Historical cross-section

Between past and future

Institute Dubna - 1956

Courage makes the blows of fate insignificant.

Democritus

Unlike the sacrament of a person's birth, there is nothing mysterious in the birth of a scientific institution. JINR is no exception. All moves are recorded. Some of them are given in the book "The History of the establishment of JINR in the documents of the central committee of the CPSU", published in 2015 by the Publishing Department at the initiative of the Head of the Scientific Information Department¹ B.M.Starchenko, the rest is left in the memoirs of participants and eyewitnesses of the events of those years. The main impression: JINR was established in a hurry. From the memoirs of the first director of JINR D.I.Blokhintsev: "I remember how I.V.Kurchatov summoned the scientific secretary of the STC Department B.S.Pozdnyakov to his office and said to him, "Write twelve letters to all the "guys" about the organization of the Eastern Institute! "What guys?" "What guys? V.Ulbricht!.." Almost everyone responded. Except Yugoslavia, they were not interested in their proposal for JINR: they were already at CERN and here they need to go somewhere.

V.I.Veksler, A.V.Topchiev, D.I.Blokhintsev and M.G.Meshcheryakov at a round table at the USSR Academy of Sciences

On 26 March, 1956, 11 countries of the socialist community signed an agreement on the establishment of an international scientific centre and this is considered JINR's birthday (although it would be more correct to talk about conception). When determining the contributions of the member states, who will pay how much, the case received an unexpected turn. The Chinese were assigned 10% and they said: this is not enough for us, we are a great power, we will pay 20%. Everyone was pleasantly surprised and began to thank and the Chinese dismissed: well, never mind, such a trifle.

A banquet on the occasion of the agreement was held at the Prague restaurant. The focus of general attention was, of course, the first Director of the international scientific centre, Corresponding Member of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences Professor D.I.Blokhintsev. Visitors to the JINR Museum of History of Science and Technology, impressed by stories about the era of "storm and onslaught" sometimes ask: why not Meshcheryakov? Perhaps both candidates were considered from the very beginning and the choice in favor of Blokhintsev was made after Pontecorvo turned to Kurchatov with a request to let him go to Veksler. Igor Vasilievich knew his Michel "from university diapers" and appreciated his organizational talent, but also appreciated Blokhintsev as an organizer after the launch of the Obninsk NPP.

Photo from the photo album of D.I.Blokhintsev

In early April, the first entries appear in Dmitry Ivanovich's work journal. Something is highlighted in a frame, something is emphasized, something is crossed out with a red pencil. The supporting structures of the future international scientific centre already exist, two new laboratories are to be founded. Looking at how the structure of the future scientific centre changes from page to page, you feel involved in the creation of the world... Laboratory for the investigation of materials disappears as an independent structural unit. The Radiochemical Laboratory is included in the Laboratory of Nuclear Problems, MCI (accelerator of multi-charge ions, future cyclotron U-300) is scheduled to be constructed in the Laboratory of Nuclear Problems. The Laboratory of Cosmic rays is crossed out, it will not function at all - the "cosmics" stay in Moscow.

Dmitry Ivanovich - in the role of an architect, demiurge, such a chance falls once in a lifetime and even then, not to everyone. And everything succeeds! The "go-ahead" for the establishment of the Laboratory of Theoretical Physics (the dream of Soviet theoretical physicists is coming true!) has been obtained. The Minister of Medium Machine Building of the USSR A.P.Zavenyagin agreed that another Obninsk in Dubna is not needed and instead of the constantly operating reactor that was scheduled at the beginning, we will construct a pulsed reactor that has not yet been in the world.

Members of the Scientific Council are observing JINR Administrative Director V.N.Sergienko drawing the future LTP building in the sand. In the centre, in a cloak and a hat, the birth of a new building is closely watched by the representative of the GDR, Nobel Prize winner Gustav Hertz

Energetic red pencil recording: "Make a city!" And Dubna receives the status of a city and two months later, blurring the line between city and village, the entire district was added to Dubna in one fell swoop: Novo-Ivankovo, Ratmino, Yurkino, Aleksandrovka and Kozlaki.

L.Infeld, N.N.Bogolyubov, I.E.Tamm. 1958

A private, but important issue, the solution of which is beyond the competence of Dmitry Ivanovich: what to do with M.G.Meshcheryakov? The issue is addressed to the Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU A.B.Aristov. Answer: isn't it clear? The opinion of the Central Committee is the same. If he cannot cope with a foreigner, he has nothing to do at an international institute.

It would seem that the fate of M.G.Meshcheryakov is decided, he goes to the Far East to supervise science. But it's not that simple. Apparently, a violation of some secret instruction was not enough and a "local initiative" was required. And in the middle of summer (like a bolt from the blue for the uninitiated, one of the most devoted students of M.G.Meshcheryakov G.D.Stoletov recalled), a party meeting of the Laboratory of Nuclear Problems was held. It consisted of two-point agenda. The first, in the spirit of the times, is about overcoming the cult of personality and its consequences, the second is "Miscellaneous".

What happened at that meeting and what was said there was more than once told about it by one of its active participants A.A.Tyapkin. When they moved on to the "Miscellaneous" item, laboratory veteran N.I.Petrov asked the question: why is Bruno Pontecorvo leaving the laboratory? And M.G.Meshcheryakov that was sitting on the presidium, suggested: let's ask him about it. Pontecorvo stood up and said whatever he thought of the director. Tyapkin followed him. Something like this: "Bruno Maksimovich did not tell us anything new. We knew all this and so. I have another question: who is to blame for it? We are with you. We did not pull our senior comrade in time... And suddenly, the head of the political department that was considered a man of M.G.Meshcheryakov, gets up and therefore, he was not initiated into the conspiracy and beats himself in the chest: no, comrades, it's my fault. Condoned..."

Then, everyone seemed to wake up - and it spread like that... It was even proposed to exclude the communist Meshcheryakov from the party but knowledgeable people did not put this proposal to a vote and the transcript of the meeting was urgently sent to Moscow: the position of M.G.Meshcheryakov was the nomenclature of the Central Committee and the issue was met there. At the second meeting, shortly after the first, Mikhail Grigorievich admitted his mistakes² and received a severe reprimand along the party line with entry into a personal file.

M.G.Meshcheryakov with the youngest daughter Olga and puppy Surik (a gift from I.V.Kurchatov)

And in the intermission between the first and second acts of this performance (they conducted us like kittens, Alexey Alekseevich said many years later, everything was decided in advance), the following happened (recorded by V.F.Nikitin from the words of V.P.Dzhelepov in the second half of the 1990s). Lyudmila Vasilievna (wife of Mikhail Grigorievich) called Venedikt Petrovich and invited him to visit them. He came, not knowing yet what will be discussed. The men retired and M.G.Meshcheryakov said, "I am being dismissed, you are being appointed." "Where did you get it?" It can't be!" "Will you mind if I stay in the laboratory?"³ After a couple of days, Dzhelepov was really summoned to Moscow and there was a conversation about a replacement. Venedikt Petrovich kept his promise - in fact, he vouched for his former head: Meshcheryakov does not need to be removed, he has three successful topics and there will be no conflict.

In early September, a final decision came from Moscow: Meshcheryakov is the Head of the Scientific and Experimental Department. And presenting the candidacies of laboratory directors to the members of the Scientific Council, Dmitry Ivanovich did not name Meshcheryakov that everyone was ready to hear (after all, it was he who sat at the round table on Blokhintsev's left hand in March) but the name of his Deputy Dzhelepov, explaining briefly and diplomatically: there are no questions to Mikhail Grigorievich as a scientist, everyone knows his scientific work but he has developed a difficult relationship with the staff and the Soviet side withdraws him from the post of director.

And on this, one could put an end to the story of what the first Director of the Institute Dubna had to go through in 1956 but there is another curious document stuck between the past and the future. It was found by the curator of the JINR Museum funds Kirill Kozubsky. Analyzing papers laid out in a corridor in one of the buildings of the Laboratory of Nuclear Problems, he found a memorandum from Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences M.G.Meshcheryakov addressed to Comrade V.P.Dzhelepov. The note is dated 4 October, 1956, which it can be concluded from that its author recovered quite quickly from the blow inflicted on him.

In 1956, the current square named after M.G.Meshcheryakov looked like this

Mikhail Grigorievich critically analyzes the composite prototype of nucleon proposed by the young scientist Boris Neganov. To date, this prototype looks fantastic: a stable particle proton and neutron, living in a free state for several minutes, are produced from xi-hyperon and two ka-mesons - particles that live in billionths of a second. But in the history of physics, it happened more than once that fantastic ideas turned out to be true in the end - take at least the corpuscular-wave voluntarism of Louis de Broglie or the invisible power lines of Faraday.

Mikhail Grigorievich leaves the young scientist a ray of hope: "Perhaps my criticisms do not completely refute the hypotheses of B.Neganov... To objectively understand to the end in this matter, I recommend sending the paper of B.Neganov to Professor M.A.Markov." But he adds, "I do not bear any responsibility for the paper of B.Neganov and do not recommend it to be published in the form in which it is written." This is M.G.Meshcheryakov: the papers prepared in his laboratory should be perfect.

In the same year, the Sakata prototype was developed that included all the elementary particles known by that time and predicted and the fate of the Neganov protype was decided. Should it have been published, at least under the heading "In the order of discussion"? Here is how Enrico Fermi once answered a similar question. In 1949, he and his graduate student Zh. Young presented pi-mesons as a united state of the nucleon-antinucleon pair, glued together by some still unknown interaction so strong that pi-mesons turn out to be much lighter than the nucleons themselves. Young considered that the hypothesis was insufficiently substantiated and "it should be buried in drafts" and Fermi said, "Students think and scientists ask questions and I consider the issue posed worthy of publication."

Alexander RASTORGUEV

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¹ It refers to the Sredmash STC. In the diary of that time, Dmitry Ivanovich is a little different, "Chernov, write to all the guys!" (I.V.) "To what guys?" "Well, to Mao Dzedunu, Gomulke, Ulbricht, others." (I.V.) This is about JINR!"

² From the memoirs of G.D.Stoletov: "The formal reason for the meeting, again according to rumors, was a letter to the Central Committee of the CPSU from a group of employees of the Institute complaining about the alleged arbitrary actions of the director. I immediately remembered that two months before that, some paper flashed at the Institute, which some employees were introduced with confidentially, by choice. It bypassed us, the young, the "conscription" of 1953-1956. Who initiated this letter and what exactly was blamed on our head - history is silent about it. They said something about rudeness, almost rudeness of M.G.Meshcheryakov in relation to subordinates. But with regard to us, the facts say otherwise. To us, the youth in comparison with him, he invariably addressed respectfully by name and patronymic, not allowing tactlessness, even if he was very dissatisfied with our work. However, any harsh remark, if desired, can be transformed into rudeness and a frank impartial statement - into rudeness."

From the memoirs of V.M.Tsupko-Sitnikov: "Things were going well in the laboratory and the reason for M.G.Meshcheryakov's departure was not "production". The fact is that M.G.Meshcheryakov somehow did not feel some changes after Stalin's death in 1953. The 20th Congress of the CPSU has been just held, debunking Stalin's personality cult and the situation began to change. At M.G.Meshcheryakov, some moments of behavior towards people were the same, tough. A conflict arose with the very noticeable physicist and man Bruno Maksimovich Pontecorvo and it resulted in the resignation of M.G.Meshcheryakov."

³ This request of Mikhail Grigorievich testifies to the fact that in spite of everything he suggested himself primarily as a physicist and not as a general from science.