After demobilization he returned to the Institute, and after graduation worked at a chemical plant.[7] In 1935 he was expelled from the Soviet Union Communist Party, and in 1937 during the Great Purge he was arrested for criticising Stalin's policy of farm collectivisation, as well as working with Germans and Poles. He was accused of "belonging to a counter-revolutionary group". In 1941 he was released from prison and settled in Bryansk, where he obtained a position as an engineer in the local distillery.