Molotov's instructions, he investigated why nuclear physics work in the USSR had stalled. He met with Ioffe, Kurchatov, Alikhanov, and Kikoin, grasped the field's potential, and reported back that work 'must be resumed immediately.' The leadership accepted his recommendation within days. When the State Defense Committee formally restarted nuclear research on 11 February 1943, Pervukhin was made the chief economic manager responsible for all material-technical supply and construction.
The scope was vast. Together with Kurchatov he established Laboratory No. 2 (now the Kurchatov Institute) in Moscow's Pokrovskoye-Streshnevo district and built its experimental uranium-graphite reactor. He organized the entire supply chain: uranium ore prospecting, production of ultra-high-purity graphite, and construction of a heavy-water experimental reactor. In April 1945, he and Kurchatov jointly proposed to Stalin the creation of a dedicated administrative body, the Scientific-Technical Council, with broad directive powers over all enterprises and institutes, regardless of their branch affiliation. On 20 August 1945 he was appointed deputy chairman of the Special Committee (chaired by Beria) and subsequently served as chairman of the Engineering-Technical Council and first deputy head of the First Main Directorate, directing the construction of the plutonium production complex (Plant No. 817, now the Mayak facility) and the uranium enrichment plant (Plant No. 813, now the Ural Electrochemical Combine).
The project's culmination came in August 1949. Pervukhin chaired the state commission for the test of the first Soviet atomic bomb, RDS-1, at the Semipalatinsk test site. After the successful detonation, a secret decree of 29 October 1949 awarded him the title Hero of Socialist Labor and the Order of Lenin. If Kurchatov was the face of the physics, Pervukhin was the administrator who translated the vast state project into real factories, mines, power grids, and chemical processes. He continued to advocate for the peaceful use of atomic energy (nuclear power plants, nuclear-powered ships and aircraft) and until his final years sat on every state commission accepting new nuclear power stations.