The first Soviet interplanetary probes were as ambitious as the US ones (see the Mariner A page).
The Sergei Pavlovich Korolev bureau, the same bureau that built the 8K71 and 8K72, the first Sputniks and the first Luna probes began studying in 1958 a family of probes that could explore Venus (launch in June 1959, on the same launch window as Pioneer-5) and Mars (launch in September 1960). The probes, respectively designated 1V and 1M were to weigh about 400 kg and were to be launched by the same 8K72 that launched the lunar probes Luna-1 to Luna-3. However, there were many technical probes with the 8K72 and the bureau decided to skip the launch window of 1959 and to use a new rocket for the Mars window. The rocket was a three stage version of the 8K71 and was designated 8K78. On an 8K71 first stage and boosters (which the Soviets and Russians called a second stage) were mounted Block I and Block L. Block I stage took Block L into low Earth orbit, where Block L was to re-ignite and to propel the probe to the planets. The 8K78 booster, later named Molniya (lightning) after a series of communication satellites, could launch up to 1.5 tons to the Moon and something less to Mars and Venus.
Work on the 1M probe began in 1958. It was a very complex probe, with three-axis stabilization ensured by Sun and stellar optical sensors and a backup gyroscopic platform. From the start, it was decided to attempt the most difficult mission a space probe could perform, namely to penetrate the target planet's atmosphere and to land a module on the surface.
This kind of mission had to confront with two huge problems: fundamental physic parameters of the atmosphere being unknown (such as pressure, density and temperature profile, and its composition), the team had to trust Earth based studies. And the peculiarities of the probe descent into the atmosphere "from the top" were not to be easily  recreated on Earth with an aerial dropping. It was thus created a new version of the R-11A scientific rocket (itself derived from the famed R-11 "Scud" IRBM ), named R-11A-MV (Mars and Venus). The R-11A-MV rocket took the entry capsule up to 50 km from Earth, from where it descended on three parachutes (the Mars probe) or two parachutes (the Venus probe).
However, the great uncertainty on the parameters of the Martian atmosphere (the pressure alone varied by a whole degree of magnitude from a scientific article to another) and on the planetary ephemerides itself (with an error bar much larger than the diameter of the planet) suggested that a simpler mission be prepared, namely, a fly-by mission from a distance between 5,000 and 30,000 km.
Instead of the entry capsule, on the probe were mounted many scientific instruments: a magnetometer, an IR radiometer, a charged particle sensor, a micrometeorite sensor, a camera and a spectroreflectometer able to measure the absorption of the CH radical in the Martian atmosphere, a clear indicator of organic life. All the instruments were mounted on the exterior of the probe except the camera, which was mounted inside a pressurized module with a small window. A sensor was to detect the entry of Mars in the field of view of the camera and to start the picture taking session. The images were taken on photographic film which was then developed, scanned and transmitted to Earth.
The 1M probe was built around a central cylinder two meters long for a diameter of 105 cm, pressurized at 1,200 hPa, inside which was mounted the mission electronics. On the exterior of the cylinder were mounted two solar panels wings 1 meter wide for a total surface of 2 sq. meters and a spider web parabolic high gain antenna 2.33 meters wide. The probe weighted 650 kg and carried a bipropellant (dimetylhydrazine and nitric acid) engine system for attitude control.
A long series of tests on the probe showed a lot of problems: the electrical system was not working correctly, as neither the radiocomunication system, nor even the rocket separation system. And the tests on the hermeticity of the pressure hull were never carried out.
The launch window to Mars opened in September 1960, with an optimum launch date between the 20th and the 25th. Between these dates, the flight time to Mars would have been minimized and the payload maximized. The fly-by was scheduled for the end of April, 1961.
Since the start of the Block L stage had to happen over the Atlantic Ocean, three ships modified to collect and record the telemetry of the probe and the rocket were sent to sea in August. For these new Soviet space missions a new Deep Space Communication Center was built in Yevpatoria, in Crimea. The center was comprised of three radiotelescopes, each of which used eight 16-meters diameter antennae. The center was declared ready for the mission on September 26, 1960 but was actually finished on January 1961, when the antenna were calibrated on galactic radio sources.
A few days before the start, one of the three 1M probes being readied for the mission had a serious problem to the camera system, which necessitated some day to be fixed.
By this time, however, the optimal launch date was gone and the payload of the Molniya decreased from day to day until the end of the launch window. It was then decided to discard the camera system to lower the probe's mass. According to another version, the spectroreflectometer was discarded, after it failed to detect life in the Kazakhstan's steppe.
The first 1M arrived to the launch pad on October 8 and was launched two days later. In this occasion, the central stage of the rocket developed such a  strong vibration that part of the Block I control system was damaged. 309 seconds after lift-off the emergency shutdown happened and the probe fell to Earth over Siberia. Four days later the second 1M had a similar fate, when the Block I refused to start after a non hermetic oxygen valve let go some liquid oxygen that freezed kerosene in the alimentation ducts.
As the launch window was closing, a third 1M was never launched.
Both launches were also tracked by an US intelligence station located in Turkey. The west thus learned of the existence of the probes some thirty years before they were disclosed by the Russians.
For quite some time, before the collapse of the Soviet Union, there were rumors of a third Mars probe attempt on October 24, just hours before the launch window closed. This was, in fact, the failed launch attempt of a Yangel R-16 ICBM which exploded on the pad killing a still uncertain number of engineers and technicians. As much as 165 men died in the explosion, including Soviet Air Force marshall Mitrofan Nedelin.
In the same days the USSR Communist Party Secretary Nikita Khruschev was in New York for a United Nation reunion and, according to a diserting sailor, on his ship there was a model of the probe, to show the assembly in case any of the launches made it. It was in this occasion that Khrushev banged his shoe on the UN table.

The story of early Soviet probes of the 1MV family is continued in Venera-1 page.

Bibliography
Grahn, S.: The US Deep Space Collection Program
Lardier, C.: L'Astronautique Sovietique, Paris, Armand Colin, pp. 116-117 (in French)
Perminov, V. G.: The Difficult Road to Mars; Washington, NASA, pp. 7-8
Semenov, Yu. P.: Roketno-Kosmicheskaya Korporatsiya Energhiya; Moscow, RKK Energhiya, pp. 140-141 (in Russian)
Varfolomeyev, T.: Soviet Rocketry that Conquered Space, Part 4; Spaceflight, January 1998, pp. 28-30
Varfolomeyev, T.: Soviet Rocketry that Conquered Space, Part 5; Spaceflight, March 1998, pp. 85-88

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