Pervukhin, Mikhail

Ambassador Pervukhin reports to Russian Foreign Minister Gromyko on the position of the East German government regarding the possibility of a peace treaty between the Soviet Union and East Germany and a resolution to the ambiguous status of Berlin. The report also discusses the possibility of enforcing better border controls between east and west Berlin in order to "close 'the door to the West.'"

The Soviet leadership discusses the state of Soviet foreign affairs. Khrushchev reviews Soviet policy after Stalin's death, blaming Molotov and Malenkov for mistakes in Soviet policy towards Germany. The role of executed Soviet leader Lavrentii Beria is also discussed.

Debate occurs at this CC session between Molotov, who opposes approving the appeal written by the Provisional CC of the Hungarian Socialist Worker’s Party, and the other members of the CC who desire approving the document. Molotov is concerned about the unknown composition of the CC of the HSWP, the condemnations of former Hungarian Worker’s Party (HWP) politicians, the issue of renaming the HWP, and the risk that Hungary will become the next Yugoslavia. Khrushchev states that Molotov is “clung to the cult of Stalin” and that Molotov is considering bringing back Rakosi and Hegedus.

In this letter the Soviet minister proposed to the Soviet government to concentrate the nuclear research in Ukrainian Institute of Physic and Technology (UIPhT) and to locate in Kharkov the nuclear scientists from Leningrad Institute of Physic and Technology because Kharkov institute had very good base for the nuclear studies. If this proposal was realized Kharkov could become more important Soviet nuclear center than Moscow or Sarov. In any case this letter of people’s commissar recognized the prominent role of the Ukrainian Institute of Physic and Technology (UIPhT) in the Soviet nuclear science.

In this letter, physicist Igor V. Kurchatov, the scientific director of the Soviet nuclear project, writes to secret police chief Lavrenti Beria, whom Stalin had given principal responsibility for the atomic effort. Prodded by his own scientists and by intelligence reports of the secret Anglo-American atomic enterprise, Stalin had initiated a small-scale Soviet nuclear weapons program in late 1942-early 1943. But the level of support political leaders had given the project failed to satisfy Kurchatov, who pleaded with Beria for additional backing.