History of Science and Engineering Annotation << Back Тhe Myth of Geologists-saboteurs. In the USSR, 1949 B.S. Gorobets In the spring, 1949 crushing of the Ministery of Geology, as well as arrests of more than twenty leading ore-geologists, specialised in uranium ore searching, have taken place. Among them were professors I. Grigoriev, A. Vologdin, V. Kreiter, Ya. Edelstein, B. Likharev, M. Rusakov, some of chief geologists of the huge Krasnoyarsk territorial department. Grigoriev, Edelstein and some other geologists soon perished in the GULag. «The case of geologists» had been induced by a fanatic sneak A. Shestakova, a journalist of «Pravda», who pretended in her letters addressed to the Central Committee of the Party and MGB (KGB in the time) that the geologists would have concealed uranium, copper and tin ores, recently discovered in Krasnoyarsk geological district. Stalin dismissed his first in history narkom (minister) of geology I.I. Malyshev who was creating all the Geological Service in the USSR, in 1939–1949. He nominated new minister of geology, general of MGB P.A. Zakharov, a creature by L.P. Beria. The development of uranium geology was sharply slowed down. Key words: uranium; «geologists-saboteurs»; I.F. Grigoriev; I.I. Malyshev; A.F. Shestakova; provocateur. E-mail: bgorobets@rambler.ru