After the war, Voroshilov oversaw the establishment of asocialist regime inHungary. Following Stalin's death in 1953, Voroshilov was appointedChairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. His fortunes declined during the rise ofNikita Khrushchev and the Supreme Soviet turned against him. He peacefully resigned in 1960, although he came out of retirement in 1966 and re-joined the party. Voroshilov died in 1969 at the age of 88.
Voroshilov was born in the settlement of Verkhnyeye,Bakhmutuyezd,Yekaterinoslav Governorate,Russian Empire (now part ofLysychansk city inLuhansk Oblast,Ukraine).[2] His father, a former soldier, was employed at different times as a railway worker or miner, and went through periods of unemployment. According to the SovietMajor GeneralPetro Grigorenko, Voroshilov himself alluded to the heritage of his birth-country (Ukraine) and to the previous family name ofVoroshylo.[3]
Klim Voroshilov with his teacher Semyon Ryzhkov
In his published autobiography, Voroshilov described a childhood of extreme hardship, working from the age of six or seven, and receiving frequent beatings from wealthy peasants, which left him with a lifelong aversion to 'kulaks'. He grew up illiterate, until he was able to enroll in a newly opened school in a nearby village, at the age of 12, and received two years' schooling.[4] During his school years, Voroshilov became a close friend and almost a member of the family ofSemyon Ryzhkov.[5]
In 1896, he started work in a factory near his home village, where he led a strike in 1899. In 1903, he enrolled in a German owned factory inLuhansk (which was renamed Voroshilov during the Stalin era). There, he joined theBolsheviks, and acted as a strike leader during the1905 revolution. In April 1906, he travelled toStockholm for the Fourth Congress of theRussian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), using the provocative pseudonym 'Volodya Antimekov' or Anti-Menshevik.[6] In Stockholm, he shared a room with the delegate from Georgia, Josif Dzhugashvili, later known as Stalin.[7]
In spring 1907, he travelled to London for the Fifth RSDLP Congress. On his return, he was arrested and deported toArkhangelsk, but in December he escaped and moved to Baku, where Stalin was also active. Arrested again in 1908, he was released from exile in 1912, and for a time worked in an ordnance factory inTsaritsyn (Stalingrad/Volgagrad).[4]
Voroshilov was inPetrograd (St Petersburg) during theFebruary Revolution, but returned to Luhansk, where he was chairman of the town soviet, and was elected to theConstituent Assembly. His military career began early in 1918, when he was given command of the Fifth Ukrainian Army, which was made up of a few scattered units, who were driven out of Ukraine by the German army. After a long, hazardous retreat, his group reached Tsaritsyn, where Stalin was posted in summer 1918 as representative of the central party leadership, and where Voroshilov was given command of the Tenth Army. Stalin and Voroshilov led theRed Army's 1918defense of Tsaritsyn. They also sponsored the creation of the first Red Cavalry unit, commanded bySemyon Budyonny, which was composed chiefly of peasants from southern Russia.[8][9] In Tsaritsyn, Voroshilov clashed withLeon Trotsky, the People's Commissar for War, who considered him undisciplined and unfit to command an army, and in October 1918 threatened him with court martial.[10] Voroshilov was transferred to Ukraine, as commander of theKharkiv military district, and later People's Commissar for War in the Ukraine soviet republic. He sided with the 'Military Opposition', who opposed the formation of a centralised army, preferring to rely on local mobile units, and objected to the recruitment into the Red Army of former officers from the Tsarist army.[11] Later, during thePolish–Soviet War, Voroshilov was political commissar with Budienny's First Cavalry.I
The red banner from theParis Commune, brought to Moscow by French communists. On the photo: Kliment Voroshilov first on the right,Grigory Zinoviev third from the right,Avel Enukidze fourth from the right andNikolay Antipov fifth from the right. 1924
Voroshilov served as a member of theCentral Committee from his election in 1921 until 1961. In April 1921, he was appointed commander of the North Caucasus military district. In March 1924, he was promoted to the post of commander of the Moscow military district. In 1925, after the death ofMikhail Frunze, Voroshilov was appointedPeople's Commissar for Military and Navy Affairs and Chairman of theRevolutionary Military Council of theUSSR, a post he held until 1934. Despite the high offices he held, Voroshilov appears not to have been part in the inner leadership. In November 1930, the chairman of the Russian government,Sergey Syrtsov, alleged that a "tiny group", which excluded Voroshilov but included nominally much less senior figures such asPavel Postyshev, was making decisions "behind the back of the Politburo".[12]
His main accomplishment in this period was to move key Soviet war industries east of the Urals, so that the Soviet Union could strategically retreat, while keeping its manufacturing capability intact.[13] Frunze's political position adhered to that of the Troika (Grigory Zinoviev,Lev Kamenev, Stalin), but Stalin preferred to have a close, personal ally in charge (as opposed to Frunze, a "Zinovievite"). Frunze was urged by a group of Stalin's hand-picked doctors to have surgery to treat an oldstomach ulcer, despite previous doctors' recommendations to avoid surgery and Frunze's own unwillingness.[14] He died on the operating table of a massive overdose ofchloroform, an anaesthetic.[14] Voroshilov became a full member of the newly formedPolitburo in 1926, remaining a member until 1960.
During the first of theMoscow trials, in August 1936, Voroshilov was one of four Politburo members who signed the order that appeals for clemency were to be denied and that the defendants were to be executed without delay.[15] He was also of the main speakers at the March 1937 plenum of the Central Committee, which ended with the arrests ofNikolai Bukharin andAlexei Rykov, whom Voroshilov denounced as "renegades".[16]In the early stages, he seemed to have believed that the purge would not affect the armed forces, and was seemingly unprepared for the arrest ofMarshal Tukhachevsky and others in April and May. Voroshilov did not personally share the paranoia towards upper-class elements of the officer corps.[17] He openly declared that the saboteurs in the Red Army were few in number and tried to save the lives of officers likeLukin, who would serve with distinction during the Second World War, and Sokolov-Strakhov, and he was sometimes successful.[17] But on 30 May, he telephoned the commander of the Ukraine military district,Iona Yakir, ordering him to take a train to Moscow for a meeting of the Military Revolutionary Council, knowing that he would be arrested on the way.[18] When the Council met on 1 June 1937, Voroshilov vacated the chair to deliver a report in which he said, apologetically: "I could not believe we would reveal so many and such scoundrels in the ranks of the highest command of our glorious, our valiant Workers' and Peasants' Army."[19]
After that, he played a central role in Stalin'sGreat Purge of the 1930s, denouncing many of his own military colleagues and subordinates when asked to do so by Stalin. He wrote personal letters to exiled former Soviet officers and diplomats such as commissar Mikhail Ostrovsky, asking them to return voluntarily to the Soviet Union and falsely reassuring them that they would not face retribution from authorities.[20] Voroshilov personally signed 185 documented execution lists, fourth among the Soviet leadership afterMolotov, Stalin andKaganovich.[21] He had no problem denouncing officers he disliked such as Tukhachevsky.[17][22]
Despite taking part in the purging of many "mechanisers" (supporters of wide usage of tanks rather than cavalry) from the Red Army, Voroshilov became convinced that reliance on cavalry should be decreased while more modern arms should receive higher priority.[17] Marshal Budyonny tried to recruit him to his cause of protecting the status of cavalry in the Red Army but Voroshilov openly declared his intention to do the opposite.[17] He praised the army's combined arms warfare capabilities as well as the high quality and ability to take initiative of the officers during the 1936 summer manoeuvers.[17] However he also pointed out issues in the Red Army as a whole in his full report.[17] Among the issues he pointed out were insufficient communication, ineffective staffs, insufficient cooperation between arms, and the rudimentary nature of the command structure in tank units and other modern arms.[17]
When the Great Purge ended, some reforms were undertaken by the high command to reconcile Red Army doctrine (for exampledeep operations doctrine) with the real state of the Red Army.[17] The politically appointed commanders of the post-purge Red Army saw that the army, especially after the purge, was not suitable to carry out deep operations style warfare.[17] Commanders such as Voroshilov andKulik were among the instigators of these reforms which positively impacted the Red Army.[17] These commanders themselves turned out not to be able to carry out such operations in practice.[17] Voroshilov and Kulik turned out to be unable to put these reforms into practice.[17] One of these reforms was a reorganization of Red Army field units which accidentally moved Red Army organization to a far less advanced state than it had been in 1936. This reorganization was conceived by Kulik but put into practice by Voroshilov.[22]
When territorial units were abolished Voroshilov noted that among the reasons for disbanding them was inability to train conscripts in the use of modern technology.[17] He had openly proclaimed that the system was inadequate in an era in which imperialist powers (such asGermany) were expanding the capabilities of their armies.[17] The territorial units had been very unpopular, not only with Voroshilov, but with the Red Army leadership a whole.[17] They were hopelessly ineffective: territorial conscript Alexey Grigorovich Maslov noted that he never fired a shot during his training, while it was noted that these units only underwent real training in the one month a year when experienced veterans returned.[17]
Voroshilov commanded Soviet troops during theWinter War from November 1939 to January 1940 but, due to poor Soviet planning and Voroshilov's incompetence as a general,[23] the Red Army suffered about 320,000 casualties compared to 70,000 Finnish casualties.[24] When the leadership gathered at Stalin'sdacha at Kuntsevo, Stalin shouted at Voroshilov for the losses; Voroshilov replied in kind, blaming the failure on Stalin for eliminating the Red Army's best generals in his purges.[citation needed] Voroshilov followed this retort by smashing a platter of food on the table.Nikita Khrushchev said it was the only time he ever witnessed such an outburst.[25] Voroshilov was nonetheless made the scapegoat for the initial failures in Finland. He was later replaced as Defense Commissar bySemyon Timoshenko. Voroshilov was then madeDeputy Premier responsible for cultural matters.[26]Voroshilov initially argued that thousands of Polish army officers captured in September 1939 should be released, but he later signed the order for their execution in theKatyn massacre of 1940.[27]
After theGerman invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Voroshilov became commander of the short-lived Northwestern Direction (July to August 1941), controlling severalfronts. In September 1941 he commanded theLeningrad Front. Working alongside military commanderAndrei Zhdanov as German advances threatened to cut off Leningrad, he displayed considerable personal bravery in defiance of heavy shelling at Ivanovskoye; at one point he rallied retreating troops and personally led a counter-attack against German tanks armed only with a pistol.[28] However, the style of counterattack he launched had long since been abandoned by strategists and drew mostly contempt from his military colleagues;[23] he failed to prevent the Germans from surrounding Leningrad and he was dismissed from his post and replaced byGeorgy Zhukov on 8 September 1941.[29] Stalin had a political need for popular wartime leaders, however, and Voroshilov remained as an important figurehead.[23]
Between 1945 and 1947, Voroshilov supervised the establishment of thesocialist republic in postwarHungary.[23] He attributed the poor showing of theHungarian Communist Party in the October 1945 Budapest municipal elections to the number ofminorities in leadership positions, arguing that it was "detrimental to the party that its leaders are not of Hungarian origin".[30]
One of Voroshilov's responsibilities as chairman of the Presidium was to oversee the appeal review of Soviet death row inmates. Analysis by Jeffrey S. Hardy and Yana Skorobogatov describe his role thus:
"Chairman Voroshilov presided over the meetings and clearly had the most influential voice, but split votes were not uncommon and Voroshilov was sometimes outvoted... Throughout his tenure as Presidium chair, he behaved like someone who believed that one should follow established procedure and not act too quickly in matters of life and death."[31]
Hardy and Skorobogatov indicate that Voroshilov frequently exerted his influence on the committee toward leniency, especially in the case of those who expressed repentance in their appeal documents and those convicted of crimes of passion or under the influence of alcohol; he judged those convicted of political crimes or acts with financial motives more harshly. During his tenure, many individuals sentenced to death had their punishments commuted to prison terms of varying lengths. The authors of the study observe that his successor, Brezhnev, took a noticeably harder line in appeals cases.[31]
However, the contrast between Voroshilov's relatively magnanimous attitude toward pardon cases in the 1950s with his well-documented participation in the deadly purges of the 1930s (as described above) was noted even at the time by Khrushchev, who asked him, "So when were you acting according to your conscience, then or now?"[31]
Voroshilov (far right in hat) during the famousKitchen Debate in 1959Voroshilov in 1961
After Khrushchev removed most of the Stalinists like Molotov and Malenkov from the party, Voroshilov's career began to fade. On 7 May 1960, theSupreme Soviet of the Soviet Union granted Voroshilov's request for retirement and electedLeonid Brezhnev chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Council (the head of state). The Central Committee also relieved him of duties as a member of the Party Presidium (as the Politburo had been called since 1952) on 16 July 1960.[citation needed] In October 1961, his political defeat was complete at the 22nd party congress when he was excluded from election to the Central Committee.[citation needed]
Following Khrushchev's fall from power, Soviet leader Brezhnev brought Voroshilov out of retirement into afigurehead political post. Voroshilov was again re-elected to the Central Committee in 1966. Voroshilov was awarded a second medal ofHero of the Soviet Union 1968.
During a winter night in 1969, Voroshilov started to feel unwell. His family proposed to call an ambulance immediately, but he adamantly refused. In the morning he put on hismilitary uniform, and after calling a car, he went to the hospital himself, fully decorated. Voroshilov died on 2 December, at the age of 88, and was buried in theKremlin Wall Necropolis,[32] in one of the twelve individual tombs located between theLenin Mausoleum and theKremlin wall.
Voroshilov was married toEkaterina Voroshilova, born Golda Gorbman, a Ukrainian Jew from Mardarovka. She changed her name when she converted to Orthodox Christianity in order to be allowed to marry Voroshilov. They met while both were exiled inArkhangelsk, where Ekaterina was sent in 1906. While both serving on the Tsaritsyn Front in 1918, where Ekaterina was helping orphans, they adopted a four-year-old orphan boy who they named Petya.[33] They also adopted the children ofMikhail Frunze following his death in 1925. During Stalin's rule, they lived in theKremlin at the Horse Guards.[34]
His personality as it was described byMolotov in 1974: "Voroshilov was nice, but only in certain times. He always stood for the political line of the party, because he was from a working class, a common man, very good orator. He was clean, yes. And he was personally devoted to Stalin. But his devotion was not very strong. Howeverin this period he advocated Stalin very actively, supported him in everything, though not entirely sure in everything. It also affected their relationship. This is a very complex issue. This must be taken into account to understand why Stalin treated him critically and not invited him at all our conversations. At least at private ones. But he came by himself. Stalin frowned. Under Khrushchev, Voroshilov behaved badly."[35][page needed]
Hero of the Soviet Union, two times (No. 10840 – 3 February 1956 (in conjunction with his 75th birthday), No. 47 – 22 February 1968 (in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the Armed Forces of the USSR))
Order of Lenin, eight times (No. 880 – 23 February 1935, No. 3582 – 22 February 1938, No. 14851 – 3 February 1941, No. 26411 – 21 February 1945, No. 128065 – 3 February 1951, No. 313410 – 3 February 1956, No. 331807 – 3 February 1961, No. 340967 – 22 February 1968)
Order of the Red Banner, six times (No. 47 – 26 June 1919, No. 629 – 2 April 1921, No. 27 – 3–2 December 1925, No. 5 – 4–22 February 1930, No. 1 – 5–3 November 1944, No. 1–24 June 1948)
^Pyotr Grigorenko."В ПОДПОЛЬЕ МОЖНО ВСТРЕТИТЬ ТОЛЬКО КРЫС..." (In the underground one may find only rats...). Institute "Open society" - Cooperation and Association Fund "Liberty Road". 1981 (Cover of the bookArchived 10 June 2012 at theWayback Machine)
^abGeorges Haupt, and Jean-Jacques Marie (1974).Makers of the Russian Revolution, Biographies of Bolshevik Leaders. (This volume contains a translation of a biographical essay by Voroshilov, written for a Soviet encyclopaedia around 1926) London: George Allen & Unwin. p. 281.ISBN0-04-947021-3.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
^Wolfe, Bertram D. (1966).Three Who Made a Revolution, A Biographical History. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin. p. 390.
^Tucker, Robert C. (1974).Stalin As Revolutionary, 1879–1929. London: Chatto & Windus. p. 86.ISBN0-7011-2054-1.
^Brown, Stephen. "Communists and the Red Cavalry: The Political Education of the Konarmiia in the Russian Civil War, 1918–20"The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 73, No. 1 (Jan. 1995), p. 88.
^Barmine, Alexander,One Who Survived, New York: G.P. Putnam (1945), footnote, p. 21.
^Trotsky, Leon (1969).Stalin, Volume Two: The Revolutionary in Power. London: Panther. p. 74.
^Schapiro, Leonard (1965).The Origin of the Communist Autocracy, Political Opposition in the Soviet State: First Phase, 1917–1922. New York: Frederick A. Praeger. p. 244.
^Khlevniuk, Oleg, ed. (1995).Сталинское Политбюро в 30-е годы. Moscow. pp. 99–106.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^Darman, Peter (16 December 2012).The Home Fronts: Allied and Axis Life During World War II. Rosen Classroom. p. 26.ISBN978-1448892365.
^abErickson, John (2013).The Soviet High Command: a Military-political History, 1918–1941. Routledge. p. 199.ISBN978-1136339523.
^R.W.Davies, Oleg V. Khlevniuk and E..A. Rees (2003).The Stalin-Kaganovich Correspondence, 1931–36. New Haven: Yale U.P. p. 339.ISBN0-300-09367-5.
^J.Arch Getty, and Oleg V.Naumov (1999).The Road to Terror, Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932–1939. New Haven: Yale U.P. pp. 375–77.ISBN0-300-07772-6.
^abGlantz, David M. (1995).When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler. House, Jonathan M. (Jonathan Mallory), 1950–. Lawrence, Kan.: University Press of Kansas.ISBN070060717X.OCLC32859811.
^abcdRappaport, Helen (1999).Joseph Stalin: A Biographical Companion. ABC-CLIO. p. 307.ISBN1576070840.
^Buttar, Prit (2015).Between Giants: The Battle for The Baltics in World War II. United Kingdom: Osprey Publishing.
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