Construction set from a "sharashka"
On September 27, 1938, the distinguished designer Sergei Korolev was sentenced to 10 years in a forced labor camp. He was lucky, one might say—the initial plan was to execute him.
Read our cards to learn about how the creator of Soviet rocket and space technology worked in a gold mine, then in a sharashka, and how, at the end of his life, an interrogation in Butyrka came back to haunt him.
1. In 1933, the Jet Propulsion Research Institute (RNII) was established in the USSR, bringing together the leading enthusiasts of rocket technology. Sergei Korolev became deputy director for research and later headed the cruise missile department. The institute was engaged in key developments (including Katyusha prototypes), but intense personal and professional hostility existed between the engineering groups.
2. In 1937–1938, an atmosphere of mutual denunciations permeated the entire country, including the defense industry. Previously arrested directors and employees of the Russian Research Institute (including Ivan Kleimenov, Georgy Langemak, and Valentin Glushko) testified against Korolev under intense pressure from investigators, accusing him of being a member of a "Trotskyist sabotage organization."
3. Korolev was accused of deliberately delaying the development of rocket systems and wasting state funds on "unpromising" projects. On June 27, 1938, Korolev's apartment in Moscow was searched, after which he was arrested.
NKVD investigator Nikolai Shestakov tortured Korolev and broke his jaw. Unable to withstand the torture, Korolev signed a confession. After a retrial, he stated that this confession was false.
4. On September 25, 1938, Korolev was included in the list of individuals subject to consideration by the Military Collegium under the first category—that is, the category that carried the death penalty. However, on September 27, 1938, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced Korolev to 10 years in a forced labor camp, five years of disqualification, and confiscation of property. He was sent through transit prisons to Kolyma, where he was assigned to the Maldyak gold mine for general labor.
5. On June 13, 1939, the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the USSR overturned Korolev's sentence and remanded his case for a new trial. Korolev was returned from Kolyma, but not released. Instead, he was sent to a "sharashka"—a closed design bureau for imprisoned specialists—where, under the direction of Andrei Tupolev, he participated in the development of military aviation technology. In 1944, Korolev was released early and his criminal record was expunged.
6. Only after Stalin's death and the Twentieth Congress, on April 18, 1957, did the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR fully rehabilitate Sergei Korolev due to the lack of evidence of a crime. By this time, he had already become one of the key Soviet rocket designers; a few months later, the USSR launched the first artificial satellite.
7. On January 14, 1966, Sergei Korolev died during a routine and seemingly simple operation to remove a polyp in his intestines. The situation became critical when it became necessary to urgently administer anesthesia and insert an endotracheal tube into his trachea. Due to his jaw, which had been broken during interrogation at Butyrka Prison and had healed improperly, Korolev could not open his mouth wide, and doctors were unable to perform intubation using the usual method. Korolev died of heart failure without regaining consciousness.
