Mikhail Tukhachevsky Михаил Тухачевский | |
|---|---|
 Tukhachevsky,c. 1935 | |
| Nickname | Red Napoleon |
| Born | (1893-02-16)16 February 1893 Aleksandrovskoye,Smolensk Governorate, Russian Empire |
| Died | 12 June 1937(1937-06-12) (aged 44) Moscow, Soviet Union |
| Buried | |
| Allegiance |  Russian Empire(1914–1917) Russian SFSR(1918–1922) Soviet Union(1922–1937) |
| Branch |  Imperial Russian Army.svg) Red Army |
| Service years | 1914–1937 |
| Rank |  Second Lieutenant (Imperial Russia) Marshal of the Soviet Union (Red Army) |
| Commands | Chief of General Staff |
| Conflicts | World War I Russian Civil War Polish–Soviet War |
Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky (Russian:Михаил Николаевич Тухачевский; 16 February [O.S. 4 February] 1893 – 12 June 1937), nicknamed theRed Napoleon,[1] was a Soviet general who was prominent between 1918 and 1937 as a military officer andtheoretician. He was later executed during theMoscow trials of 1936–1938.
He served as an officer inWorld War I of 1914–1917 and in theRussian Civil War of 1917–1923, leading the defense of theMoscow district (1918), commanding forces on theEastern Front (1918), commanding theFifth Army in the recapture of Siberia fromAlexander Kolchak, and heading Cossack forces againstAnton Denikin (1920). From 1920 to 1921 he commanded theSoviet Western Front in thePolish–Soviet War. Soviet forces under his command successfully repelled thePolish forces from Western Ukraine, driving them back into Poland, but theRed Army suffereddefeat outside of Warsaw, and the war ended in aSoviet defeat. Tukhachevsky blamedJoseph Stalin for his defeat at the Battle of Warsaw.[2][3][4]
He later served asChief of Staff of the Red Army from 1925 to 1928, as assistant in thePeople's Commissariat of Defense[5] after 1934 and as commander of theVolga Military District in 1937. He achieved the rank ofMarshal of the Soviet Union in 1935.
As a major proponent of modernisation of Soviet armament andarmy force structure in the 1920s and 1930s, he became instrumental in the development of Sovietaviation, and ofmechanized andairborne forces. As a theoretician, he was a driving force behind the Soviet development of the theory ofdeep operations in the 1920s and 1930s. Soviet authorities accused Tukhachevsky oftreason, and after he confessed during torture, he was executed in 1937 during themilitary purges of 1936–1938, led by Stalin andNikolai Yezhov.
Tukhachevsky was born atAlexandrovskoye,Safonovsky District (in the present-daySmolensk Oblast of Russia), into a family of impoverishedhereditary nobles.[6] Legend states that his family descended from aFlemish count who ended up stranded in the East during theCrusades and took a Turkish wife before settling in Russia.[7][8] His great-grandfatherAlexander Tukhachevsky (1793–1831) served as a colonel in theImperial Russian Army. He was ofRussian ethnicity.[9] After attending theCadet Corps in 1912, he moved on to theAleksandrovskoye Military School [ru], where he graduated in 1914.
At the outset of theFirst World War, he joined theSemyenovsky Guards Regiment (July 1914) as a second lieutenant, declaring:
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.[10]
Taken prisoner by theImperial German Army in February 1915, Tukhachevsky escaped four times fromprisoner-of-war camps and was finally held as an incorrigible escapee inIngolstadt fortress inBavaria.[11]
Fluent in French, there he met journalistRemy Roure and shared a cell with CaptainCharles de Gaulle.[12] Tukhachevsky played his violin, assailednihilist beliefs and spoke againstChristians andJews, whom he called dogs who "spread their fleas throughout the world".[13] Later in various works he made Russians familiar with De Gaulle's military thinking.[14] Roure, under the pseudonym of Pierre Fervacque, wrote about his encounter with Tukhachevsky. He reported that Tukhachevsky highly praisedNapoleon, and also in a certain conversation, Tukhachevsky said he hated Jews for bringing Christianity and the "morality of capital" to Russia.[15] Roure then asked him if he was a socialist, and he replied:
Socialist? Certainly not! What a need for classification you have! Besides, the great socialists are Jews and the socialist doctrine is a branch of universal Christianity. I laugh at money, and whether the land is divided up or not is all one to me. The barbarians, my ancestors, lived in common, but they had chiefs. No, I detest socialists, Jews, and Christians.
According to Roure, Tukhachevsky said that he would follow Lenin only if he "de-europeanised and threw Russia into barbarism", but feared Lenin would not do that. After ranting about how he could use Marxism as a justification to secure the territorial aims of the tsars and cement Russia's position as a world power, he laughed and said he was only joking. Roure said the laugh had an ironic and despairing tone.[15]
On another occasion, following theFebruary Revolution, Roure observed Tukhachevsky carving a "scary idol from colored cardboard", with "burning eyes", a "gaping mouth", and a "bizarre and terrible nose". He inquired about its purpose, to which Tukhachevsky responded:[16]
"This isPerun. A powerful person. This is the god of war and death." And Mikhail knelt down before him with comic seriousness. I burst out laughing. "Don't laugh," he said, getting up from his knees. – I told you that the Slavs need a new religion. They are given Marxism, but there is too much modernism and civilization in this theology. (...) There isDazhbog – the god of the Sun,Stribog – the god of the Wind,Veles – the god of arts and poetry, and finally, Perun – the god of thunder and lightning. After some deliberation, I settled on Perun, since Marxism, having won in Russia, will unleash merciless wars between people. I will honor Perun every day."
— Remy Roure
Tukhachevsky's apparent neopaganism was also corroborated by another prisoner at Ingolstadt,Nikolay Alexandrovich Tsurikov [ru], who recalled that he once saw a "scarecrow" in the corner of Tukhachevsky's cell, and upon asking him as to what it was, Tukhachevsky responded (to what Tsurikov interpreted as heavy sarcasm), that it was an effigy ofYarilo (the Slavic god of vegetation, fertility and springtime), which he had created duringShrovetide.[17]
Tukhachevsky never denied and later even confirmed those stories about his imprisonment in Germany, but always said that he was politically immature in 1917 and greatly regretted his early views. In France 1936, when confronted with what Roure wrote about him, he said that he had read his book and stated the following:
I was still very young... a novice at politics, and all I knew about revolutions was the last phase of the citizens' revolution in France: the Bonapartism whose military triumphs filled me with boundless admiration. (...) I never think of my views at Ingolstadt without regretting them, since they could cause doubts about my devotion to the Soviet motherland. I'm taking advantage of our reunion to tell you my true feelings.[15]
Whether or not Tukhachevsky really gave up on his old views, the assertion that he was a fully-fledged Bolshevik by the time he joined them is considered to be most likely not true.[15]
Tukhachevsky's fifth escape met with success, and after crossing the Swiss-German border and carrying with him some small pagan idols,[17] he returned to Russia in September 1917. After theOctober Revolution in 1917, Tukhachevsky joined theBolsheviks and went on to play a key role in theRed Army despite his noble ancestry.
Tukhachevsky became an officer in the newly-established Red Army and rapidly advanced in rank because of his great ability.[citation needed] During theRussian Civil War, he was given responsibility for defending Moscow.[citation needed] The Bolshevik Defence Commissar,Leon Trotsky, gave Tukhachevsky command of the5th Army in 1919, and he led the campaign to captureSiberia from theanticommunistWhite forces ofAleksandr Kolchak. Tukhachevsky used concentrated attacks to exploit the enemy's open flanks and threaten them with envelopment.[citation needed]
According to Tukhachevsky's close confidantLeonid Sabaneyev, when Tukhachevsky was in the service of the Military Department of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee in 1918, in his last overt display ofneopaganism, Tukhachevsky drew up a project for destruction ofChristianity and restoration ofSlavic paganism. To that end, Tukhachevsky submitted a memo on declaring paganism as the state religion ofSoviet Russia, which although mocked, also received some serious discussion in the SmallCouncil of People's Commissars, which commended Tukhachevsky for his "joke" and his commitment toatheism. Sabaneyev observed that Tukhachevsky seemed "as happy as a schoolboy who had just succeeded in a prank."[18]
Tukhachevsky also helped defeat GeneralAnton Denikin in theCrimea in 1920, conducting the final operations. In February 1920, he launched an offensive into theKuban and used cavalry to disrupt the enemy's rear. In the retreat that followed, Denikin's force disintegrated, andNovorossiysk was evacuated hastily.[19]
In the final stage of the Civil War, Tukhachevsky commanded the7th Army during the suppression of theKronstadt rebellion in March 1921. He also commanded the assault against theTambov Republic between 1921 and 1922.[19][20][21]
Tukhachevsky commanded the Soviet invasion of Poland during thePolish–Soviet War in 1920. In the lead-up to hostilities, he concentrated his troops nearVitebsk, which he theatrically dubbed, "The Gates ofSmolensk". When he issued his troops orders to cross the border, Tukhachevsky said, "The fate of world revolution is being decided in the west: the way leads over the corpse of Poland to a universal conflagration.... On toWilno,Minsk, andWarsaw – forward!"[22]
According to Richard M. Watt, "The boldness of Tukhachevsky's drive westward was the key to his success. The Soviet High Command dispatched 60,000 men as reinforcements, but Tukhachevsky never stopped to let them catch up. His onrushing armies were leaving behind greater numbers of stragglers every day, but Tukhachevsky ignored these losses. His supply services were in chaos and his rear scarcely existed as an organized entity, but Tukhachevsky was unconcerned; his men would live off the land. On the day his troops captured Minsk, a new cry arose – 'Give us Warsaw!'[23] Tukhachevsky was determined to give them what they wanted. All things considered, Tukhachevsky's performance was a virtuoso display of energy, determination, and, indeed, rashness."[24]
In the summer of 1920, Tukhachevsky successfully pushed back the jointPolish-Ukrainian army ofPiłsudski andPetliura that had conqueredKyiv in May.[25] However, his armies were defeated by Piłsudski in theBattle of Warsaw shortly after. It was during the Polish war that Tukhachevsky first came into conflict withJoseph Stalin. Both blamed each other for the Soviet failure to captureWarsaw. Tukhachevsky later lamented:
There can be no doubt that if we had been victorious on theVistula, the revolutionary fires would have reached the entire continent.[26]
His book about the war was translated into Polish and published, together with a book by Piłsudski.
Tukhachevsky fervently criticised the Red Army's performance during the 1926 Summer manoeuvres.[5] He criticised the officers' inability to determine what course of action to take and communicate that with their troops especially harshly.[5] Tukhachevsky noted that initiative among officers was lacking, that they responded slowly to changes in the situation and that communication was poor.[5] That was not purely the officers' fault, as the only way of communication from local unit headquarters to the field positions was a single telephone line.[5] In contrast, German divisions that mobilised shortly after during the interwar period had telephones, radio, horse, cycle and motorcycle messengers, signal lights and flags and pieces of cloth, and messages were conveyed mostly to aircraft.[27]
Tukhachevsky reached the position of First Deputy Commissar fordefence to Defence CommisarKliment Voroshilov.[5] Voroshilov disliked Tukhachevsky and would later be one of the initiators of theGreat Purge in which Tukhachevsky was executed.[5] According toGeorgy Zhukov, it was Tukhachevsky, not Voroshilov, who ran the ministry in practice. Voroshilov disliked Tukhachevsky, but his perception of military doctrine was impacted significantly by Tukhachevsky's ideas.[5]
According toSimon Sebag Montefiore, Stalin regarded Tukhachevsky as his most bitter rival and dubbed himNapoleonchik (littleNapoleon).[28] Upon Stalin's ascension to the party leadership in 1929, he began receiving denunciations from senior officers who disapproved of Tukhachevsky's tactical theories. In 1930, theJoint State Political Directorate forced two officers to testify that Tukhachevsky was plotting to overthrow thePolitburo via acoup d'état.[29]
According to Montefiore:
In 1930, this was perhaps too outrageous even for the Bolsheviks. Stalin, not yetdictator, probed his powerful allySergo Ordzhonikidze: "OnlyMolotov, 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 theGreat Terror, Stalin was testing the same accusations against the same victims – a dressrehearsal 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."[30]
Tukhachevsky later wrote several books on modern warfare, In 1931, after Stalin had accepted the need for an industrialized military, Tukhachevsky was given a leading role in reforming the army.[5] Tukhachevsky held advanced ideas on military strategy, particularly on the use of tanks and aircraft in combined operations.[5]
Tukhachevsky took a keen interest in the arts and became a political patron and close friend of the composerDmitri Shostakovich; they met in 1925[31] and subsequently played music together at Tukhachevsky's home (Tukhachevsky played the violin). In 1936, Shostakovich's music was under attack afterPravda denounced his operaLady Macbeth of Mtsensk. However, Tukhachevsky intervened with Stalin on his friend's behalf.[citation needed] After Tukhachevsky's arrest, pressure was put on Shostakovich to denounce him, but Shostakovich was saved from doing so by the fact that the investigator was himself arrested.[32]
Tukhachevsky is often credited with the theory of deep operation in which combined arms formations strike deep behind enemy lines to destroy the enemy's rear and logistics,[33][34] but his exact role is unclear and disputed because of shortage of firsthand sources, and his published works containing only limited amounts of theory on the subject. The theories were opposed by some in the military establishment[35] but were largely adopted by the Red Army in the mid-1930s. They were expressed as a concept in the Red Army'sField Regulations of 1929 and more fully developed in the 1935Instructions on Deep Battle. The concept was finally codified into the army in 1936 in theProvisional Field Regulations of 1936. An early example of potential effectiveness of deep operations can be found in the Soviet victory over Japan at theBattle of Khalkhin Gol[citation needed] in which a Soviet Corps under the command of Zhukov defeated a substantial Japanese force in August and September 1939 inNomonhan.
It is often stated that the widespread purges of the Red Army officer corps in 1937 to 1939 made "deep operation" briefly fall from favor.[36] However, it was certainly a major part of Soviet doctrine after its efficacy was demonstrated by the Battle of Khalkhin Gol and the success of similar German operations in Poland and France. The doctrine was used with great success duringWorld War II on the Eastern Front in such victories as theBattle of Stalingrad[citation needed] andOperation Bagration.[37]
On November 20, 1935, Tukhachevsky was made aMarshal of the Soviet Union when he was 42. In January 1936, Tukhachevsky visited theUnited Kingdom,France andGermany.
Just before his arrest, Tukhachevsky was relieved of duty as assistant to Marshal Voroshilov and was appointed military commander of the Volga Military District.[38] 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.[39]
Tukhachevsky's interrogation and torture were directly supervised byNKVD ChiefNikolai Yezhov. Stalin instructed Yezhov, "See for yourself, but Tukhachevsky should be forced to tell everything.... It's impossible he acted alone".[19]
According to Montefiore, a few days later, as Yezhov buzzed in and out of Stalin's office, a broken Tukhachevsky confessed thatAvel Yenukidze had recruited him in 1928 and that he was a German agent co-operating withNikolai Bukharin to seize power. Tukhachevsky's confession, which survives in the archives, is dappled with a brown spray that was later found to be blood-spattered by a body in motion.[40]
Stalin commented, "It's incredible, but it's a fact, they admit it".[40]
On June 11, 1937, theSupreme Court of the Soviet Union convened a specialmilitary tribunal to try Tukhachevsky and eight generals for treason. The trial was dubbed theCase of the Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization. Upon hearing the accusations, Tukhachevsky was heard to say, "I feel I'm dreaming".[41] Most of the judges were also terrified. One was heard to comment, "Tomorrow I'll be put in the same place".[41]
At 11:35 that night, all of the defendants were declared guilty and sentenced to death. Stalin, who was awaiting the verdict with Yezhov, Molotov andLazar Kaganovich, did not even examine the transcripts. He simply said, "Agreed".[41]
Within the hour, Tukhachevsky was summoned from his cell by NKVD CaptainVasily Blokhin. As Yezhov watched, the former Marshal was shot once in the back of the head.[42]
Immediately afterward, Yezhov was summoned into Stalin's presence. Stalin asked, "What were Tukhachevsky's last words?"[41] Yezhov responded, "The snake said he was dedicated to the Motherland and Comrade Stalin. He asked forclemency. But it was obvious that he was not being straight, he hadn't laid down his arms".[41]
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Tukhachevsky's family members all suffered after his execution. His wife, Nina Tukhachevskaya, and his brothers Alexandr and Nikolai, both of whom were instructors in a Soviet military academy, were shot. Three of his sisters were sent to theGulag. His daughter Svetlana, aged 15 when he was executed, lived in the Nizhneisetsky orphanage in Sverdlovsk (nowYekaterinburg) and then the Gulag until theKhrushchev Thaw. She moved to Moscow afterwards and died in 1982.[43]
“To the Red army, Stalin has dealt a fearful blow. As a result of the latest judicial frameup, it has fallen several cubits in stature. The interests of the Soviet defense have been sacrificed in the interests of the self-preservation of the ruling clique.”
Leon Trotsky described Tukhachevsky posthumously as an "outstanding talent" for his strategic skills and viewed the purge of the Red Army by theStalinist bureaucracy as a means of preserving its political position.[45]
BeforeNikita Khrushchev'sSecret Speech in 1956, Tukhachevsky was officially considered afascist andfifth columnist. Soviet diplomats and supporters in the West enthusiastically promulgated this opinion. Then, on January 31, 1957, Tukhachevsky and his codefendants were declared innocent of all charges and were rehabilitated.[citation needed]
Although Tukhachevsky's prosecution is almost universally regarded as a sham, Stalin's motivations continue to be debated. In his 1968 bookThe Great Terror, the British historianRobert Conquest accusesNazi Party leadersHeinrich Himmler andReinhard Heydrich of forging documents that implicated Tukhachevsky in ananti-Stalinist conspiracy with theWehrmachtGeneral Staff, to weaken the Soviets' defence capacity. The documents, Conquest said, were leaked to PresidentEdvard Beneš ofCzechoslovakia, who passed them to the Soviet Union through diplomatic channels. Conquest's thesis of an SS conspiracy to frame Tukhachevsky was based upon the memoirs ofWalter Schellenberg and Beneš.[46]
In 1989, the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union announced that new evidence had been found in Stalin's archives indicating German intelligence's intentions to fabricate disinformation about Tukhachevsky with the goal of eliminating him. "Knowledge of personal characteristics of Stalin – like paranoia and extreme suspicion, had been possibly highest factor in it."[47]
According to the opinion of Igor Lukes, who conducted a study on the matter, it was Stalin, Kaganovich and Yezhov who actually concocted Tukhachevsky's "treason" themselves. At Yezhov's order, the NKVD had instructed a knowndouble agent,Nikolai Skoblin, to leak to Heydrich'sSicherheitsdienst (SD) concocted information suggesting a plot by Tukhachevsky and the other Soviet generals against Stalin.[46]
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 that it had successfully fooled Stalin into executing his best generals, in reality, it had merely served as an unwitting pawn of the Soviet NKVD. Ironically, Heydrich's forgeries were never used at trial. Instead, Soviet prosecutors relied on signed "confessions" beaten out of the defendants.[46]
In 1956, the NKVDdefectorAleksandr Mikhailovich Orlov published an article inLife Magazine with "The Sensational Secret Behind the Damnation of Stalin" as title. The story held that NKVD agents had discovered papers in the tsaristOkhrana archives proving Stalin had once been an informer.[48] From this knowledge, the NKVD agents had planned acoup d'état with Tukhachevsky and other senior officers in the Red Army.[49] According to Orlov, Stalin uncovered the conspiracy and used Yezhov to execute those responsible.[50] The article lists theEremin letter as documentary evidence that Stalin was part of the Okhrana, but most historians agree it's a forgery.[51]
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.[52]
It has been speculated that the reason that Stalin had Tukhachevsky and other high-ranking generals executed was to remove a potential threat to his political power. Ultimately, Stalin and Yezhov would orchestrate the arrest and execution of thousands of Soviet military officers as well as five of the eight generals who presided over Tukhachevsky's show trial.[53]
While at the time of his death the Red Army was still firmly in the grip of the cavalry, Tukhachevsky had changed the Red Army's mentality quite significantly. While manymachine-gunners were being arrested and MarshalBudyonny spoke in favour of cavalry, influential people, even including Marshal Voroshilov, under whom Tukhachevsky served and who took part in the arrests, began to question the cavalry's position inside the Red Army.[5] The horse remained ingrained in the Red Army, however.[5] In peacetime, cavalry made sense to the Red Army; it was effective in smaller actions and internal security actions, many horse riders were available without requiring significant training, and there were the memories of the effectiveness of cavalry during the Civil War, all of which helped the horse in maintaining its central position inside the Red Army.[5] When the Second World War beganmixed units were set up, which included both cavalry and tanks; these played a central role in use of the deep operations doctrine during WWII.[5]
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. Vladimir, 4th class with swords
Order of Lenin (21 February 1933)
Order of the Red Banner (August 7, 1919)
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
| Military offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Chief of the Staff of the Red Army November 1925 – May 1928 | Succeeded by |
