The organized technological production of chemical agents was terrible from the standpoint of technical safety. In Natalia’s own words, faces and hands were burned in the mustard gas-producing section. When workers removed their gas masks or gloves, their skin was burned by mustard gas vapors. Also, they unfortunately did not know that the mustard gas vapor in the air percolated through rubber. When the artillery shells were missing some mustard gas and needed topping off, it was customary to refill them from a tea kettle.
There were many victims in such a system. The number of catastrophes multiplied during the war years when work on CW production was intensified, though the technology and the low level of safety standards remained unchanged. In order to make up for the shortage of workers in the plant, they once brought in soldiers from Uzbekistan. Those soldiers had no idea whatsoever about chemical technology, and they were completely unsuitable for work in the factory. Since their only experience was in their kishlaks (small villages in Central Asia), almost all of them without exception became victims of this horrible production process.
Finally Moscow was forced to respond in some way, so they sent a commission to investigate, which was chaired by the Deputy Minister of Chemical Industry, according to Natalia. As usual, they adopted some organizational measures to bring about changes to the leadership. However, they could not bring about the essential changes needed.
Another large laboratory existed in GOSNIIOKhT for the development of the production technology of tearing agents (lachrymators), which was headed up for a long time by Arkady Gribov (M.S. in Chemical Science), who later replaced Sergei Smirnov. I collaborated with this laboratory during almost all of the 26 years I worked at GOSNIIOKhT.
I worked with my assistants Boris Dubin and Olga Golubeva, developing methods for the determination of micro-concentrations of the agents CS and CR in different media. This included analysis of the air and water that had supplied the start-up of the corresponding experimental pilot plants for the production of these agents. We also researched methods of analysis of the precursors of the developed irritants.
Gribov was a good organizer and distinguished himself by his purposefulness, though apparently he was not a researcher in the full sense of the word. He was able to use the specialties of his subordinates to his advantage. Among them, Sergei Smirnov undoubtedly excelled. He specialized in working out the technology of the nitrile derivatives of a series of organic compounds. He started with the development of the technology of obtaining an allyl cyanide monomer for producing highly stable rubber. Later, he successful developed the technology for producing malonodinitrile, one of the principal precursors of ortho-chlorbenzyledene-malonodinitrile, which is known as the chemical agent CS.
A pilot plant for researching the technical production of CS operated on the institute territory for 5 years. Later an analogous pilot plant was opened at the Volsk branch of GOSNIIOKhT. In spite of huge efforts they made there, the technology for producing malonodinitrile was mastered only with great difficulty.
The year 1978 came and the time for the start-up of a large-scale division for the production of agent CS was approaching in earnest, at the Novocheboksary chemical complex. A quantity of malonodinitrile was necessary for this, but it had not been produced by the branch. I believe the reasons for this were the inadequate qualifications of the plant personnel and the absence of appropriate equipment. Though the matter of ortho-chlorbenzaldehyde and other precursors of agent CS was temporarily resolved by purchasing French chemicals through Turkey, the problem of malonodinitrile hung in the air.
Victor Petrunin was the director of this branch at the time, and he resolved the problem quite simply. Petrunin ordered all research labs to stop their activities for several months, and all scientists were ordered to synthesize the ill-fated precursor in glass retorts. Considering the availability of cheap human labor, such a “solution” was not original, though it was effective. When the time came for the start up the Novocheboksary plant, the malonodinitrile supply was ready.
Just a year earlier, the division for producing agent CS had been set up in a local chemical plant in Slavgorod. I was not able to participate in this opening, because I became ill in December of 1976. I had to give away my plane ticket, so my assistants Yuri Bugrov and Boris Dubin went there to introduce the methods and analytical procedures that were needed. Unfortunately, even though I had an official release from a doctor, the director of GOSNIIOKhT, my immediate supervisor Aleksei Beresnev and the aforementioned Sergei Smirnov considered that my illness was not sufficient reason for my refusal to go on this trip. I was given an “official reprimand”.
I participated fully in the start-up of the Novocheboksary pilot plant, and my GC method of determination of micro-concentrations of agent CS in the air (at the minimum permissible level of concentration) was adopted, practically unaltered. The reason for this was that the other method proposed by Brovkin’s laboratory was extremely unselective and disorienting. However, the successful introduction of my methods required a stable working GC with an electron-capturing detector.
Up to this time, the domestically produced Tsvet-100 chromatograph had proven to be a pretty good piece of equipment, but it was running in a very unstable way, with its sensitivity constantly changing. Through my work experience at GOSNIIOKhT, I already knew that this task could only be resolved with the help of an American Varian 1800 chromatograph. So, I ordered this instrument for the job, and I defended my choice, in spite of strong pressure from Guskov and the Volgograd institute “Giprosynthesis”, which was designing the pilot plant. They worked in every possible way to dissuade me from my proposal, arguing for a long time that I should use only “domestically produced equipment for the defense industry”. I would have been happy to comply, if I had not known about the unstable characteristics of domestic equipment. I insisted on my own way in this case, since I was the author of the procedures. I had the exclusive right to guarantee the trustworthiness of the analysis only with the equipment that I had chosen.
Leonid Kostikin, Deputy Director for Science and Igor Gabov, Deputy Chairman of Main Administration “Soyuzorgsynthesis” of the Ministry of Chemical Industry ran the pilot plant start-up. My American instrument could not be reproached for the way it worked, and we had practically no problems with the analyses of the air probes. Air was sampled from the room where we worked and also from under the roof of the plant.
It was impossible to avoid heated arguments about the concentrations of air that was analyzed. Generally, the results showed us that the concentration of agent CS in the work room exceeded the limit of permissible concentrations (LPC). The boss did not agree with this. However, when we discovered a substantial concentration in the corridor leading from his laboratory in the plant, he was very displeased. This was because these rooms were considered to be located outside the range of the agent’s influence. “This cannot be!” exclaimed my opponent.
Such obstructionism was already familiar to me, because I had already collided forcefully with the chief engineer of the experimental plant at GOSNIIOKhT, Victor Zhakov, during the testing of the technology of agent CS production. The levels in the workroom at that time frequently exceeded the LPC. Zhakov was more than happy to try to discredit my methods of analysis, but it turned out that he was a bit ignorant about the adsorption basics.
He tried to compromise my procedures (which the workers were using to check the air) by ordering that the air sampling be taken after a day had passed during which the ventilation in the workroom had been shut down. At this point, we made a surprising discovery: the concentration of agent CS in the still air without ventilation was greater than it was on working days with the ventilation running. This result was simple to explain. Once it had adsorbed on the surfaces in the room – the walls, the equipment and so forth – the irritant, which had a relatively low volatility, was then slowly desorbing. Naturally during intensive ventilation, the concentration of agent CS was diluted by a large volume of air. This concentration of CS was less than that which came from the relatively low volume of practically static air. We were even successful in modeling this phenomenon on the lab bench, demonstrating that our explanation was correct.