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On the Times and My Contemporaries
depending on the sovereign will of the people, and to be the sole source of power.
However, the interests of the state, its policies, and its forms of power are determined
by specific people—the political leaders that are in power, who rely on the
state apparatus, which is not faceless either, but consists of specific people who are
obliged to ensure the realization of strategic, economic, and social doctrines.
When studying the role of the State and its leaders in the history of cosmonautics
and rocket technology in the Soviet Union and Russia, it is advisable to take
the year 1933 as the starting point. For the rocket technology and cosmonautics of
our country, this year is marked by an event that had very significant historical
consequences—the state decree concerning the creation of the world’s first
Reactive Scientific-Research Institute (RNII). 1
The initiator of this decision was Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevskiy, the
Deputy People’s Commissar of Military and Naval Affairs (Narkomvoyenmor) and
Deputy Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council (Revvoyensovet), who
was responsible for arming the Red Army. Cosmonautics is indebted to him for
bringing together under one roof the theoreticians and practical engineers Yuriy
Aleksandrovich Pobedonostsev and Mikhail Klavdiyevich Tikhonravov; future
Academicians Korolev, Glushko, and Rauschenbach; enthusiasts of solid-fuel
rocket projectiles, the future Katyushas or “guards mortars”, Ivan Terentyevich
Kleymenov and Georgiy Erikhovich Langemak; and many others. At RNII, they
conducted a wide-ranging research program and developed various ballistic and
cruise missiles with various types of engines.
The history of RNII is instructive in the sense that during the first years of
the country’s industrialization the state stimulated the broad-scale organization
of work for this new, promising field of research.Tukhachevskiy, being a prominent
military leader in the state system, understood that rocket building had to
be supported first and foremost by leading-edge technology and modern industry,
rather than by the enthusiasm of lone individuals dreaming of interplanetary
flights. Therefore, in late 1933, by resolution of the Council of Labor and
Defense, RNII was transferred to the jurisdiction of the People’s Commissariat
for Heavy Industry, which was headed by Sergo Ordzhonikidze. However, four
years after the creation of the RNII, the totalitarian state executed the initiator
and patron of this field of research, Marshal Tukhachevskiy, and after him the
leadership of RNII: Director Kleymenov and Chief Engineer Langemak. In the
midst of the mass repressions, Ordzhonikidze ended his life by committing
suicide. In 1938, the state took punitive measures against Glushko and Korolev.
1. RNII—Reaktivnyy nauchno-issledovatelskiy institut. The word “reaktivnyy” (literally meaning “reactive”) in
Russian is commonly used to denote “jet propulsion” such as in the phrase “jet propulsion engine.” However,
strictly speaking, the word “reactive” encompasses not only air-breathing jet engines but also rocket engines
which carry all of their own propellants. It was not uncommon in the 1930s and 1940s for the word “reactive”
to denote both jet and rocket propulsion. In the particular case of the RNII,“reactive” was meant primarily to
represent the development of what we now call rocket engines.
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