24. Swept Up in Stalin’s Purges
Vladimir Mikhailovich Petlyakov was born in 1891, the son of a Tsarist official. When he was nineteen, he won admission to the Moscow State Technical University but dropped out because of financial difficulties. He resumed his studies after the 1917 Russian Revolution and worked in aircraft engineering after graduation. By 1936, he had become an expert on airplane wings under the guidance of pioneering designer Andrei Tupolev. Things were looking up for Petlyakov, but a year later, they took a nosedive when Tupolev fell victim to Stalin’s massive purges.
In October 1937, Tupolev and his entire design team, including Petlyakov, were arrested on trumped-up charges of espionage, sabotage, and aiding enemies of the USSR. That was bad, but it could have been worse for Petlyakov: unlike many of his colleagues, he was not executed, but was sent to the gulags instead. There, he was ordered to design a high-altitude fighter – or else. Unlike many, Petlyakov managed to handle the pressure of that “or else”, and successfully completed his task.
