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Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations
The Graduate School
2013
Wings of the Workers' State: Technology,
Culture, and Legitimacy Through Soviet
Aviation
Christopher Zakroff
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THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND PUBLIC POLICY
WINGS OF THE WORKERS’ STATE: TECHNOLOGY, CULTURE, AND LEGITIMACY
THROUGH SOVIET AVIATION
By
CHRISTOPHER ZAKROFF
A Thesis submitted to the
Program in Russian and East European Studies
in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Master of Arts
Degree Awarded:
Summer Semester, 2013
© 2013 Christopher Zakroff
Christopher Zakroff defended this thesis on May 28, 2013.
The members of the supervisory committee were:
Ronald E. Doel
Professor Directing Thesis
Jonathan A. Grant
Committee Member
Robert L. Romanchuk
Committee Member
The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and
certifies that the thesis has been approved in accordance with university requirements.
ii
In memory of my grandfather, Edwin Papritz.
iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank Dr. Lee Kendall Metcalf along with the staff of the Department of
Russian and East European Studies for allowing me the opportunity to participate in their fine
program. I must also express my sincere gratitude to the members of my thesis committee for
their invaluable assistance during this project.
iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... vi
1.
INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................1
2.
TAKING TO THE SKIES.......................................................................................................7
2.1 Developing Soviet Aviation ...........................................................................................8
2.2 Flight and Stalinism .....................................................................................................14
2.3 Aviators in Stalinist Cinema ........................................................................................16
2.4 “Valerii Chkalov” (1941) .............................................................................................19
2.5 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................21
3.
FLYING FARTHER, FASTER, AND HIGHER..................................................................23
3.1 The Organization of the Soviet Aviation Industry.......................................................25
3.2 Stalin’s Aviation Policy in the Early Cold War ...........................................................29
3.3 Myasishchev and Long-Range Aviation ......................................................................37
3.4 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................41
4.
BEGINNING THE DESCENT .............................................................................................43
4.1 Policy after Stalin .........................................................................................................44
4.2 Aviation and the Discourses of the Thaw ....................................................................47
4.3 “Clear Skies” (1961) ....................................................................................................48
4.4 “Wings” (1966) ............................................................................................................54
4.5 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................61
5.
FINAL APPROACH .............................................................................................................63
5.1 Turn toward Space .......................................................................................................65
5.2 Late Soviet Aviation ....................................................................................................71
5.3 The Fall of the Aviator .................................................................................................75
5.4 “Mimino” (1977) .........................................................................................................76
5.5 “Air Crew” (1980) .......................................................................................................78
5.6 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................80
6.
CONCLUSION .....................................................................................................................81
BIBLIOGRAPHY ..........................................................................................................................85
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .........................................................................................................90
v
ABSTRACT
Was aviation a true Soviet success story or did it remain dependent on imported
technology in order to advance? Aircraft and aviators were frequently occurring images in Soviet
culture. What purpose did this significant social role serve, and how did it evolve over time?
What was the relationship between the state of Soviet aviation technology and the message
conveyed through its public representations? In this study, aviation serves as a thematic guide
that enables the political objectives, material realities, and public perceptions of technological
progress in the Soviet Union to be seen in a new light. Employing an innovative approach that
blends a thoughtful examination of the development and structure of the Soviet aviation industry
with analysis of the public representations of aviation as seen through Soviet cinema, this
research reveals a dynamic story of the changing views on the role of technology in social
progress. Under Stalin, new aircraft and the heroic pilots who had mastered the skies were
heralded as beacons of progress and proof of the legitimacy of Soviet governance. In the early
days of the Cold War, Soviet aviation technology made massive strides, achieving near parity
with the west while beginning to make meaningful contributions to the state of the art in
aerospace. However, Khrushchev’s reorientation of industry toward rocketry depleted the
resources available to Soviet aircraft designers. As aviation technology faded from preeminence,
Soviet society reevaluated the cultural representations of the aviator. This once heroic figure was
now constrained by an inescapable fate. Aviation and the promise of the aviator were brought
down to Earth.
vi
CHAPTER ONE
INRODUCTION
Northwest of Moscow’s city center stands the striking architecture of Yaroslavskii
Station, terminus of the Trans-Siberian Railway. From here you can board a slow, but reasonably
comfortable, commuter train, known as an elektrichka, bound for the small town of Monino.
Walking south from the desolate railway platform, you wander down tree-lined streets, skirting
along the perimeter fence of the Gagarin Air Force Academy. If you are persistent, eventually
you will come upon Russia’s Central Air Force Museum. Here, some 24 miles east of the
nation’s capital, is exhibited one the largest collections of aircraft on Earth. After purchasing
your ticket, you approach the open gate just a few hundred feet further down the road. Making a
right turn around the high wall that surrounds the complex, you are met by the sight of a field of
gleaming silver. Here on this grassy expanse, under the open sky, rest some 170 aircraft, artifacts
of the history of Soviet aviation. After taking in this awesome sight, a story begins to emerge.
Immediately to your right you see a machine uncannily similar to the Boing B-29, which served
as the mainstay of the American strategic bombing campaign against Japan during the Second
World War. Further along the walkway and on your left, the field is dominated by giant sleek
shapes that immediately convey a sense of speed and power.
As you walk through this collection, you see a row of lend-lease aircraft provided by the
United States and other rows that trace the evolution of aircraft design and aviation technology in
the years the followed the war. A deeper inquiry reveals that many of these machines are one-off
prototypes of designs that only ever saw limited production. You also notice that aircraft present
1
that did see large-scale production exhibit slow and methodical changes in design over the years.
Considering all that stands around you, questions start to arise. Why was all of this built? What
does this tell us about technological development in the Soviet Union during the Cold War years,
and is it an accurate picture of the realities of the nation’s aviation industry? This study will
undertake to address these questions and to shed new light on the place of aviation and aviation
technology in minds of Soviet policy makers and the Soviet public.
Flight has long featured in the folk stories of the peoples of the former Russian Empire.
In early years of its existence, the Soviet Union emphasized progress in aviation as a bridge to
these memories of the past and as a symbol of the improved future to come. In the 1970’s,
Kendall E. Bailes examined the role of technology in the new Soviet state’s relationship with its
people, including Stalin’s use of aviation to help bolster the legitimacy of the revolution and of
his personal rule.1 Katerina Clark’s The Soviet Novel represents an important contribution to the
understanding of culture under Stalinism and has shed light ways in which aviation and the
character of the heroic aviator illustrated the path that future generations of new Soviet men were
expected to follow.2 The exploration of the Arctic during the 1930’s provided the grounds upon
which the Soviet Union’s real aviators could prove themselves. Their exploits and the degree that
they resonated with the Soviet people have been detailed by John McCannon.3 Most recently,
Scott W. Palmer’s Dictatorship of the Air has provided us with a solid understanding of the first
decades of aviation development in the Soviet Union and how the policy of rapid assimilation of
western technology, which characterized initial the growth of its aviation industry, set the a
1
Kendall E. Bailes, Technology and Society under Lenin and Stalin: Origins of the Soviet Technical Intelligentsia,
1917-1941 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978).
2
Katerina Clark, The Soviet Novel: History as Ritual (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1981).
3
John McCannon, Red Arctic: Polar Exploration and the Myth of the North in the Soviet Union, 1932-39 (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1998).
2
course that undermined domestic development in further decades.4 This body of scholarship
unequivocally demonstrates the importance of aviation technology to the practical and
ideological goals of the Soviet state.
As has been described, a significant literature has been produced that seeks to explain the
role of aviation and aviation heroes in the Soviet government’s relationship with its people
during the pre-war years of Stalin’s rule. Some of these works have highlighted the crucial role
of another new technology, the cinema, as means of conveying the message of legitimacy and
progress through aviation to the masses. However, what is left largely unaddressed is how the
social role of aviation and the heroic figure of the aviator evolved over time, as the Soviet state
confronted new challenges in the years after World War II. With the end of Stalinism and the
onset of the so-called “thaw” years during Nikita Khrushchev’s years in power, the place of
aviation in the view of the Soviet leadership and later the Soviet population changed, as Cold
War pressures on an inherently restricted economic system routed vital resources away from the
industry that had not long before represented the cutting edge of progress under Soviet socialism.
Increasingly, the most advanced products of the Soviet aviation industry were seen by the people
as simply the facades of “progress” that they were, as technology failed to deliver the new and
wondrous world that had been promised to them. The fate of aviation in policy and public
consciousness during the years that followed the end of the Second World War―and the
beginning of the decades-long arms-race with the West―is the focus of this study. Adding to the
foundation laid by the scholars of the Stalinist period, this work utilizes the theme of aviation to
examine a cross-section of Soviet history from late-Stalinism to the Brezhnev years. Aviation
touched upon many areas of Soviet life. In the Kremlin, it was an issue of defense policy as well
4
Scott W. Palmer, Dictatorship of the Air: Aviation Culture and the Fate of Modern Russia (Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press, 2006).
3
as domestic and international propaganda. In industry, it comprised one of the nation’s most
innovative and rapidly developing fields. For the people, who identified with the “aviation cult”
that had been fostered under Stalin, the character of the aviation hero was represented in Soviet
cinema on numerous occasions; however, as innovation stagnated and faith in technology waned,
the cinematic aviation hero came to represent an artifact of a bygone age, out of place with the
realities of the stagnation era. Through this process aviation, the aviation hero, and the Soviet
aircraft industry gradually became relics, like the shining metal birds that rest quietly in a field in
Monino.
Chapter Two establishes the foundation for further analysis. Drawing from the
aforementioned scholarship of the Stalinist period along with primary accounts, this section
provides a concise understanding of the birth and growth of Soviet aviation from the foundation
of dedicated aeronautical academies and scientific institutes to the widespread accumulation of
foreign technology through open as well as clandestine channels. Here is also shown the
prominent place of the “aviation cult” in Soviet life and how aviation heroes like the recordsetting pilot Valerii Chkalov became prototypes of a new breed of Soviet citizen. The
relationship between Stalin and his “falcons,” the nickname given to the aviators who he so
publicly expressed his affection and fatherly concern for, is seen with greater clarity through a
study of Mikhail Kalatozov’s 1941 film Valerii Chkalov, a biography of the Soviet Union’s most
beloved flyer.
With this background established, chapter Three describes the organization of the Soviet
aviation industry and explores its material realities in the early years of the Cold War. During
Stalin’s final years of life, Soviet aviation underwent a rapid transition into the jet age and the
performance of Soviet aircraft achieved relative parity with western designs in a number of
4
respects. In managing this rapid advance, Stalin turned to the tactics of terror and arbitrary
persecution to push his talented aircraft designers to their absolute limits. Stalin’s death and
Georgii Malenkov’s brief administration were followed by Khrushchev’s consolidation of
governing power. Under his leadership, the Soviet Union dramatically cut back its focus on
aviation technology in favor of emerging rocket and missile systems. This policy change came as
Soviet design bureaus were reaching a level of technological maturity that they were beginning
to produce aircraft that pushed boundaries ad pioneered new technologies.
Chapter Four explores cultural representations of aviation and the aviation hero through
the analysis of Grigorii Chukhrai’s 1961 film Clear Skies (Chistoe nebo) and Larisa Shepitko’s
Wings (Kryl’ia) from 1966. These films bookend the narrative of the “thaw” period, a time when
the creative restrictions of the doctrine of Socialist Realism, an artistic theory that had dominated
Soviet culture since its approval at the First Congress of Soviet Writers in 1934, were loosened
and a genuine critique of the recent past and contemporary society emerged. Chukhrai’s earlier
film shows us one of the first cinematic criticisms of Stalinist repression. Here the aviation hero
is the victim brought low by the system; however, with Stalin’s passing, a new optimism for the
future is born and aviation and the aviator are again seen in their pre-war role of masters of
technology at the forefront of progress. Shepitko’s aviation hero represents a sharp departure
from previous portrayals. First of all she is a woman, a fighter ace turned school teacher, and
second she is an awkward outcast from the rest of her community. She sees herself as an object
out of time. As the stagnant years set in, the aviator was no longer the pioneer all things new;
instead, she is an icon of the past. Here flight does not take her toward a glorious future, but back
to her past when she felt that she mattered to society, when she felt that she belonged.
5
Finally, chapter Five looks at how aviation and the cinematic aviation hero coped with
their loss of prominence during the Cold War years. Soviet design bureaus attempted to quickly
adapt to Khrushchev’s new obsession with rocketry. Some designers proposed new and
innovative solutions to the problems of spaceflight that aided the development of the Soviet
manned space program; however most of their designs were never seriously considered for
production and over time much of their resources were diverted to the growing rocket and
missile industry. As a result of the taut nature of the soviet industrial economy, where the
allocation of capital was rigidly controlled, the transition of production facilities to a new sector
often meant the shuttering of an aviation design bureau. This change in focus severely
diminished the capacity of the Soviet aviation industry to develop truly innovative aircraft,
leading to the slow evolution that characterized the designs that did enter production at the end of
Khrushchev’s rule and during that of Leonid Brezhnev. The aviation hero made further
appearances on Soviet screens during the Brezhnev years. Georgii Danelia’s 1977 comedy
Mimino and Aleksandr Mitta’s disaster epic Air Crew (Ekipazh) from 1979 presented to the
public images of heroic aviators who have been brought back down to earth. Though they may
attempt to reach high and achieve something more, they are ultimately resigned to their now
diminished place in society. From the heyday of aviation under Stalin, the industry and the cult
that had been built up around it was now stripped of its last vestiges of prestige and glory.
6
CHAPTER TWO
TAKING TO THE SKIES
“He is our father. The aviators of the Soviet Union call Soviet aviation, Stalinist aviation.
He teaches us, nurtures us, warns us about risks like children who are close to his heart... Stalin
has dubbed his aviators ‘falcons.’ He sends his falcons into flight and wherever they wander
keeps track of them and when they return he presses them close to his loving heart.”5 So wrote
Valerii Chkalov in an article entitled “Our Father,” published in 1938. These genuine words of
affection for Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, from the country’s most famous aviator, illustrate the
ascendency of the cult of aviation during the Stalinist period. Aircraft represented a new
technology and their skilled pilots the human masters of technology. Through them, Soviet
society could be seen to have elevated man above nature and seized control of his future
evolution. Images of flight have long featured in the stories of the Russian people and with every
new aircraft flown and every record set, the Soviet government could claim to have made these
tales a reality. The airborne triumphs of the mid-1930’s were presented to all as the fruits of the
labors of the First and Second Five-Year Plans.
Behind this public face lay a less glamorous reality. Though the Soviet Union had begun
educating a generation of talented aircraft designers, the industrial base was simply not equipped
to produce advanced aircraft. The assimilation of foreign knowledge proved critical during the
early years of the Soviet aviation industry. Yet, while the public reveled in the glow of its
aviation heroes, the men who had studied the designs of more advanced western nations were
5
Bailes, 386.
7
charged with crimes against the people and thrown into prison. The purges caused a disruption to
the development of Soviet aviation at a critical time. As 1941 neared, new military aircraft were
entering service with the Luftwaffe, while Soviet designers were being put to work at design
bureaus controlled by the NKVD.
2.1 Developing Soviet Aviation
The Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute, or TsAGI, was the birthplace of the Soviet
aviation industry. This institute, which quickly became the wellspring of all Soviet aeronautical
knowledge, was established in Moscow on December 1, 1918 by Nikolai Egorovich Zhukovskii,
the man whom Lenin referred to as the “father of Russian aviation.” A doctor of applied
mathematics, Zhukovskii founded the world’s first aerodynamics institute in 1904. There he
earned his title by instructing many of the names that would become synonymous with Soviet
aviation, such as Tupolev, Mikoyan, and Yakovlev. Though much of its early work involved
copying foreign aircraft, by the early 1920’s, TsAGI was producing its own original designs
thanks to the work of Zhukovskii’s star pupil Andrei Tupolev. Tupolev later succeeded
Zhukovskii as head of TsAGI upon the death of his mentor in 1921.6 In the 1930’s Tupolev was
given his own experimental design bureau independent of TsAGI. From this point on, TsAGI’s
focus shifted to scientific and technological research in aerodynamics, while the new design
bureaus constructed new prototypes based on the research coming from the institute. Like
Zhukovskii, Tupolev trained a number of designers, including Vladimir Myasishchev and Pavel
6
Otto Preston Chaney and John T. Greenwood, “Patterns in the Soviet Aircraft Industry,” in Soviet Aviation and Air
Power: A Historical View, ed. Robin Higham and Jacob Kipp (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, Inc., 1977): 266-67.
8
Sukhoi, who would go on to head their own bureaus and produce a number of cutting-edge
designs in the years following the Second World War.7
Efforts to industrialize the Russian Empire had been heavily dependent on imports of
foreign capital and technology. This practice continued after the Bolsheviks secured their victory
in the long and costly Russian Civil War. The system of “War Communism” may have sufficed
to keep the Red Army supplied during the conflict, but it did nothing to prepare the land for
modernization. Thus, while Zhukovskii was developing a generation of talented engineers, the
country sorely lacked the production technology and experience necessary to build up their
burgeoning aircraft industry. In the 1920’s, the Soviet Union found an eager trading partner in
Weimar Germany. Struggling after their defeat in the First World War and, even before the rise
of fascism, chaffing under the restrictions imposed on their armaments industries, the Germans
were happy to send their technology and engineers to the U.S.S.R., where they could continue
their work, freed from the limitations imposed at Versailles.
Signed in April of 1922 at Rapallo, along the Genovese coast, the Treaty of Friendship
and Cooperation opened the door to the clandestine exchange of military technology. At the end
of the year, the accomplished German designer Hugo Junkers, whose machines would rain
destruction down on Soviet territory some two decades later, was dispatched to Moscow where
he established an aircraft plant in the suburb of Fili.8 Junkers remained at Fili until 1926 and
continued to make significant gains in the design and construction of all-metal monoplanes. This
factory remained one of the nation’s leading aerospace production facilities throughout the
history of the Soviet Union. After Junkers’ departure, the complex was handed over to Andrei
7
8
Ibid., 271.
Palmer, 92-93.
9
Tupolev, who worked more closely with German technology than did his fellow designers. This
fact later formed the basis for his persecution during the purges, when he was jailed for
supposedly colluding with a foreign power.9 In the early thirties, Nikolai Polikarpov began
producing the I-7 biplane fighter, which had been designed in Germany by Ernst Heinkel as the
HD 37. Assembly of the new fighter took place at the at the Dux factory, which had been built
by the French at the close of the nineteenth century.10 Adolf Hitler brought an end to cooperation
with the Soviets when he assumed the chancellorship in 1933, but renewed this relationship after
the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact in 1939. As a condition of the treaty, Soviet
designers were given examples of the latest German designs, such as the Messerschmitt Bf-109
and Junkers Ju-88, as part of the trade for Soviet raw materials.11
Soviet aircraft designers travelled widely during the 1930’s. Alexander Yakovlev visited
Germany, as well as Italy, Britain, and France. Nikolai Polikarpov and Pavel Sukhoi visited Italy
and Andrei Tupolev travelled extensively, including visits to the United States. Trade relations
between the Soviets and Americans improved dramatically during these years. Soviet designers
took advantage of this opportunity to learn from some of the leading firms in the American
aviation industry. Beginning with a small trade delegation in 1931, within two years Soviet
engineers became frequent visitors to America’s aircraft factories.12 These visits helped Soviet
industry to improve its production techniques. Soviet industry was struggling to find a method of
extracting more useful labor from its worker and settled upon the idea of Stakhanovism, a
competitive system where workers were meant to try to outdo one another during a period of
9
Ramsay D. Potts, Jr., “The Foundations of Soviet Air Power: A Historical and Managerial Perspective,” Annals of
the American Academy of Political and Social Science 299 (May, 1955): 44.
10
Ulrich Albrecht, The Soviet Armaments Industry (Langhorne, PA: Harwood Academic Press, 1993), 10.
11
Alexander Yakovlev, The Aim of a Lifetime: The Story of Alexander Yakovlev, Designer of the YAK Fighter
Plane, trans. Vladimir Vezey (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1972), 81.
12
Palmer, 199.
10
furious activity; though a staple of Stalinist production, the Stakhanovite model never produced
the hoped-for results.13
The most significant import from the United States was the Douglas DC-3. This twinengined transport was one of the most successful designs in the history of aviation and played a
crucial role in maintaining allied supply lines during the Second World War. The Soviets
acquired a license to produce the DC-3 in 1936. For nearly three years, designer Boris Lisunov
and his team, which included the up-and-coming designers Artyom Mikoyan and Vladimir
Myasishchev, studied the aircraft at Douglas’ plant in Santa Monica, California. The Soviet
variant, called the Li-2, was produced at Lisunov’s Khimki factory. The Li-2 provided the
Soviet’s with the desperately needed ability to deliver military cargos across vast expanses of
difficult terrain.14 The lessons learned through the assimilation of western aviation technology
were crucial to the rapid pace at which the Soviet aircraft industry developed. Stalin summarized
his technology policy when he said, “Copying is useful sometimes, when it helps to gain
experience. But the solution of any fundamental problem must be sought independently. It takes
short-sighted and narrow-minded people not to see that.”15 The knowledge and experience
gained in these years was put to good use during the war to produce designs that, when they
arrived in numbers, allowed the Red Air Force to reclaim control of the skies from the Luftwaffe.
The late twenties and most of the thirties comprise what is often labeled as aviation’s
“Golden Age.” Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight propelled him to an unprecedented level
of worldwide fame. Other pioneers such as Amelia Earhart and Wiley Post also made history
with their long-distance voyages during this period. In 1924, Andrei Tupolev’s team was tasked
13
UNC Institute for Research in Social Science, The Soviet Aircraft Industry (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North
Carolina, 1955), 125.
14
Albrecht, 19.
15
Yakovlev, 348.
11
by the Air Force with the design of a long-range bomber. The resulting ANT-4, which entered
service as the TB-1, was not as advanced as its foreign contemporaries, but nonetheless it
represented an important step forward for indigenous Soviet design. The first production
example of the ANT-4 was named the Strana Sovetov (Land of the Soviets) and was dispatched
on a tour of America in 1929. Making stops along the way, the ANT-4 flew across Siberia and
the western United States, arriving in New York at the beginning of November.16 The thirties
became an era of heroes and adventurers who were bombastically trumpeted by the Soviet
government as examples of progress under Stalinism. Otto Schmidt, an accomplished scientist
who headed Soviet efforts to explore and utilize the Arctic, led a number of expeditions in the
North Sea, including a voyage that traversed the full breadth of Russia’s northern coast in 1932.
His expedition of the following year became trapped in an ice field in September, about a month
after setting out from Murmansk. The mounting pressure damaged the hull of their ship, the
Cheliuskin, which finally sank in February of 1934. The more than 100 survivors made camp on
the hard ice and awaited rescue. After several failed attempt to locate them, pilot Anatolii
Liapidevskii successfully landed his ANT-4 at “Camp Schmidt” on March 5, 1934 and began an
airlift in which he and six other pilots flew all 104 survivors to safety.17 In May of the same year,
the award Hero of the Soviet Union was established to recognize the accomplishments of the
seven hero pilots.
While the ANT-4 was making headlines, a new long-range aircraft was completing its
flight test program. Under the supervision of Pavel Sukhoi, Tupolev’s design office developed
the ANT-25. Intended from the outset to be a record-setter, the single-engined monoplane
featured enormous wings for increased lift and maximum fuel capacity. A crew of three set out
16
17
Palmer, 195.
McCannon, 66.
12
in August of 1935 to fly nonstop over the North Pole from Moscow to San Francisco. This
choice of destination, so near to the center of the American aviation industry, was meant to
further strengthen the ties between American designers and their Soviet counterparts. However,
after completing little more than a tenth of the journey, the aircraft had to abort the attempt
because of an oil leak.18 Blame for the flight’s failure fell on the lead pilot, Levanevskii. Valerii
Chkalov was the man selected to replace Levanevskii as lead pilot on the next flight. This
popular pilot soon became the embodiment of the aviation hero and in many ways the prototype
of the “new Soviet man.”
During a meeting in Stalin’s office, the Soviet leader personally mapped out the flightpath for his aviators to take, and in July of 1936, Chkalov, along with Georgii Baidukov and
Aleksandr Beliakov, set off in the ANT-25, now named the Stalinskii marshrut (Stalin’s Route),
on a nonstop flight across the Siberian expanse. After a little over 56 hours, the pilots landed on
Udd Island, near the Sea of Okhotsk. This accomplishment made Chkalov a household name in
the Soviet Union. Massive rallies were held throughout the month of August to celebrate the
three flyers.19 The following summer, Stalin directed the famous troika to attempt the daunting
trans-polar flight to America. On June 18, 1937, Chkalov, Baidukov, and Beliakov departed from
Frunze Central Aerodrome in Moscow and successfully traversed the top of world. Flying for 63
hours and covering 5,288 miles, they landed in Vancouver, Washington, setting a new world
record for distance flights. Their triumph made the three men international celebrities and
cemented Chkalov’s place as the definitive Soviet aviation hero. In July, another ANT-25,
named the Stalinskaia trassa (Stalin’s Track), flown by Mikhail Gromov and his crew exceeded
the record set by Chkalov, making it over the pole and landing in the southern California city of
18
19
Ibid., 70.
Palmer, 225-27.
13
San Jacinto.20 This run of success was snapped in August when the perpetually insecure and
tragically unlucky Sigizmund Levanevskii attempted to redeem himself for his failure of two
years before. Electing to pilot the newer four-engined heavy bomber, the ANT-6, Levanevskii
and his crew of five others set out to beat Gromov’s mark. Contact was lost with his aircraft
somewhere over the North Pole. Despite the best efforts of search and rescue, the crew and their
aircraft were never found.21
2.2 Flight and Stalinism
Stalin took an active and highly visible interest in the feats of his aviators. They became
known as “Stalin’s Falcons,” a term that almost inevitably followed the invocation of aviation in
the Soviet press. These aviation heroes, and particularly Valerii Chkalov, were elevated as the
best of the best and as models for the new kind of man that Stalin expected would reside in his
vision of a communist society.22 These record setting flights were completed during the time of
Stalin’s purges and the Moscow show trials. As Stalin publicly prosecuted his former comembers of the post-Lenin ruling troika, Grigorii Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev, he held up the
aviator as the diametrical opposite of the “villains” on trial.23 In Chkalov, the Soviet leader found
a perfect socialist success story. Coming from a humble background and displaying talent, but
also a tendency for recklessness, Valerii Chkalov became a record setting flyer who was also
tirelessly devoted to the revolutionary cause. Through this contrast between the supposed
enemies of the revolution, who were then being incarcerated or executed, and these heroes who
embodied bravery, stamina, perseverance, and technical proficiency, essentially all the
20
McCannon, 71.
Ibid., 72.
22
Jay Bergman, “Valerii Chkalov: Soviet Pilot as New Soviet Man,” Journal of Contemporary History 33, no.1
(January 1998): 136.
23
Ibid., 138.
21
14
characteristics of the ideal Soviet “new man,” Stalin sought to renew the revolutionary spirit and
cement the legitimacy of his rule.24
Lacking a true popular mandate, Bolshevik rule had been of at least questionable
legitimacy from the start. Stalin’s defeat of rival factions following the death of Lenin in 1924
placed him at the top of the Soviet power structure, but his leadership rested on an even weaker
foundation of legitimacy. Stalin sought to justify his rule through progress. His refrain “Life has
become more joyous,” which he debuted at the First All-Union Conference of Stakhanovites in
1935, epitomized a faith that demonstrable advancements would secure his position and, in his
view, keep the people on the road to communism. If technology was the key to maintaining
Soviet power, then there was no clearer way to communicate progress to the people than through
aviation. Only ever in its infancy under the Tsar, flight was the sole domain of the Bolsheviks.
Stalin established Aviation Day, celebrated annually on the 18th of August, and encouraged his
pilots push the boundaries of technology by “flying farther than anyone, faster than anyone, and
higher than anyone.”25 The images of “Stalin’s falcons” riding their “steel birds” recalled tales
from Russian folklore of heroes who could transform into birds and the royal sport of falconry, a
favorite of the princes of old.26 Through this messaging the Soviet government sought to
convince the people of its deep historic roots in the lands of the former Russian Empire. The
heroes of today were a new incarnation of those heroes from ancient times and they owed their
existence to the wisdom of their father, Joseph Stalin.27 The notion of Stalin being a wise and
caring parent to his “falcons,” and by extension to the whole of the Soviet people, was presented
to the public in explicit fashion. Often called the “fledgling children of Stalin,” the Soviet leader
24
Ibid., 139; Clark, 121.
Bailes, 384.
26
Frank J. Miller, Folklore for Stalin: Russian Folklore Pseudofolklore of the Stalin Era (Armonk, NY: M.E.
Sharpe, Inc., 1990), 81-82.
27
Bailes, 386.
25
15
met with and advised aviators before important flights. He often saw them off on their harrowing
journeys and happily welcomed them home following their successes. Stalin frequently stressed
the value of the lives of the pilots, telling them to bail out of their planes at the first sign of
trouble.28 Through these public demonstrations of fatherly affection, he further strengthened the
cult of personality, which served as one of Stalinism’s vital pillars, showing the masses the
benefits of Stalin’s thoughtful guidance.
2.3 Aviators in Stalinist Cinema
Flight has been a recurring theme throughout the history of Soviet cinema. Taking to the
air has been seen as an expression of freedom and technological progress. The embodiment of
this idea is the cinematic aviation hero, derived from the Soviet aviators of the 1930’s, whose
pioneering flights afforded them a level of celebrity and degree of individualism denied to the
broader public, the cinematic aviation hero has always sought to escape the bonds that held him
or her down and to experience the freedom of literally rising above all limitations. This
character, molded during the period of Stalin’s rule, was a master of modern technology,
courageous and seemingly able to escape the confines of the repressive system. Yet the Stalinist
aviation hero was inevitably broken down both mentally and physically until the yearning for
escape had been fully extinguished.
The cinematic Soviet aviation hero was born in the Socialist Realist films of the 1930’s.
The aviator character was well suited to fill the role of the positive hero, who, bending to the
demands of Stalinism, must inevitably place their responsibility to society above their personal
feelings. These aviators and their daring feats represented a celebration modernity and technical
28
Clark, 126; Ibid., 387.
16
achievement, while their personal lives imparted to Soviet audiences a strong message on the
limits of individuality. The emergence of the military aviator in Stalinist film was part of the
blending of a new Soviet nationalism with socialist ideology that was well underway by the
middle of the thirties.29 The sense of adventure, displays of courage, and high morals of the
aviation hero helped to instill a desire for service among the Soviet youth and promoted the
notion that the Soviet military could get the better of any foe.30
The aviation hero is often initially possessed of a strong personality and a desire to
escape from the constraints of the conformist system; however, he or she is always forced back
within the system and made to know his place. Yuli Raizman’s 1935 film The Pilots (Lyotchiki)
presents a love triangle comprised of the young and ambitious Sergei Beliaev (Ivan KovalSamborskii), the lovely aviatrix Galia Bystrova (Evgenia Melnikova), and the positive hero, the
commander, Nikolai Rogachev (Boris Shchukin). Beliaev is a talented pilot who is eager to rise
above his current station. At a public test flight of a new aircraft, Beliaev attempts to put on an
impressive show at the expense of safety. The resulting crash injures the pilot and destroys the
new plane. Upon returning from the hospital, Beliaev discovers that his name is now
synonymous with irresponsibility. Though grounded, Beliaev still yearns for escape. He asks
Galia to leave with him and move to the south. Galia instead chooses her career as a pilot over
her romance with Beliaev. She tells him “I’m not going anywhere; I’m going to be a pilot.” Thus
stating the truth of the Stalinist aviator, that there is no freedom to found here. They are, above
all things, disciplined. They do not escape. Rogachev, the film’s positive hero, is an aviator who
knows his place in Stalinist society. He has abandoned any aspirations of escaping his lot. When
29
Dmitry Shlapentokh and Vladimir Shlapentokh, Soviet Cinematography 1918-1991 (New York: Aldine De
Gruyter, 1993), 98.
30
Ibid., 108.
17
he is grounded for medical reasons, he accepts his fate as a man who knows where the limits lie.
Under the Stalinist system this humbled masculinity is seen as the ideal, and indeed it is
Rogachev’s weakness that wins the affections of Galia Bystrova.31
The theme of the rambunctious aviator, who is molded into a positive hero by the
Stalinist system, is a cornerstone of Socialist Realism in Soviet cinema and is seen in several
other works from the period. In 1939, Eduard Pentslin released The Fighter Pilots (Istrebiteli),
another love triangle, this time featuring a pair of former high school rivals, who both excel
equally as pilots and both attempt to woo the same girl, Varia (Evgenia Golynchik). The two
pilots, Sergei (Mark Bernes) and Kolia (Vladimir Dashenko) are seemingly indistinguishable on
their merits and each seeks to rise above the other.32 Sergei separates himself from Kolia through
two acts of heroism. First he flies off course to warn a locomotive of an obstruction on the tracks
ahead, and later, he saves a child from an explosion at the town fair. His feats are celebrated in
the press, but Sergei’s eyes have been injured in the blast. On a later flight, he loses his vision
and his mechanic is forced to land the plane. Now crippled, he refuses the love of Varia.
The Fighter Pilots builds up the idea of the limitless possibility of aviation. Upon
entering flight school, these young men are viewed as lucky, able to go anywhere, to be heroes.
But again the aviation hero is reminded that the Stalinist system will not allow him to escape his
role or to act freely, based on individual will. Though he eventually regains his sight, Sergei has
learned the lesson of Stalinist discipline. The Soviet patriotism that gave rise to the aviation hero
character also imposes upon him his limitations. In fact, the more he fully he accepts these
31
Lilya Kaganovsky, How the Soviet Man was Unmade: Cultural Fantasy and Male Subjectivity under Stalin
(Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008), 93.
32
Ibid., 98.
18
limitations, the more of a Stalinist hero he becomes.33 In these and other films, such as
Timoshenko’s The Sky-Barge (Nebesnyi tikhokhod) and Kalatozov’s Valerii Chkalov, the aviator
at first appears as the embodiment of individuality and freedom; however, this character is
ultimately constrained by the reality of Stalinist society. The heroic individual must always be
broken down and made to value discipline and compliance. The aviation hero desires to escape
from anonymity and, indeed, to modest extents this can be achieved―but when the aviator’s
individualism inevitably comes into conflict with the Stalinist demand for total discipline, it is
the now broken and scarred aviator who becomes a real hero when he accepts his assigned role
in society.
2.4 “Valerii Chkalov” (1941)
The exploits of Valerii Chkalov and the image of a strong, united, and technologically
advanced Soviet Union were showcased in a film by director Mikhail Kalatozov, which bore the
name of the country’s most famous flyer.34 Released in 1941, the same year that saw the German
invasion of the Soviet Union and the start of a brutal struggle that resulted in the loss of some
twenty-seven million Soviet lives, Valerii Chkalov tells the story of its titular aviator and his
record-setting exploits. The director, Kalatozov, later achieved international acclaim for his postStalin masterpiece The Cranes are Flying (Letiat zhuravli). In contrast, the Georgian born film
maker had a much tougher time during the 1930’s. Two of his films, the 1930 documentary Salt
for Svanetia (Sol’ Svanetii) and the 1931 drama Nail in the Boot (Gvozd’ v sapoge), were banned
by censors and Kalatozov was temporarily forced out of the film industry. This hagiographic
effort about the Soviet Union’s favorite aviation hero was a step on the road back into Stalin’s
33
34
Ibid., 101-2.
Mikhail Kalatozov, dir., Valerii Chkalov, DVD (1941;Los Angeles: Top1Video, 1999).
19
good graces for Kalatozov and, in part, explains the particularly significant role played by the
Stalin character in this film. While Valerii Chkalov has never been heralded for the brilliance of
its screenplay, the film was written by Chkalov’s copilot, Georgii Baidukov, along with
professional screenwriter Boris Chirskov. However, Kalatozov’s directorial skills are clearly in
evidence. His dramatic composition featuring shots from low angles create a dynamic feeling of
heroism that enhances the stature of the aviators.35
During the first portion of the film, Chkalov (Vladimir Belokurov) is portrayed as a
gifted, but reckless, flyer. His thrill-seeking stunts, including an incident in 1929, when he flew
underneath the Troitskii Bridge in Leningrad, tearing some hanging electrical wires with his
aircraft, bring about disciplinary action and his dismissal from the Red Army. After a year away
from the spotlight, Chkalov is hired as a test pilot for the Moscow Aviation Institute. In this new
role, Chkalov demonstrates the capabilities of a new monoplane in an aerobatic trial against an
older biplane design. As Stalin (Mikheil Gelovani) looks on, Chkalov’s aircraft suffers a
malfunction when one wheel of his landing gear won’t extend. A concerned Stalin, fulfilling his
characteristically paternal role with regard to his “falcons,” tells the officer next to him to order
the pilot to bail out. Disregarding this instruction, Chkalov elects to land the aircraft rather than
parachute to safety. After completing the dangerous landing, the crowd congratulates Valerii on
his safe return, that is, until he is approached by Stalin. The Soviet leader proceeds to scold
Chkalov for his careless actions, telling him “People are more important to us than planes.”36
In a dramatic sequence, Chkalov’s old commander dies in the hospital. Before his death
he tells Valerii, “You must fly” and that Stalin can help him. This moment completes Chkalov’s
35
Richard Stites, Russian Popular Culture: Entertainment and Society since 1900 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press, 1995), 88.
36
John Haynes, New Soviet Man: Gender and Masculinity in Stalinist Soviet Cinema (Manchester, UK: Manchester
University Press, 2003), 61.
20
transformation into a positive hero. Imbued with a new focus and sense of purpose, Chkalov and
his crewmates, Baidukov and Beliakov, set out on a record-breaking long distance flight to the
Sea of Okhost in the Soviet Far East. This feat makes them national celebrities, earning them
Stalin’s praise and the titles of Heroes of the Soviet Union. Soon after this, Valerii is summoned
to meet with Stalin. In a lengthy meeting in the Soviet leader’s office, Stalin and Chkalov map
out the route of a transpolar flight to America on a giant globe. Stalin speaks to him of the
progress this flight will represent in technology, aviation, and science, and how this all comes
from the work of the people. Chkalov tells Stalin that he is not ready to take the responsibility
that accompanies this flight. Stalin replies “When you understand this (the collective effort that
enables him to attempt this mission), I’m sure you will be ready. Let us help you, Chkalov.”
Valerii is overcome with gratitude and is now imbued with the determination to embark on the
nonstop flight to America. On his arrival, he is met by an enormous cheering crowd. Chkalov
passes along the greeting of the Soviet people. After he has returned to the Soviet Union, this
greatest of the aviation heroes, delivers a speech to a Soviet audience where he praises the
progress of their society and the lineage of great Russian leaders that has led up to and includes
Stalin.
2.5 Conclusion
Aviation encapsulated many of the ideals of Stalin’s Five-Year Plans for the rapid
industrialization of the Soviet economy. It represented a new and exciting technology, requiring
a strong industrial base capable of producing the necessary construction materials in great
quantities. Stalin looked to outside sources of knowledge to accelerate the pace at which Soviet
aviation advanced. Soviet designers travelled widely during the 1930’s, accruing a robust
21
knowledge of the state of the art in aeronautical science. Additionally, American and German
designs were licensed for construction in Soviet factories. The famous flights of aviators, such as
Chkalov, helped to bolster Stalin’s image both at home and abroad. His very public role as father
figure to the nation’s daring pilots helped to reinforce the values of Stalinism among the Soviet
public. Stalin was to his “falcons” as the Party was to the people. The Socialist Realist cinema of
the age told stories of the fictionalized aviator who, though inherently possessed of great skill,
can only fully realize this potential and put it to best use through the caring guidance and strict
discipline of the Stalinist system. Aviation grew tremendously, both in industry and in culture,
during the decade before the outbreak of the Second World War. After weathering the storms of
war, the Soviet Union entered into a technological race with the United States. Had Stalin’s
policies of the thirties prepared Soviet aviation to move ahead on its own and to produce
innovative and independently conceived aircraft designs, or did this emphasis on the replication
of imported ideas prevent it from truly flying under its own power? What role would the aviator,
who Stalin had actively built-up as a leading public figure, play in post-war society? Could this
system of legitimacy derived from advances in aviation technology persist after the passing of its
most enthusiastic supporter? As will be shown, in the early ears of the Cold War, aviation in the
Soviet Union possessed great but potential, but also faced significant uncertainties.
22
CHAPTER THREE
FLYING FARTHER, FASTER, AND HIGHER
In 1956, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev invited a delegation of American Air Force
officers observe the festivities at Moscow’s annual air parade at the Tushino Airfield, in the
northwest of the capital city. At the June air show, American Generals Nathan Twining and
Curtis LeMay, along with an entourage of officers and intelligence analysts, watched as the
Soviet Air Force showcased the progress in the nation’s aviation technology since the end of the
Second World War. Of primary concern to both the Americans and Soviets was the bomber fleet.
Capable of delivering nuclear payloads, these craft represented the only viable military deterrent
in the Soviet Union’s arsenal at the time. Thus it was essential to Khrushchev’s goals that the
American observers be left with the impression that his country possessed a significant nuclear
strike capability.
However, for all their political and military importance, the Soviets possessed few
aircraft that were capable of reaching the United States, roughly just ten jet-engined
Myasishchev bombers and four turboprop driven aircraft from Tupolev. Soviet Air Force
generals felt that such a paltry force would not intimidate the Americans. So on this day, the nine
flight-ready Myasishchevs made multiple passes over the airfield in formations of three, quickly
turning and coming back around once safely out of view. For Khrushchev, the whole affair was a
source of amusement, and he laughed quite heartily when describing the day’s events to his son
Sergei. In the late 1950’s, air power increasingly became a sideshow: advances made by the
Soviet aviation industry became little more than tools of propaganda for state officials to present
23
to a Soviet public that still recalled how their country’s achievements in flight had been a symbol
of progress before the war (as well as to international audiences in the west paranoid of lagging
behind). In Khrushchev’s view, aviation no longer represented the future of warfare and was no
longer deserving of the resources it once commanded. At a farewell gathering with the American
emissaries on the thirtieth of June, he revealed to General Twining the true direction of future
Soviet military development, telling him “We have very good missiles and we’ll show them to
you if you’ll show us yours.” This boast demonstrated his confidence in the new weapon, as it
was not until the following year that the Soviet Union launched the world’s first missile capable
of intercontinental range.37
In his final years of life, Stalin continued his focus on aviation and pushed the Soviet
design bureaus hard in an effort to catch and surpass the capabilities of the west. Through
demanding, fickle, and sometimes cruel management, he forced the aviation industry to quickly
assimilate technology captured from the Germans and purchased from the west. This policy did
bear fruits, as the later years of the forties and much of the fifties saw tremendous innovation in
aircraft design. Many of the aircraft that Khrushchev delighted in showing off to domestic and
foreign onlookers were in development before Stalin’s passing. Nevertheless, the Soviet aviation
industry withered considerably under Khrushchev, and many design bureaus had to transition
away from aviation in an attempt to avoid being shuttered. While those designers who did find
places in Khrushchev’s plans did continue to produce some new aircraft types, the drive for
innovation was increasingly usurped by concerns for economy, as designers changed as little as
possible in successive versions while trying to attain performance that was merely sufficient. The
few truly trailblazing designs that took to the air during this time, whether, intended for military
37
Sergei N. Khrushchev, Nikita Khrushchev and the Creation of a Superpower, trans. Shirley Benson (University
Park, PA: The Pennsylvania University Press, 2000), 151-52.
24
or civilian uses, were rarely produced in any kind of numbers, and served as showpieces of
technology that over time lost their resonance with the public.
3.1 The Organization of the Soviet Aviation Industry
Soviet research in science and technology was divided into three realms: the university
system, which trained new engineers and scientists; the Academy of Sciences system,
responsible for conducting most basic research; and the industrial and defense system. Receiving
by far the largest share of the state R&D budget, the industrial and defense system disbursed its
funds among a multitude of industry specific ministries as well as the Ministry of Defense.38
Each ministry then had under its control a number of research institutes, design bureaus, and
production facilities. In some industries, notably the tank and artillery as well as the shipbuilding
industries, design bureaus were physically located at the factories or shipyards designated for
serial production; however, the organization of R&D varied considerably depending on the
industry. In the soviet aviation and missile industries, the large experimental design bureaus or
OKBs (Opytnoe konstruktorskoe biuro), led by prominent designers whose names became freely
interchangeable with their bureau’s numerical designations, were largely independent from serial
production facilities and even possessed their own experimental factories for the production of
prototypes.39
When the Ministry of Defense issued a request for a new aircraft type, a number of
design bureaus would submit pre-project studies to a commission assembled to oversee the
38
Loren Graham, “Big Science in the Last Years of the Big Soviet Union,” Osiris 7 (1992): 51.
D. P. Andrianov, Management, Planning and Economics of Aircraft Production, trans. Translation Division
(Wright-Patterson AFB, OH: Foreign Technology Division, 1964), 292.
39
25
project.40 The winning study then moved on to the mock-up stage where changes could be
suggested. After clearing this hurdle, the bureau was then given clearance to build a prototype at
the bureau’s factory. If these trials proved satisfactory, the aircraft would be approved by the
commission and referred to the Ministry, where the decision to produce or reject the design
would be made.41 The technical administration of a given ministry would coordinate the work of
the bureaus with the research institutes and later assign a plant to mass-produce the resulting
design if it was approved. Industrial ministries also controlled production facilities responsible
for much of the basic materials and components necessary to produce the intended final product.
The taut distribution of resources in Soviet industrial organization resulted in a near autarkic
situation between industries, where a plant producing light rolled metal was only able to provide
its wares to the ministry that administered it.42 This presented a challenge to the early Soviet
missile industry, as many of the materials it required were still under the control of the Ministry
of Aviation. Research institutes, such as the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute (TsAGI), which
existed under the Ministry of Aviation, concentrated on applied research. Areas of focus could be
dictated by the ministry, typically following the instructions of higher level policy makers, or
they could sometimes be pursued on an institute’s own initiative and presented to the ministry
and design bureaus for consideration. TsAGI developed a number of advanced designs that were
simply not of interest to the bureaus and thus were never developed into prototypes.
Soviet aviation design bureaus had a greater degree of independence than those of other
industries, but were subject to bureaucratic pressure to keep the material and construction
40
U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, Soviet Decision Making in Defense R&D: A Critical Analysis of Current
Perspectives on the Roles and Relationships of Middle-Level and Lower-Level Participants, by K. F. Spielmann, Jr.
(Arlington, VA: Institute for Defense Analyses, 1974): 38-39.
41
Arthur J. Alexander, R&D in Soviet Aviation (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 1970), 19.
42
U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, The Technological Gap: The USSR vs the US and Western Europe,
(Directorate of Intelligence 1969): 31.
26
techniques required for their aircraft as simple as possible. Bureaus generally developed their
own specialties and were allowed to propose new design concepts in the directions that they saw
fit.43 As long as budgets were sufficiently sizable and other production quotas were met, Soviet
designers could build and test aircraft that pushed the limits of their technical knowledge and
capabilities. Though the roles of these aircraft were usually in line with the prevailing policies on
the use of military aviation, their designs did not necessarily stem from a specific requirement.
Similar to western military procurement, more than one design was put forward to fill any given
need in Soviet military aviation. The design of competing prototypes somewhat undercut the
efficiency gained by allowing the bureaus to specialize. However, this did also allow the
strengths and weaknesses of a design to be evaluated against an analogous reference point. If one
design was clearly unsatisfactory, then it could be rejected in favor of another available
alternative. An option that was largely unique to the Soviet Union was to put more than one of
the competing designs into production, such as the MiG-23 and Su-17 fighter aircraft.44 This
apparent redundancy was a product of the structure of Soviet industry. If two designs proved to
be similarly matched in performance and capabilities, then it was sometimes more cost effective
for a factory to continue to produce a design from the bureau it had already been matched with
by the ministry, instead of incurring the costs of converting production to a another bureau’s
design.45 While competitive design remained a feature of the Soviet aviation industry, this
approach was tried and quickly discarded for the growing missile industry, where a more focused
allocation of resources was favored.46
43
Spielmann, 43.
David Holloway, “Soviet Military R&D: Managing the ‘Research-Production Cycle,’” in Soviet Science and
Technology: Domestic and Foreign Perspectives, ed. John R. Thomas and Ursula M. Kruse-Vaucienne
(Washington, D.C.: National Science Foundation, 1977), 200.
45
Chaney, 285.
46
Spielmann, 44.
44
27
Soviet managerial policy in the aviation industry recognized that the fast pace at which
new technologies superseded the old would at times necessitate costly and time-consuming
modifications of facilities to accommodate the mass production of an aircraft type that radically
departed from previous designs. Though major retooling of factories did occur from time to time,
often as the result of a factory being shifted from one industrial sector to another, production
managers were taught to discourage designs that could prove time-consuming to implement.47
Several key concepts were emphasized as part of an overall drive for “production adaptability”
on the part of plant managers in an effort to keep pace with the production target assigned to
them. “Production adaptability” described the elements of a design that allowed for minimum of
use of labor and material in their production. To achieve this, aircraft designers were often
required to use the simplest configurations, most basic geometric forms, and lowest degrees of
precision that they could while still delivering a product that met requirements. Utilizing the
most affordable construction materials was also heavily emphasized.48 New aircraft types that
entered serial production also were expected to make maximal use of design inheritance,
meaning that many of the components and subassemblies of the new aircraft should be taken
from types that preceded it and others that were then in production.
Soviet bureaucracy, in many areas, and certainly with regard to the aviation industry,
favored economy over progress. Manuals for production managers explained that an optimal
design is one in which the “Minimum possible modifications are introduced into the design of a
previously elaborated article.”49 Advanced design drawings often had to be revised after they
were sent from the OKBs to the serial production facilities. This process of “technological
47
Andrianov, 296.
Ibid., 294.
49
Ibid., 295.
48
28
checking” helped to avoid major production delays by making sure that the assigned facilities
would be able to produce the new aircraft; at the same time, it also created an incentive structure
that rewarded plant managers for minimizing innovation.50 As a result, the most advanced Soviet
aircraft types to enter large-scale production made use of simpler and heavier materials and more
basic construction techniques than their western counterparts. Though Soviet designers created a
number of experimental aircraft that made use of lightweight alloys, advanced avionics systems,
and complex manufacturing methods, significant production of these cutting-edge aircraft was
resisted by the factories whose capabilities lagged behind those of the OKB’s and their
experimental plants. This obstinacy on the part of the managers contributed to the widening gap
between the level of scientific and technological knowledge present in the aircraft industry and
its ability to apply this know-how to finished products.
3.2 Stalin’s Aviation Policy in the Early Cold War
The immediate postwar years were marked by the rush to end the American nuclear
monopoly. Stalin authorized the development of atomic weapons and the aircraft necessary to
deliver them.51 Western designs were copied or manufactured under license to quickly close the
gap in capability. Meanwhile, Soviet designers worked to improve upon this imported
knowledge and incorporate it into original aircraft of their own. By the mid-1950’s, the Soviet
aviation industry was building aircraft that matched and in some cases exceeded the performance
of their western equivalents; indeed, even more ambitious prototypes were in the works.
Khrushchev’s rise to power clearly had altered the trajectory of Soviet aviation. Convinced that
50
Ibid., 305.
David Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy 1939-1956 (New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 1994), 242.
51
29
ballistic missiles would be the primary weapons in a future war, he relegated the Soviet Air
Force (the VVS) to an auxiliary role, and slashed the budget for R&D in aviation. Design
bureaus and the VVS sought to make themselves relevant once more by reorienting toward
space, but these effort did not convince Khrushchev. From 1957 onward, support for Soviet
aircraft design primarily concentrated on interceptors for the Air Defense Forces, such as the
Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25. In the years following the Second World War, Soviet designers had
rapidly advanced the state of the nation’s aviation technology, but they were not able to build a
dynamic and innovative industry that could outpace western advances. This lack of success can
be traced to the political changes and budgetary restrictions of the fifties, which sidelined many
of the Soviet Union’s most ambitious and creative designers.
Considering the use of the atomic bomb against Japan and the postwar division of
Germany, it became clear to Soviet leader Josef Stalin that the next war would likely pit the
USSR against the United States. While the Soviet armed forces had proved up to the task of
defeating Nazi Germany, there was little they could do to bring this seemingly inevitable new
war to American soil. Hence Stalin initiated an all-out effort to construct a Soviet atomic weapon
to quickly bring an end to the nuclear monopoly, though he understood that detonating a nuclear
device would mean little if the Soviet Union could not deliver its new weapon to the necessary
targets. During the war years, little work had been done on strategic bombers; however, a
handful of nuclear capable Boeing B-29 Superfortresses had been forced to make emergency
landings in the Soviet far-east. Rather than returning the interned aircraft, Stalin ordered Andrei
Tupolev to produce an exact copy of the American aircraft. Tupolev expressed his desire to make
improvements to the original design; in particular, he wished to discard the rounded glass cockpit
in favor of a flatter design that would not warp the pilot’s vision, but these requests were
30
denied.52 The resulting Tu-4 almost perfectly reproduced the American design. While the aircraft
was a copy, its construction required a major modernization of Soviet production facilities. In
opting to duplicate the B-29, Stalin had returned to the pattern of importing foreign
developments that characterized the aviation industry in the Soviet Union during the twenties
and thirties. But this decision also allowed Soviet industry to gain much-needed experience with
long-range aviation and to quickly mass produce an aircraft capable of delivering an atomic
weapon. The knowledge gained from the Tu-4 allowed Tupolev to make rapid advances in the
design of large aircraft, culminating in the development of the turboprop driven Tu-95
intercontinental strategic bomber in 1952.53
The jet engine had become a viable propulsion system for combat aircraft in the late
stages of the Second World War. Since the 1930’s, German and British engineers had been at the
forefront of this new technology. Work on jet and rocket engines was conducted in the Soviet
Union during 1930’s, but an airworthy design was not developed before the war curtailed most
of this research. Arkhip Lyulka’s design bureau in Leningrad was nearing completion of a
potentially airworthy design by the middle of 1941, but the project soon had to be abandoned in
the face of rapidly approaching German forces.54 With the Red Army advancing toward Berlin in
1944 and 45, the Soviet Union began to acquire examples and designs of jet engines and aircraft,
as well as significant knowledge of German rocket and missile technology from the capture of
Peenemünde, a city located north of Berlin, along the Baltic coast, which served as the primary
52
L. L. Kerber, Stalin’s Aviation Gulag: A Memoir of Andrei Tupolev and the Purge Era, ed. Von Hardesty
(Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996), 257.
53
Paul Duffy and Andrei Kandalov, Tupolev: The Man and his Aircraft (Warrendale, PA: Society of Automotive
Engineers, Inc, 1996), 95-96.
54
Ulrich Albrecht, The Soviet Armaments Industry (Langhorne, PA: Harwood Academic Press, 1993), 43.
31
facility for the development of German rockets, such as the V-2.55 Soviet designers decided to
reproduce these captured designs as a starting point for further development. Prototypes like
Ilyushin’s small jet powered bomber, the Il-22 (which modified the design of the German Arado
Ar-234), allowed Soviet designers to integrate this new technology into their upcoming designs.
Soon, however, it became clear that the German jet engine designs from BMW and Junkers were
too unreliable and underpowered to be used in a mass-produced aircraft, yet they still did not
have a domestic powerplant that would perform any better. The Soviet Union was able to make a
dramatic leap forward in jet technology when in 1946 the British government granted it the
license to produce the Rolls-Royce Nene engine. Improved by the Klimov engine design bureau,
this engine powered the first generation of jet age fighters, most notably the MiG-15.
While British technology helped to bring the Soviet Union into the jet age, Soviet engine
bureaus were soon building designs of their own. By 1950, Lyulka and Mikulin / Tumanskii
were producing jet engines that were sufficiently different from the Nene derivatives being built
by Klimov to be considered as uniquely Soviet designs. This process of technological
development was not merely a return to habits of the prewar decades; it was also a duplication of
the process undertaken by the United States in the early forties. In 1940, Frank Whittle’s work on
the jet engine, which he had patented a decade before, yielded the Whittle W.1, the first British
jet engine to take to the sky. Soon after this, examples were provided to the United States,
allowing General Electric and Bell Aircraft Corporation to begin work on the first American jet
fighter aircraft. The 1942 flight of the Bell P-59 Airacomet, powered by the General Electric
copy of the W.1, the J31, was only possible due to the importation and adaptation of new
technology. The Soviets closely monitored these developments during the 40’s. As testimony
55
Michael J. Neufeld, The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemünde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era (New
York: The Free Press, 1995), 268.
32
before the House Committee on Un-American Activities revealed, Andrei V. Shevchenko, an
aviation engineer and member of the Soviet lend-lease purchasing commission, attempted to gain
information on the P-59 from Bell Aircraft in late 1942.56 The Soviets understood that the United
States had made progress in jet technology by incorporating foreign knowledge and endeavored
to do the same in the postwar race to match America’s air power.
Stalin placed keen importance on the rapid assimilation of recently captured German
aviation technology. In February of 1945, the Soviet leader had summoned his leading fighter
designers to a meeting in the Kremlin. Frustrated that the Germans and British had achieved
serial production of jet aircraft, the Messerschmitt Me-262 and Gloster Meteor―and aware of
the American prototypes thanks to Soviet intelligence―Stalin had ordered his designers to
quickly incorporate German turbojet engines into aircraft currently on the drawing board.
Alexander Yakovlev responded more rapidly than his compatriots to this instruction. Starting
with his successful piston-engined fighter design, and making maximal use of the concept of
design inheritance, he proceeded to graft a Junkers Jumo 004B engine to the underside of his
fighter. Artyom Mikoyan was assigned the slightly more advanced BMW 003 engine and
managed to design and construct an entirely new airframe with almost the same speed as
Yakovlev’s adaptation. Both of these prototypes flew for the first time on April 24, 1946. The
story goes that a coin toss determined that the MiG I-300, later known as the MiG-9, would
become the first Soviet Jet aircraft to fly, followed later in the day by the Yak-15.57
Pavel Sukhoi and Semyon Lavochkin were also assigned Junker Jumo 004 engines for
new fighter designs. Sukhoi had devised a number of prototypes during the Second World War,
56
House Committee on Un-American Activities, Soviet Espionage in Connection with Jet Propulsion and Aircraft,
81st Cong., 1st sess., 1949, 102-104.
57
Bill Gunston, The Encyclopedia of Russian Aircraft, 1875-1995 (Osceola, WI: Motorbooks International, 1995),
186.
33
most notably a very adept rival to the famous Ilyushin Il-2 Shturmovik designated the Su-6, but
none of these were chosen for frontline service. To develop its first jet aircraft, his OKB-51
looked to the successful German jet fighter, the Me-262. Sukhoi’s twin-engined jet, the Su-9,
took to the air a few months after Yakovlev and Mikoyan’s designs.58 The Su-9 was quickly
denounced by Yakovlev as a simple copy of the German fighter.59 Though the Su-9 was
significantly “Russified,” the provenance of its design was still readily discernible by even a
layman’s eye. This act of unauthorized copying of a foreign design aggravated Stalin, whose
patience was pushed too far when later developments of the prototype suffered major failures in
flight. In 1949 Stalin ordered Sukhoi’s bureau closed and transferred most of its staff to Tupolev.
Pavel Sukhoi was imprisoned not long after. Following Stalin’s death in 1953, Sukhoi was
released and his design bureau re-established.60
Renowned for his wartime work on the LaGG and La-5 and La-7 piston-driven fighters,
Semyon Lavochkin attempted to continue his run of success into the early years of the jet age.
Lavochkin’s design, the La-150, suffered from development delays and did not fly until five
months after the first Soviet jets, but featured more advanced construction that incorporated an
all-metal stressed-skin.61 This initial design suffered from stability problems and was refined
throughout the following year into the La-152 and La-160. With the La-160, Lavochkin’s OKB301 briefly found itself at the forefront of jet design. The La-160’s swept wing design, the first
Soviet aircraft to have this feature, was the result of analysis of German research and further
experimentation by TsAGI. Tests of this aircraft contributed greatly to the Soviet understanding
of transonic flight, contributions that OKB-301 put to use the following year. Nevertheless,
58
The Sukhoi Su-9 of 1946 should not be confused with the later interceptor that shared the designation Su-9 and
entered service with Soviet forces in the late 1950’s.
59
Albrecht, 47.
60
Ibid., 51.
61
Jean Alexander, Russian Aircraft Since 1940 (London, Putnam & Company Ltd., 1975), 179.
34
Stalin was not satisfied by this first crop of Soviet jets. Even before the first flight of the MiG-9,
he had revised his expectations and now demanded speed approaching that of sound.62
Like the MiG-15 of Korean War fame, Lavochkin’s next development, the La-168, was
also powered by the British Rolls-Royce Nene engine. Mikoyan’s fighter had first flown in
December of 1947, just 2 months after the comparable North American F-86 Sabre. Lavochkin
opted to wait for a more powerful development of the Nene to become available; therefore his
La-168 did not fly until the spring of 1948. Not until December 26th of that year did a more
powerful variant, the La-176D, become the first Soviet aircraft to achieve supersonic flight when
Colonel I. V. Fedorov surpassed the sound barrier in a shallow dive.63 Despite its success in
testing, the Lavochkin design only saw limited production as the slightly scaled-down La-15.
By 1951, OKB-301 had flown a prototype for a truly supersonic fighter, the La-190, four
months ahead of Mikoyan’s newest offering. Despite the design’s promise, test-flights were
plagued by problems with its Lyulka AL-5 engines, which frequently flamed-out when the
engine was throttled back. Politics also thwarted Lavochkin’s hopes for a production jet aircraft.
His design for an all-weather two-seat interceptor was rejected by Stalin, who arbitrarily
demanded that he double the aircraft’s range.64 Attempting to meet this extreme demand,
Semyon Lavochkin designed his final jet aircraft, the La-250 “Anakonda,” which pioneered the
design of delta wings in the Soviet Union as well as complex, but light weight honeycomb
construction.65 This daring design proved almost impossible for pilots to master. Though OKB301 persisted with development for some time, the project was finally cancelled in 1959.
62
Albrecht, 49.
Alexander, 188.
64
Albrecht, 50.
65
Ibid.
63
35
Semyon Lavochkin died not long after, and his now directionless design bureau was absorbed by
the growing rocket industry in the 1960’s.
In early 1954, a pre-production version of the MiG-19 accelerated beyond Mach 1 in
level flight. This first combat-ready Soviet supersonic fighter followed closely on the heels of the
American F-100 Super Sabre, which had first flown a little over half a year before. The
development of these two aircraft occurred over almost precisely the same period of time, and
both incorporated new aerodynamics into previous designs. North American Aviation and MiG
adapted their Korean War combatants, the F-86 Sabre and MiG-15 /17, into these first two
supersonic designs to enter military service. Designed in 1951, the F-100 featured an upgraded
afterburning engine and wings swept at a 45 degree angle that allowed it to exceed the sound
barrier. Two years earlier, Lyulka had tested the TR-3, an engine capable of supersonic flight.
Work quickly began to build a fighter based around this engine. The I-350 (or, as it was known
inside of MiG, M) featured the forward section of the subsonic MiG-17, but the rest of the
aircraft was a new design. TsAGI worked to devise a wing shape that could operate safely at
such high velocity. Their design of a 60 degree swept wing - which was remarkably thin, yet
torsionally rigid enough to allow for the use of outboard ailerons placed near the wingtip maximized control and maneuverability. In contrast, the American F-100’s wing was unable
withstand the forces that supersonic flight would place on outboard ailerons; instead, these were
placed inboard near the fuselage. The I-350 flew in June of 1951, but it did not become the first
Soviet aircraft to break the sound barrier in level flight as persistent engine problems curtailed its
flight test program. The design had shown promise, and a twin engine variant, labeled the I-360,
and powered by Mikulin engines, proved more reliable and featured a wing further improved
from TsAGI. This new wing was swept at 55 degrees instead of 60 degrees and added split
36
ailerons and more advanced flaps for better controllability. With the addition of the more
powerful Mikulin AM-9 engines, the I-360 became the final design of the MiG-19. In the years
immediately following the war, Soviet jet aircraft design had relied on imported knowledge and
technology; but by 1950, the Soviet aviation industry had begun to stand on its own. New
turbojet engines designed by Lyulka and Mikulin and aerodynamic innovations from TsAGI
were brought together at Mikoyan-Gurevich to produce an independently developed Soviet
aircraft that matched, and in some ways surpassed, the latest American fighter.66
3.3 Myasishchev and Long-Range Aviation
Vladimir Mikhailovich Myasishchev was another gifted aircraft designer who fared even
worse than the thoroughly tormented Semyon Lavochkin during the post-war drive to bring the
Soviet Union into the jet age. Like many of his contemporaries, Myasishchev studied under
Zhukovskii, the father of Soviet Aviation, and worked on the design team at TsAGI during the
twenties, contributing to the ANT series of aircraft produced during that period. He was arrested
in 1938 and spent the war years as the head of design bureau KB-102, part of the NKVD’s
TsKB-29 based in Moscow. Myasishchev’s KB-102 was assigned to develop a long-range
bomber alongside the prison bureau of Vladimir Petlyakov, designer of the famed Pe-2 ground
attack aircraft and the Soviet Union’s only wartime four engined bomber, the Pe-8. Following
Petlyakov’s death in January of 1942, Myasishchev was assigned to further develop the later
designer’s work.67
66
67
Bill Gunston and Yefim Gordon, MiG Aircraft since 1937 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998), 96-98.
Alexander, 287.
37
With the end of the conflict, Myasishchev was released from his incarceration and made
the Dean of Aircraft Design at the Moscow Aviation Institute. In 1951, Stalin―faced with
Tupolev’s refusal to build a turbojet powered strategic bomber―handed the task to the willing
Myasishchev. His OKB-23 was established at the prestigious Fili plant and operated until 1960.
He soon put forward a proposal for a long-range jet bomber that would theoretically be capable
of striking the United States. Myasishchev’s strategic bomber was the largest aviation project yet
undertaken by the Soviet Union. His work was initially well-funded, and he was permitted to
select one thousand of the best engineers from other design bureaus for the project. Illustrative of
Stalin’s desire to catch up with the Americans as rapidly as possible, Myasishchev was only
given four months to complete the design phase of his new bomber.68 First exhibited at the May
Day parade in 1953, the M-4 alarmed western observers who viewed the aircraft as an indication
that the Soviet aviation industry was moving beyond its reliance on western designs. Seen by
CIA analysts as the equivalent of the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, the new Soviet aircraft
provided the impetus for the American overhead reconnaissance program and the accompanying
development of the Lockheed U-2 and A-12 Oxcart spy planes.69 Powered by four Mikulin AM3 engines, the M-4 proved incapable of the range required to deliver a nuclear strike on North
American targets and to return to the Soviet Union. This problem was foreseen by Andrei
Tupolev, who was a vocal critic of Myasishchev’s design. Soviet jet engines had become more
powerful, but they lacked the fuel efficiency required to achieve the 16,000 km or nearly 10,000
68
Tony Buttler and Yefim Gordon, Soviet Secret Projects: Bombers since 1945 (Hinckley, UK: Midland Publishing,
2004), 46.
69
U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance: The U-2 and
OXCART Programs, 1954-1974, by Gregory W. Pedlow and Donald F. Welzenbach (Center for the Study of
Intelligence, 1998): 32
38
mile range needed for an intercontinental bomber that could deliver its payload and return to
friendly territory.70
Ultimately, Tupolev’s propeller driven Tu-95, developed in concert with the M-4, went
on to form the mainstay of the relatively small Soviet strategic bomber force. Myasishchev
sought to overcome his aircraft’s deficiencies. An improved variant, the 3M, was shown to
General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev in 1954. Khrushchev’s son Sergei, who later worked as an
engineer in the Soviet rocket industry, accompanied his father on this visit and later recalled the
conversation between the Soviet leader and the designer. While pleasant and complimentary
during his tour, Khrushchev’s demeanor changed after they entered Myasishchev’s office. A map
on the wall showed Myasishchev’s idea for dealing with the limited range of the M-4 and 3M
designs. Illustrated were the flight paths of the aircraft that took them over their hypothetical
targets in the United States and then on to Mexico. Khrushchev found this suggestion to be
wholly unacceptable and mocked those present by asking, “Did the Mexican government agree
to this plan? Or maybe your mother-in-law lives there?” This implied that Myasishchev thought
he could simply drop in unannounced.71 Myasishchev later proposed the development of aerial
refueling to extend the combat range of his designs. The United States had introduced air tankers
in 1950, but the Soviet Union only began development in 1953, and the practice was generally
looked upon as being more akin to an acrobatic maneuver than a practical solution to the range
problem.72 In 1958, an M-4 based tanker finally completed service trials and several aircraft
70
Alexander Boyd, The Soviet Air Force since 1918 (London: MacDonald and Jane’s, 1977): 223.
Khrushchev, Superpower, 58.
72
Ibid.
71
39
under construction were converted to fulfill the tanker role, but by this time policy had shifted
sharply away from the use of long-range aviation.73
With the advent of supersonic interceptors, it became apparent that to succeed in its
mission, a strategic bomber would need to be capable of still faster speeds. In 1952, before the
first flight of the M-4, Myasishchev began working with TsAGI on designs for a supersonic
bomber. Extensive wind tunnel testing at TsAGI identified the delta wing as the best choice for
large supersonic aircraft. The Myasishchev bureau submitted a series of proposals the following
year for the M-31 and M-32 bombers, but these were quickly rejected for being too slow. Soon
after these aircraft were turned down, the Soviet Union learned of a high-speed bomber then
under development by the Convair Corporation in the United States. By the early fifties, Convair
was benefitting from the expertise of the German inventor of the delta wing, Alexander Lippisch,
who was brought to the U.S. as a part of Project Paperclip, a massive effort undertaken during
the later stages of the Second World War by the American Office of Strategic Services,
forerunner of the CIA, to capture Germany’s most advanced military technology and to recruit
the scientists and engineers who developed it.74 Together they built the XF-92, a delta winged
fighter prototype that made Convair the American specialists in delta wing design; in 1956,
Convair’s Mach 2 strategic bomber, the B-58 Hustler took to the sky. This new American threat
soon inspired a renewed Soviet interest in a supersonic strategic bomber.
While still refining the M-4, Myasishchev and TsAGI began working to make a
supersonic intercontinental bomber a reality. More than thirty-nine designs were tested in
TsAGI’s wind tunnel before the final shape of what would become the M-50 was decided upon.
73
74
Buttler, 47.
Clarence G. Lasby. Project Paperclip: German Scientists and the Cold War (New York: Atheneum, 1971), 75.
40
The size and speed of the M-50 required not only advances in manufacturing, but also in
mathematics as new logarithmic structural stress calculations were used for the first time in the
design of this aircraft. Aerial refueling would allow the M-50 with its four thirsty engines to
strike targets in the United States and return to the Soviet Union while travelling at over 1,000
mph for most of the mission. Problems in developing the RD-16 engines meant that the M-50
flew for the first time in 1959 under the power of VD-7s from the M-4. The M-50 performed
well in trials, but fell short of its projected targets because of the reduced thrust of the alternate
powerplants. In 1960 the project was abandoned after only two examples had been built. The
political changes that consigned the VVS to an auxiliary role in plans for any potential conflicts
meant that design bureaus that specialized in high performance offensive aircraft did not have a
place in Soviet industry. Soon after the cancellation of the M-50, the Myasishchev bureau was
shuttered for the second time. While the Soviet government turned away from advanced designs
like the M-50, it still understood that such aircraft still conveyed a spirit of progress. Thus, the
rejected aircraft was made airworthy for one final flight over the 1961 Tushino air show. Its
appearance caused a major stir in the western press, but it provided an illusory image of the
direction that Soviet aerospace was headed.75
3.4 Conclusion
In his final years, Stalin continued to push the aviation industry as hard as ever. His
continued use of terror and arbitrary benchmarks pushed Soviet aircraft designers to produce
new concepts at a remarkable pace. Though the immediate post-war years saw a continuation of
the previous tendency to import and copy foreign designs, it is clear that the design bureaus were
75
Ibid., 62-64.
41
soon capable of making independent advances. Aircraft like the MiG-19 and the Myasishchev
M-50 demonstrate the emerging Soviet design language. While the engineers at the design
bureaus and the scientists at TsAGI were ready to move forward with more innovative designs,
the production side of the aviation industry was not. The legacy of rapid industrialization and
Stakhanovism was a workforce that balked at the ever increasing precision demanded by the
latest aircraft designs. The necessary materials were also in short supply, as the taut command
economy drove industries (and the enterprises within these industries) to compete for these
scarce resources. The ascendency of Nikita Khrushchev further compounded the aircraft
industry’s woes. While Stalin had driven progress by the use of threats, Khrushchev motivated
the designers by threatening to eliminate their profession. The new premier did not see aviation
in the same light that Stalin had. Rockets, not airplanes, provided Khrushchev with the
legitimacy through technology that he sought. Thus the Soviet aviation industry that had grown
so much, and had just begun to attempt to produce its own unique innovations, was stripped of
the resources that these developments required. Aviation still held its high position at the start of
the Khrushchev years; however, by the time of his ouster, it had fallen from this perch. This
change was expressed not only in industry, but in culture as well. Before the war, Soviet cinema
had heralded the ascent of the pilot as emblem of the idealized “new man;” however, like the
technology that brought him into being, the cinematic aviation hero experienced a similar change
in trajectory during the period of the Khrushchev Thaw. The following chapter will examine the
post-war transformation of aviation in the public consciousness; though at first they sought to
resume their pre-war roles as the leading lights of progress, the pilots of the Soviet screen soon
found themselves questioning their place in society and becoming ever more convinced that they
were relics of a time now past.
42
CHAPTER FOUR
BEGINNING THE DESCENT
In the Soviet Union, the years that immediately followed the end of the Second World
War were in many ways reminiscent of the period that had preceded it. Stalin continued to push
the pace of arms development in anticipation of a future conflict with the capitalist powers,
which he felt was destined to come. While a number of aircraft designers had earned their
freedom through their work in NKVD-run prison bureaus during the conflict, the post-war years
saw a continuation of the terror and arbitrary decision making that characterized Stalin’s
managerial style. This return to antebellum policies and persecutions did not sit well with many
in the Soviet Union, but few would dare to pose a direct threat to the established order while
Stalin lived. Older citizens believed that they had demonstrated their commitment to the
revolutionary experiment through their incalculable sacrifice during the fight against fascism,
and the younger generation chaffed under restrictions that seemed ill-fitting in the post-war
age.76 When Stalin died in 1953, the new leadership was cautious not to depart too rapidly from
language of Stalinism, but they did recognize that in the absence of Stalin’s unassailable image,
change would be required for the Soviet system to endure.77
This new policy orientation attempted to slow the growth of heavy industry, the dominant
are of focus in Stalin’s five-year plans, while improving agricultural yields and the production of
consumer goods. Meanwhile, the Soviet artistic community began to test the boundaries of
76
Juliane Fürst, “Prisoners of the Soviet Self?: Political Youth Opposition in Late Stalinism,” Europe-Asia Studies
54, no. 3 (May 2002): 354.
77
Nikita Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers, trans. and ed. Strobe Talbott (Boston: Little, Brown and Company,
1970), 343.
43
official censorship and the stylistic guidelines of Socialist Realism. Ilya Ehrenburg’s novel The
Thaw, published in 1954, exposed the failings of the Stalinist managerial system, characterized
by its fractal-like construction, featuring “little Stalins” at every level. This book lent its name to
the roughly decade long period of greater artistic freedom that followed Stalin’s demise. Nikita
Khrushchev’s report to the Twentieth Party Congress in February of 1956 entitled “On the Cult
of Personality and Its Consequences,” but generally known as the “Secret Speech,” opened the
door to a more frank appraisal of the nation’s recent past and a more lively debate on its future
direction. As this new discourse became more established, it began to make its presence known
in Soviet cinema. Aviation and the image of the heroic aviator were now used to tell stories that
critiqued the injustices of Stalinism and spoke to the uncertainty of the future.
4.1 Policy after Stalin
On March 5, 1953, Joseph Stalin died. The following day, Georgii Malenkov officially
succeeded him in the position of Premier of the Soviet Union. Half a year later, Nikita
Khrushchev assumed the reestablished position of General Secretary of the Communist Party.
That August, Malenkov established the theme that came to dominate Soviet economic
policymaking during this first post-Stalin decade. In a speech before a session of the Supreme
Soviet, he lauded the progress of Soviet heavy industry, but stressed that his priority would be to
shift more of the finite resources of the Soviet Union’s taut command economy toward light
industry and the manufacture of consumer goods.78 “It must be admitted that we lag behind in
the quality of consumer goods, and that we must introduce considerable improvements in this
matter. Many enterprises are still producing articles of an unsatisfactory quality, not meeting the
78
Abraham Katz, The Politics of Economic Reform in the Soviet Union (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1972), 45.
44
requirements and tastes of the Soviet consumer,” Malenkov stated.79 To help carry out this
sharp increase in the scale of light industry, Malenkov cut the defense budgets for 1953 and
1954. This course of action earned him no friends in the military, but the new Soviet leader was
confident that a policy of minimum deterrence was the way forward.80
Malenkov’s stint in the role of premier proved to be a brief one. Secretary Khrushchev
and his ally Nikolai Bulganin soon aligned themselves with interest groups in the military and
heavy industry who strongly opposed Malenkov’s policies. With this backing, Khrushchev was
able to engineer the ouster of Malenkov and his replacement with Bulganin in 1955. Three years
later Khrushchev pushed his increasingly reluctant ally out of office and assumed the
premiership for himself. Khrushchev’s consummation of power in the years after Stalin’s death
began a period of significant political change and reform efforts in the Soviet Union. Passionate
about advances in technology, Khrushchev initially continued support for the aviation programs
begun in the last years of Stalin’s rule. As these projects bore results in the mid to late 1950’s,
Khrushchev was able to claim the credit for these new developments.81 However, Khrushchev’s
discussions with rocket engineer Sergei Korolyov made him increasingly confident in the Soviet
Union’s burgeoning ballistic missile technology and he began to see this new unmanned system
as the future of warfare and of aerospace technology.82
Though he had taken power, in part, because of support from the military, Khrushchev’s
policies trended toward some of the same positions advocated that Malenkov had advocated.
Recognizing the economic difficulties facing the Soviet Union, as well as the need to make
79
Pravda, August 9, 1953.
Christoph Bluth, “Defense and Security”, in Khrushchev and Khrushchevism, ed. Martin McCauley (London: The
MacMillan Press Ltd., 1987), 195.
81
Zhores A. Medvedev, Soviet Science (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1978), 61.
82
Nikita Khrushchev, Reformer, vol. 2 of Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev, ed. Sergei Khrushchev, trans. George
Shriver (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University, 2006), 467.
80
45
significant improvements in the consumer sector, which could not be achieved so long as high
levels of military funding were maintained, Khrushchev began to reduce military expenditures in
line with the cuts that Malenkov had already attempted. Much as American President Dwight
Eisenhower had realigned his nation’s military doctrine with his “New Look” policy, which
emphasized the threat of massive retaliation with nuclear weapons to deter future conflicts,
Khrushchev worked to transition the Soviet military away from conventional forces toward a
heavy reliance on nuclear arms.83 While the bulk of the United States’ nuclear delivery system
during the Eisenhower years consisted of bombers, such as Convair’s massive B-36 Peacemaker
and Boeing’s jet-powered B-47, advances in the range and accuracy achieved by Soviet rocketry
meant that Khrushchev could build his deterrent force around the intercontinental ballistic
missile rather than the strategic bomber. Though he faced resistance from the military, he
gradually gained ground with his “one-day war” philosophy, the view that a future war would be
characterized by a brief period of nuclear salvos after which one side’s ability to wage war will
have been eliminated.84 This new defense policy placed the Soviet aviation industry in a very
uncertain position and left the Air Force without a defined role. As the 1960’s progressed, the
pace of technological advancement in aviation slowed and the aviator, who had once embodied
the potential inherent in the future of Soviet society, increasingly came to be seen as a relic of a
bygone age.
83
Robert R. Bowie and Richard H. Immerman, Waging Peace: How Eisenhower Shaped an Enduring Cold War
Strategy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 179.
84
U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, Khrushchev’s Role in the Current Controversy over Soviet Defense Policy.
(1963): 4.
46
4.2 Aviation and the Discourses of the Thaw
The period following Stalin’s death, commonly known as the Thaw, was marked by a
new freedom of artistic and intellectual expression and new opportunity to question the past.
This was also a time of uncertainty about what the future would and should bring for the Soviet
society. The system that Stalin had built was unable to sustain itself after the passing of its
leader. Nikita Khrushchev’s “Secret Speech” in 1956, placed the Soviet Union on the path to
destalinization and opened the door for critical assessments of the recent past. In literature, the
publication of works such as Ilya Ehrenburg’s The Thaw and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s A Day in
the Life of Ivan Denisovich brought to light the harsh realities that had for so long been
suppressed by official censorship. The Soviet film industry also began to address the realities of
life under Stalinism. For audiences, seeing the reality they had lived now portrayed on the screen
and hearing the unspoken truth finally uttered was an impactful experience. To illustrate the
realities of Stalinist repression, director Grigorii Chukhrai turned to the image of the Stalin era
aviation hero. The skilled master of modern technology had so frequently been shown to have
bristled under the constraints of the system until he is broken and finally accepts his proper
place. Now, in this new era, the aviator could finally make good his escape from the conformity
and arbitrary repressions of Stalinism. Though the question of where he was escaping to still
remained. The cinema of the Thaw shifted away from the superficial musicals and glorified
historical epics of previous years. During the Thaw, a number of films were produced that sought
to reappraise the Second World War, placing greater value on honest storytelling, and focusing
on the lives of those who actually lived through it.85 Larisa Shepitko took the reinterpretation of
the Soviet veteran further than most, while simultaneously highlighting the emerging social
85
Birgit Beumers, A History of Russian Cinema (Oxford: Berg, 2009), 117.
47
problems in Soviet society, namely the generation gap and the role of women in public life. To
this end, she chose to feature a female aviation hero, a character who was supposed to have
broken free of her restraints and found a home in the new collective. Through her, Shepitko
sought to bring to light the falsehoods that had become a part of the new, and theoretically more
truthful, discourse.86 The Soviet aviation hero may have escaped the Stalinist trap, but now his or
her place in society was far less certain.
4.3 “Clear Skies” (1961)
In May of 1961, Ukrainian director Grigorii Chukhrai released his film Clear Skies
(Chistoe nebo), a film in which the archetypal Stalinist aviation hero of the previous era escapes
from the oppression of the system that created him, and into the warm embrace of the renewed
collective, which can provide him with an increased feeling of optimism and freedom.87 By this
time Chukhrai had already achieved significant success with his previous two films, The Fortyfirst (Sorok-pervyi) in 1956, and Ballad of a Soldier (Ballada o soldate) in 1959, the latter of
which garnered international acclaim. In Clear Skies, Chukhrai offers one of the first attempts in
Soviet cinema to come to terms with the reality of the Stalinist era and to understand how Soviet
society could move forward. In this respect, the film echoes with enhanced clarity, the themes of
Mikhail Kalatozov’s The Cranes are Flying (Letiat zhuravli), released in 1957. Both Kalatozov
and Chukhrai attempted to expose post-Stalin Soviet audiences to elements of society under
Stalin’s rule that now seemed to defy logic, and they both offered the renewed collective as the
86
Mira Liehm and Antonin J. Liehm, The Most Important Art: Eastern European Film After 1945 (Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press, 1977), 319.
87
Grigorii Chukhrai, dir., Clear Skies (Chistoe nebo), DVD (1961; Moscow: RUSCICO, 2000).
48
best alternative to the absurd and repressive Stalinist system.88 While these two films make use
of the Second World War to transit the period of Stalin’s rule, Chukhrai was much more direct in
his criticism of the Stalinist system than was Kalatozov. This difference in approach accounts for
much of the criticism that has been leveled against Clear Skies; however, its critique of Stalinist
repression can be compared with that of Solzhenitsyn’s Ivan Denisovich and for many viewers it
is the very lack of subtlety, that some call simplistic, which gives the film its impact.89 By
showing the audience how Stalinist society tore down the aviation hero, a character who had
been raised above all others, and in whom they were meant to enjoy a sense of vicarious
individuality, Chukhrai provides a sharp contrast between the illusion of Stalinist “joy” and the
harsh reality that it obscured.
Clear Skies contains two story arcs; it begins with an unremarkable wartime romance,
and later transitions into a tale of injustice in Stalinist society.90 Evgenii Urbanskii, who also
starred in Kalatozov’s The Letter Never Sent (Neotpravlennoe pis’mo), plays Aleksei Astakhov,
a quintessential “Chkalov” figure, whose daring flights are recounted in news broadcasts. Amid
the violence of the war he is pursued and won by the young Sasha Lvova (Nina Drobysheva).
Clear Skies opens with the audience souring amongst the clouds as the sound of a jet engine
hums beneath the dramatic title music. Pilots walk across the tarmac toward their MiG- 17
fighters, as the names of the cast appear on screen. A modern delta-winged interceptor, similar in
appearance to the Lavochkin La-250 or Tupolev Tu-128, becomes the focus. An unknown pilot
climbs the ladder and prepares for flight. As the aircraft begins its takeoff run we cut to a car
speeding along the road. When the interceptor passes overhead, the car stops abruptly and two
88
Alexander Prokhorov, “The Adolescent and the Child in the Cinema of the Thaw,” Studies in Russian and Soviet
Cinema 1, no. 2 (2007): 117.
89
Liehm, 211.
90
Josephine Woll, Real Images: Soviet Cinema and the Thaw (London: I.B. Tauris, 2000), 118.
49
figures leap out. The woman is Sasha who, gazing up at the glinting silver aircraft, says to her
driver, “I know it’s him.” This framing scene then fades to a snowy New Year’s Eve before the
war where a young Sasha and her older sister Lyusia (Natalya Kuzmina) stand outside in the
cold. Lyusia writes an invitation to their New Year’s party in the frost that coats the window of a
nearby door. Later on, at the party, all the guests appear to friends of Lyusia’s and are having
quite the festive time when a stranger comes to the door. It is a tall man with a broad smile who
wears a military coat and looks very much the part as one of “Stalin’s Falcons.” The guests
appear tense and the stranger turns to depart. Unlike her fellow merrymakers, Sasha is
immediately taken with this newcomer and rushes to beg him to stay, but seeing the concern on
the others’ faces, he turns and takes his leave. Sasha is shocked. “Do you know who that was,”
she asks. “It was Astakhov, The famous pilot! I saw his picture in a magazine.” Sasha is then
abruptly sent off to bed by her sister. Where the young Sasha has seen the heroic image of the
aviator, the older guests have perceived an insurmountable distance. Flyers are meant to live on
different level from ordinary Soviet citizens, not join them at parties. Years later, after the war
has begun, a chance encounter in an air raid shelter brings the fighter ace Aleksei Astakhov back
into her life.
Their new relationship is cut short when Astakhov is shot down over German lines. Sasha
is told that he has died in combat and she is given his posthumous decorations. A little over an
hour into Chukhrai’s film, after the war has ended and life returned to degree of normalcy,
Astakhov returns to Sasha. Here Clear Skies turns from a wartime romance into a sharp critique
of the rationale underpinning Stalinist society. Astakhov’s face now features a large scar, a
reflection of the ordeal he has suffered as a prisoner of the Germans. Having been a prisoner of
war, the aviation hero Astakhov is no longer seen as a member of an elite stratum of society, but
50
rather as on object of suspicion. The Stalinist system bans him, its proud aviation hero, from
again taking to the skies. He is no longer a party member, no longer a hero. Yet, despite being
rejected by society, within his own mind Astakhov has still not escaped from the grip that
Stalinism holds on him. Though his treatment defies reason, he still believes that there must be a
purpose for it; it must serve a greater goal. We first see this manifest when Lyusia’s husband,
Nikolai Avdeievich (Georgii Kulikov), raises his objections to Aleksei’s presence in their shared
apartment to Sasha. “Astakhov’s living in our house reflects badly on you,” Nikolai tells her. He
continues, “This man might have had a questionable past. About which we couldn’t even guess,”
referring to Aleksei’s time in German hands. “All this could have dire consequences. I’m already
having some problems at work,” he warns. Their continued association with someone who is
now seen as unreliable could begin to have a negative impact on their lives as well. Sasha
defends her husband against Nikolai’s assertions, denouncing her brother-in-law for having spent
the war in Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan while Astakhov was risking his life in the air and suffering in a
prison camp, illustrating how easily those who remained behind the lines could feel themselves
entitled to look down upon the heroes who had faced death to protect.
A powerful scene transpires in an alley outside of a pub where Astakhov has spent the
day drinking. Sasha discovers him there. Up until now he had pretended that he was still allowed
to fly, that everything was ok, but now the intoxicated aviator is forced to come clean and share
the hardships he has faced since returning to the Soviet Union. Sasha stares at the pitiful sight of
her husband, the once proud aviation hero. “You don’t recognize me,” he asks. “A lot of people
don’t.” After telling her how he has been spending his days in the pub, he pleads, “but how could
I tell you about it?” He tells her how he met with a man he had served with. “I want to fly,” he
had told him. The man’s response was “but you were a prisoner of war!” Aleksei tells Sasha that
51
he is guilty. “Guilty of being shot down, guilty of being taken prisoner while almost dead, guilty
of running away and being caught, with dogs tearing at my flesh! I’m guilty of not dying of
hunger, of not being shot.”
Astakhov tries to rejoin the Communist Party. He enters a small smoky room where party
officials are crowded around a table. Behind them, to the right of the window, stands a large
statue of Joseph Stalin. Through this less than subtle device, we see how Stalin is ever-present
even though he is never directly referred to. The chairman of the committee informs Aleksei that
they have discussed his application and have “decided we shouldn’t” readmit him into the party.
Bewildered, Sasha asks how it is that they could have come to this decision. She is a party
member. She has vouched for him. A committee member asks her, “but how do you know what
he was doing in prison?” Another man notes that, according to the official line, “all Communist
prisoners were shot,” so how could he have survived the war except through collaboration? This
rejection causes Astakhov to fall onto despair. Back at their apartment, they share an
enlightening exchange. Aleksei tells Sasha that he shouldn’t have come back to her. All he has
done is to cause her trouble. She tells her husband that she will fight for him. “Fight with
whom,” he asks in response. “In the war we had the enemy, and whom do we have here?” Sasha
exclaims that this situation is not his fault. “Whose is it then?” She doesn’t know. Aleksei states
that no one can be blamed. “Everything is right and we can’t blame anyone.” He quotes an old
Russian phrase often used by Stalin “les rubiat – shchepki letiat,” when you cut down a forest,
the chips must fly. Sasha objects, but Aleksei reminds her of the great struggle they are now
engaged in for the future of mankind. “And it doesn’t matter if one, or two, or ten innocent
people suffer! For the sake of the great aim, we must not pity anyone, even ourselves.” Despite
all that has changed and all the obstacles that the Stalinist system has placed in his way, this
52
falcon of Stalin’s Air Force, brought to ruin by a system built on mistrust, cannot bring himself
to admit that his illogical predicament may in fact be unjust and unnecessary, that it may stem
from problems with the nation’s leadership at the highest level.
Astakhov’s lingering ideology is finally torn from him in a dramatic exchange with
Sasha’s younger brother Sergei (Alik Krylov). Now his equal as a factory trainee, Sergei
demands “where is your justice?” later asking Astakhov the biting question: if he is a real
communist, “then why aren’t you in the party?” In response Astakhov can only state that things
are as they must be. But Sergei presses further, asking him who it is that needs it to be that way,
drawing a contrast between the needs of the people and the need the needs of the system he is
defending. To this charge Astakhov can offer no response. The injustice of the Stalinist system
has been exposed.91 Such a blunt discussion of the inhumanity of Stalinism in early 1961 had
tremendous resonance with Soviet audiences, who had never seen these ideas debated with such
clarity in the public sphere.
The lives of the characters in Clear Skies change dramatically following the death of
Stalin. The news of the leader’s passing is met with a stunned silence, an inability to conceive of
a reality without Joseph Stalin. Chukhrai then harkens back to the directors of the revolutionary
era; first with a sequence of melting ice on a river, a literal thaw, which one could argue is an
attempt at Eisenstein style intellectual montage, and then with the uniting of worker and machine
in a manner that recalls the work of Dziga Vertov.92 This looking back as a means of moving
forward supports the film’s assertion that the renewed collective, a rebirth of pre-Stalinist Soviet
society, represents a hopeful pathway to a better, more just, tomorrow. Astakhov’s party
91
92
Ibid., 120
Beumers, 122.
53
membership is restored and his courage during the war receives official recognition. The film
closes with the flight of the modern jet interceptor from the opening sequence, shining as it
speeds through the sky. The aviation hero has once again taken flight; he is no longer the
celebrated, but constrained, individual of the past. He is now just one of the many, working
together as components of a new collective society. His flight is a triumphal escape from the
injustices of the past into a world of greater freedom, which celebrates collective effort over the
exploits of the individual.
4.4 “Wings” (1966)
In 1966, a film was released that portrayed the Soviet aviation hero in a markedly
different light than that seen in Clear Skies. Larisa Shepitko’s Wings (Kryl’ia) features an aviator
who is now grounded by the reality of post-Stalinist Soviet life.93 Where Chukhrai’s Astakhov
took flight as a means of reintegrating back into a renewed collective society, Shepitko’s
Nadezhda Petrovna Petrukhina (Maya Bulgakova), is unable to find freedom in this new world
and looks to the skies as a means to escape from a life that, to her, appears vapid. She longs to
recapture the past, where she last had a sense of belonging. Larisa Shepitko was another
Ukrainian director who achieved success during the “Khrushchev Thaw.” Having studied in
Moscow as a pupil of Aleksandr Dovzhenko, Shepitko received her diploma in 1963 for her
acclaimed film Heat (Znoy).94
Her second feature film release, Wings was one of the more controversial films of the
Thaw period. Many elements of this film ran counter to the prevailing discourses of the day. The
93
94
Larisa Shepitko, dir., Wings (Kryl’ia), DVD (1966; New York, The Criterion Collection, 2008).
Jeanne Vronskaya, Young Soviet Film Makers (London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1972), 38.
54
world around her, which ought to be seen as a more positive and hopeful society, is instead
viewed with disdain by Petrukhina. Shepitko places the female aviator front and center in her
film, already a break with the traditional depiction of the aviation hero in Soviet cinema, but she
goes further still. While a Chkalov, or even an Astakhov from just five years ago, were
charismatic figures who drew people to him, Petrukhina is tactless and harsh, she pushes people
away. This respected figure, this hero of war, is unable to sustain a meaningful relationship with
any of the people around her, including her own adopted daughter. She harbors a craving for the
excitement, focus, and sense of purpose that the war had elicited from her and that contemporary
society is unable to provide. Wings provoked strong reactions in the Soviet press, which claimed
that no such conflicts existed between parents and their children, and denounced the film’s main
character as an insult to veterans.95 The pessimistic themes of unease with the aftermath of
Stalinism ran counter to the prevailing discourses of the Thaw. The controversial nature of this
film resulted in its limited distribution. However, as the Thaw gave way to the more restrictive
era of stagnation, the character of the disenchanted aviation hero pioneered by Shepitko became
a more common portrayal.
Nadezhda Petrukhina’s everyday life contrasts sharply with her experiences as a fighter
pilot during the war and through this, she eventually becomes aware of the dissonance between
the society she fought for and the one in which she now resides. Now, some two decades later,
she is the principal of a vocational training institute. She is awkward in her interpersonal
relationships and lacks the ability to understand the effects of her own behavior on the people
around her. As a result, she is isolated and incapable of establishing any kind of meaningful
connection with the younger generation being educated in her school. At moments when she
95
Ibid., 39.
55
feels most out of touch with the society around her, Petrukhina looks to the sky and remembers
with fondness her days as a combat pilot. For her, the war was a time when she felt truly free.96
The audience is introduced to Nadezhda Petrovna’s connection to aviation in a scene that follows
her conversation with the museum director Pasha (Pantelejmon Krymov) about her adopted
daughter Tania (Zhanna Bolotova) who, now married, has had little contact with her, and a
poorly behaved student that Nadezhda had expelled from school earlier in the day. After Pasha
leaves her apartment, a light and whimsical musical piece begins playing. Shepitko uses this
music as the leitmotif for the idea of flight and Petrukhina’s longing to recapture her past. From
her quaint apartment we transition to a beach on the shore of the river, where an aerobatic plane
is performing maneuvers high above. She is there with some of her neighbor’s children. One of
the boys is excited to watch the spectacle overhead, as the machine performs its graceful loops
and rolls. Nadezhda at first reclines and drapes a magazine across her face, but soon asks the
children “do you want to go to the aerodrome?” There she meets the instructor, Kostia Shuvalov
(Nikolai Grabbe), with whom she had served during the war. He asks her if she is jealous that he
can still fly and she cannot. Petrukhina replies that she has become used to it, but as she makes
her way home with the children she begins to sing a rousing wartime song about the “steel birds”
of the Air Force. Though she does not yet understand it herself, we are beginning to see that the
only place this grounded aviator is truly at home is the past.
Shepitko’s heroine shows us the shortcomings of the new discourses of the Thaw.
Everyone was supposedly freer than they were before, working together in the renewed
collective; yet, Petrukhina does not feel this freedom, nor does she see it around her. She is an
aviator who cannot fly, her efforts to educate the next generation of Soviet youth seem to
96
Woll, 218.
56
accomplish little, and her daughter is now married to a much older man and has totally assumed
the role of the housewife.97 As the film progresses, Petrukhina continues to have moments where
she looks to the clouds and remembers the feeling of flight. For now, the audience only sees
these moments from a first-person perspective, as they soar with ease while the familiar melody
plays. After another stressful day, Petrukhina returns home to find her daughter Tania in her
apartment. Tania tells Nadezhda that she found a tape sent to her by some of her old military
comrades in Moscow, but her mother reacts with disinterest. Later, Tania instructs her mother to
get married and start a new life. “You’ve been in charge of this, that and the other all this time.
You’re run down. You’ve got to let go of all that. Let someone else worry about those brats.”
This sentiment offends Petrukhina. “Let someone else do it. I never even knew such words as
these,” she tells her daughter. “All my life I worked for myself and for other people wherever I
was needed, no picking and choosing. And I never regretted it.” Tania asks if she should stay.
“You pity me. Don’t pity me. Instead, you should envy me,” she responds to her daughter and
tells her that she should go. When she is alone, Nadezhda listens to the tape from her comrades.
On the recording, her friends ask why she didn’t show up for Victory Day and attempt to cheer
her by singing the same war song that Nadezhda had sung at the aerodrome earlier. She is caught
between the past and the future. To go ahead as a housewife, to “let someone else do it” seems
unfathomable to this once heroic aviator and to look back at what she once was, to the only place
she ever felt she really belonged, causes her too much pain when contrasted with the life she now
leads.
Walking along the street, Petrukhina stops to buy some fruit. She tries to wash it under
a water faucet, but nothing comes out. As she continues along the street the heavens open up.
97
Alexander Prokhorov, “The Unknown New Wave: Soviet Cinema of the Sixties,” in Springtime for Soviet
Cinema: Re/viewing the 1960’s (Pittsburgh: Russian Film Symposium, 2001), 23.
57
She spreads her hands to wash the fruit in the falling rain. Everyone else runs for cover and soon
the cobblestone street is empty. This image brings her back to the war and her wartime romance
with fellow aviator Mitia Grachyov (Leonid Diachkov), which began when they were both
behind the front lines recovering from injuries. They are wandering among the ruins of an
ancient city, whose streets are paved with stone. Mitia tells her a story he heard about the people
who created this city. “There used to be an entire race of people here,” he tells her, as they walk
along the ancient cart path. “They carved a city out of rock. They worked miracles in stone and
they became famous for it. And then, all of the sudden, they all disappeared.” Nadezhda asks if
they had come under attack. Mitia responds “No, Somebody must have told them life was easier
somewhere else.” “Their art died wherever they ended up. The stone was left behind,” he
continues. Petrukhina, in her present life, is not unlike the ruins she toured during the war. She is
an artifact, an image from a time when people believed they were engaged in a great project to
reach heights never before achieved. The youth around her are no longer interested in struggle
and shared sacrifice, and the concept of the aviator as a member of the vanguard, leading the way
to a better future no longer resonates. They are all looking for that easier life.
After experiencing this traumatic memory, Petrukhina goes to see Pasha at the museum.
While she waits for him to return to his office she takes a seat in an ornately carved chair. A
docent approaches her and informs Nadezhda that she is sitting in an exhibit. She moves out of
the chair as a teacher leads her school group up to the nearby display on the Great Patriotic War.
The teacher hurriedly tells her less than enthralled pupils about the photographs of the pilots who
fought in the conflict, which includes Petrukhina’s Mitia, who it is noted in passing, was
posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. She then points out images of two
pilots from the women’s air regiment: Xenia Ovsiannikova and Nadezhda Petrukhina. “Did they
58
get killed,” a young girl asks. As the teacher quickly leads the group out of the hall she answers
that Ovsiannikova was killed in 1945 and that Petrukhina is alive and serves on the city council.
But in a sense Nadezhda does feel as though she did die in the war. In contemporary Soviet
society she is unable to live like she did in those days, with a sense of purpose, as a master of a
“steel bird.”98 With the room empty, Nadezhda walks up to the display. Seeing these
photographs brings back the memory of Mitia’s death in combat. Messerschmitt and Yak fighters
dart across the screen and Petrukhina is finally shown from a third-person perspective within one
of her flashbacks. Attired in her flight suit, goggles firmly affixed, she appears in her element for
the first time in the film. Mitia’s plane is damaged by enemy fire and begins trailing black
smoke. She follows his plane down until it finally impacts the earth. She swoops in low over the
burning wreckage of his plane and is snapped out of her memory and back to museum. She scans
the wall of photos and sees herself there, as a smiling and proud aviator.
Just then, Pasha arrives and they enter his office. He is rattling off a tale about scientists
who’ve thawed out a frozen mammoth when she suddenly interrupts to say, “Marry me.” Pasha
just stands in a stunned silence. “Can’t you see it? The museum director marries one of his
exhibits. I am one of your exhibits.” Pasha becomes concerned, but she continues “Today a girl
asked about me. ‘Did she get killed?’ So what do you think? Was she killed?” She looks up
toward a shelf and says “Look, a chicken. The only stuffed chicken in the world,” noticing the
bird that now stands lifeless on display. She then informs him that she has quit her job at the
school and is beginning a new life. With that she departs for the aerodrome.
98
Jill Steans, “Revisionist Heroes and Dissident Heroines: Gender, Nation and War in Soviet Films of ‘the Thaw,’”
Global Society 24, no. 3 (July 2010): 417.
59
Ultimately, Petrukhina cannot find a place in this new Soviet society. The hoped for
freedom of the post-Stalin collective has not materialized and instead she now feels like a
prisoner. After her unusual episode at the museum, Petrukhina arrives at the airfield where
preparations for an aerobatic competition are underway. She seeks out Kostia and asks a group of
cadets standing near a pair of planes for his whereabouts. They are unsure and begin to push one
of the aircraft back to the hangar, leaving her alone with a single seat Yak-18 aerobatic plane.
The aircraft reminds her of the fighters she had flown during the war. She approaches the
machine and starts to run her hands along its left wing, checking the movement of the control
surfaces, as though she were performing pre-flight checks. When she reaches the fuselage, she
tries to climb up on the wing. Struggling at first, because of the limited range of motion afforded
by the skirt she is wearing; Petrukhina eventually pulls herself up and takes a seat in the cockpit.
Immediately she begins to feel at home again. After a scan of the instrument panel, we see a
head-on view of Nadezhda seated in the aircraft, her face framed by its canopy, her eyes wide.
Petrukhina’s trance is broken when Kostia and a group of trainee pilots arrive to take the
Yak back to its hangar. She compliments him on the quality of his aircraft. The young trainees
yell for her to stay in the aircraft while they push it in. Playfully, they run along with the plane.
At first Petrukhina is quite entertained by the spectacle, but as the opening to the hangar looms
ahead of her she becomes emotional. The feeling of being so close to that freedom of the past
overwhelms Petrukhina. She starts the Yak’s engine, sending the pilots scattering. The camera
closes in on her seated in the cockpit, a determined look on her face. She turns the plane toward
the runway as Kostia and the others stand there in shock. The Yak accelerates and Nadezhda
takes to the skies one last time. The leitmotif of flight returns here as Petrukhina soars into the
clouds accompanied by that familiar whimsical melody. The final shots of Wings are much like
60
Petrukhina’s earlier reminiscences on the feeling of flight. As she loops through the air, the film
comes to a close. Though Shepitko leaves the ending of her film somewhat ambiguous, the
implication is that Petrukhina has turned her plane toward the ground in a suicidal dive, dying in
a crash like Mitia, and so many of her comrades in arms, had done before
The final flight in Wings contrasts sharply with the flight at the end of Clear Skies. In
Chukhrai’s film the aviator is flying to escape into a more hopeful tomorrow. Five years later,
Shepitko’s pilot is unable to see hope in her new reality. She takes flight to escape from what she
sees as a meaningless and disappointing world, the same world that Astakhov had flown
toward.99 Shepitko uses the aviation hero to expose the stark differences between the generation
that had lived through the violence of war and the repressions of Stalinism, and the Thaw era
Soviet youth who had experienced neither. She dared to show audiences that, for some among
them, an idealized past was preferable to the flawed present, and that a warrior can fight, not for
her nation, not for the future peace, but for herself and the sheer exhilaration combat. The
character of the aviator is transformed from the traditional male figure of Astakhov, who is
eventually welcomed back into a renewed Soviet society, to the female Petrukhina, who never
feels that she belongs. In Wings, Larisa Shepitko dismantles all the assumptions of the Thaw,
foreshadowing a sentiment that would permeate Soviet society over the course of the following
decades.
4.5 Conclusion
The Thaw was a period of thoughtful reexamination and hope for renewal in Soviet
culture. The limitations of Socialist Realism were removed and a more vibrant artistic discourse
99
Steans, 418.
61
flourished for a time. The aviation hero, who had been such a prominent figure in the pre-war
years and had accrued further glory in the skies above war-torn cities and countryside, initially
continued to be seen as an optimistic figure. In Clear Skies this character is used to expose the
flaws of the Stalinist system. The “falcon,” slowly comes to see that his father figure, Stalin, had
in fact been the source of his degradation. With this new clarity of perspective, the aviator can
continue to press the advance of Soviet technology in a more open and fairer socialist society.
This attitude was reversed in Wings; here the aviator has shifted from a forward looking figure of
progress, to a backward looking emblem of nostalgia. As the aviation industry struggled to
define its role in a post-Stalin world, so too did the aviation hero. The fighter ace, Petrukhina,
attempts to carve out a new place for herself, but finally realizes that the world around her has
left her behind. These two films illustrate the transition that the image of the aviator and the field
of aviation underwent during the Thaw. The idea of flight is no longer aspirational, but is instead
nostalgic. In the journey between Clear Skies and Wings, the pilot, the archetypal Soviet “new
man,” becomes grounded, disillusioned, and a woman. Further portrayals of aviators echoed the
transformation engineered by Shepitko; the flyers seen in the films that followed were
pessimistic figures that in some instances deviated from their traditional representation as
celebrated Russian men in the mold of Chkalov. As the Thaw gave way to the stagnant Brezhnev
years, aviation and the cinematic aviator continued their struggle for relevance.
62
CHAPTER FIVE
FINAL APPROACH
Like the grounded flyer, Nadezhda Petrukhina, in Wings, the aviation industry also
struggled to find its place in Soviet society during the 1960’s. Nikita Khrushchev’s commitment
to rocketry resulted in a dramatic decrease in orders for new aircraft and the rejection of many of
the most innovative proposals put forward by the design bureaus. The success of the R-7 rocket,
the world’s first intercontinental ballistic missile, designed by Sergei Korolyov, facilitated a
major transformation of Soviet defense policy. In Khrushchev’s view, long-range missiles armed
with nuclear payloads would be sufficient to keep any potential adversaries at bay. In order to
produce these new weapons in sufficient quantity, existing production facilities had to be taken
from other industries. The taut structure of Soviet industry required that expansion in one area
come at the expense of another. Lacking a defined purpose in the missile age, the aviation
industry found it increasingly difficult to hold on to its resources. Even the great Andrei Tupolev
could not avoid the contraction of his field. When Khrushchev ordered the Kuibyshev Airplane
Plant be transferred to missile production, over the objections of the State Committee on
Aviation Technology, the Soviet leader’s traditionally friendly relationship with Tupolev soured.
After the famed designer confronted him over this decision, Khrushchev threw Tupolev’s own
words back in his face, referencing his earlier criticism of Myasishchev’s bombers and his
expressed belief that air defenses could now stop any aircraft. Trying to relive the tension,
Khrushchev jokingly remarked to his old friend, “You have to squeeze over a little.” Tupolev
63
offered no response and their meeting came to an end.100 As the reorientation of industry
deprived them of material and funding, the Soviet Union’s aircraft designers attempted to regain
lost ground by carving out their places in the burgeoning space race. Pavel Tsybin left behind his
work on high-speed aircraft and took up the problem of developing a reusable spaceplane. The
Soviet spaceplane project, which became known as Project Spiral, transited through a number of
hands before its ultimate cancellation. Many design bureaus struggled to quickly repurpose
themselves. The famous Lavochkin bureau and the young Myashichchev bureau sought to make
names for themselves in rocketry. However, Vladimir Chelomei, an ambitious and politically
savvy engineer quickly built a design firm that absorbed both of these prestigious enterprises.
Nikita Khrushchev officially left power on October 14, 1964 as a result of a conspiracy
against him by members of the Central Committee. He was replaced by the ruling tandem of
Leonid Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin. During the Brezhnev years, the aerospace industry lost its
place of prominence in Soviet society. While the late sixties did see the flight of some impressive
new aircraft, these were primarily designs that had been in development since the beginning of
the decade, whose progress had been slowed by technical challenges and lack of funds. To the
Brezhnev government, aviation was no longer seen as a technology that would bring about a
brighter socialist future. In fact, the entire notion that technology would lead to social
improvements became increasingly discredited in the minds of the people as the Soviet Union
entered its so-called stagnation period. Representations of aviation and aviators in cinema
mirrored this changing attitude. The film Mimino by Georgii Danelia turned the aviation hero on
his head. Here the heroic aviator takes the guise of a simple man from rural Georgia who dreams
of finding happiness at the controls of the latest in aerospace design, the Tupolev Tu-144
100
Sergei Khrushchev, Nikita Khrushchev and the Creation of a Superpower (University Park, PA: The
Pennsylvania State University, 2000), 280.
64
Supersonic Transport. Instead, Mimino finds a clumsy bureaucracy that presents obstacles to
progress and eventually discovers that technology has become little more than a façade
concealing a dysfunctional system. In Aleksandr Mitta’s disaster epic Air Crew, we see just how
unglamorous the aviator has become. Once depicted as masters of new technology who stood
apart from the masses, Mitta’s pilots struggle with troubled family lives and a bureaucratic
structure that seems intent on denigrating them. Despite their heroic actions in the film, the
aviators receive no respite from their uninspiring fate.
5.1 Turn toward Space
With Stalin’s death in 1953, and Khrushchev’s consolidation of power, the Soviet aircraft
industry became increasingly marginalized as the new Soviet leader placed ever more faith in the
development of intercontinental ballistic missiles. Beginning with Korolyov’s R-7, long-range
missiles fitted with nuclear warheads became the cornerstone of Soviet defense policy.
Consigned to an increasingly auxiliary role, aviation design bureaus sought to make themselves
more relevant to Khrushchev’s priorities. Designers Vladimir Myasishchev and the
accomplished Semyon Lavochkin quickly turned their attention to rocketry in the hopes of
reclaiming lost prestige and funding. These two bureaus embarked on closely related projects to
design intercontinental cruise missiles as alternatives to Korolyov’s ballistic missiles, which in
their early versions could not be stored in a launch ready condition. Artyom Mikoyan had fared
well under Stalin and his good fortune continued after 1953 as his older brother Anastas, an early
backer of Khrushchev, became a First Deputy Premier in 1955. The legendary Andrei Tupolev,
who was told by Khrushchev to make room for the growing rocket industry, found in
commercial aviation a niche that pleased the Soviet Premier. Pavel Tsybin, whose expertise lay
65
in the design of high-speed airframes and advanced propulsion systems, took up the task of
developing a spaceplane along the lines of the vehicle envisioned in the 1930’s by the German
designers Eugen Sänger and Irene Bredt. The greatest success enjoyed by an aircraft designer
during the Khrushchev period was easily that of Vladimir Chelomei, whose grand visions for the
conquest of space piqued the interest of the excitable premier.
Lavochkin and Myasishchev were two of the earliest Soviet designers to realize that the
survival of their design bureaus was dependent on their successful shift to accommodate the
needs of the growing Strategic Rocket Forces. Lavochkin’s bureau developed the V-300, also
known as the S-25, surface-to-air missile for the nation’s growing air defense network in 1951,
and then took up the task of designing the first Soviet cruise missile in 1953.101 Myasishchev
also began work on an intercontinental cruise missile around this time. These bureaus devised
two-stage launch systems for their respective missiles, which both benefitted from the data
garnered from experiments being conducted at TsAGI. While Lavochkin’s La-350 Buria was
completed first, Myasishchev’s larger M-40 Buran was theoretically capable of carrying a
powerful 3.5 ton thermonuclear warhead.102 The La-350 suffered early problems, but was
performing well by 1959. Myasishchev’s design suffered from a familiar problem, delays in the
availability of the necessary engines. In his memoirs, Nikita Khrushchev recalls that the
intercontinental cruise missile concept was pursued because of evidence that American engineers
were also exploring a similar system and at the time, he felt it wise to hedge his bets by allowing
the two cruise missile concepts to compete with the ballistic missiles of Korolyov and Mikhail
Yangel, whose R-12 medium-range missiles sparked the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The
101
OKB-301 Lavochkin continued to have success with surface-to-air missiles until its namesake’s death, following
the V-300 with the introduction in 1957 of the V-750, also known as the S-75 and SA-2. This later missile is the
missile type that downed Francis Gary Powers’ U-2 spy plane over the Soviet Union in May of 1960.
102
Asif A. Siddiqi, Challenge to Apollo: The Soviet Union and the Space Race, 1945-1974 (Washington, D.C.:
NASA History Division, 2000), 125-27.
66
successful launch of Korolyov’s R-7, carrying the first artificial satellite, Sputnik, in 1957 and
the steady progress from Yangel’s bureau, which resulted in the flight of the Soviet Union’s first
militarily viable ICBM, the R-16 in 1961, led Khrushchev to cancel the advanced missile designs
from the two aviation bureaus.103
In 1954, Pavel Tsybin began work on a ramjet powered strategic bomber, the RS.
Encountering the same difficulties in achieving intercontinental range that had plagued
Myasishchev’s pursuit of long-range and high-speed, Tsybin shifted his attention to the
construction of a supersonic reconnaissance aircraft. Designed some three years before the
equivalent American projects, the Lockheed A-11 and Convair Kingfish, the Tsybin RSR
demonstrated the potential for innovation that resided within the Soviet aviation industry. Only a
turbojet powered prototype was ever flown, and in 1959, the RSR project was cancelled as part
of the transition of aviation resources to rocketry. Korolyov soon approached Tsybin and asked
him to work on a reusable winged space vehicle. With enthusiastic support from the Air Force,
which hoped to regain some of the ground it had lost to the Strategic Rocket Forces, he set to
work designing a craft similar in philosophy to the Sänger-Bredt antipodal bomber concept, a
spaceplane that would skim along the upper atmosphere to deliver its payload to the other side of
the world in a matter of minutes. The United States was also exploring the viability of a similar
craft, the Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar, a fact that further encouraged financial support for Tsybin’s
work. Launched into orbit by a booster rocket, the Tsybin PKA would have been able to orbit for
about a day before reentering the Earth’s atmosphere and gliding down for a landing. Working
with TsAGI, the Tsybin team discovered that the high temperatures of reentry posed a more
daunting challenge than they had at first assumed. With more research needed, a flying prototype
103
Nikita Khrushchev, Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev: Volume 2, Reformer (1945-1964), ed. Sergei Khrushchev,
trans. George Shriver (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006), 461.
67
was not built before Tsybin’s bureau was closed. The project then passed to Myasishchev, who
was eager to find success as his bomber and missile designs had repeatedly failed to gain
Khrushchev’s approval. The Myasishchev M-48 spaceplane was intended to be lifted into orbit
atop a new three-stage rocket, called the M-1, under development at Myasishchev’s bureau,
OKB-23.104 Important innovations in the design of heat shielding were made during work on the
M-48. Lightweight ceramic tiles were developed to protect the craft from the heat of reentry, as
was a new adhesive to hold them in place. Despite the progress made, Myasishchev’s hopes for
the completion of his project were soon dashed by the rapid rise of another ambitious designer
from the aviation industry, Vladimir Chelomei.
Having worked on air-to-ground missiles and the development of the first Soviet pulse-jet
engines during the Second World War, Vladimir Chelomei’s OKB-51 was disbanded by Stalin
shortly before the leader’s death in 1953. The loss of his bureau was the result of political
maneuvering by Artyom Mikoyan. Mikoyan had been vying with Chelomei for an anti-ship
missile project and elected to make use of his friendship with Sergo Beria, the son of Stalin’s
security chief, Lavrentii Beria. In the wake of this setback, Chelomei began a climb that quickly
brought him to extraordinary heights. While out of the aviation industry, he spent time teaching
at Moscow Technical University. During his time at the university, he hit upon the idea of a
missile with wings that would open in flight, thus allowing it to be launched from submarines.105
In 1955, Chelomei met with Nikita Khrushchev and proposed his idea. Impressed with the young
designer, Khrushchev mentioned him to Minister of Defense Bulganin who reacted dismissively
stating that “He showed his project to Stalin once, and Stalin fired him.” Khrushchev responded
104
Asif A. Siddiqi, Sputnik and the Soviet Space Challenge (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2003),
222-23.
105
Khrushchev, Superpower, 276.
68
that, “Stalin didn’t always understand technological problems” and later granted Chelomei a new
design bureau designated OKB-52.106 Three years later he hired Khrushchev’s son, Sergei, as a
deputy department chief. This proved to be a shrewd move that gained Chelomei significant
influence in the defense bureaucracy.107
Chelomei possessed a grand vision for an orbital spaceplane and manned exploration of
the solar system, what he called his Raketoplan and Kosmoplan. He lobbied Khrushchev for
further resources to build a so-called “universal rocket,” the UR-200. When Chelomei presented
his pitch, the premier remarked to the others in the meeting that “He wants to horn in on
Korolyov and Yangel. Well, competition is a good thing, especially since we’ll get an
intercontinental missile out of it.”108 The ministers in attendance ran through the list of aviation
bureaus that could be turned over to Chelomei for the project, finally settling upon
Myasishchev’s OKB-23 located at the excellent factory in Fili. It was pointed out that this would
end Myasishchev’s work on the M-50 supersonic bomber, but this outcome caused little concern
for Khrushchev, and the necessary decree was quickly drawn up. In April of 1960, OKB-23
became the second branch of OKB-52. Thus, the M-48 spaceplane and its accompanying
research passed to Chelomei.109 This was not to be his only high profile acquisition. In June, the
legendary aircraft designer Semyon Lavochkin died of a heart attack. Chelomei swooped quickly
to take advantage of his bureau’s lack of leadership. Though the move was resisted, Lavochkin’s
bureau became branch number three of Chelomei’s new aerospace empire.110 Soon, Chelomei
had managed to become the leader of Soviet space planning, eclipsing the great Sergei Korolyov,
by advocating projects with a clear military connection, while Korolyov remained focused on
106
Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers, 44-45.
Siddiqi, Challenge to Apollo, 227-29.
108
Khrushchev, Superpower, 360.
109
Siddiqi, Challenge to Apollo, 235.
110
Ibid., 300.
107
69
scientific exploration. At one meeting, where Chelomei was presenting his many “universal”
ideas, a disgruntled Korolyov was heard muttering under his breath “Chelomei this, Chelomei
that, Chelomei is taking over everything.”111 OKB-52 did make marginal progress toward a
spaceplane, though most resources were allocated to the development of new ICBMs and
automated satellite reconnaissance systems. In 1965, Chelomei abandoned his work on a winged
spacecraft due to technical and political challenges. The Air Force was still eager to deploy a
military spaceplane and, in an ironic turn, part of Chelomei’s work was once again handed over
to Artyom Mikoyan.112
At MiG, work on the Soviet spaceplane continued under the name Project Spiral.
Mikoyan shifted the design away from a booster launched system to an air launched design
using, a Tu-95 turboprop bomber as a mothership. Significant success in the development of a
lifting body design that could withstand reentry was achieved by MiG. As work on a spaceplane
continued into the Brezhnev years, it garnered support among the Soviet Union’s cosmonauts.
Yuri Gagarin and German Titiov were among those who contributed to these efforts. In October
of 1965, Gagarin, Titov, and four other cosmonauts wrote to Brezhnev to complain about the
direction of the Soviet space program. Resentful that they were not allowed any control of their
spacecraft and concerned that the program appeared to lack direction, the cosmonauts expressed
to the Soviet leader that “We are deeply convinced that resolving the issue of unifying all
military space affairs under the command of the Air Force, the thoughtful planning of space
research, and the construction of spacecraft that would solve the problem of military application
of piloted spacecraft would appreciably strengthen the defensive power of our homeland,” and
111
112
Khrushchev, Memoirs, 467.
Siddiqi, Challenge to Apollo, 442.
70
signed the letter, “Pilots-cosmonauts of the U.S.S.R.”113 Despite this plea, and the involvement at
various times of the Andrei Tupolev and Pavel Sukhoi, who suggested his supersonic T-4
bomber prototype as a potential launching craft for the spaceplane, the soviet space program was
not reorganized in the manner expressed by Gagarin and Titov. When in the late 1970’s the
United States announced its plans for the space shuttle, the Soviet Union responded, not by
building on the groundwork laid by Tsybin, Myasishchev, and others, but by returning again to
the replication of foreign designs.114 The Soviet space shuttle, known as the Buran (or
snowstorm), which flew in 1988, was a significant technical achievement, but it also represented
the decades of lost opportunities for Soviet aerospace to pioneer the future of flight.
5.2 Late Soviet Aviation
Improving the Soviet Union’s air defenses was one of Khrushchev’s top priorities, as
overflights by American spy planes became a major security concern during the 1950’s.
Therefore, air defense became key area of aviation development during these years, as offensive
aviation was replaced by rocket forces. A dedicated air defense force, the PVO Strany, became
an independent branch of the armed services in 1949, and a coequal branch in 1954. Soviet
aircraft designers sough to meet the needs of the PVO Strany in various ways. While Lavochkin
responded by designing a series of very effective surface-to-air missiles, other aviation design
bureaus remained loyal to piloted aircraft, and developed models that pushed the boundaries of
what could be achieved with existing materials and reduced production capacity.
113
Yuri Gagarin et. al. to Leonid Brezhnev, Moscow, October 22, 1965, Encyclopedia Astronautica,
http://www.astronautix.com/details/gagv5335.htm (accessed April 11, 2012).
114
Asif A. Siddiqi, The Soviet Space Race with Apollo (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2003), 837.
71
The Soviet Air Force languished during the Khrushchev years; however, as anticolonial
conflicts began to erupt around the world, military planners began to see a renewed role for
conventional air and ground forces in Soviet military plans. The debate on the future role of air
power split into three main arguments. Marshal A.A. Grechko, who would soon be appointed
Minister of Defense, believed that a modest strategic air force, combined with the Strategic
Rocket Forces and the Navy’s nuclear missile submarines would prove up to the task in any
future war. Marshal P. S. Kutakhov, commander of the Soviet Air Force, disagreed. He
maintained that the Air Force would need to take on an expanded role in any new conflicts. The
third view was that of Major General A. Kravchenko, who felt that air power would play a
minimal role in any coming wars, serving mostly to eliminate particularly mobile targets.
Grechko’s vision of a complimentary role for the strategic air force prevailed for most of the
1960’s and 70’s.115 But, as the escalating Vietnam conflict illustrated most effectively, there
would still be regionally confined conventional wars in the thermonuclear age. This realization
led Khrushchev to alter his position on military aviation; while long-range aviation was still
neglected, medium-range and tactical aircraft received renewed attention. A March 1963 U.S.
national intelligence estimate concluded that there would be no further development of longrange aviation in the Soviet Union for the foreseeable future.116
Aviation policy by end of the Khrushchev period, as well as for much of the Brezhnev
era, emphasized a combined arms approach, which maintained the missile forces as the
centerpiece of the strategic nuclear strike force, but also improved the Air Force’s flexibility, by
ordering new aircraft capable of fighting smaller conventional conflicts. The increasing military
115
Alfred A. Monks, “The Soviet Strategic Air Force and Civil Defense,” in Soviet Aviation and Air Power: A
Historical View, ed. Robin Higham and Jacob Kipp (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, Inc., 1977), 216.
116
U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, Soviet Military Capabilities and Policies, 1962-1967, National Intelligence
Estimate 11-4-63, (1963): 33.
72
strength and assertiveness of the People’s Republic of China after the Sino-Soviet influenced this
decision, as the Soviet Union sought to ensure its continued military preeminence among
Communist nations. In revitalizing its medium-range and tactical forces, the Ministry of Defense
had to balance the need for modernization with the need for greater numbers. Aircraft such as the
MiG-23 fighter and its ground attack derivative the MiG-27, as well as Tupolev’s supersonic
medium-ranged bomber the Tu-22M, represented significant improvements over the types they
replaced, incorporating advancements such as variable geometry wings, copied from the
American F-111 strike aircraft, built by General Dynamics.117
The aircraft that came to symbolize advanced military design in the Soviet Union during
the Cold War was the Mach 3 capable MiG-25 interceptor. The fielding of the Convair B-58 by
the United States Air Force, as well as the development of the experimental North American XB70 bomber and the Lockheed A-11 reconnaissance aircraft, which the Soviets learned of in
March of 1960, led Artyom Mikoyan to propose a countermeasure. His concept for a high-speed
interceptor that could defend against these new American supersonic designs was appealing to
the PVO Strany, and the VVS requested a strategic reconnaissance variant to partially fill the
role that had been foreseen for the Tsybin RSR. In the 1950’s, the Tumanskii engine design
bureau created the R-15B engine. Originally intended to power high-speed cruise missiles, this
engine gave Mikoyan the power necessary to rival the performance achieved by the U.S. In
designing the airframe, Mikoyan looked to the North American A-5, a carrier-based supersonic
attack aircraft. Soviet intelligence had provided him with early design drawings of the American
aircraft. Though other configurations were explored, after thorough testing in TsAGI’s wind
117
Bill Gunston, Tupolev Aircraft since 1922 (London: Putnam Aeronautical Books, 1995), 208.
73
tunnels, the final product that emerged bore a noticeable resemblance to the A-5.118 While the
MiG-25’s shape was not the most original, its construction presented a challenge that at first
seemed beyond the capabilities of Soviet industry. At Mach 3, the temperature of the airflow
over the aircraft would reach in excess of 500º F; however, the duralumin that had been used to
skin previous MiG aircraft would begin to melt at temperatures over 266º Fahrenheit. To solve
this problem, Mikoyan elected to build his interceptor out of tempered steel. This material was
substantially more resilient than duralumin, but also about three times heavier. Thus, every
component on the aircraft had to be made as thin as possible to save weight. While not an
entirely radical or original a design, the creation of the MiG-25 did require a considerable step
forward in the manufacturing techniques of the Soviet aviation industry. The prototype of the
MiG-25 first flew in 1964. The pre-production version, designated the Ye-266, achieved
numerous flight performance world records. In service, the MiG-25, and its later update, the
MiG-31, comprised the cornerstone of Soviet air defenses for decades.119 Equipped with lookdown radar and improved air-to-air missiles, the MiG-25 could defend against both high altitude
attacks, as well as low level intrusions from new American aircraft, such as the F-111 and the
Rockwell B-1 bomber. Initially believed by the west to be an extremely maneuverable fighter of
titanium construction, MiG’s high-speed interceptor inspired the American F-X program, which
led to the development of the McDonnell Douglass F-15 fighter.120 In production for nearly two
decades, the MiG-25, along with the Tupolev Tu-126 AWACS airborne radar platform, formed a
highly effective component of the Soviet air defense network.
118
Bill Gunston and Yefim Gordon, MiG Aircraft since 1937 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998), 201.
R. A. Belyakov and J. Marmain, MiG: Fifty Years of Secret Aircraft Design (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute
Press, 1994), 384-87.
120
U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, New Interceptors Increase Effectiveness of Soviet Air Defense, Intelligence
Report (1969), 6-7.
119
74
5.3 The Fall of the Aviator
After Khrushchev’s ouster, the now significantly reduced Soviet aviation industry
continued along at a steady but unremarkable pace. By now the cultural thaw had been ended as
well; notions of a dynamic discourse on the future direction of Soviet society withered away as
the stagnation era set in. The cultural theme established in Larisa Shepitko’s Wings continued
into the films of the 1970’s. The cinematic aviator was no longer the heroic figure of a Chkalov
or an Astkhov, capable of surmounting challenges and leading the country forward. Instead, this
new breed of flyers sought to escape the confines of the mundane and intimate world of family
life and recapture some of the glory of the past. However, they found that during the Brezhnev
years of bureaucracy and managed public discourse, there was little of either to be had.
Throughout the years, the aviators of Soviet cinema were both the objects of adulation and the
subjects of abuse. In their stories audiences found consolation for their own unfulfilled desires to
escape.
The nearly twenty year rule of Leonid Brezhnev was a time when social progress seemed
to grind to a halt. The Soviet state turned away from Khrushchev era destalinization, and any
significant attempts at social innovation. This, however, was not a simple turn back toward
Stalinism; rather it was an effort to regain a sense of political stability. While the repressive
methods of the past were not fully revisited upon the Soviet people, the stagnation period was
marked by an increase in arrests and efforts to control those who would overtly question the
status quo.121 Though constrained from being openly critical of the state, Soviet filmmakers were
still able to create works that offered viewers an honest take on contemporary life. Soviet cinema
fixed its focus on the more intimate personal lives of characters instead of broader political
121
Shlapentokh, 147.
75
arguments, and so too did the aviation hero. Larisa Shepitko’s use of the character to explore
interpersonal relationships and the question of belonging was repeated by filmmakers of the
1970’s. Now though, the aviator’s efforts to escape had clearly become futile, as they now
inevitably return to point from which they originally departed.
5.4 “Mimino” (1977)
Georgian director Georgii Danelia, well known for I Walk Around Moscow (Ya shagaiu
po Moskve), one the most iconic films of the Thaw, as well as the stagnation era comedy,
Autumn Marathon (Osennii marafon), released in 1977, a comedy that presented a new kind of
aviation hero, Mimino.122 Winner of that year’s Golden Prize at the Moscow International Film
Festival, Mimino tells the story of a rural Georgian helicopter pilot who dreams of moving to
Moscow to fly modern jets. Vakhtang Kikabidze plays the titular hero, Mimino (Georgian for
falcon), and presents to the audience a fairly unique interpretation of the cinematic Soviet
aviator, especially when contrasted with the “falcons” of the past. Mimino, whose actual name is
Valentin Konstantinovich Mizandari (or Valiko for short), is a charming, folksy, and nonRussian aviation hero who seeks to rise higher and escape from the mire of village life into the
perceived freedom of city life and international travel. Mimino journeys to Moscow to pursue his
dream, and through this process witnesses the wide-spread low-level corruption that permeated
the Brezhnev era bureaucracy. Though a comedy, Mimino distinguishes itself from other films of
the same genre by presenting a well-crafted moral critique of contemporary Soviet society.123
Through this moralistic approach, the instruments of the state are shown as bearing the bulk of
122
123
Georgii Danelia, dir., Mimino, DVD (1977; Moscow: RUSCICO, 2004).
David Gillespie, Russian Cinema (Harlow, England: Longman, 2003), 50.
76
the blame for the deficiencies in Soviet society.124 Mimino is able, with the help of his new
friend Rubik Hachikian (Frunzik Mkrtchyan), an Armenian truck driver, to surmount the hurdles
of metropolitan life and the overbearing bureaucracy and become a pilot for Aeroflot.
Through an unlikely turn of events, Valiko achieves his goal of piloting the Tu-144
supersonic transport. However, Mimino finds this new world uncomfortable and he begins to
reminisce about his life back in Georgia. On a layover in West Berlin, we witness the distance in
his relationships with his colleagues. It bears no resemblance to the true friendship he enjoyed
with Hachikian while in Moscow. He journeys alone to the Europa-Center Mall, where he
purchases a gift that his friend Rubik had been searching for, and then heads to the telephone
office to call him. Valiko is told that it is impossible to make a call to the small Armenian town
of Dilijan. He then asks if he can call his home village Telavi. The woman at the counter tells
him it is possible, but it turns out that she didn’t understand him and instead has dialed a number
in Tel-Aviv, Israel. By chance the man who answers the phone, Isaac, is also a Georgian, from
Kutaisi. They sing a folk song together and this brings back images of his mountain village
home. On the return flight to Moscow, Valentin serves as copilot. The captain remarks that, “It
must be great in the mountains now,” to which Valiko replies, “Nothing Special,” he then asks to
leave the cockpit. Back in the galley with Katya, a flight attendant, he attempts to open a bottle
using the countertop. Katya chides him for not using an opener which results in the even-keeled
Mimino losing his temper. He is immediately apologetic after this outburst. “I didn’t mean it.
What should I do to make up for it? Do you want me to jump off the plane?” Katya replies that
she does not and Valiko heads back toward the cockpit. After a few strides he turns and says,
“But I want to.” His escape has not brought him fulfillment. Now he realizes that no matter how
124
Shlapentokh, 149-50.
77
far he can fly, there will always be something pulling back to the warm relationships of his rural
life back in Georgia. In the end, Mimino returns to his family in his old helicopter, having
accepted the futility of escape.
5.5 “Air Crew” (1980)
In the latter years of the Brezhnev era, the Soviet film industry belatedly began to show
an interest in the big budget blockbuster films that had long been a specialty of Hollywood. The
blockbusters of the late seventies and early eighties were a departure from the typical genres of
Soviet cinema. Exotic adventures, spy thrillers, and disaster movies may have been lacking in
artistic merit, but the record audience numbers testify to the fact that these films fulfilled a latent
desire among Soviet moviegoers. The most popular of these films was Boris Durov’s Pirates of
the Twentieth Century (Piraty XX veka). Released in 1979, this high-seas adventure brought in
87 million viewers. Attracting a very impressive 70 million viewers, Aleksandr Mitta’s Air Crew
(Ekipazh) debuted the following year.125 This first Soviet disaster movie was clearly influenced
by the successful American Airport films of the late 1970’s. Yet Air Crew, like Minino, is not
empty entertainment. In the first half of the film we experience the private lives of the pilots who
will later be imperiled by a natural disaster. Captain Andrei Timchenko (Georgii Zhzhyonov)
faces a struggle with the generation gap between himself and his daughter Natasha (Galina
Gladkova), as well as questions of belonging, which are reminiscent of Shepitko’s Petrukhina.
Timchenko is facing the prospect of being grounded because of his now advanced age;
meanwhile, his unmarried daughter is struggling with an unexpected pregnancy that strains their
relationship. Valentin Nenarokov (Anatoli Vasilev) is a fellow pilot and old acquaintance of
125
Beumers, 181; Aleksandr Mitta, dir., Air Crew (Ekipazh), DVD (1980; Moscow: RUSCICO, 2000).
78
Timchenko’s, they once flew Ilyushin Il-18s together. Nenarokov gave up that life and his career
prospects to be with his wife, Alevtina (Irina Akulova). Years later, he is now trapped in an
unsatisfying marriage and is torn between his desire to escape the torments of his wife, who
comes across as quite disturbed, and his love for his young son, who is trying to overcome a
severe speech impediment.
In the characters of Air Crew, the aviation hero is thoroughly humbled by the mire of
Soviet bureaucracy and the tumult of modern family life. Valentin separates from Alevtina, but
the court awards his wife custody. Distressed, he takes his son from school and brings him to the
airport. Nenorokov’s ex-wife finds them there in the terminal. During their confrontation he tells
her, “I used to fly a different sky! Whenever I see a passenger plane, I think of all my lost
opportunities. I’d be flying Il-62s by now!” Indeed his career has suffered because of his choice
to marry Alevtina. Currently, he is employed as a helicopter pilot. His old friend Timchenko uses
his seniority to pull some strings with the airline to get Valentin assigned as his new copilot.
After dealing with domestic dramas for much of the film, these aviators are deployed on one last
adventure. A natural disaster has stuck the fictional city of Bidri. Oil workers and their families
are in need of aid and evacuation. For these characters this relief mission to an earthquake
stricken Middle Eastern city is an escape from their depressing realities at home. As they depart
Bidri with a planeload of refugees, they discover that their Tupolev Tu-154 has been critically
damaged. With nowhere to land the crew attempts a daring mid-air repair that just manages to
get them home.126 This brief moment of glory, which harkened back to the days of the celebrated
aviation hero, proves to be a fleeting escape from the mundanity of contemporary Soviet life.
Timchenko is grounded for health reasons and Nenarokov begins the slow process of rebuilding
126
Ibid., 182.
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his life and career now that his family has left him. This final triumph of the Soviet aviation hero
only serves to make all the more clear the impossibility of escape. The hope of freedom that the
skies once appeared to offer has been exposed as an illusion.
5.6 Conclusion
As the rewards for innovation in aircraft design became few and far between, design
bureaus looked toward rocketry and spaceflight as avenues through which they could once again
become leaders of Soviet technological development. However, the established leaders in
aviation struggled to find success in this new field. The politically savvy Chelomei surpassed his
more senior brethren from the aviation industry and even wrested the reigns of Soviet space
policy away from Korolyov. The bureaus and factories that remained in the aviation industry
continued the process of incremental improvements in frontline aircraft which, while affordable,
allowed the state of Soviet aviation to fall behind the west. New aircraft were produced after
Brezhnev began to dramatically increase military spending in the early 1970’s, but these were
largely copies of recent American designs. Thus, the government’s policy reverted to the
copying of the early years of Soviet aviation. Much of the progress, innovation, and experience
gained during the first two post-war decades had been lost through neglect and reallocation of
resources. Cultural representations of aviators echoed this sad state. In Mimino and Air Crew, the
stature of the pilot has been reduced from pride to humility. Valiko finds that mastering the latest
in aviation technology does not bring real progress or fulfillment, and Timchenko’s crew learns
that flights of heroism garner little in the way of rewards. Aviation carried on in the late Soviet
Union, but it had lost all pretenses of leading the way to a new and better tomorrow.
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CHAPTER SIX
CONCLUSION
This study helps to place Stalin Era technology policy in historical context. While
scholars have examined the organization, growth, and political role of aviation under Stalin, few
have sought to trace the legacy of this system through the Cold War years. By including an
analysis of aviation in Soviet cinema over the course of this same period, a greater understanding
of the cultural and social impact of aviation can be uncovered. Not only is the material reality of
the Soviet aviation industry explored, but so too is the evolving public perception of the place
and prominence of aviation technology. What is seen is that the Stalinist drive for legitimacy
through technology and for the invention of a new type of citizen in image of the “falcon,” is
eroded by a post-war turn away from revolutionary struggle, as well as the increasing sense that
new technology was little more than a façade obscuring a system that remained resistant to social
reform. What is also revealed is that, in the aviation sector, the Soviet command economy did
not prevent innovation. The state aerodynamic research infrastructure, in particular, provided
design bureaus with a steady stream of new concepts to implement. Designers vied with one
another to produce superior aircraft, both to gain prestige within the industrial hierarchy and to
test what Soviet science and technology could achieve. Up until its loss of resources under
Khrushchev, aviation in the Soviet Union had progressed at an impressive pace. In the early Cold
War years, the rate of Soviet aircraft development compared favorably with that of American
aircraft. Thus, while replication and adaptation were the hallmarks of most of the history of
Soviet aviation, there was a time when the industry moved beyond mere copying.
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The intersection of technological and social policy seen within aviation in the Soviet
Union, that has been explored here, merits further examination. This work contributes to a larger
dialog on the role of technology in building state legitimacy. Clearly, technologies such as the
airplane, the automobile, and electricity were seen as important indicators of progress by the
Soviet leadership; such progress “validated” the wisdom of the planned economy. Building on
the research in this study will yield a greater understanding of the role of public feats of
technological progress in garnering and maintaining support for the government in non-market
systems. Did Stalinism require demonstrable technological developments in order to establish
and maintain public support? How much did growing apathy toward large-scale demonstrations
of technology contribute to popular disillusionment with the Soviet central government? The
sense of nostalgia exhibited by the cinematic aviators of the sixties and seventies suggests that
something vital was lost by Soviet society in the post-Stalin years. These fond recollections of
the past and the desire to recapture the feelings of excitement and purpose, which had long since
vanished from the lives of the late-Soviet aviation heroes, raises the larger question: was there,
among some Soviet citizens, a longing for the rapid technological advances of Stalin’s day? And
if so, how did this feeling shape their views of The Thaw and later efforts at reform? Finally, to
what extent did spaceflight and the cosmonauts fill the roles that aircraft and the aviation hero
had previously occupied in reinforcing Soviet rule and educating the population?
The history of Soviet aviation is not nearly the triumphal tale that it may appear to be at
first glance. Yet, neither is it simply the story of a technology and an industry that never
amounted to more than a convincing approximation of its western rivals. The development of
aeronautical science and an aviation industry were early priorities for the young Soviet state. The
conquest of the skies fulfilled one of humankind’s oldest dreams, and such feats only served to
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reinforce the legitimacy of the revolutionary government and the notion that they were building a
genuinely new kind of society. Stalin’s rise came about during the Golden Age of aviation. With
records being set and then quickly broken, aviation captured headlines around the world. The
Soviet leader quickly and enthusiastically took hold of this technology as a means to justify his
dramatic and transformational policies. The aviator, a character that carried little legacy of the
Tsarist Era, became a means through which the state could convey to the people its vision for a
new kind of man and the new world in which he would reside. The stories of pilots such as
Chkalov were real-life parables of Stalinist virtue and their lessons were disseminated to the
masses through the equally new medium of the cinema.
Early Soviet aviation relied heavily on the assimilation of foreign technology. There had
been little in the way of an aircraft industry under the Tsar, and Russia’s small industrial base
was ill prepared to satisfy the demands of a modern Air Force. With the rapid growth of industry
during Stalin’s Five-Year Plans came a concerted effort to learn from American and European
designers and manufacturers. These lessons greatly accelerated the pace at which Soviet aviation
advanced. Foreign techniques and innovations were adapted to fulfill the needs of the Air Force
during the Second World War, resulting in highly capable designs from Tupolev, Yakovlev,
Ilyushin, and Lavochkin. In the immediate aftermath of the war, this pattern of copying
continued as the B-29 became the Tu-4 and Sukhoi and Ilyushin built modified versions of
captured German designs; however, this period was short lived. In the early years of the Cold
War, Soviet aviation began to make its first independent strides. Younger designers, such as
Myasishchev and Tsybin, began testing the limits of aerospace technology. At times, the
researchers of TsAGI were at the forefront of high-speed aerodynamics and their discoveries
permitted Soviet aircraft to fulfill the mandate to fly “farther, faster, and higher.”
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This period of tremendous possibility and rapid advancement was not destined to last.
While Stalin had continued to press his aviation industry just as hard and just as ruthlessly after
the war as he had before, his successors quickly reoriented the focus of Soviet technological
development in other directions. The advent of intercontinental ballistic missiles usurped the
airplane’s role as the long-range weapon of choice, and the needs of the agricultural and light
industrial sectors placed mounting pressure on the Soviet Union’s limited capital base.
Convinced that nuclear weapons had made significant conventional conflicts a thing of the past,
Khrushchev shifted production resources away from aviation at a time when the country’s
aircraft designers were finally beginning to make original contributions to the state of the art in
aerospace technology.
The pilots of the Soviet screen also endured a similar fate. The “falcons” of the Stalinist
Era initially provided a means to reexamine the traumatic period that ended in 1953. In Clear
Skies, the Chkalov stand-in, Astakhov, is forced to confront the injustice and flawed reasoning of
the system that had crafted him. Despite the difficulty in coming to terms with this truth,
Astakhov still feels that he has a leading place in the progress of society. Soon though,
Petrukhina of Wings and her successors demonstrated that the cinematic aviator’s days of glory
had past. As the flyers on screen were questioning their place in this new Soviet reality, the
designers of the nation’s aircraft were reassigned, and their most innovative projects abandoned.
Later efforts to modernize the Soviet Air Force found the aircraft industry on the back foot, and
the old practice of copying was quickly resumed.
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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Christopher Zakroff earned his B.A. in History with higher honors from Florida Gulf
Coast University in the spring of 2011. While completing his undergraduate education,
Christopher presented papers at the 50th Annual Meeting of the Florida Conference of Historians
and at the Historical Memory Foundation’s conference of 2010 in Moscow, Russia. In the fall of
2011, he began his graduate studies in Russian and East European Studies at Florida State
University with a departmental assistantship. Christopher spent the summer of 2012 in Russia
studying at Moscow State University; in support of this, he was awarded a Dean’s Scholarship
from the College of Social Sciences and Public Policy.
Christopher’s research interests include Russian and Soviet history, history of
technology, economic history, Soviet cinema, and the interaction of technology and culture.
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