It is clear why the archives in the Russian Federation remain predominantly secret to this day. Financial pressure, bank loans, and sabotage of the designers’ work. This explosive 1965 internal report from the Kharkov Malyshev Factory reveals the systematic sabotage orchestrated by senior officials of the GBTU against the revolutionary T-64 tank (Object 432). The document meticulously describes how bureaucratic resistance, endless delays in military acceptance, and deliberate financial pressure were employed to discredit the new design and prevent its successful series production in favor of the conservative T-62. It stands as rare direct evidence of the bitter internal conflict that accompanied the birth of one of the advanced T-64 battle tanks of the Cold War era.
On the state of production and delivery of tanks Object “432” and engines 5TDF in the month of June 1965
In June 1965 the plant, for the first time in the entire period of tank and engine production, assembled and delivered 20 tanks Object 432 and 20 engines Object 5TDF — that is, one third of the total output for the entire first half of the year.As of 1 July the plant had accumulated sufficient work-in-progress stocks to allow more or less normal production to continue in July as well.
It is also noteworthy that from the very first days of June the plant was able to deliver vehicles for painting on a steady, even schedule throughout the month. Thus, in the first ten-day period 5 vehicles were tested and handed over for painting, in the second ten-day period 8 vehicles, and in the third ten-day period another 8 vehicles — a total of 21 tanks delivered for painting.
Consequently, from the first ten-day period onward it became possible to complete final acceptance formalities and recover production costs.
However, this did not occur. Although, in the plant’s view, there were no obstacles whatsoever to final acceptance, the customer’s representatives (district engineer Colonel Cherednikov) under various pretexts failed to formalize a single vehicle during the first and second ten-day periods of June — even though they carried out inspection and technical acceptance of the vehicles already delivered for painting.
Only from 22 June, at my insistence, did Comrade Cherednikov and his staff begin to draw up the conditions for final acceptance and payment of the June production vehicles. It was not until 25 June that they presented the plant with their requirements concerning warranty obligations and the implementation of modifications to individual assemblies — modifications whose deadlines and scope had already been defined earlier and agreed with Comrade Cherednikov (the document is on file at the plant).The plant was therefore compelled, right up to 30 June 1965, to re-examine the entire list of issues previously agreed with Comrade Cherednikov. On 30 June 1965 at 12:00, after five days of work, the plant and the customer’s representative Comrade Cherednikov signed a protocol listing the plant’s obligations on every point he had raised.
All provisions and deadlines in the protocol were coordinated on the spot by Comrade Cherednikov with the GBTU leadership and the Deputy Commander of Tank Forces, Lieutenant-General Comrade Konstantinov (the protocol is kept at the plant).This decision gave Comrade Cherednikov every right to carry out final formal acceptance and payment of the vehicles on 30 June 1965. Yet this was not done. On that very day the Chief of GBTU, Lieutenant-General Comrade Belyanchev, sent a secure (VCh) telegram forbidding acceptance, citing “increased gas contamination of the fighting compartment during firing” (a copy of the telegram is attached).In view of such actions by Comrade Belyanchev (a similar incident had already occurred on 31 March), we were forced to appeal directly to the Deputy Minister of Defence — Marshal of the Soviet Union Comrade Grechko.
On his orders, on 2 July 1965 the following were dispatched from Moscow to the plant: Deputy Commander of Tank Forces Lieutenant-General N.I. Konstantinov and Chief of the Scientific-Technical Committee of GBTU Lieutenant-General A.V. Radus-Zenkovich.Only on 2 July were the June production vehicles finally accepted — 20 vehicles charged to June and one vehicle charged to July.
What is the real reason for this state of affairs with vehicle acceptance?
Why has the plant, for a year and a half, been forced to deliver vehicles on the very last day of each month — and, as a rule, only after intervention by the highest authorities (formerly the Kharkov Sovnarkhoz and the State Committee for Defence Technology, and now the Minister of the Defence Industry and the Minister of Defence)?
Officially, the Chief of GBTU Comrade Belyanchev and the district engineer Comrade Cherednikov maintain that vehicles containing design defects cannot be accepted, paid for or issued to the troops — that the Army must receive machines that are fully developed in every respect according to the Tactical-Technical Requirements (TTT).
The main TTT demands cited are: unreliable operation of the engine within the warranty period, tracks, drive sprockets, running-gear seals, increased gas contamination of the fighting compartment when firing, and a number of other issues.
That is the official, surface-level position. At the same time, the Chief of GBTU Comrade Belyanchev and other senior GBTU officials know perfectly well that when the Object 432 tank and 5TDF engine were put into production it was explicitly planned to run series manufacture in parallel with ongoing design refinement; that extensive troop trials of 1964-production vehicles revealed a whole series of issues requiring engineering work; that the plant has been continuously eliminating design defects and has already introduced more than 14,500 different design changes into series production; and that a clear, agreed list of remaining measures exists today.
By summing up operational experience and the results of numerous engine and tank tests, the plant in 1964–1965 introduced over 14,500 design changes into series production. The few remaining unresolved issues are currently undergoing development and testing in the experimental shop and will unquestionably be resolved in 1965.The actions of the GBTU leadership headed by Comrade Belyanchev — his demands for the immediate elimination of every remaining defect regardless of technical difficulties and the realities of series production, together with his systematic monthly obstruction of acceptance of vehicles built to the current Chief Designer’s documentation — are explained, in our opinion, by entirely different motives.
Comrade Belyanchev and certain other GBTU officials have always been opponents of the Object 432 tank — a completely new and fundamentally different machine possessing major advantages over the T-62 currently in production. Using temporary technical difficulties in the refinement process, they are attempting to prove that work on the new tank is inexpedient and, ultimately, to prevent it from entering series production at the tank plants. In other words, blind conservatism, adherence to the old, and fear of the new produce a purely formal attitude toward the plant’s temporary difficulties and a refusal to help the plant at this critical moment — when the tank is still young, still has a number of design shortcomings whose elimination is simply a matter of time and of intensive work by the plant, supporting organisations and the customer.
Nothing else can explain why every single defect discovered in the vehicle or engine is inflated into an “unforgivable sin” of the machine, elevated to the level of government leadership and made the subject of attention of every state body — instead of the defect being jointly analysed with the plant and a plan worked out for its elimination.
Despite the fact that the plant is in a severe financial position, without direct orders from above the finished vehicles are not accepted or paid for until the last day of the month. As a result, the plant has repeatedly been forced — even when finished products are standing ready — to request Gosbank credits simply to pay the wages of the tank builders who are working honestly and selflessly on the new machine.
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