Jewish Invention Myths: The MiG

Coming back to the various jewish invention myths we have one claimed by Slava Bazarsky where he asserts that jews invented the famous ‘MiG’ fighter.

He states that:

‘Gurevich Mikhail Iosifovich, together with Mikoyan - the MiG-1 fighter (abbreviation for Mikoyan and Gurevich), designed for air combat at high altitudes. After improvements, the MiG-3 fighter was widely used on the fronts of the war. After the war, Gurevich, together with Mikoyan, designed the first in the USSR high-speed jet fighters of the Mig series - MiG-9 (11945), MiG-15 (1947), MiG-17 (1949), as well as supersonic fighters MiG-19 (1955), MiG-21’ (1)

Now this is weasel words if ever I heard it in that Mikhail Gurevich – who was indeed jewish – was not solely responsible for the MiG given that ‘MiG’ itself stands for ‘Mikoyan and Gurevich’ (the ‘i’ is Russian for ‘and’) not ‘Mikhail Iosifovich Gurevich’ hence the firm (called ‘design bureaus’ in the Soviet Union at the time) was the ‘Mikoyan and Gurevich Design Bureau’ (or the ‘MiG Design Bureau’).

Anyway, Bazarsky tries to imply that Gurevich was almost solely responsible for the MiG-1 which is completely untrue since even the most pro-Gurevich account equally credits both Gurevich and Artem Mikoyan. (2)

However, context is vital here in that the ‘MiG-1’s’ original name was actually the ‘I-200’ (it was only christened the ‘MiG-1’ in December 1940) (3) and was originally created by Nikolai Polikarpov and M. Tetivikin – neither of whom were jewish - in June 1939 under the aegis of the ‘Polikarpov Design Bureau’ but after Polikarpov fell out of favour with Stalin in August 1939; he was sent to tour the Third Reich’s aircraft factories in November 1939 and his and Tetivikin’s ‘I-200’ project was taken over by Mikoyan and Gurevich with the first prototypes of the ‘I-200’ being operationally tested on 3rd December 1940 in the Crimea at which time it became the ‘MiG-1’. (4)

Put another way: at least half of the design of the ‘MiG-1’ comes from Polikarpov and Tetivikin as the original ‘I-200’ and the rest comes from Mikoyan and Gurevich (both of whom were political appointees not so much due to merit given Artem Mikoyan’s brother Anastas Mikoyan was an early Bolshevik Politburo member and a key supporter and political enforcer of Stalin’s).

Thus, while Gurevich did contribute to the creation of the ‘MiG-1’: it is completely dishonest to try and credit him with it given that he at most deserves a quarter share of the credit and must be suspected – along with Artem Mikoyan – of being more a political appointee than an ‘aircraft designer of note’ unlike Polikarpov and Tetivikin.

Evidence of this can be found in the fact that the ‘MiG-1’ was – frankly – a complete disaster as an aircraft, while Mikoyan and Gurevich’s first solo aircraft – the ‘MiG-3’ – was also so utterly terrible that it was almost completely withdrawn from front-line use by the Red Air Force by May 1942 after only being introduced one year earlier in favour of the LaGG-3 and Yak-1. (5)

This is compounded by Greenwood’s observation that it was after German aircraft technology and technical know-how was incorporated into the ‘MiG’ designs from 1945-1946 that the ‘MiG’ aircraft became a much more formidable and viable fighter aircraft and which also nicely demonstrates that the later success of the famous ‘MiG’ series of fighters had very little if anything to do with Mikoyan and Gurevich and much more to do with the later ‘MiGs’ being rebranded German fighters!

Thus, we cannot reasonably say that the ‘MiG’ is a jewish creation as Bazarsky tries to suggest.

References

(1) https://slavaguide.com/en/blog/jewish-inventors-and-jewish-inventions

(2) Yefim Gordon, 2008, ‘Soviet Air Power in World War 2’, 1st Edition, Ian Allan: Shepperton, pp. 95-96

(3) John Greenwood, 1998, ‘The Designers: Their Design Bureaux and Aircraft’, p. 181 in Robin Higham, John Greenwood, Von Hardesty (Eds.), 1998, ‘Russian Aviation and Air Power in the Twentieth Century’, 1st Edition, Routledge: New York

(4) Gordon, Op. Cit., p. 98

(5) Greenwood, Op. Cit., p. 182