Mikhail Tukhachevsky
Encyclopedia
Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky was a Marshal of the Soviet Union
, commander in chief of the Red Army
(1925–1928), and one of the most prominent victims of Joseph Stalin
's Great Purge
.
, into a family of hereditary nobles
. He graduated from the Aleksandrovskoye Military School in 1914, joining the Semyenovsky Guards Regiment
. Upon the outbreak of World War I
, the twenty-one-year-old Lieutenant Tukhachevsky declared,
After being taken prisoner by the Imperial German Army in February 1915, Tukhachevsky escaped four times from POW camps and was finally held as an incorrigible escapee in Ingolstadt
fortress.
His fifth escape was successful, and he returned to Russia in October 1917. After the October Revolution
, Tukhachvsky joined the Red Army
in spite of his noble ancestry.
and rapidly advanced in rank due to his great ability. During the Russian Civil War
he was given responsibility for defending Moscow. The Bolshevik Defence Commissar Leon Trotsky
gave Tukhachevsky command of the 5th Army in 1919, and he led the campaign to capture Siberia
from the anti-communist White
forces of Aleksandr Kolchak
. Tukhachevsky used concentrated attacks to exploit the enemy's open flanks and threaten them with envelopment.
He also helped defeat General Anton Denikin in the Crimea
in 1920, conducting the final operations. In February 1920, he launched an offensive into the Kuban
, using cavalry to disrupt the enemy's rear. In the retreat that followed, Denikin's force disintegrated, and Novorossiysk
was evacuated hastily.
In the final stage of the civil war, Tukhachevsky commanded the Seventh Army during the suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion
in March 1921. He also commanded the assault against the Tambov Republic
between 1921 and 1922.
British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore
has described Tukhachevsky as being "as ruthless as any Bolshevik". He was known for using summary execution
of hostages and poison gas in his suppression of peasant uprisings.
Tukhachevsky commanded the Soviet invasion of Poland during the Polish-Soviet War
in 1920, and was defeated by Józef Piłsudski outside Warsaw
. It was during the Polish war that Tukhachevsky first came into conflict with Stalin. Each blamed the other for the Soviet failure to capture Warsaw
. Tukhachevsky later lamented,
His orders were frequently disobeyed, even by high-ranking officers, which led the Soviet armies to several major failures throughout the campaign (see also 1st Cavalry Army
). On the other hand, Tukhachevsky argued that he could not choose his division commanders or move his headquarters from Moscow, for political reasons. The animosity between Tukhachevsky and Stalin would ultimately have fatal consequences.
, Joseph Stalin regarded Tukhachevsky as his bitterest rival and dubbed him Napoleonchik (little Napoleon). Upon Stalin's ascension to Party leadership in 1929, the Georgian began receiving denunciations from senior officers who disapproved of Tukhachevsky's tactical theories. Then, in 1930, the OGPU forced two officers to testify that Tukhachevsky was plotting to overthrow the Politburo
via a coup d'état
.
According to Montefiore,
Following this, Tukhachevsky wrote several books on modern warfare and in 1931, after Stalin had accepted the need for an industrialized military, Tukhachevsky was given a leading role in reforming the army. He held advanced ideas on military strategy, particularly on the use of tanks and aircraft in combined operations.
Tukhachevsky took a keen interest in the arts, and during this period became a political patron and close friend of composer Dmitri Shostakovich
: they met in 1925, and subsequently played music together at the Marshal's home (Tukhachevsky played the violin). In 1936, Shostakovich's music was under attack following the Pravda
denunciation of his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk
. However, Tukhachevsky intervened with Stalin on his friend's behalf. After Tukhachevsky's arrest pressure was put on Shostakovich to denounce him, but he was saved from doing so by the fact that the investigator was himself arrested.
, where combined arms formations strike deep behind enemy lines to destroy the enemy's rear and logistics,
were opposed by some in the military establishment, but were largely adopted by the Red Army in the mid-1930s. They were expressed as a concept in the Red Army's Field Regulations of 1929, and more fully developed in 1935's Instructions on Deep Battle. The concept was finally codified into the army in 1936 in the Provisional Field Regulations of 1936. An early example of the potential effectiveness of deep operations can be found in the Soviet victory over Japan at the Battle of Khalkhin Gol
(Nomonhan
), where a Soviet Corps under the command of Georgy Zhukov
defeated a substantial Japanese force in August–September, 1939.
Due to the widespread purges of the Red Army officer corps in 1937-1939 "deep operations" briefly fell from favour, only later being gradually re-adopted following the embarrassment of the Red Army during the Winter War
of 1939-40 when the Soviet Union invaded Finland. They were used to great success during World War II in Eastern Front
, in such victories as the Battle of Stalingrad
and Operation Bagration.
, aged only 42. In January 1936 Tukhachevsky visited Britain
, France
and Germany
. Aware that the Soviet military was the only institution which could successfully obstruct his quest for absolute power, Stalin set out to, "liquidate," Tukhachevsky and seven other senior commanders. This time, there was no disagreement from his inner circle.
Just before his arrest, Tukhachevsky was relieved of duty as assistant to Marshal Kliment Voroshilov
and appointed military commander of the Volga Military District. It is believed that Stalin ordered this ruse (one employed with seven other arrested commanders as well) to separate Tukhachevsky from the officers and men under his command. Shortly after departing to take up his new command, he was secretly arrested on May 22, 1937, and brought back to Moscow in a prison van.
Tukhachevsky's interrogation and torture were directly supervised by NKVD Chief Nikolai Yezhov
. Stalin instructed Yezhov, "See for yourself, but Tukhachevsky should be forced to tell everything... It's impossible he acted alone."
According to Simon Sebag Montefiore,
Stalin commented, "It's incredible, but it's a fact, they admit it."
On June 11, 1937, the Soviet Supreme Court convened a special military tribunal
to try Tukhachevsky and eight senior officers for treason. The trial was dubbed the Case of Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization
. Upon hearing the accusations, Tukhachevsky was heard to say, "I feel I'm dreaming." Most of the judges were also terrified. One was heard to comment, "Tomorrow I'll be put in the same place."
At 11:35 that night, all of the accused were declared guilty and sentenced to death. Stalin, who was awaiting the verdict with Molotov, Kaganovich, and Yezhov, did not even examine the transcripts. He simply said, "Agreed."
Within the hour, Tukhachevsky was summoned from his cell by NKVD captain Vasili Blokhin
. The former Marshal was then shot; once, in the back of the head.
Immediately afterward, Yezhov was summoned into Stalin's presence. Stalin asked, "What were Tukhachevsky's last words?" Yezhov responded, "The snake said he was dedicated to the Motherland and Comrade Stalin. He asked for clemency. But it was obvious that he was not being straight, he hadn't laid down his arms."
's Secret Speech in 1956, Marshal Tukhachevsky was officially considered a Fascist Fifth Columnist. Soviet diplomats and apologists in the West enthusiastically promulgated this opinion. Then, on January 31, 1957, Tukhachevsky and his co-defendents were declared innocent of all charges and were "rehabilitated
."
Although Tukhachevsky's prosecution is almost universally regarded as a sham, Stalin's motivations continue to be debated. In his 1968 book The Great Terror, British historian Robert Conquest
accuses Nazi Party leaders Heinrich Himmler
and Reinhard Heydrich
of forging documents which implicated Tukhachevsky in an anti-Stalinist conspiracy with the Wehrmacht
General Staff
. This was done because Himmler and Heydrich wished to weaken the Soviet Union's defence capacity. These documents, Conquest said, were leaked to President Edvard Beneš
of Czechoslovakia
, who passed them to Soviet Russia through diplomatic channels. Conquest's thesis of an S.S. conspiracy to frame Tukhachevsky was based upon the memoirs of Walter Schellenberg
and Edvard Beneš.
However, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union
it became clear that Stalin, Kaganovich, and Yezhov had actually concocted Tukhachevsky's "treason" themselves. At Yezhov's order, the NKVD
had instructed a known double agent
, Nikolai Skoblin
, to leak to Reinhard Heydrich
's Sicherheitsdienst
concocted information suggesting a plot by Tukhachevsky and the other Soviet generals against Stalin.
Seeing an opportunity to strike a blow at the Soviet military, Heydrich immediately acted on the information and undertook to improve on it. Heydrich's forgeries were later leaked to the Soviets via Beneš and other neutral nations. While the SD believed it had successfully fooled Stalin into executing his best generals, in reality it had merely served as unwitting pawns of the Soviet NKVD. Ironically, Heydrich's forgeries were never used at trial. Instead Soviet prosecutors relied on signed "confessions" which had been beaten out of the defendants.
In 1956, NKVD defector Alexander Orlov
published an article in Life Magazine entitled, The Sensational Secret Behind the Damnation of Stalin. This story held that NKVD agents had discovered papers in the Tsarist Okhrana archives which proved Stalin had once been an informer. On the basis of this knowledge, the NKVD agents had planned a coup d'état
with Marshal Tukhachevsky and other senior officers in the Red Army. According to Orlov, Stalin uncovered the conspiracy and used Yezhov to execute those responsible.
Simon Sebag Montefiore
, who has conducted extensive research in Soviet archives, states, "Stalin needed neither Nazi disinformation nor mysterious Okhrana files to persuade him to destroy Tukhachevsky. After all, he had played with the idea as early as 1930, three years before Hitler took power. Furthermore, Stalin and his cronies were convinced that officers were to be distrusted and physically exterminated at the slightest suspicion. He reminisced to Voroshilov, in an undated note, about the officers arrested in the summer of 1918. 'These officers,' he said, 'we wanted to shoot en masse.' Nothing had changed."
According to Montefiore, Stalin had always known that the Red Army
was the only institution which could have resisted his quest for absolute power
. Stalin's paranoia about internal subversion and belief in his own infallible ability to detect traitors did the rest. Stalin, Yezhov, and Marshall Voroshilov orchestrated the arrest and exection of thousands of Soviet military officers after Tukhachevsky was shot. Ultimately, five out of the eight generals who presided over Tukhachevsky's "trial" were arrested and shot by the NKVD.
According to Montefiore, Stalin's close friend and confidant Lazar Kaganovich
later joked, "Tukhachevsky hid Napoleon's baton in his rucksack."
Soviet awards
Marshal of the Soviet Union
Marshal of the Soviet Union was the de facto highest military rank of the Soviet Union. ....
, commander in chief of the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
(1925–1928), and one of the most prominent victims of Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
's Great Purge
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
.
Early life
Tukhachevsky was born at Alexandrovskoye, SafonovoSafonovo, Smolensk Oblast
Safonovo is a town and the administrative center of Safonovsky District of Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located on the Vopets River northeast of Smolensk. Population:...
, into a family of hereditary nobles
Russian nobility
The Russian nobility arose in the 14th century and essentially governed Russia until the October Revolution of 1917.The Russian word for nobility, Dvoryanstvo , derives from the Russian word dvor , meaning the Court of a prince or duke and later, of the tsar. A nobleman is called dvoryanin...
. He graduated from the Aleksandrovskoye Military School in 1914, joining the Semyenovsky Guards Regiment
Semenovsky Regiment
Semenovsky Life-Guards Regiment was one of the two oldest guards regiments of the Imperial Russian Army.- History :...
. Upon the outbreak of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, the twenty-one-year-old Lieutenant Tukhachevsky declared,
"I am convinced that all that is needed in order to achieve what I want is bravery and self-confidence. I certainly have enough self-confidence... I told myself that I shall either be a general at thirty, or that I shall not be alive by then."
After being taken prisoner by the Imperial German Army in February 1915, Tukhachevsky escaped four times from POW camps and was finally held as an incorrigible escapee in Ingolstadt
Ingolstadt
Ingolstadt is a city in the Free State of Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany. It is located along the banks of the Danube River, in the center of Bavaria. As at 31 March 2011, Ingolstadt had 125.407 residents...
fortress.
His fifth escape was successful, and he returned to Russia in October 1917. After the October Revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
, Tukhachvsky joined the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
in spite of his noble ancestry.
During the Civil War
He became an officer in the newly-established Red ArmyRed Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
and rapidly advanced in rank due to his great ability. During the Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
he was given responsibility for defending Moscow. The Bolshevik Defence Commissar Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
gave Tukhachevsky command of the 5th Army in 1919, and he led the campaign to capture Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
from the anti-communist White
White movement
The White movement and its military arm the White Army - known as the White Guard or the Whites - was a loose confederation of Anti-Communist forces.The movement comprised one of the politico-military Russian forces who fought...
forces of Aleksandr Kolchak
Aleksandr Kolchak
Aleksandr Vasiliyevich Kolchak was a Russian naval commander, polar explorer and later - Supreme ruler . Supreme ruler of Russia , was recognized in this position by all the heads of the White movement, "De jure" - Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, "De facto" - Entente States...
. Tukhachevsky used concentrated attacks to exploit the enemy's open flanks and threaten them with envelopment.
He also helped defeat General Anton Denikin in the Crimea
Crimea
Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...
in 1920, conducting the final operations. In February 1920, he launched an offensive into the Kuban
Kuban
Kuban is a geographic region of Southern Russia surrounding the Kuban River, on the Black Sea between the Don Steppe, Volga Delta and the Caucasus...
, using cavalry to disrupt the enemy's rear. In the retreat that followed, Denikin's force disintegrated, and Novorossiysk
Novorossiysk
Novorossiysk is a city in Krasnodar Krai, Russia. It is the country's main port on the Black Sea and the leading Russian port for importing grain. It is one of the few cities honored with the title of the Hero City. Population: -History:...
was evacuated hastily.
In the final stage of the civil war, Tukhachevsky commanded the Seventh Army during the suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion
Kronstadt rebellion
The Kronstadt rebellion was one of many major unsuccessful left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks in the aftermath of the Russian Civil War...
in March 1921. He also commanded the assault against the Tambov Republic
Tambov Rebellion
The Tambov Rebellion which occurred between 1920 and 1921 was one of the largest and best-organized peasant rebellions challenging the Bolshevik regime during the Russian Civil War. The uprising took place in the territories of the modern Tambov Oblast and part of the Voronezh Oblast, less than...
between 1921 and 1922.
British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Simon Jonathan Sebag Montefiore is a British historian and writer.-Family history:Simon's father, a doctor, is descended from a famous line of wealthy Sephardic Jews who became diplomats and bankers all over Europe...
has described Tukhachevsky as being "as ruthless as any Bolshevik". He was known for using summary execution
Summary execution
A summary execution is a variety of execution in which a person is killed on the spot without trial or after a show trial. Summary executions have been practiced by the police, military, and paramilitary organizations and are associated with guerrilla warfare, counter-insurgency, terrorism, and...
of hostages and poison gas in his suppression of peasant uprisings.
During the Polish-Soviet War
Polish-Soviet War
The Polish–Soviet War was an armed conflict between Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine and the Second Polish Republic and the Ukrainian People's Republic—four states in post–World War I Europe...
in 1920, and was defeated by Józef Piłsudski outside Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
. It was during the Polish war that Tukhachevsky first came into conflict with Stalin. Each blamed the other for the Soviet failure to capture Warsaw
Battle of Warsaw (1920)
The Battle of Warsaw sometimes referred to as the Miracle at the Vistula, was the decisive battle of the Polish–Soviet War. That war began soon after the end of World War I in 1918 and lasted until the Treaty of Riga resulted in the end of the hostilities between Poland and Russia in 1921.The...
. Tukhachevsky later lamented,
"There can be no doubt that if we had been victorious on the VistulaVistulaThe Vistula is the longest and the most important river in Poland, at 1,047 km in length. The watershed area of the Vistula is , of which lies within Poland ....
, the revolutionary fires would have reached the entire continent."
His orders were frequently disobeyed, even by high-ranking officers, which led the Soviet armies to several major failures throughout the campaign (see also 1st Cavalry Army
1st Cavalry Army
The 1st Cavalry Army was the most famous Red Army сavalry formation. It was also known as Budyonny's Cavalry Army or simply as Konarmia ....
). On the other hand, Tukhachevsky argued that he could not choose his division commanders or move his headquarters from Moscow, for political reasons. The animosity between Tukhachevsky and Stalin would ultimately have fatal consequences.
The reform of the Red Army
According to Simon Sebag MontefioreSimon Sebag Montefiore
Simon Jonathan Sebag Montefiore is a British historian and writer.-Family history:Simon's father, a doctor, is descended from a famous line of wealthy Sephardic Jews who became diplomats and bankers all over Europe...
, Joseph Stalin regarded Tukhachevsky as his bitterest rival and dubbed him Napoleonchik (little Napoleon). Upon Stalin's ascension to Party leadership in 1929, the Georgian began receiving denunciations from senior officers who disapproved of Tukhachevsky's tactical theories. Then, in 1930, the OGPU forced two officers to testify that Tukhachevsky was plotting to overthrow the Politburo
Politburo
Politburo , literally "Political Bureau [of the Central Committee]," is the executive committee for a number of communist political parties.-Marxist-Leninist states:...
via a coup d'état
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...
.
According to Montefiore,
In 1930, this was perhaps too outrageous even for the Bolsheviks. Stalin, not yet dictatorDictatorA dictator is a ruler who assumes sole and absolute power but without hereditary ascension such as an absolute monarch. When other states call the head of state of a particular state a dictator, that state is called a dictatorship...
, probed his powerful ally Sergo: "Only Molotov, myself, and now you are in the know... Is it possible? What a business! Discuss it with Molotov..." However, Sergo would not go that far. There would be no arrest and trial of Tukhachevsky in 1930: the commander, "turns out to be 100% clean," Stalin wrote disingenuously to Molotov in October, "That's very good." It is interesting that seven years before the Great TerrorGreat PurgeThe Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
, Stalin was testing the same accusations against the same victims -- a dress rehearsalRehearsalFor other uses, see Rehearsal or Dress rehearsal A rehearsal is a preparatory event in music and theatre that is performed before the official public performance, as a form of practice, and to ensure that all details of the performance are adequately prepared and coordinated for professional...
for 1937 -- but he could not get the support. The archives reveal a fascinating sequel: once he understood the ambitious modernity of Tukhachevsky's strategies, Stalin apologised to him: "Now the question has become clearer to me, I have to agree that my remark was too strong and my conclusions were not right at all."
Following this, Tukhachevsky wrote several books on modern warfare and in 1931, after Stalin had accepted the need for an industrialized military, Tukhachevsky was given a leading role in reforming the army. He held advanced ideas on military strategy, particularly on the use of tanks and aircraft in combined operations.
Tukhachevsky took a keen interest in the arts, and during this period became a political patron and close friend of composer Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....
: they met in 1925, and subsequently played music together at the Marshal's home (Tukhachevsky played the violin). In 1936, Shostakovich's music was under attack following the Pravda
Pravda
Pravda was a leading newspaper of the Soviet Union and an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991....
denunciation of his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk
Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (opera)
Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District is an opera in four acts by Dmitri Shostakovich, his Op.29. The libretto was written by Alexander Preis and the composer, and is based on the story Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District by Nikolai Leskov. The opera is sometimes referred to informally as Lady Macbeth...
. However, Tukhachevsky intervened with Stalin on his friend's behalf. After Tukhachevsky's arrest pressure was put on Shostakovich to denounce him, but he was saved from doing so by the fact that the investigator was himself arrested.
The theory of deep operations
His theory of deep operationsDeep operations
Deep battle was a military theory developed by the Soviet Union for its armed forces during the 1920s and 1930s. It was developed by a number of influential military writers, such as Vladimir Triandafillov and Mikhail Tukhachevsky who endeavoured to create a military strategy with its own...
, where combined arms formations strike deep behind enemy lines to destroy the enemy's rear and logistics,
were opposed by some in the military establishment, but were largely adopted by the Red Army in the mid-1930s. They were expressed as a concept in the Red Army's Field Regulations of 1929, and more fully developed in 1935's Instructions on Deep Battle. The concept was finally codified into the army in 1936 in the Provisional Field Regulations of 1936. An early example of the potential effectiveness of deep operations can be found in the Soviet victory over Japan at the Battle of Khalkhin Gol
Battle of Khalkhin Gol
The Battles of Khalkhyn Gol was the decisive engagement of the undeclared Soviet–Japanese Border Wars fought among the Soviet Union, Mongolia and the Empire of Japan in 1939. The conflict was named after the river Khalkhyn Gol, which passes through the battlefield...
(Nomonhan
Nomonhan
Nomonhan is a small village near the border between Mongolia and Inner Mongolia, China south of the Chinese city of Manzhouli.In the summer of 1939 it was the location of the Nomonhan Incident, as it is termed in Japan, or the Battle of Khalkhin Gol as it is known in Soviet and Mongolian People's...
), where a Soviet Corps under the command of Georgy Zhukov
Georgy Zhukov
Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov , was a Russian career officer in the Red Army who, in the course of World War II, played a pivotal role in leading the Red Army through much of Eastern Europe to liberate the Soviet Union and other nations from the Axis Powers' occupation...
defeated a substantial Japanese force in August–September, 1939.
Due to the widespread purges of the Red Army officer corps in 1937-1939 "deep operations" briefly fell from favour, only later being gradually re-adopted following the embarrassment of the Red Army during the Winter War
Winter War
The Winter War was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet offensive on 30 November 1939 – three months after the start of World War II and the Soviet invasion of Poland – and ended on 13 March 1940 with the Moscow Peace Treaty...
of 1939-40 when the Soviet Union invaded Finland. They were used to great success during World War II in Eastern Front
Eastern Front (World War II)
The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945...
, in such victories as the Battle of Stalingrad
Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad was a major battle of World War II in which Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in southwestern Russia. The battle took place between 23 August 1942 and 2 February 1943...
and Operation Bagration.
The fall
In 1935 Tukhachevsky was made a Marshal of the Soviet UnionMarshal of the Soviet Union
Marshal of the Soviet Union was the de facto highest military rank of the Soviet Union. ....
, aged only 42. In January 1936 Tukhachevsky visited Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. Aware that the Soviet military was the only institution which could successfully obstruct his quest for absolute power, Stalin set out to, "liquidate," Tukhachevsky and seven other senior commanders. This time, there was no disagreement from his inner circle.
Just before his arrest, Tukhachevsky was relieved of duty as assistant to Marshal Kliment Voroshilov
Kliment Voroshilov
Kliment Yefremovich Voroshilov , popularly known as Klim Voroshilov was a Soviet military officer, politician, and statesman...
and appointed military commander of the Volga Military District. It is believed that Stalin ordered this ruse (one employed with seven other arrested commanders as well) to separate Tukhachevsky from the officers and men under his command. Shortly after departing to take up his new command, he was secretly arrested on May 22, 1937, and brought back to Moscow in a prison van.
Tukhachevsky's interrogation and torture were directly supervised by NKVD Chief Nikolai Yezhov
Nikolai Yezhov
Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov or Ezhov was a senior figure in the NKVD under Joseph Stalin during the period of the Great Purge. His reign is sometimes known as the "Yezhovshchina" , "the Yezhov era", a term that began to be used during the de-Stalinization campaign of the 1950s...
. Stalin instructed Yezhov, "See for yourself, but Tukhachevsky should be forced to tell everything... It's impossible he acted alone."
According to Simon Sebag Montefiore,
"A few days later, as Yezhov buzzed in and out of Stalin's office, a broken Marshal Tukhachevsky confessed that Yenukidze had recruited him in 1928, that he was a German agent in cahoots with Bukharin to seize power. Tukhachevsky's confession, which survives in the archives, is dappled with a brown spray that was found to be blood spattered by a body in motion."
On June 11, 1937, the Soviet Supreme Court convened a special military tribunal
Military tribunal
A military tribunal is a kind of military court designed to try members of enemy forces during wartime, operating outside the scope of conventional criminal and civil proceedings. The judges are military officers and fulfill the role of jurors...
to try Tukhachevsky and eight senior officers for treason. The trial was dubbed the Case of Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization
Case of Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization
The Case of Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization was a 1937 secret trial of the high command of the Red Army, orchestrated by Joseph Stalin as part of the Great Purge.-Defendants:...
. Upon hearing the accusations, Tukhachevsky was heard to say, "I feel I'm dreaming." Most of the judges were also terrified. One was heard to comment, "Tomorrow I'll be put in the same place."
At 11:35 that night, all of the accused were declared guilty and sentenced to death. Stalin, who was awaiting the verdict with Molotov, Kaganovich, and Yezhov, did not even examine the transcripts. He simply said, "Agreed."
Within the hour, Tukhachevsky was summoned from his cell by NKVD captain Vasili Blokhin
Vasili Blokhin
Vasili Mikhailovich Blokhin was a Soviet Major-General who served as the chief executioner of the Stalinist NKVD under the administrations of Genrikh Yagoda, Nikolai Yezhov and Lavrenty Beria...
. The former Marshal was then shot; once, in the back of the head.
Immediately afterward, Yezhov was summoned into Stalin's presence. Stalin asked, "What were Tukhachevsky's last words?" Yezhov responded, "The snake said he was dedicated to the Motherland and Comrade Stalin. He asked for clemency. But it was obvious that he was not being straight, he hadn't laid down his arms."
Aftermath
Until the publication of Nikita KhrushchevNikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
's Secret Speech in 1956, Marshal Tukhachevsky was officially considered a Fascist Fifth Columnist. Soviet diplomats and apologists in the West enthusiastically promulgated this opinion. Then, on January 31, 1957, Tukhachevsky and his co-defendents were declared innocent of all charges and were "rehabilitated
Rehabilitation (Soviet)
Rehabilitation in the context of the former Soviet Union, and the Post-Soviet states, was the restoration of a person who was criminally prosecuted without due basis, to the state of acquittal...
."
Although Tukhachevsky's prosecution is almost universally regarded as a sham, Stalin's motivations continue to be debated. In his 1968 book The Great Terror, British historian Robert Conquest
Robert Conquest
George Robert Ackworth Conquest CMG is a British historian who became a well-known writer and researcher on the Soviet Union with the publication in 1968 of The Great Terror, an account of Stalin's purges of the 1930s...
accuses Nazi Party leaders Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...
and Reinhard Heydrich
Reinhard Heydrich
Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich , also known as The Hangman, was a high-ranking German Nazi official.He was SS-Obergruppenführer and General der Polizei, chief of the Reich Main Security Office and Stellvertretender Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia...
of forging documents which implicated Tukhachevsky in an anti-Stalinist conspiracy with the Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
General Staff
General Staff
A military staff, often referred to as General Staff, Army Staff, Navy Staff or Air Staff within the individual services, is a group of officers and enlisted personnel that provides a bi-directional flow of information between a commanding officer and subordinate military units...
. This was done because Himmler and Heydrich wished to weaken the Soviet Union's defence capacity. These documents, Conquest said, were leaked to President Edvard Beneš
Edvard Beneš
Edvard Beneš was a leader of the Czechoslovak independence movement, Minister of Foreign Affairs and the second President of Czechoslovakia. He was known to be a skilled diplomat.- Youth :...
of Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
, who passed them to Soviet Russia through diplomatic channels. Conquest's thesis of an S.S. conspiracy to frame Tukhachevsky was based upon the memoirs of Walter Schellenberg
Walter Schellenberg
Walther Friedrich Schellenberg was a German SS-Brigadeführer who rose through the ranks of the SS to become the head of foreign intelligence following the abolition of the Abwehr in 1944.-Biography:...
and Edvard Beneš.
However, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union
Dissolution of the Soviet Union
The dissolution of the Soviet Union was the disintegration of the federal political structures and central government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , resulting in the independence of all fifteen republics of the Soviet Union between March 11, 1990 and December 25, 1991...
it became clear that Stalin, Kaganovich, and Yezhov had actually concocted Tukhachevsky's "treason" themselves. At Yezhov's order, the NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
had instructed a known double agent
Double agent
A double agent, commonly abbreviated referral of double secret agent, is a counterintelligence term used to designate an employee of a secret service or organization, whose primary aim is to spy on the target organization, but who in fact is a member of that same target organization oneself. They...
, Nikolai Skoblin
Nikolai Skoblin
Nikolai Skoblin was a general in the counterrevolutionary White Russian army, a member of the expatriate Russian All-Military Union , a Soviet double agent, and husband to the gypsy folk-singer Nadezhda Plevitskaya ....
, to leak to Reinhard Heydrich
Reinhard Heydrich
Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich , also known as The Hangman, was a high-ranking German Nazi official.He was SS-Obergruppenführer and General der Polizei, chief of the Reich Main Security Office and Stellvertretender Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia...
's Sicherheitsdienst
Sicherheitsdienst
Sicherheitsdienst , full title Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers-SS, or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. The organization was the first Nazi Party intelligence organization to be established and was often considered a "sister organization" with the...
concocted information suggesting a plot by Tukhachevsky and the other Soviet generals against Stalin.
Seeing an opportunity to strike a blow at the Soviet military, Heydrich immediately acted on the information and undertook to improve on it. Heydrich's forgeries were later leaked to the Soviets via Beneš and other neutral nations. While the SD believed it had successfully fooled Stalin into executing his best generals, in reality it had merely served as unwitting pawns of the Soviet NKVD. Ironically, Heydrich's forgeries were never used at trial. Instead Soviet prosecutors relied on signed "confessions" which had been beaten out of the defendants.
In 1956, NKVD defector Alexander Orlov
Alexander Orlov
Alexander Mikhailovich Orlov , born Lev Feldbin, 21 August 1895–25 March 1973), was a General in the Soviet secret police and NKVD Rezident in the Second Spanish Republic. In 1938, Orlov refused to return to the Soviet Union because he realized that he would be executed, and fled with his...
published an article in Life Magazine entitled, The Sensational Secret Behind the Damnation of Stalin. This story held that NKVD agents had discovered papers in the Tsarist Okhrana archives which proved Stalin had once been an informer. On the basis of this knowledge, the NKVD agents had planned a coup d'état
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...
with Marshal Tukhachevsky and other senior officers in the Red Army. According to Orlov, Stalin uncovered the conspiracy and used Yezhov to execute those responsible.
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Simon Jonathan Sebag Montefiore is a British historian and writer.-Family history:Simon's father, a doctor, is descended from a famous line of wealthy Sephardic Jews who became diplomats and bankers all over Europe...
, who has conducted extensive research in Soviet archives, states, "Stalin needed neither Nazi disinformation nor mysterious Okhrana files to persuade him to destroy Tukhachevsky. After all, he had played with the idea as early as 1930, three years before Hitler took power. Furthermore, Stalin and his cronies were convinced that officers were to be distrusted and physically exterminated at the slightest suspicion. He reminisced to Voroshilov, in an undated note, about the officers arrested in the summer of 1918. 'These officers,' he said, 'we wanted to shoot en masse.' Nothing had changed."
According to Montefiore, Stalin had always known that the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
was the only institution which could have resisted his quest for absolute power
Absolute Power
Absolute Power may refer to:*Lord Acton's dictum, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely"*The power held by the sovereign of an absolute monarchy*Omnipotence, unlimited power, as of a deity...
. Stalin's paranoia about internal subversion and belief in his own infallible ability to detect traitors did the rest. Stalin, Yezhov, and Marshall Voroshilov orchestrated the arrest and exection of thousands of Soviet military officers after Tukhachevsky was shot. Ultimately, five out of the eight generals who presided over Tukhachevsky's "trial" were arrested and shot by the NKVD.
According to Montefiore, Stalin's close friend and confidant Lazar Kaganovich
Lazar Kaganovich
Lazar Moiseyevich Kaganovich was a Soviet politician and administrator and one of the main associates of Joseph Stalin.-Early life:Kaganovich was born in 1893 to Jewish parents in the village of Kabany, Radomyshl uyezd, Kiev Governorate, Russian Empire...
later joked, "Tukhachevsky hid Napoleon's baton in his rucksack."
In popular culture
- Marshal Tukhachevsky makes an offscreen appearance in Nikita MikhalkovNikita MikhalkovNikita Sergeyevich Mikhalkov is a Soviet and Russian filmmaker, actor, and head of the Russian Cinematographers' Union.Mikhalkov was born in Moscow into the distinguished, artistic Mikhalkov family. His great grandfather was the imperial governor of Yaroslavl, whose mother was a Galitzine princess...
's film Burnt by the SunBurnt by the SunBurnt by the Sun is a 1994 film by Russian director and actor Nikita Mikhalkov. The film depicts the story of a senior Red Army officer and his family during the Great Purge of the late 1930s in the Stalinist Soviet Union...
. The film, which is set in 1936, begins with one of Tukhachevsky's tank corps about to crush a collective farm's wheat harvest during a training exercise. ComdivComdivComdiv or Komdiv , abbreviated from команди́р диви́зии was a military rank in the Red Army until the end of the 1930s....
Sergei Kotov, who is vacationing nearby with his family, arranges to speak with Tukhachevsky over the radio. Familiarly addressing him as, Misha, Kotov persuades the Marshal to hold maneuvers elsewhere. Ironically, Comdiv Kotov is arrested by the NKVD several hours later. - Marshal Tukhachevsky also makes an appearance in the 1943 Hollywood film Mission to MoscowMission to MoscowMission to Moscow is a book by the former U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union Joseph E. Davies published by Simon and Schuster in 1941. It was adapted into a film directed by Michael Curtiz in 1943....
. In the film, Joseph Stalin is depicted as a benign statesman who is moving the Soviet Union toward the American democratic model. Tukhachevsky and all other victims of the Great PurgeGreat PurgeThe Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
are portrayed as Fifth Columnists working for Nazi GermanyNazi GermanyNazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
and Imperial Japan. As a result, Mission to Moscow was investigated by the House Un-American Activities CommitteeHouse Un-American Activities CommitteeThe House Committee on Un-American Activities or House Un-American Activities Committee was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. In 1969, the House changed the committee's name to "House Committee on Internal Security"...
after the end of World War IIWorld War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. It has also been cited by both Ayn RandAyn RandAyn Rand was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her two best-selling novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism....
and Ronald RadoshRonald RadoshRonald Radosh is an American writer, professor, historian, former Marxist, and neoconservative. He is known for his work on the Cold War espionage case of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg and his advocacy of the state of Israel....
as an example of the extensive Pro-Soviet influence in Hollywood during the 1930s and '40s.
Honours and awards
Imperial awards- Order of St. Anne, 2nd class with swords, also awarded 3rd class with swords and bow; and 4th class with the inscription "For Courage"
- Order of St. Stanislaus, 2nd class with swords, also awarded 3rd class with swords and bow
- Order of St. VladimirOrder of St. VladimirThe Cross of Saint Vladimir was an Imperial Russian Order established in 1782 by Empress Catherine II in memory of the deeds of Saint Vladimir, the Grand Prince and the Baptizer of the Kievan Rus....
, 4th class with swords
Soviet awards
- Order of LeninOrder of LeninThe Order of Lenin , named after the leader of the Russian October Revolution, was the highest decoration bestowed by the Soviet Union...
(21 February 1933) - Order of the Red BannerOrder of the Red BannerThe Soviet government of Russia established the Order of the Red Banner , a military decoration, on September 16, 1918 during the Russian Civil War...
(August 7, 1919) - Honorary revolutionary weapon (December 17, 1919)