Chemical weapons were widely tested by Soviet military scientists on enlisted men in the 1930s–1980s.247 One of the victims, Vladimir Petrenko, testified in 1999 to the Russian branch of the environmentalist group Greenpeace that “these experiments were carried out on dozens of Russian officers in 1982.”248 He had been forced to inhale “unknown toxic substances for 30 seconds” and had since suffered from respiratory, stomach, and thyroid gland illnesses. In the 1980s, chemical tests on unprotected servicemen were held at the secret institute Shikhany-1 by Academician Anatolii Kuntsevich, a future general and deputy commander of the Soviet Chemical Troops.249 Until April 1994, Kuntsevich was also chairman of the Russian President’s Committee on Chemical and Biological Weapons Conventions. Kuntsevich was fired in April 1994 for “numerous and gross violations” of his responsibilities when it became known that he agreed to sell equipment and precursors of chemical weapons to a Syrian laboratory.250 He was succeeded by Pavel Syutkin. In 2000, Colonel General Stanislav Petrov headed Russia’s Radiation-, Chemical-, and Biological-Protection Troops and was in charge of the destruction of toxic chemical substances. At the beginning of 2001, Russia still had around 40,000 tons of these substances, which was almost one-half of the world’s stock.251
The first biological weapon was developed in Germany also during World War I (in 1915–1918) as a part of the program of biological sabotage against neutral suppliers of the Allied powers.252 In 1925, the Military Chemical Agency was established by Red Army authorities to take charge of chemical and biological warfare programs. Yakov Fishman (1887–1961) directed this agency until 1937, when he was purged.253 In 1928, a laboratory on vaccine and serum research was created within this agency in the village of Perkhushkovo not far from Moscow. The microbiologist Ivan Velikanov (1898–1938) was appointed head of this laboratory. The first types of Soviet bacteriological weapons were developed and produced by the microbiologists arrested in 1930–1931; Velikanov was among them. Microbiologists were accused of planning sabotage in the event of war and of giving information to the German professor Heinrich Zeiss, who worked in Moscow in 1928–1933; Zeiss was expelled.254 In another case, a number of bacteriologists “under the leadership” of Professor Karatygin were tried for allegedly bringing on an epidemic among horses.255 Many of the condemned microbiologists were imprisoned in a former Pokrovsky monastery in the old town of Suzdal. Scientists who succeeded in their experiments were eventually released, and those who could not produce desirable results were shot.256
In 1933, the laboratory in Perkhushkovo was turned into the Red Army’s Scientific Research Institute of Microbiology (or Biotechnology). In 1937–1938, many veterinarians and microbiologists involved in military research were arrested and tried. Usually they were charged with sabotage, treason, and espionage for Germany or Japan.257 The name of the German professor Zeiss was used again. The former director of the Saratov State Institute for Microbiology and Epidemiology S. Nikanorov; deputy director of the Moscow Chemical-Pharmaceutical Scientific Research Institute O. Stepun; deputy director of the Tarasevich Central Scientific Control Institute of Sera and Vaccines Vladimir Lyubarsky (1881–1939); professor of the Institute of Microbiology Iliya Krichevsky (1885–1939); scientific director of the Central Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology Vladimir Barykin (1879–1939); and director of the Institute of Microbiology Georgii Nadson were arrested and charged with abetting Zeiss’s spy scheme. On April 14, 1939, Nadson (arrested on October 29, 1937), Krichevsky (arrested on March 5, 1938), Lyubarsky (arrested on April 15, 1938), and Barykin (arrested on August 22, 1938) were condemned to death by the Military Collegium as members of the same counterrevolutionary organization and were shot the next day. They were rehabilitated in 1955.258
On July 6, 1937, head of the Biotechnology Institute Velikanov was arrested again and tried. This time he was condemned to death as a spy and a member of a “counterrevolutionary military plot,” and on July 29, 1938, just after the trial, he was shot.259 During the Bukharin trial, former commissar of agriculture Mikhail Chernov (1891–1938) “testified” that he had instructed the infection of livestock—horses, cattle, and pigs—on the order of German intelligence.260 He was arrested on November 7, 1937, condemned to death on March 13, 1938, and shot on March 15, 1938. He was rehabilitated in 1988.261 Also, Yakov Fishman and dozens of his subordinates were among the arrested. A special NKVD commission investigated their alleged “sabotage activity.” They were condemned to long terms of imprisonment. Fishman survived the imprisonment and was released only in 1954, after Stalin’s death. He was reestablished in the military and became a major general.262
In 1942, during World War II, the military Institute of Microbiology was moved to the town of Karol, about 500 miles from Moscow. According to Ken Alibek, a tularemia weapon was developed there and then used against German panzer troops shortly before the Battle of Stalingrad in late summer 1942.263 However, according to German military intelligence, the Soviet army was immunized against plague.264 German doctors immediately ordered the vaccine against plague—enough to immunize 1 million men—but never used it. In 1931, another Soviet military laboratory for anthrax (Bacillus anthracis) research was established in the city of Tobolsk in Siberia.265
During World War II, the threat of chemical war was real. In 1943, the Soviet intelligence radioed to Moscow that the Americans had information that Germany had made active preparations for chemical warfare against the USSR.266 A former Nazi minister of armaments and war production, Albert Speer, mentioned in his memoirs that “our [e.g., Nazi Germany’s] production—until the chemical industry was bombed during the summer of 1944—amounted to 3,100 tons of mustard gas and 1,000 tons of tabun per month.”267 He added that the Allies considered a gas attack on German cities: “On August 5, 1944, Churchill called for a report on England’s capability for waging poison-gas war against Germany. According to the report, the available 32,000 tons of mustard and phosgene gas would effectively poison 965 square miles of German territory, more than Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, Essen, Frankfurt, and Kassel combined.” Declassified documents list even higher quantities. A total of 40,719 tons of mustard gas, 1,862,643 bombs filled with mustard gas or phosgene, and 3,394,093 specially designed shells charged with mustard gas were produced during the war in England.268
Experiments with mustard gas on the British, Canadian, American, and Australian volunteer servicemen had been carried out since 1940.269 British experiments were performed at the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment located in Porton Down in England, in India, and also in Alberta, Canada. Typically, British scientists studied the recuperation period for damage to eyes after the exposure to varying concentrations of mustard gas. Many British volunteers claimed later that they had not been fully aware of the experiment’s implications. Canada was a leader in such experiments, and literally hundreds of volunteers were used for testing.270 Both British and Canadian officials called these men by the misleading term “observers.” Unlike the Nazi or Soviet experimenting scientists, many Canadian scientists exposed themselves to the action of gas.271
In 1943, American navy officials used the navy’s own servicemen (without their knowledge) at least once in experiments with mustard gas at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory.272 As many as 60,000 [American] servicemen are believed to have been exposed to varying levels of mustard gas and other chemical agents during the war years to test the effectiveness of protective clothing and treatments as well as the strength of the gas. The main reason for these experiments was the fear that Japan might use mustard gas in the Pacific war theater. In 1991, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs approved disability benefits for World War II veterans who, without their knowledge or consent, had been placed in a chamber and exposed to mustard gas and arsenic.273