On 22 October 1965, a letter was sent to Leonid Brezhnev about the challenges facing the Soviet Union’s once all-powerful space program. The letter that hit Brezhnev’s desk was probably worth his attention for two reasons: first, it carried the classified “Top Secret,” and second, it was signed by seven cosmonauts, well-known across the globe and influential because of their extreme popularity.
The cosmonauts (Yuri Gagarin, Alexei Leonov, Pavel Belyayev, German Titov, Andriyan Nilolayev, Valery Bykovskiy, and Vladimir Komarov) were deeply concerned about the state of Soviet space exploration, the lack of centralized oversight, the seeming preference for satellite missions rather than manned spaceflights, the woeful funding allocations – particularly compared to that of their American colleagues, and the inability to influence the Soviet Ministry of Defense in proving the utility of military applications married to space exploration. The cosmonauts took the bold step of pointing out to Brezhnev, just one year into his stint as General Secretary of the Communist Party, that US achievements were now clearly outpacing anything the Soviets could do.
It’s difficult to authoritatively conclude that the letter ultimately succeeded in its goals. There seems to be little doubt that more funding was found to pump into the program, and many would assert that the flights were centralized, albeit somewhat loosely. Military applications were certainly added to the bill as well in the form of classified research. Perhaps one could point to the program’s evolution to the successful-ish Soyuz program (which started off with the tragic crash-landing of Komarov, one of the letter’s signatories).
22 October 1965
Top Secret
Dear Leonid Ilyich!
We are turning to you regarding issues that we feel are extremely important for our nation and for ourselves.
The Soviet Union’s successes in space exploration are well known to everyone, there is no need to list our victories. They are, and they will remain in history and will always be the pride of our people. The people, the party, and our leaders have always rightly associated success in space with the success of building socialism. “Socialism is the best launch pad for flights into space.” This catchphrase flew around the world. Soviet people spoke these words with pride, the people of socialist countries believed in them, and hundreds of millions of people abroad learned the alphabet of communism from our space successes. So it was.
We cosmonauts have traveled abroad many times, we have witnessed thousands of times how warmly the multi-million-strong throngs of people from various countries welcomed the successes of the Soviet people in space.
But over the past year, the situation has changed. The United States has not only caught up with us, but in some areas it has even moved ahead. The flights of the Ranger 7, Ranger 8, Mariner 4, Gemini 5, and other spacecraft are major achievements for American scientists.
This lag of ours in space exploration is especially unpleasant for us cosmonauts, but it also causes great damage to the prestige of the Soviet Union and will negatively impact the defense efforts of the countries of the socialist camp.
Why is the Soviet Union losing its leading position in space exploration?
The most common answer to this question is that the United States has launched a very broad front of space research efforts, for which they are allocating colossal funds. (In five years, they spent more than 30 billion dollars, and in 1965 alone, seven billion dollars.) For the most part, this answer is true. It is well known that the United States spends much more on space than the USSR.
But this is not just a matter of resources. The Soviet Union is no slouch when it comes to resource allocation for space exploration. But unfortunately, we have many shortcomings in planning, organizing, and managing these efforts. What serious planning of space research can we talk about when we do not have any schedule for cosmonaut flights? October is ending, there is little time left until the end of 1965, and not a single person in the Soviet Union knows whether there will be another manned space flight this year, what the mission will be for the flight, or how long the flight will last. The same situation was in all of the previous flights of the Vostok and Voskhod orbital spacecraft, which creates a completely abnormal situation during the period of cosmonaut training for the flight, and does not allow for the crews to be prepared for the flight in advance in a calm environment.
We know that the country has plans to create space technology, we know the decisions of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the government with specific deadlines for the production of spacecraft. But we also know that many of these decisions are not implemented at all, and most are implemented with a significant delay in terms of deadlines.
Human space flights are becoming increasingly complex and lengthy. Preparation for such flights requires a good deal of time, special equipment, and training ships and simulators, which are currently being created with great delay in a makeshift manner. In short, a state plan for human space flights is needed, which would plan the flight mission, the date, the composition of the crew, the flight duration, the readiness date of the ship, the simulator, and other quite important aspects of the flight preparation.
Until now, manned spacecraft flights have been carried out based on USSR Academy of Science schedules, and direct management and technical support have been organized by representatives of industry and the USSR Ministry of Defense. Military issues have been included in the flight program rather nominally, which can be explained by the fact that there is no organization within the Ministry of Defense that would deal comprehensively with the challenges of space exploration.
Everyone is involved with space issues: the Rocket Forces, the Air Force, the Air Defense Forces, the Navy, and other organizations. Such fragmentation of efforts and resources for space exploration hinders the matter, much time is spent on coordinating plans and decisions, and departmental approaches to the matter are often reflected in decisions.
The current situation with the management of space research contradicts the spirit of the decisions of the September plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU and must be changed.
In 1964, the Chief of the General Staff, Marshal of the Soviet Union Biryuzov, created a special commission. The commission, having thoroughly studied the management of space exploration, came to the conclusion that it was necessary to unite all space activities on the basis of the Air Force. This proposal was supported by Marshal of the Soviet Union S.M. Biryuzov, General of the Army A.A. Yepishev, and Marshal of the Soviet Union A.A. Grechko. But after the tragic death of Marshal of the Soviet Union Biryuzov, these reasonable proposals were discarded, and the Central Committee for Space Activities of the Russian Federation was organized under the Rocket Forces. But the creation of this organization did not change anything. Departmentalization, fragmentation, and inconsistency remained.
The Air Force Command and we, the cosmonauts, repeatedly approached the General Staff, the Minister of Defense, and the Military-Industrial Commission with specific proposals for the construction and equipment of spacecraft capable of performing combat missions. Our proposals, as a rule, were not supported by the leadership of the Rocket Forces. We received resolutions: “Vostoks have no military significance, ordering them is inappropriate.” “We will not order Voskhods, there are no funds.”
In 1961, we had two Vostoks.
In 1962, we had two Vostoks.
In 1963, we had two Vostoks.
In 1964, we had one Voskhod.
In 1965, we had one Voskhod.
(Meanwhile, the Americans launched two Gemini spacecraft in 1965, and plan to launch two more by the end of this year.)
Why weren’t spacecraft being built for cosmonaut flights? Certainly not for lack of funds. This is because the leaders of the Rocket Forces believe more in unmanned satellites and underestimate the role of man in space exploration. It’s embarrassing to admit, but it’s a fact: in our country, the first to send a man into space, discussions have been going on for four years on the topic: “Do we need a man on board a military spacecraft?” In America, this issue has been firmly and finally resolved in favor of man, but in our country, even today, many advocate for unmanned satellites. This is the only way to explain that for every 30-40 unmanned satellites, we build 1-2 manned craft. Many unmanned satellites cost much more than a manned craft, and many of them do not reach their target.
Manned Vostok and Voskhod spacecraft fully completed the scientific research program and, at the same time, brought great political impact to the country.
We do not intend to belittle the importance of automated spacecraft. But the fascination with them is, at the very least, harmful. A broad range of very necessary military research could have been carried out on the Vostoks and Voskhods and the duration of the flight could have been increased to 10–20 days. But we have no ships, nothing to fly on, nothing on which to carry out the space research program.
In addition to the above, there are other shortcomings in the management of our flights, which we cannot eliminate on our own. In our country, there is no single spaceflight control center. During the flight, the spacecraft has no communications with the command center in the period from the 6th to the 13th orbit of each day.
The launch site does not have the conditions to support training and provide adequate rest for the cosmonauts.
We have other issues that are awaiting resolution. Many of the issues could be resolved without appealing to the CPSU Central Committee. We have repeatedly appealed to the Minister of Defense on these issues. We are aware of the appeals of the Air Force Command to the Ministry of Defense and the government, but these appeals have mostly failed to achieve their goal. We have met with the Minister of Defense many times, but, unfortunately, these were not business meetings. And today we are not confident that the issues we raise can be resolved in the Ministry of Defense.
Leonid Ilyich, we know that you are very busy but nevertheless, we ask you to familiarize yourself with our space affairs and needs.
The 60th anniversary of the Great October Revolution is approaching. We would very much like to achieve new and great victories in space for this great holiday.
We sincerely feel that the solution to the issue of unifying military space on the basis of the Air Force, thoughtful planning of space research, and the creation of spacecraft to perform the tasks of the combat employment of manned spacecraft will significantly strengthen the defensive power of our Motherland.
22 October 1965 PILOT COSMONAUT OF THE USSR
Gagarin
Leonov
Belyayev
Titov
Nikolayev
Bykovskiy
Komarov
Translation © 2025 by Michael Estes and TranslatingHistory.org
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