Circles of Hell Lev Landau

On April 28, 1938, Professor Lev Landau, an outstanding Soviet theoretical physicist, was arrested in Moscow on charges of espionage.

In 1937, after his dismissal from Kharkov University, Landau accepted an invitation from Pyotr Kapitsa to take the position of head of the theoretical department of the newly created Institute of Physical Problems (IPP) of the USSR Academy of Sciences and moved to Moscow. Founded by Kapitza, this institute was the site of several key discoveries that later won Nobel Prizes. Physicists from many cities and even countries came to the famous seminars of Kapitza and Landau.

In April 1938, Lev Landau edited a leaflet written by Moses Korets, Landau’s acquaintance from Kharkov, whom he described as “a capable young theoretical physicist”, calling for the overthrow of the Stalinist regime. According to other sources, Landau and Korets compiled the leaflet together. It said:

“The great cause of the October Revolution is basely betrayed. The country is flooded with blood and mud. Millions of innocent people are thrown into prison, and no one can know when his turn will come. The economy is falling apart. Hunger is coming. (…) Socialism remained only on the pages of completely lied newspapers. (…) Destroying the country for the sake of maintaining his power, Stalin turns it into an easy prey for brutal German fascism. (…)

Comrades, get organized! Do not be afraid of executioners from the NKVD. They are capable of beating only defenseless prisoners, catching innocent innocent people, plundering people’s property and inventing ridiculous lawsuits about non-existent conspiracies.

The text of this leaflet was transmitted through the poet Pavel Kogan, who in 1938 was a student of IFLI, an anti-Stalinist group of students of the Institute of Philosophy, Literature and History, for reproduction on a hectograph and distribution by mail before the May Day holidays. Kogan told Moses Korets about the existence of such a student group ready for action. They decided to send the leaflets to addresses from the All Moscow directory. This intention was revealed by the state security organs of the USSR. Lev Landau, Moses Korets, and theoretical physicist Yuri Rumer, Landau’s collaborator at the Moscow Institute of Physical Problems, were arrested.

Lev Landau was accused of being an active participant in counter-revolutionary organizations among the physicists of Moscow and Kharkov, carried out subversive wrecking activities in the field of Soviet science, participated in compiling the text of a counter-revolutionary leaflet, which he intended to distribute among the population of Moscow during the May Day celebrations of 1938.

On May 3, 1938, Landau was excluded from the list of employees of the IFP. It was the time when the scientist was working on the theoretical substantiation of the superfluidity of liquid helium, literally standing on the threshold of discovery. It was for this work that he would later be awarded the Nobel Prize.

Pyotr Kapitsa began to act immediately, as soon as it became known that Landau had been taken. On April 28, 1938, he writes a letter to Stalin:

“Comrade Stalin!

L. D. Landau, a researcher at the Institute, was arrested this morning. Despite his 29 years, he, along with Fock, are the most prominent theoretical physicists in our Union. His works on magnetism and quantum theory are often cited both in our and foreign scientific literature. Only last year he published a remarkable work, where he was the first to point out a new source of energy from stellar radiation. This work provides a possible solution: “why the energy of the sun and stars does not decrease appreciably with time and has not yet been depleted.” The great future of these ideas of Landau is recognized by Bohr and other leading scientists.

There is no doubt that the loss of Landau as a scientist for our institute, both for Soviet and world science, will not pass unnoticed and will be strongly felt. Of course, scholarship and talent, no matter how great they are, do not give a person the right to violate the laws of his country, and if Landau is guilty, he must answer. But I beg you, in view of his exceptional talent, to give appropriate instructions so that his case is treated very carefully. Also, it seems to me, one should take into account Landau’s character, which, to put it simply, is bad. He is a bully and a bully, loves to look for mistakes in others, and when he finds them, especially in important elders, like our academicians, he begins to tease irreverently. This made him many enemies.

It was not easy with him at our institute, although he succumbed to persuasion and became better. I forgave him antics because of his exceptional talent. But for all my shortcomings in character, it is very difficult for me to believe that Landau was capable of anything dishonest.

Landau is young, it seems to him that there is still much to be done in science. No one, like any other scientist, can write about all this, that’s why I am writing to you.

P. Kapitsa.

Kapitsa’s letter had no effect.

It can be assumed that it was Pyotr Kapitsa who informed Niels Bohr about Landau’s arrest. Bohr’s letter to Stalin is very polite and very diplomatic.

“Only my exceptional gratitude for the active and fruitful cooperation with the scientists of the Soviet Union, which I have had the good fortune to use for many years, and the indelible impression that made on me during my many trips to the Soviet Union, the enthusiasm with which there are so successfully conducted and scientific research is supported, encourage me to draw your attention to one of the most outstanding physicists of the young generation – Professor L. D. Landau from the Institute of Physical Problems of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, Bohr writes. – Recognition in the scientific world of prof. Landau won not only a number of very significant works on atomic physics. By his inspiring influence on young scientists, he decisively contributed to the creation in the USSR of a school of theoretical physicists, which provided indispensable workers for the newly built and so generously equipped laboratories, in which remarkable experimental research is now being carried out in all regions of the USSR.

Bohr’s letter contained the following phrase:

“I cannot imagine that Prof. Landau, whose head is occupied only with thoughts about theoretical physics, could have done something that would justify his arrest.

However, only a year after the arrest of Lev Landau, another letter from Kapitsa, this time to Beria, had an effect:

“April 26, 1939

I ask you to release the arrested professor of physics Lev Davidovich Landau from arrest under my personal guarantee.

I guarantee to the NKVD that Landau will not conduct any counter-revolutionary activities against the Soviet regime in my institute, and I will take all measures in my power to ensure that he does not conduct any counter-revolutionary work outside the institute. In the event that I notice any statements from Landau aimed at harming the Soviet government, I will immediately inform the NKVD authorities about this.

P. Kapitsa.

Landau was released from prison (the criminal case against him would be formally terminated only in 1990) and continued his studies on explaining the superfluidity of liquid helium.

From the book of the prose writer Maya Bessarab “Thus Spoke Landau” (M., Fizmatlit, 2003):

“Once I asked Dau what they did with him in prison.

– Nothing. At night they were taken for interrogations.

– Didn’t they beat you?

– No never.

– And what were you accused of?

– Because I’m a German spy. I tried to explain to the investigator that I couldn’t be him. Firstly, being a spy is dishonorable, and secondly, I like girls of the Aryan type, and the Germans forbid Jews from loving Aryan girls. To which the investigator replied that I was a cunning spy in disguise.

Dear Dow! He wanted to explain something to the NKVD investigator! It’s good that the cellmates taught the professor of physics how to behave during interrogations: in no case to conflict, to help in every possible way, to agree, to follow the lead of the one who conducts the interrogation. This is the only way to avoid being beaten. The investigator will be pleased and his superiors too: they have done their job as expected.”

“I kept hoping that they would let him go, since I must say frankly that I cannot believe that Landau is a state criminal,” wrote Pyotr Kapitsa. – I don’t believe this: such a brilliant and talented young scientist as Landau, who, despite his 30 years, won a European name, besides, he is a very ambitious person, so full of his scientific victories that he could not have free energy, incentives and time for other activities. (…) Landau is in good health, and if he is killed in vain, it will be very embarrassing for us, the Soviet people.

Fortunately, Landau was not “starved”, but released “on bail” to Petr Leonidovich. The corresponding Decree of the NKVD of the USSR was signed on April 28, 1939. Landau was reinstated on the list of IFP employees.

“Dau always repeated that Kapitsa saved him from death,” says Maya Bessarab. – (…) It cannot be said that the prison has changed Dow. He began to talk a little less in front of unfamiliar people – that’s all. However, he still did not have any caution in the sense of not making enemies with harsh remarks.

The document dated July 23, 1990 reads:

“1. The decision of the NKVD of the USSR of April 28, 1938 on the termination of the case of Lev Davidovich Landau with his transfer on bail is to be canceled.

2. To terminate the criminal case against Lev Davidovich Landau on the basis of Art. 5, paragraph 2 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the RSFSR – due to the absence of corpus delicti in the act.

Moses Korets and Yury Rumer were kept during the investigation in Lefortovo prison and were beaten. Korets was sentenced to 10 years in a forced labor camp, Rumer received the same term.

Landau’s student, theoretical physicist, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Professor Boris Ioffe in his book “Without retouching” (M.: “FAZIS”, 2004) writes:

“In prison, Korets was forced to sign a confession that he wrote a leaflet and Landau approved its text. It is also likely that the investigator actually wrote the leaflet. Then the leaflet and Korets’s confession were presented to the already broken Landau, and he also admitted his participation in compiling the leaflet. All this does not seem surprising, since in his own written testimony, Landau admits his anti-Soviet activities, and much, much more. (Masters from the NKVD were able to extract confessions. There is a case when one prisoner admitted that he had blown up a bridge across the Volga. Many years later, when he was released and got to that place, he saw that the bridge was safe and sound – no one had ever blown up him.) In the 70s, already at large, Korets spoke: he said that yes, he wrote this leaflet. Perhaps, however, it was easier for him to say this than to admit that he had signed the statement under torture. When Korets was released in the 1950s, Landau helped him. (…) From his own experience, Landau knew how a confession was knocked out of Korets. I myself heard Landau once say: “If I had stayed in prison for another two months, I would not have survived.”

Sergei Ishkov.

Photo en.wikipedia.org