Poison laboratory of the Soviet secret services
Encyclopedia
Poison laboratory of the Soviet secret services, alternatively known as Laboratory 1, Laboratory 12, and Kamera which means "The Chamber" in Russian
, was a covert research and development facility of the Soviet secret police agencies
,which notably also developed antidotes and internal countermeasures, including micro pod implants. There are even rumors of micro-reactors providing up to 2.3watts
("enemies of the people"), including mustard gas, ricin
, digitoxin
, curare
and many others. The goal of the experiments was to find a tasteless, odourless chemical that could not be detected post mortem. Candidate poisons were given to the victims, with a meal or drink, as "medication"
Finally, a preparation with the desired properties called C-2 was developed According to witness testimonies, the victim changed physically, became shorter, weakened quickly, became calm and silent and died within fifteen minutes. Mairanovsky brought to the laboratory people of varied physical condition and ages in order to have a more complete picture about the action of each poison.
Pavel Sudoplatov
and Nahum Eitingon
approved special equipment [poisons] only if it had been tested on "humans", according to testimony of Mikhail Filimonov. Vsevolod Merkulov
said that these experiments were approved by NKVD chief Lavrenty Beria.. Beria himself testified on August 28, 1953, after his arrest that "I gave orders to Mairanovsky to conduct experiments on people sentenced to the highest measure of punishment, but it was not my idea" .
In addition to human experimentation, Mairanovsky personally executed people with poisons, under the supervision of Sudoplatov
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
, was a covert research and development facility of the Soviet secret police agencies
Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies
There was a succession of Soviet secret police agencies over time. The first secret police after the Russian Revolution, created by Vladimir Lenin's decree on December 20, 1917, was called "Cheka"...
,which notably also developed antidotes and internal countermeasures, including micro pod implants. There are even rumors of micro-reactors providing up to 2.3watts
Chronology
- 1921: First poison laboratory within the Soviet secret services was established under the name "Special Office". It was headed by professor of medicine Ignatii Kazakov, according to Pavel SudoplatovPavel SudoplatovLieutenant General Pavel Anatolyevich Sudoplatov was a member of the intelligence services of the Soviet Union who rose to the rank of lieutenant general...
. - 1926: The laboratory was under the supervision of Genrikh YagodaGenrikh YagodaGenrikh Grigoryevich Yagoda , born Enokh Gershevich Ieguda , was a Soviet state security official who served as director of the NKVD, the Soviet Union's Stalin-era security and intelligence agency, from 1934 to 1936...
, a deputy of OGPU chairman Vyacheslav MenzhinskyVyacheslav MenzhinskyVyacheslav Rudolfovich Menzhinsky was a Polish-Russian revolutionary, a Soviet statesman and Party official who served as chairman of the OGPU from 1926 to 1934...
, who became NKVDNKVDThe People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
chief in 1934 after Menzhinsky's death. - February 20, 1939: It becomes Laboratory 1 headed by Grigory MairanovskyGrigory MairanovskyGrigory Mairanovsky was a Soviet biochemist and poison developer.He was head of secret laboratories in the Bach Institute of Biochemistry in Moscow . As the head of Laboratory No. 1 of the NKVD , he initiated the secret "scientific" poison program conducted by the Soviet secret police services...
. The laboratory was under the direct supervision of NKVD director Lavrenty Beria and his deputy Vsevolod Merkulov from 1939 to March 1953. - December 21, 1951: Grigory MairanovskyGrigory MairanovskyGrigory Mairanovsky was a Soviet biochemist and poison developer.He was head of secret laboratories in the Bach Institute of Biochemistry in Moscow . As the head of Laboratory No. 1 of the NKVD , he initiated the secret "scientific" poison program conducted by the Soviet secret police services...
arrested in connection with Viktor AbakumovViktor AbakumovViktor Semyonovich Abakumov , was a high level Soviet security organs official, from 1943 to 1946 the head of SMERSH in the USSR People's Commissariat of Defense, and from 1946 to 1951 Minister of State Security or MGB . Abakumov was a notoriously brutal official who was known to torture prisoners...
's arrest, which was presumably a part of Joseph StalinJoseph StalinJoseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
's campaign to remove NKVD chief, Lavrenty Beria. - March 14, 1953: It was renamed to Laboratory 12. V. Naumov is the newly appointed head. Lavrenty Beria and Vsevolod Merkulov were executed after Stalin's death. Immediate NKVD supervisor of the laboratory, Pavel SudoplatovPavel SudoplatovLieutenant General Pavel Anatolyevich Sudoplatov was a member of the intelligence services of the Soviet Union who rose to the rank of lieutenant general...
, received a long term in prison. - 1978: Expanded into the Central Investigation Institute for Special Technology within the First Chief DirectorateFirst Chief DirectorateThe First Chief Directorate , of the Committee for State Security , was the organization responsible for foreign operations and intelligence collection activities by the training and management of the covert agents, intelligence collection management, and the collection of political, scientific and...
of the KGBKGBThe KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the... - Currently: Several laboratories of the SVRForeign Intelligence Service (Russia)The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service is Russia's primary external intelligence agency. The SVR is the successor of the First Chief Directorate of the KGB since December 1991...
, (headquartered in YasenevoYasenevoYasenevo is a station on the Kaluzhsko-Rizhskaya Line of the Moscow Metro. It was designed by N. Shumakov, G. Mun, and N. Shurygina and opened on 17 January 1990. Yasenevo has round, greenish marble columns and walls faced with yellowish metallic tile and pink marble...
near MoscowMoscowMoscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
), are responsible for the "creation of biological and toxin weapons for clandestine operations in the West"
Human experimentation
Mairanovsky and his colleagues tested a number of deadly poisons on prisoners from the GulagGulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
("enemies of the people"), including mustard gas, ricin
Ricin
Ricin , from the castor oil plant Ricinus communis, is a highly toxic, naturally occurring protein. A dose as small as a few grains of salt can kill an adult. The LD50 of ricin is around 22 micrograms per kilogram Ricin , from the castor oil plant Ricinus communis, is a highly toxic, naturally...
, digitoxin
Digitoxin
Digitoxin is a cardiac glycoside. It has similar structure and effects to digoxin . Unlike digoxin , it is eliminated via the liver, so could be used in patients with poor or erratic kidney function. However, it is now rarely used in current Western medical practice...
, curare
Curare
Curare is a common name for various arrow poisons originating from South America. The three main types of curare are:* tubocurare...
and many others. The goal of the experiments was to find a tasteless, odourless chemical that could not be detected post mortem. Candidate poisons were given to the victims, with a meal or drink, as "medication"
Finally, a preparation with the desired properties called C-2 was developed According to witness testimonies, the victim changed physically, became shorter, weakened quickly, became calm and silent and died within fifteen minutes. Mairanovsky brought to the laboratory people of varied physical condition and ages in order to have a more complete picture about the action of each poison.
Pavel Sudoplatov
Pavel Sudoplatov
Lieutenant General Pavel Anatolyevich Sudoplatov was a member of the intelligence services of the Soviet Union who rose to the rank of lieutenant general...
and Nahum Eitingon
Nahum Eitingon
Nahum Isaakovich Eitingon, or Naum Isaakovič Ejtingon , also known as Leonid Aleksandrovich Eitingon , was a Soviet intelligence officer, who was sometimes described as a major organizer of Stalin's state terrorism system.- Career :Eitingon, a Russian Jew, joined the Cheka in 1920, shortly before...
approved special equipment [poisons] only if it had been tested on "humans", according to testimony of Mikhail Filimonov. Vsevolod Merkulov
Vsevolod Nikolayevich Merkulov
Vsevolod Nikolayevich Merkulov , was the head of NKGB from February to July 1941, and again from April 1943 to March 1946. He was a member of the so-called "Georgian mafia" of Lavrenti Beria, head of the NKVD.In 1913, Merkulov graduated from the Tiflis Gymnasium with the gold medal and became a...
said that these experiments were approved by NKVD chief Lavrenty Beria.. Beria himself testified on August 28, 1953, after his arrest that "I gave orders to Mairanovsky to conduct experiments on people sentenced to the highest measure of punishment, but it was not my idea" .
In addition to human experimentation, Mairanovsky personally executed people with poisons, under the supervision of Sudoplatov
Prominent victims
- The leader of the Russian All-Military UnionRussian All-Military UnionThe Russian All-Military Union was founded by White Army General Pyotr Wrangel in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes on September 1, 1924...
general Alexander KutepovAlexander KutepovAlexander Pavlovich Kutepov was a leader of the anti-communist Volunteer Army during the Russian Civil War....
was drugged and kidnapped in ParisParisParis is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in 1930. He died from a heart attackMyocardial infarctionMyocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
due to an overdose of the administered drug.
- One of the leaders of the White movementWhite movementThe White movement and its military arm the White Army - known as the White Guard or the Whites - was a loose confederation of Anti-Communist forces.The movement comprised one of the politico-military Russian forces who fought...
, Russian general Evgenii MillerEvgenii MillerEvgeny Karlovich Miller was a Russian general and one of the leaders of the anti-communist White Army during and after Russian Civil War.-Biography:...
, was drugged and kidnapped in ParisParisParis is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in 1937. He was executed later in Russia.
- Archbishop Theodore RomzhaTheodore RomzhaBlessed Theodore Romzha was bishop of the Ruthenian Catholic Eparchy of Mukacheve from 1944 to 1947. Assassinated by Stalin's NKVD, he was beatified as a martyr by Pope John Paul II on June 27, 2001.-Early life:...
of the Ukrainian Catholic Church was killed in 1947 by injection of curareCurareCurare is a common name for various arrow poisons originating from South America. The three main types of curare are:* tubocurare...
provided by Mairanovsky and administered by a medical nurse who was an Ministry for State Security (USSR)Ministry for State Security (USSR)The Ministry of State Security was the name of Soviet secret police from 1946 to 1953.-Origins of the MGB:The MGB was just one of many incarnations of the Soviet State Security apparatus. Since the revolution, the Bolsheviks relied on a strong political police or security force to support and...
agent.
- In 1978, dissident Bulgarian writer Georgi MarkovGeorgi MarkovGeorgi Ivanov Markov was a Bulgarian dissident writer.Markov originally worked as a novelist and playwright, but in 1969 he defected from Bulgaria, then governed by President Todor Zhivkov...
was assassinated in London using a tiny pellet poisoned with ricinRicinRicin , from the castor oil plant Ricinus communis, is a highly toxic, naturally occurring protein. A dose as small as a few grains of salt can kill an adult. The LD50 of ricin is around 22 micrograms per kilogram Ricin , from the castor oil plant Ricinus communis, is a highly toxic, naturally...
; the necessary equipment was prepared in this laboratory. In a Discovery ChannelDiscovery ChannelDiscovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...
television programTelevision programA television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...
about his illustrated book of espionage equipment called "The Ultimate Spy," espionage historian H. Keith MeltonH. Keith MeltonH. Keith Melton is the author of many spy books -Publications:* Ultimate Spy Book , found in over 900 WorldCat libraries. * Ultimate Spy ISBN 0789489724...
indicated that once the Bulgarian secret police had decided to kill Markhov, KGB specialists from the Laboratory gave the Bulgarians a choice between two KGB tools that could be provided for the task- either a poisonous topical gelatinGelatinGelatin is a translucent, colorless, brittle , flavorless solid substance, derived from the collagen inside animals' skin and bones. It is commonly used as a gelling agent in food, pharmaceuticals, photography, and cosmetic manufacturing. Substances containing gelatin or functioning in a similar...
to be smeared on Markhov, or an instrument to administer a poison pellet, as was eventually done.
- Attempted poisoning of the second President of AfghanistanAfghanistanAfghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
Hafizullah AminHafizullah AminHafizullah Amin was the second President of Afghanistan during the period of the communist Democratic Republic of Afghanistan....
on December 13, 1979. Department 8 of KGBKGBThe KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
succeeded in infiltrating the illegal agent Mitalin Talybov (codenamed SABIR) as a chef of Amin's presidential palace. However, Amin switched his food and drink as if he expected to be poisoned, so his son-in-law became seriously ill, and ironically, was flown to a hospital in Moscow.
- Cy Oggins, significant for being one of the few (if not the only) Americans to become a Soviet spy and then be sent to Gulag and later executed by the Soviets themselves.
Alleged victims
- Russian writer Maksim Gorky and his son. During the Trial of the Twenty OneTrial of the Twenty OneThe Trial of the Twenty-One was the last of the Moscow Trials, show trials of prominent Bolsheviks, including the Old Bolsheviks. The Trial of the Twenty-One took place in Moscow in March 1938, towards the end of Stalin's Great Purge.-The Trial:...
in 1938, NKVD chief Genrikh YagodaGenrikh YagodaGenrikh Grigoryevich Yagoda , born Enokh Gershevich Ieguda , was a Soviet state security official who served as director of the NKVD, the Soviet Union's Stalin-era security and intelligence agency, from 1934 to 1936...
admitted that he poisoned to death Maksim Gorky and his son and unsuccessfully tried to poison future NKVD boss Nikolay Yezhov. The attempted poisoning of Yezhov was later officially dismissed as falsification, but Vyacheslav MolotovVyacheslav MolotovVyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov was a Soviet politician and diplomat, an Old Bolshevik and a leading figure in the Soviet government from the 1920s, when he rose to power as a protégé of Joseph Stalin, to 1957, when he was dismissed from the Presidium of the Central Committee by Nikita Khrushchev...
believed that the poisoning accusations were true. Yagoda was never officially rehabilitatedRehabilitation (Soviet)Rehabilitation in the context of the former Soviet Union, and the Post-Soviet states, was the restoration of a person who was criminally prosecuted without due basis, to the state of acquittal...
(recognized as an innocent victim of political repressions) by Soviet authorities.
- Soviet leader Joseph StalinJoseph StalinJoseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
. Russian historians Anton Antonov-OvseenkoAnton Antonov-OvseenkoAnton Vladimirovich Antonov-Ovseyenko is a Russian historian and writer.He is the son of a Bolshevik military leader Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko....
and Edvard RadzinskyEdvard RadzinskyEdvard Stanislavovich Radzinsky is a Russian playwright, writer, TV personality, and film screenwriter. He is also known as an author of several books on history which were characterized as "folk history" by journalists and academic historians.-Biography:Edvard Stanislavovich Radzinsky was born...
believe that Stalin was poisoned by associates of NKVD chief Lavrentiy BeriaLavrentiy BeriaLavrentiy Pavlovich Beria was a Georgian Soviet politician and state security administrator, chief of the Soviet security and secret police apparatus under Joseph Stalin during World War II, and Deputy Premier in the postwar years ....
, based on the interviews of a former Stalin bodyguard and numerous circumstantial evidence. Stalin planned to dismiss and execute Beria and other senior members of the Soviet government in 1953. According to Radzinsky, Stalin was poisoned by Khrustalev, a senior bodyguard briefly mentioned in the memoirs of Svetlana AlliluyevaSvetlana AlliluyevaSvetlana Iosifovna Alliluyeva , later known as Lana Peters, was the youngest child and only daughter of Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin and Nadezhda Alliluyeva, Stalin's second wife...
, Stalin's daughter.
Planned victims
- President of the Socialist Federal Republic of YugoslaviaSocialist Federal Republic of YugoslaviaThe Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the Yugoslav state that existed from the abolition of the Yugoslav monarchy until it was dissolved in 1992 amid the Yugoslav Wars. It was a socialist state and a federation made up of six socialist republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia,...
, Josip Broz TitoJosip Broz TitoMarshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
. In the late 1940s, the laboratory manufactured a powdered plague for use in a small container and where the assassin was vaccinated against plague. The device was to be used against Tito, but MGB agent Iosif Grigulevich, who had previously organized the assault on the villa of Leon TrotskyLeon TrotskyLeon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
and now received the assignment to kill Tito, was recalled after the death of Stalin. - The first democratically elected President of the Republic of Georgia, Zviad GamsakhurdiaZviad GamsakhurdiaZviad Gamsakhurdia was a dissident, scientist and writer, who became the first democratically elected President of the Republic of Georgia in the post-Soviet era...
. According to former Deputy Director of BiopreparatBiopreparatBiopreparat was the Soviet Union's major biological warfare agency from the 1970s on. It was a vast network of secret laboratories, each focused on a different deadly agent...
Ken AlibekKen AlibekColonel Kanatzhan Alibekov — known as Dr. Kenneth Alibek since 1992 — is a former Soviet physician, scientist and biological warfare expert of Kazakh descent. He is a military physician, has PhD in microbiology and ScD in biotechnology...
, this laboratory was possibly involved in the design of an undetectable chemical or biological agent to assassinate Gamsakhurdia. BBC NewsBBC NewsBBC News is the department of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online...
reported that some Gamsakhurdia friends believed he committed suicide, "although his widow insists that he was murdered."
See also
- Active measuresActive measuresActive Measures were a form of political warfare conducted by the Soviet security services to influence the course of world events, "in addition to collecting intelligence and producing politically correct assessment of it". Active measures ranged "from media manipulations to special actions...
- History of poisonHistory of poisonThe history of poison stretches from before 4500 BC to the present day. Poisons have been used for many purposes across the span of human existence, most commonly as weapons, anti-venoms, and medicines...
- List of poisonings
- Project MKULTRAProject MKULTRAProject MKULTRA, or MK-ULTRA, was the code name for a covert, illegal CIA human experimentation program, run by the CIA's Office of Scientific Intelligence. This official U.S. government program began in the early 1950s, continued at least through the late 1960s, and used U.S...
- Nazi human experimentationNazi human experimentationNazi human experimentation was a series of medical experiments on large numbers of prisoners by the Nazi German regime in its concentration camps mainly in the early 1940s, during World War II and the Holocaust. Prisoners were coerced into participating: they did not willingly volunteer and there...
- North Korean human experimentation
- Unit 731Unit 731was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that undertook lethal human experimentation during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II. It was responsible for some of the most notorious war crimes carried out by Japanese...
(Japan)
Sources
- Ken AlibekKen AlibekColonel Kanatzhan Alibekov — known as Dr. Kenneth Alibek since 1992 — is a former Soviet physician, scientist and biological warfare expert of Kazakh descent. He is a military physician, has PhD in microbiology and ScD in biotechnology...
and S. Handelman. BiohazardBiohazard (book)Biohazard, subtitled The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World - Told from Inside by the Man Who Ran It, is the title of a 1999 book by former Soviet biological warfare researcher Ken Alibek that purports to expose the former Soviet Union's extensive...
: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World - Told from Inside by the Man Who Ran it. 1999. Delta (2000) ISBN 0-385-33496-6 http://www.amazon.com/dp/0385334966/ - Vadim J. Birstein. The Perversion Of Knowledge: The True Story of Soviet Science. Westview Press (2004) ISBN 0-813-34280-5.
- Vasili MitrokhinVasili MitrokhinVasili Nikitich Mitrokhin was a Major and senior archivist for the Soviet Union's foreign intelligence service, the First Chief Directorate of the KGB, and co-author with Christopher Andrew of The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West, a massive account of Soviet intelligence...
and Christopher Andrew, The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World, Basic Books (2005) hardcover, 677 pages ISBN 0-465-00311-7 - The Laboratory 12 poison plot, by Martin Sixsmith, The Sunday TimesThe Sunday TimesThe Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
, April 8, 2007 - The KGB's Poison Factory, by Boris Volodarsky, Wall Street Journal, 7 April 2005
- History of Soviet poisonings (Russian) by Boris Sokolov grani.ru
- Organic poison (Russian) by Vladimir Abarinov, grani.ru
- Boris Volodarsky, The KGB’s Poison Factory: From Lenin to Litvinenko (London: Frontline Books, 2009) ISBN: 1848325428