Page 84 - The Chief Culprit

Winged Genghis Khan y 61

If Stalin was preparing for a truly defensive war to protect the Motherland, then he
should have ordered his designers to create the best fighter in the world, capable of defending
the skies over the Soviet Union. But this did not interest Stalin either. Nikolay Polikarpov
was among those present at Stalin’s dacha. He was a great designer of fighters: he had already
created the I-15 and I-16 fighters. e I-15 was unequaled in its horizontal maneuverability.
It was this aircraft that pilot Vladimir Kokkinaki used to set a world altitude record of 14,575
meters on November 21, 1935. And the I-16 opened a new page in the world development
of aviation: it was the first mass-produced high-speed monoplane in the world. In 1936
Polikarpov was already working on even more powerful machines: he had the lead in the
world race for the best fighter. Stalin should have left Polikarpov alone, not bothered him
and not distracted him. Polikarpov knew how to make fighters; his pace should not have
been interrupted. ere was a race on, and every hour, every minute was worth its weight
in blood. But no: Stalin ordered Polikarpov to drop all his work on creation of a fighter and
start developing a light bomber, the Ivanov. Stalin was not very interested in fighter planes
for a defensive war.
So, what was the ideal combat plane that Stalin had in mind, for the development of
which he engaged all his best designers, all the creators of fighters as well as bombers? Stalin
himself explained the demand thus: “samolyot chistogo neba [a clean sky aircraft]”—a light
bomber designed to operate free of enemy resistance. From the creators of the Ivanov plane
Stalin demanded neither record speed, nor record altitude, nor record range. Stalin was satis-
fied with the speed of 375 km/h near ground and 460 km/h up in the sky. Record-breaking
characteristics were not required. Stalin demanded only simplicity, durability, and firepower.
Stalin’s plan was to create a plane that could be produced in numbers surpassing all warplanes
of all types in all countries of the world combined.
e name of the plane, Ivanov, had one more significant feature. Ivanov was not only
Stalin’s secret nickname, but also the most common Russian name. “Stalin formulated the
task in the following way: the plane must be very simple to produce, so that there could be as
many planes as there are people in our country with the name Ivanov.” So, Stalin planned to
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produce the largest series of planes in human history. But this was not a plane for defensive
war. is was an aggressor airplane. Stalin planned, literally, to build as many light bombers
as there were small but mobile horsemen in the hordes of Genghis Khan.
Pavel Osipovich Sukhoy fulfilled Stalin’s demands to the highest level. He won the
contest. Sukhoy’s Ivanov was launched into production immediately, in two factories. en it
began to be produced at a third factory. Additionally, factories that produced other types of
planes were ready upon orders to switch to making the Ivanov. In 1940, after the new index-
ing system was introduced, Sukhoy’s Ivanov was named the Su-2 in honor of its creator.
A question arises: If on Stalin’s orders 100,000 to 150,000 light bombers had been
built, would not all the neighbors have been frightened? Stalin foresaw such a danger.
erefore, he did not plan the mass production of the Ivanov in peacetime. During the
secret mobilization of 1940 through the first half of 1941, a small (in Soviet terms) series
was produced—only several hundred of these planes. e objective of this series was to open
the production line, gain experience, fly the planes, and test them in small conflicts. ese
first several hundred were meant to be used in the first strike, especially in secondary loca-
tions or combined with other aircraft that had higher speed. After the first sudden strike, it
was planned to begin a mass production of the Ivanov, by the thousands. e Ivanov was