Presumably Komrade Kalasnikov wasn't so upset when millions of unarmed Enemies of the Soviet Union were shot in the back of the head with his weapon... what did he think he was designing, a potato harvester?

Depends on one's definition of 'criminal'. The road to hell being paved with good intentions and all that.
He's prolly torqued that he isn't getting the royalties from the patents.

Kalashnikov was just a civil servant who designed a rifle. The use of the rifle subsequent to that is nothing to do with him.

Yeah... while the AK was being used as a terrorist weapon (supplied to said terrorists by the USSR) and being used by the Soviet Army to kill, oh, say, Afghans, then he had no problems with the AK's use.

Best part of all of this, though, is that come The Glorious Day, the AK will be generously used against the USSR's philosophical descendants.

Well, it will be used Over Here... sorry that you Brits won't have access to them -- unless you borrow some from the IRA, that is.

That AK graphic reminds me (because it looks similar); don't waste your time or money reading "AK 47: the story of the people's gun" by Michael Hodges. Utter drivel. I'm too lazy to explain why at length, but John Walker very kindly already did, albeit not in time to save my wasted time and effort. See
http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/reading_list/indices/book_645.html

Denis - I have no idea where the graphic came from, it was kindly sent to me as "photo stock"

LONG POST WARNING !!

Kalashnikow was not a civil servant - he was a sergeant(later officer)of the Red Army. Fascinated by mechanical devices (he later stated that no machine in his home town was safe during his school years)he finished technical school at age 16, then he worked as a machinist's apprentice in a raiload shop before being called up at 18. Because of his mechanical aptitude he was assigned to a tank battalion where he made a bit of a name for himself with several inventions.

During 1941, while serving as a tank commander, he was severely wounded when his vehicle was knocked out and was hospitalized for many months. This was early in the war before wide issue of submachine guns to the Soviet army and his infantry ward mates described how they were being shot to pieces by submachine gun armed Germans. This set Kalashnikov's mind towards developing a weapon to counter the Germans and by sheer chance found the hospital library had a copy of "Principles of Small Arms" by Degtyarev, which he devoured.

By the time he was sent back home on six month convelescent leave (at a time when a veteran tank commander was worth his weight in gold to any small unit commander - which gives an idea how badly he had been wounded), he had sketched out a design. He manage to persuade his friends in the railroad shops to let him use its machine tools and, with several assisting, built a prototype submachine gun.

This caught the notice of the local party boss, who brought both the weapon and designer to the attention of senior technical officials of the Red Army. With the PPSh-41 and PPS-42/43 now in mass production, a submachine gun was not needed, but the Rodina had better uses for a bright young man than cannon fodder. After his leave was over, Kalshnikov was transferred to Red Army ordnance and sent to formal training courses before being given the task of developing a weapon to compete in a Soviet Army assault rifle trial held in 1947. Production of the Avtomat Kalshnikova began in 1949.

I think we can conclude that he was a patriotic man who was responding as most of us would to the invasion of our country (the Waffen SS managed to make the commissars look like heroes). Few people understood the depth of the Stalinist hell(which is why Solzenitzen wrote the "Gulag Archipeligo")and based on the German invasion, it was easy to persuade them that the NKVD was rounding up counter-revolutionaries and enemies of the people. Count Comrade Sergeant Kalashnikov among them.

As far as the uses to which the AK has been put, that's like blaming John Taliafero Thompson for the use of his submachine gun by criminals in "Roaring Twenties" Chicago (he too is reported to have been upset by the misuse of his weapon). Kalshnkov had virtually no input into deciding who was supplied with the AK, but Thompson did with the M1921(he decided to place it on the commercial market, available to anyone with the cash).

Col Beausaber

Welcome back Col Beausaber, an informed and informing piece, courtesy of Mr F.M. of course.
And to him - Good Shooting.