Name: Mikhail Tukhachevskiy

Age: 44 years old

Place of Birth: Safonovsky district, Russian Empire

A place of death: Moscow

Activity: Soviet military leader, military leader, marshal

Family status: was married

Mikhail Tukhachevsky - biography

A memorial plaque was erected to Marshal Tukhachevsky in St. Petersburg. In addition to the Northern capital, there are streets named after him in five other Russian cities. Who exactly was this man, what biography did the marshal have?

Many consider Tukhachevsky a wasted talent and, apparently, rightly so. Only his calling was not military affairs, but... music.

Mikhail Tukhachevsky - music connoisseur

We didn't graduate from academies...

In the famous film, Chapaev said: “I didn’t go to academies, I didn’t finish them” - in the sense that you can command armies without higher military education. But not a film commander, but a real divisional commander, Chapaev was studying at the Military Academy of the Red Army. Tukhachevsky, convinced that he would definitely manage “without academies,” did not “follow in Chapaev’s footsteps.” In 1914 he completed a two-year course at the infantry school, and with this his education in the field of military art can be considered complete.

By nature, Mikhail was a arrogant person; he considered himself born for great things. “This sometimes took on the character of boyishness: he acted in Napoleon’s poses, adopted an arrogant expression on his face...”, one of his contemporaries recalled about him. Why did Tukhachevsky need to study? He was fed up with “armchair science” and decided that he was quite capable of commanding large masses of people. But even if he had military abilities, they should have been developed through systematic studies.

In 1921, the Civil War ended. It would seem that it’s time to head to the Military Academy of the Red Army. Mikhail Nikolaevich did just that: he became... her boss. Compared to the background of former convicts - Voroshilov, Kotovsky, Makhno - the ex-second lieutenant of the Semenovsky Life Guards Regiment seemed like an academician. But against the backdrop of military specialists-intellectuals Brusilov, Shaposhnikov, Karbyshev, Svechin, his genius raised strong doubts. It is not surprising that soon the professors started a “rebellion”, and Tukhachevsky had to look for employment in Frunze’s office.

Some people of a humanitarian nature - musicians, philosophers, poets - find it difficult to hone formulations and scrupulously check calculations. But it’s easy to create fancy images and play with words. This is exactly how Tukhachevsky expressed his thoughts: “Without denying the eternal aspects of strategy, on the contrary, analyzing the essence of the civil war, we, guided by these eternal truths, want to point out those new data from the strategy of the civil war that we did not have to take into account before.”

Tukhachevsky adored such reasoning, as well as scientific definitions like “harmonic of force dismemberment”, “non-compacting defensive curtain”, “aviation and mechanical combat behind enemy lines”. He invented them and replicated them in his works on military affairs.

He also did not understand the meaning of the numbers. “Multi-million-strong armies brought onto the stage fronts stretching hundreds of thousands of kilometers,” wrote Tukhachevsky about the First World War. This is not a typo: fantastic “fronts of hundreds of thousands of kilometers” (despite the fact that the length of the earth’s equator is just over 40 thousand!) wander from one of his creations to another. Similar to them are the marshal’s ideas to produce 50-100 thousand tanks a year. It never occurred to him that all this equipment, firstly, needed to be produced somehow, and secondly, someone had to service it and manage it.

But if Mikhail Nikolaevich’s “military thought” was so vague, what was the reason for his rise?

By the beginning of 1921, the career of the red army commander Tukhachevsky almost collapsed. He disgraced himself in the war with Poland: thanks to his “talents,” the Red Army stumbled at the very threshold of Warsaw. Tukhachevsky, who was a front commander, was publicly criticized not only by Stalin, but also by Lenin, Frunze, and a number of senior military specialists of the Red Army.

And then the Kronstadt mutiny of the Baltic sailors broke out and, a little later, the peasant uprising in the Tambov region. And Mikhail Nikolaevich turned around in all his glory as a punitive: he introduced the institution of hostages, repressions against family members of the rebels, including young children. However, in those years, many of the marshal’s colleagues stained their hands with the blood of their compatriots. This means that the executioner’s talent was not the only reason for his career rise. So what?

Mikhail Tukhachevsky - biography of personal life

Like any ambitious man, Tukhachevsky was a great lover of women. And they reciprocated the handsome handsome man.

During the Civil War, the daughter of a driver from Penza was not separated from him. True, when she shot herself in 1920 - out of jealousy or for some other reason - Tukhachevsky did not even go to the funeral. I immediately fell in love with a 16-year-old girl, got together and got married. Although he hardly counted on a long family life with her: he understood that if he entered into a marriage, it would be with a “strategic calculation.”

At first, being married, he courted two half-sisters of enlightenment of Anatoly Lunacharsky - Anastasia and Tatyana Chernoluzsky. But soon a more profitable party presented itself - Nina Kogan-Grinevich, the sister of the old party member Mikhail Kogan, a veteran of the international revolutionary movement, whose banner was Trotsky. Thus, Tukhachevsky in the post of first deputy to Marshal Voroshilov is the compensation issued by Stalin to the Trotskyists in the Red Army: they say, “my people’s commissar, yours is the first deputy.”

Hopes did not come true. After the execution of Tukhachevsky, the punitive machine of the NKVD took revenge on his relatives. Not only his brother was executed: the whole family went to the camps. Both daughters lived in special children's homes until 1953...

There is a version that Tukhachevsky was killed by a woman fascinated by him - Bolshoi Theater singer Vera Davydova, Stalin's last and most likely platonic love. The version is funny: the leader was not so petty as to remove the first deputy people's commissar of defense “because of his skirt.” Especially when the war in Europe actually began.

The main reason for Tukhachevsky’s fall was not only his probable political betrayal. The violin connoisseur was not suited to the position of First Deputy People's Commissar of Defense, but he had no intention of leaving it. But there was already a smell of a big war, and it was unacceptable to keep a person who was not very professional in such a position. And who knows, if Tukhachevsky had not aimed at the marshal’s stars, but took up music, maybe he would have remained alive...

The entire short life of Mikhail Nikolaevich Tukhachevsky is a tragic biography of a man who failed to realize his own calling. He made a mistake and paid for it in full - not only with his own life, but also with the lives of thousands of compatriots.

Soviet military leader, military theorist, Marshal of the Soviet Union (1935).

Mikhail Nikolaevich Tukhachevsky was born on the Aleksandrovskoye estate, Dorogobuzhsky district, Smolensk province (now near the village). The future marshal was the son of an impoverished Smolensk nobleman Nikolai Nikolaevich Tukhachevsky.

The childhood years of M. N. Tukhachevsky were spent in the village of Chembarsky district of the Penza province (now in) and in the city. In 1904-1909 he studied at the 1st Penza Gymnasium. After the family moved to Moscow, he graduated from the 1st Moscow Cadet Corps (1912). In 1912-1914 he studied at the Alexander Military School, from which he was released with the rank of second lieutenant and sent to the front of the First World War.

M. N. Tukhachevsky was appointed junior officer (deputy commander) of the 7th company of the 2nd battalion in the Life Guards Semenovsky Regiment. Already in the first six months of the war, he showed outstanding leadership skills and was awarded five orders. In February 1915, together with the remnants of the 7th company of the Semenovsky Life Guards Regiment, M. N. Tukhachevsky was captured. During his two and a half years of captivity in Germany, he tried to escape five times, but only in October 1917 he managed to cross the Swiss border. After returning to M.N. Tukhachevsky was elected company commander of the Semenovsky regiment and promoted to captain, demobilized with the same rank.

In 1918, M. N. Tukhachevsky voluntarily joined the Red Army. With assistance, he was enrolled in the Military Department of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and joined the RCP (b). M. N. Tukhachevsky held the position of military commissar of defense of the Moscow region (1918), took part in the formation and training of regular units of the Red Army. During the Civil War of 1918-1920, he commanded the 1st Army of the Eastern Front (June 1918 - January 1919), the 8th Army of the Southern Front (January - March 1919), the 5th Army of the Eastern Front (April - November 1919), which, in cooperation with other armies, carried out a number of successful operations to liberate the Urals and Siberia from the admiral’s troops. He commanded the troops of the Caucasian Front (February - April 1920) during the defeat of the general's troops, the troops of the Western Front (from April 1920 to August 1921) in the Soviet-Polish War of 1920, the 7th Army during the liquidation of the Kronstadt rebellion (March 1921), troops Tambov region (April - July 1921) during the suppression of the peasant uprising under the leadership of A. S. Antonov.

After the Civil War, M. N. Tukhachevsky took an active part in the Military Reform of 1924-1925. He was the head of the Military Academy of the Red Army (1921), commander of the troops of the Western Military District, from 1924 he was assistant chief, and from November 1925 to May 1928 - chief of staff of the Red Army. In 1928-1931 he commanded the troops of the Leningrad Military District.

In 1931, M. N. Tukhachevsky was appointed deputy chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR, chief of armaments of the Red Army. In 1933 he was awarded the order. In 1934 he became deputy, and in 1936 - 1st deputy people's commissar of defense of the USSR and head of the combat training department. At the XVII Party Congress in 1934, he was elected as a candidate member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). In 1935, one of the first Soviet military leaders, M. N. Tukhachevsky, was awarded the military rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union.

M. N. Tukhachevsky played a big role in the technical re-equipment of the Red Army, changing the organizational structure of the troops, in the development of new branches of the armed forces and types of armed forces - aviation, mechanized and airborne troops, the Navy, in the training of command and political personnel. He was the initiator of the creation of a number of independent military academies - mechanization and motorization, etc. M. N. Tukhachevsky supported the proposal to create a Jet Research Institute to conduct research in the field of rocketry.

M. N. Tukhachevsky was the author of many books, articles and reports containing a system of strategic views on modern war and which had a significant influence on the development of military thought and the practice of military development. He made a significant contribution to the development of strategy, operational art, tactics and military science in general.

The activities of M. N. Tukhachevsky to reform the armed forces and his views on preparing the army for a future war met with resistance and opposition in the People's Commissariat of Defense. For various reasons, marshals and a number of army commanders treated him with hostility. In turn, military leaders from M.N. Tukhachevsky’s entourage developed a sharply critical attitude towards his activities in the post of People’s Commissar of Defense. In this conflict he took the side of those personally devoted to him.

On May 10, 1937, M. N. Tukhachevsky was transferred from the post of 1st Deputy People's Commissar of Defense to the post of commander of the Volga Military District. On May 22, 1937, he was arrested in Kuibyshev (now) on charges of creating a Trotskyist military organization and transported to.

On June 11, 1937, the case against M.N. Tukhachevsky and a group of high-ranking military personnel was considered in a closed meeting of the Special Judicial Presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR. All defendants were sentenced to death. The sentence was carried out on the night of June 11-12, 1937.

In 1957, M. N. Tukhachevsky was posthumously rehabilitated.

Tukhachevsky Mikhail Nikolaevich (born February 4 (February 16), 1893 - death June 12, 1937) - military leader, marshal of the USSR. During the Civil War, he commanded a number of armies in battles in the Volga region, the South, the Urals, Siberia, troops of the Caucasian Front during the defeat of the troops and the Western Front in the war with Poland.

1921 - commanded troops during the suppression of a peasant uprising in the Tambov and Voronezh provinces. In 1925-28 - Chief of Staff of the Red Army. Since 1931 - Deputy People's Commissar of Military Affairs and Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR. Since 1934 - Deputy, since 1936 - 1st Deputy People's Commissar of Defense. Arrested and executed in 1937 on charges of “military conspiracy” against Stalin.

Origin. Education

Mikhail Tukhachevsky came from an old, but greatly impoverished noble family. He was born on the Tukhachevsky Alexandrovsky estate, Smolensk province. His father was a small landowner. Since childhood, Mikhail was interested in military affairs. But the father was against his son’s military career and sent him to the 1st Penza Gymnasium in 1904. Only in 1909, after numerous requests, the boy was transferred to the Moscow Cadet Corps, which Tukhachevsky graduated with honors in 1912.

Continuing his education, he entered the Moscow Alexander Military School, which he graduated in June 1914 with the rank of second lieutenant.

Military service

During the First World War, he was repeatedly awarded for personal bravery. 1915, February - during the Prasnysh operation on the North-Western Front he was captured near Lomza. 1917 - after several unsuccessful attempts, he was able to escape from Germany to Russia.

After the revolution of 1917, he went over to the side of the Bolsheviks, and in 1918 he joined the party. He worked in the military department of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK). 1918, May - military commissar of defense of the Moscow region, since June of the same year, commander of the First Army on the Eastern Front. Conducted a number of successful offensive operations against the People's Army of the Committee of the Constituent Assembly and the Czechoslovak Corps.

December 1918 - January 1919 - Assistant Commander of the Southern Front. 1919, January-March - commander of the 8th Army of the Southern Front. From April to November - commander of the 5th Army, which took part in the counter-offensive of the Eastern Front, in the Zlatoust, Chelyabinsk and other operations to liberate the Urals and Siberia from the army.

1920, January-April - commander of the Caucasian Front; under his leadership the Yegorlyk and North Caucasus operations were carried out. 1920 - during the Soviet-Polish War, he led the Western Front, which was defeated by the White Poles near Warsaw.

1921, March - took part in the suppression of ... the Kronstadt rebellion. 1921 - commander of the troops of the Tambov province, carrying out the task of completely eliminating the mass peasant uprising.

1922-1924 - Mikhail Nikolaevich commands the Western Front, while the party elite, mired in internal squabbles and struggle, was extremely wary of his interference in the political life of the state. Tukhachevsky actually had political ambitions. He was under covert surveillance and incriminating evidence was collected. 1924 - he becomes assistant chief of staff of the Red Army, and in 1925-1928 - chief of staff of the Red Army. Despite his workload, Mikhail Nikolaevich also found time for military pedagogical work and gave lectures to academy students. 1928, May - appointed commander of the Leningrad Military District. 1931 - he becomes deputy People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR K. Voroshilov.

Personal life

Tukhachevsky was married three times. The first wife is Ignatieva Maria Vladimirovna, the daughter of a driver at the Penza depot. True, the marriage with Maria did not last long. She committed suicide - shot herself right in her husband's headquarters car.

According to one version, Maria could not withstand the constant betrayal; according to another, the wife was tormented by remorse. At that time, there was a terrible famine in the country, and she secretly sent bags of flour and canned food to her parents in Penza. The Revolutionary Military Council, having learned this, put bags of provisions in front of the army commander. Tukhachevsky began to demand a divorce. Maria shot herself. He did not even attend the funeral, but entrusted all the care of his late wife to his adjutant. And he did not grieve for long and soon married again.

Since 1921, the second wife is Nina Evgenievna Grinevich. From a noble family. 1922 - daughter Svetlana was born. Shot in 1941.

The third wife is secretary Yulia Kuzmina. In this marriage, a daughter was also born, also named Sveta.

Opal. Arrest. Execution

Meanwhile, tensions are rising in Europe. The Nazis come to power in Germany. The war was approaching, and Stalin's suspiciousness became stronger. It was his fears for his own power that were the main reason for the repressions in the Red Army. The popular, relatively young and educated Marshal Mikhail Nikolaevich Tukhachevsky was not needed by the “leader of the peoples” in the great war.

1937, May 1 - after the parade, the top Bolshevik leadership continued to celebrate the holiday at Voroshilov’s apartment. Stalin then made a toast that “enemies” within the state would be identified and exterminated. The repressions have already begun, but have not yet reached the army. A few days after this significant scene, the marshal was dismissed from the post of Deputy People's Commissar of Defense and sent to command the Volga Military District.

1937, May 22 - the commander was arrested in Kuibyshev. During interrogation, Mikhail Nikolaevich admitted that he was preparing a military coup. To do this, he allegedly intended to organize the defeat of the Red Army in the upcoming war with the Germans or Japanese. On June 11, the court sentenced the former marshal to death for espionage and treason. He was shot that same night. Posthumously rehabilitated in 1957.

Did the so-called really exist? “Tukhachevsky conspiracy”? Some historians believe so. Mikhail Nikolaevich confessed to everything at once and betrayed all his accomplices.

Tukhachevsky was killed by women, one of whom followed him and reported to the NKVD.

Tukhachevsky was one of the most talented and famous military leaders of the Red Army during the Civil War. He was among the first five marshals of the Soviet Union. Tukhachevsky was shot in 1937, during the purges of the Red Army.

Choosing a military career

Tukhachevsky was born on February 16, 1893 into a noble family. The boy was interested in music from early childhood. He mastered playing the violin. Much later, the military man became friends with composer Dmitry Shostakovich.

On the eve of the First World War, Mikhail Tukhachevsky graduated from the Alexander Military School. He was the best in discipline and academic performance among his peers. Attractive career prospects opened up for Tukhachevsky. In the summer of 1914, the military man decided to go to the Academy of the General Staff.

A year earlier, in Moscow, Mikhail Tukhachevsky, during the celebration of the 300th anniversary of the reign of the Romanov dynasty, was introduced to Emperor Nicholas II. Later, throughout his life, the tsarist and then the Soviet officer strove to achieve the maximum in his career field. Without a doubt, he was ambitious and purposeful. Many friends and acquaintances compared him to Napoleon. For example, classmate Vladimir Postoronkin recalled his irrepressible ambitions in his memoirs published in Prague in 1928.

In the royal army

Many times, Mikhail Tukhachevsky took great risks or decided on controversial actions in order to take advantage of the opportunities that opened before him. As a military man, he was very fortunate to serve as Russia experienced World War I and the Civil War.

The next episode is also eloquent. Even in peacetime, while studying in his senior year at his military school, Mikhail Tukhachevsky wrote a report to the management, in which he reported on the inappropriate behavior of junior cadets. The trial began. As a result, three cadets (Krasovsky, Avdeev and Yanovsky) committed suicide.

German captivity

During the First World War, Tukhachevsky was captured by the Germans. In the camp in Ingolstadt, he met the future President of France, Charles de Gaulle. The conditions of captivity at that time were not at all the same as, for example, in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. The prisoners were released on parole to a nearby town. Taking advantage of the relaxation of this system, the tsarist officer fled.

Mikhail Nikolaevich Tukhachevsky, whose short biography as a field soldier began precisely with German captivity, hated Germany. Already in the Soviet Union, as Deputy People's Commissar of Defense, he often made accusatory speeches against this country.

Polish campaign

After the October Revolution, Tukhachevsky joined the Bolsheviks. In the Red Army he quickly achieved success and fame. In the spring of 1920, Tukhachevsky was appointed commander of the Western Front, where the Red Army fought with Poland. By this time, the White movement was almost everywhere defeated. Now the Bolsheviks could move on to implementing their plan for world revolution. If the Red Army had captured Poland, then workers' uprisings could have started in the rest of Europe. Lenin then put forward the famous slogan “Through Warsaw to Berlin and Paris.”

The apogee of Tukhachevsky’s offensive was the appearance of Red Army soldiers in the suburbs of the Polish capital on August 14. However, just two days later Pilsudski’s counter-offensive began. As a result, the Poles reached Minsk. It was a total defeat. It was not associated with the failure of Tukhachevsky personally, but was explained by simple objective reasons. The Russians have been fighting for 7 years since the beginning of the First World War. They were exhausted. At the same time, the revolutionary sentiments of the workers in Poland were much weaker than the national desire for independence. For the inhabitants of this country, the arrival of the Bolsheviks was primarily the arrival of the Russians.

Assault on Kronstadt

A peace treaty with Poland was signed on March 18, 1921, while Tukhachevsky was suppressing the uprising in Kronstadt. He arrived in Petrograd on the 5th. He was tasked with dealing with the rebellious sailors on the neighboring island before March 8, when the opening of the X Party Congress was planned.

The famous assaults of the cadets walking on the ice of the Gulf of Finland began. At the same time, Lenin, at a meeting of the Politburo, agreed to abolish the surplus appropriation system and thus fulfill one of the demands of the rebel sailors, whose village families were starving due to the fact that the Bolsheviks took away their entire harvest. The rebellion was suppressed after a second assault on March 18. The day before, the rebel sailors laid down their arms, washed the deck and began to await their fate. Some of them emigrated to Finland.

Suppression of the peasant revolt

The Kronstadt uprising was the first part of the Bolshevik military campaign in 1921. After the victory over the sailors, Tukhachevsky set out to suppress the Antonovsky peasant revolt that began in the Tambov province in mid-1920. Alexander Antonov became the leader of the rebels, which is why the counter-revolutionaries began to be called “Antonovites.” The villagers, dissatisfied with the Soviet regime, took up arms and created the Union of the Working Peasantry. This organization even adopted its own political program. The demands of the peasantry were to overthrow the hated Bolsheviks and convene a Constituent Assembly. Antonovshchina arose due to a terrible famine in the countryside due to the disastrous surplus appropriation and

In April 1921, Efraim Sklyansky, who was Trotsky’s right-hand man and his deputy in the Revolutionary Military Council, sent a letter to Lenin proposing to make Tukhachevsky chiefly responsible for the defeat of the Tambov rebels. The hero, however, could not fight his own people. It was decided that Mikhail Nikolaevich Tukhachevsky would be appointed sole commander in the Tambov province without any wide publicity in the press. The military man was given a month to get rid of the “Antonov gangs.” At the same time, Mikhail Nikolaevich Tukhachevsky received absolute freedom of action from the center. Time has shown that he took full advantage of it.

War with partisans

On May 6, Mikhail Tukhachevsky arrived in Tambov. The short biography of this man is an example of an amazing career fall and rise. Having been defeated in Poland, this military leader put an end to his future. But it was in 1921 that, thanks to the suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion and the Antonov uprising, he was able not only to justify himself in the eyes of the Politburo, but also to gain the opportunity for further promotion in the Red Army.

Having assessed the situation on the ground, Mikhail Nikolaevich Tukhachevsky issued order No. 130 on May 12, according to which the partisan peasants were to surrender to the authorities. If the rebel did not lay down his arms, his family was arrested. Relatives were kept in special concentration camps for two weeks. If the peasant did not show up after this period, the family went to Siberia.

Against this background, on May 28, the Red Army went on the offensive. On June 11, a new order was issued, the author of which was Mikhail Nikolaevich Tukhachevsky. Now the military has the right to shoot citizens who refuse to identify themselves by name. By August, about 70 thousand relatives had been deported. It is interesting that in Tukhachevsky’s army the Antonov uprising was suppressed by the future hero of the Great Patriotic War, 26 years old

Use of chemical weapons

In the Tambov province, Mikhail Nikolaevich Tukhachevsky took advantage of new war tactics. Already in the 30s, being at the zenith of his career, he also wrote theoretical military works. Several materials were devoted to chemical weapons. Tukhachevsky was suggested to use gas by cadets from the city of Orel. This technology was used to smoke peasants out of the forests.

They started releasing gas belatedly, only after gas masks were brought from Moscow. The new tactics bore fruit. In mid-July 1921, Lenin received a report that Soviet power had been established everywhere in the Tambov province. The author of the paper was Mikhail Tukhachevsky. The biography of the 28-year-old military man was marked by another victory at the head of the Red Army. The suppression of the Antonov peasant uprising became the highest point of his practical activity in the army. Since then, he has held senior positions, but has not been to war.

"Demon of the Civil War"

Why is Mikhail Nikolaevich Tukhachevsky so important for Soviet history? The biography of this man is an example of the ideal use of a tsarist officer in the Red Army. The Bolsheviks, having come to power, were able to win the Civil War largely due to the fact that they began to cooperate with military specialists who served with the emperor.

The initiator of this flexible policy was the chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council. The participation of such an officer as Mikhail Nikolaevich Tukhachevsky in the Civil War showed how right Lev Davydovich was. By the way, they were similar in many ways. Trotsky was called the “demon of revolution.” Lev Davidovich himself highly appreciated Tukhachevsky. He once referred to the army commander as “the demon of the Civil War.”

Under the gun of security officers

In 1929, German intelligence launched disinformation that an agent of the German General Staff was not just anyone, but Mikhail Tukhachevsky. The photo of the military leader then ended up in the personal file of the Soviet secret services. Another campaign of purges in the Red Army passed through the city. The OGPU arrested several thousand tsarist officers. Two of them (Troitsky and Kokorin) testified against Tukhachevsky. Former subordinates accused him of plotting against the government and wanting to stage a military coup.

Stalin was informed about the interrogation of Kokorin and Troitsky. It was then, in 1930, that the leader of the peoples decided the fate of Tukhachevsky. A black mark was placed on the military leader. Nevertheless, Stalin waited for several more years, gradually preparing for the total purges in the Red Army that occurred during the Great Terror.

In the early thirties, Tukhachevsky was the head of the Leningrad Military District. On November 7, 1933, on the next anniversary of the October Revolution, he led the parade on Red Square. In 1935 he became one of the first five marshals of the Soviet Union. A year later, the military leader was appointed deputy people's commissar of defense Voroshilov.

A fall

At this time, tensions were increasing in Europe. The Nazis came to power in Germany. The war was approaching, and Stalin's suspiciousness became stronger. It was his fear for his own power that was the main reason for the repressions in the Red Army. Stalin did not need the popular, relatively young and educated Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky in the great war.

On May 1, 1937, after the parade, the top Soviet leadership continued to celebrate the holiday at Voroshilov’s apartment. Stalin then said during a toast that “enemies” within the country would be identified and exterminated. The repressions have already begun, but the army has not yet been affected. A few days after this significant scene, Tukhachevsky was dismissed from the post of Deputy People's Commissar of Defense. He was sent to command the Volga Military District.

On May 22, 1937, the marshal was arrested in Kuibyshev. During interrogation, Tukhachevsky admitted that he was preparing a military coup. To do this, he allegedly intended to organize the defeat of the Red Army in a future war with the Germans or Japanese. On June 11, the court sentenced Tukhachevsky to death for espionage and treason. He was shot that same night. The marshal was posthumously rehabilitated in 1957.

Mikhail Nikolaevich Tukhachevsky went down in history as a brilliant commander, one of the first Red Marshals of the Soviet Union, an ardent supporter of the technical re-equipment of the Red Army, thanks to whose activities the development of rocketry began in the USSR in the 30s. He was called "Napoleon" and "the demon of the revolution." The youngest marshal, a fanatical militarist, he lived by war and dreamed of a military dictatorship. As is known, in 1937, in the “military case,” he was innocently repressed and shot. However, was the “red marshal” so innocent and positive?

1. Godless violinist

Since childhood, Misha inherited a love of music from his father and grandmother. He played the violin, staged home plays, and played the main roles in them. It would seem that an almost idyllic picture is emerging, but this is only at first glance. Tukhachevsky's father was a man “without social prejudices.” He instilled in his children hatred of God. The children had three dogs, whose names were God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. The main atheist was the violinist and ringleader Misha, he made a lot of sarcastic remarks on religious topics, which more than once plunged his mother and the dressmaker Polina Dmitrievna, who lived in the Tukhachevskys’ house, into a state of shock. The elderly dressmaker could not do anything to counter the “possessiveness” of the tomboy, but somehow the mother could not stand another blasphemous tirade from her offspring and poured a cup of cold tea on Misha’s head. Misha dried himself, laughed and continued his anti-religious propaganda.

Tukhachevsky carried hatred of God throughout his life. To the French officer Ruhr, a neighbor in German captivity, he “revealed his soul”: “There is Dazhdbog 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 thought, I settled on Perun, since Marxism, having won in Russia, would unleash merciless wars between people. I will honor Perun every day.” In March 1918, immediately after joining the party, Tukhachevsky proposed to the Council of People's Commissars his project for banning Christianity and reviving paganism.

2. Hypocrite

The glorification of Tukhachevsky is the fruit of propaganda from the time of the debunking of Stalin's personality cult. In fact, Tukhachevsky more than once neglected the honor of an officer in favor of his personal interests. Tukhachevsky hated the Tsar no less than God. During his cadetship, he was personally introduced to Nicholas II for his special services. The Tsar was pleased with the faithful cadet, who called the Tsar an idiot behind his back. Already during his studies, the attitude towards Tukhachevsky was wary; he organized hazing for junior students and stopped at nothing to achieve his goals and satisfy his ambitions. They were already afraid of Tukhachevsky and characterized him as a man with a “cold soul,” ambitious, stubborn and greedy for power.

3. Oathbreaker

Tukhachevsky did not go to World War I out of patriotism. He, like his father, was devoid of “social prejudices.” War was a good career. In 1915 he was captured. According to the unwritten rules of that time, if an officer in captivity gave his word of honor not to look for an opportunity to escape, he received more rights and could even go for a walk. Tukhachevsky gave his word, he ran away just during a walk. Such an “anachronism” as an officer’s honor had no meaning for Tukhachevsky. His act caused outrage not only among the Germans, but also among our captured officers, and among the British and French. They even submitted a collective petition to the German command, stating that they no longer considered Tukhachevsky a man of honor and speech. Needless to say, Tukhachevsky didn’t care about the petitions.

4. Demon of Revolution

Leon Trotsky called Tukhachevsky “the demon of the revolution.” To earn such an “honorary” title from Lev Davidovich himself, one had to try hard. Tukhachevsky tried his best, but, of course, not for Trotsky, but for himself. Tukhachevsky physically could not tolerate any authority over himself. He was extremely harsh in his reprisals against civilians, created concentration camps, and gassed civilians.

Order No. 0116 dated June 12, 1921.
I order:
The forests where the bandits are hiding are cleared with poisonous gases, precisely calculated so that the cloud of suffocating gases spreads throughout the forest, destroying everything that was hiding there.
The artillery inspector should immediately send the required number of cylinders with poisonous gases and the necessary specialists to the field.
The commander of combat areas must persistently and energetically carry out this order.
Report the measures taken.
Commander of the troops M. Tukhachevsky.

5. Napoleon

In German captivity, Tukhachevsky said: “A sense of proportion, which is an obligatory quality for the West, is our biggest drawback in Russia. We need desperate heroic strength, oriental cunning and the barbaric breath of Peter the Great. Therefore, the robe of dictatorship best suits us.” It was precisely Tukhachevsky who always dreamed of a military dictatorship; he considered any relaxation of it a weakness. He never believed in the Tsar, or in God, or in Bolshevism, or in Lenin, or Stalin. He was driven by a thirst for uncontrolled power. Tukhachevsky's Bonapartism is well known. As a boy, he diligently copied the French emperor, and as he grew older, he loved to talk about Napoleon. An interesting detail: the memoirs about Tukhachevsky do not say anything about his friends, he simply did not have them. Friendship implies equality. Tukhachevsky saw no equal to himself, and was painfully ambitious. Even in the obvious Polish fiasco, when, thanks to the “military genius” of Tukhachevsky, thousands of Russians ended up in Polish captivity, he blamed not himself, but Stalin. And Stalin did not forget this.

6. Red Militarist

Stalin called Tukhachevsky a “red militarist.” Mikhail Nikolaevich’s global plans in 1927 to produce 50-100 thousand tanks per year were not only unrealistic, but also disastrous for the industry, defense capability and economy of the USSR. Tukhachevsky himself seemed to have little understanding of what he was proposing. During the entire war, all countries combined could not reach 100 thousand per year. The Soviet Union failed to build even 30 thousand tanks in a year - for this, all factories (including purely peaceful ones) would have to be rebuilt to produce armored vehicles. Industrialization in 27 was still ahead, industry was semi-handicraft, approximately 5 million tons of steel were produced. If we assume that the weight of one tank of that time was 30 tons, then Tukhachevsky proposed to give half of the steel to tanks. Also, the “red militarist” proposed producing 40,000 aircraft per year, which was fraught with no less big problems for the country. Truly Napoleonic plans! Let's get back to the tanks. Tukhachevsky proposed producing T-35 and T-28 tanks, which had become obsolete by the start of the war with Germany. If the USSR had thrown all its efforts into producing these machines, defeat in the war would have been inevitable.

7. Dark operation “Spring”.

In the early 30s, Tukhachevsky became involved in another dubious matter, becoming one of the initiators of Operation Spring - a large-scale purge of the Red Army from personnel of tsarist training, including former whites, which took place in 1930-1931. In terms of the number of lost military specialists with higher education, “Spring” caused more damage to the army than the “Great Terror” of 1937-1938, whose greater popularity was due to the post-Stalin political processes: to rehabilitate former tsarist officers as loudly and openly as the repressed commanders of the Red Army, the Soviet authorities were uncomfortable. In total, according to some sources, more than 3 thousand people were arrested, more than a thousand high-ranking officers of the old army were shot.

8. Conspirator

Tukhachevsky planned a coup d'etat in 1937. Contrary to Khrushchev’s rhetoric, whitewashing Tukhachevsky, modern historians are unanimous in their verdict: a conspiracy really took place. We must pay tribute to Tukhachevsky: he did not deny the accusations. It is interesting that the version of the forgery of the so-called “Benesh folder,” which allegedly misled Stalin, was confirmed by the memoirs of ... Schellenberg. It turns out that Khrushchev based his theses about Tukhachevsky’s innocence on the memoirs of the SS brigadefuhrer. In the 1950s, after Stalin’s death, the famous defector Feldbin-Orlov concluded one of the chapters of his sensational book “The Secret History of Stalin’s Crimes” with a phrase that was mysterious at the time: “When all the facts related to the Tukhachevsky case become known, the world will understand: Stalin knew , what is he doing".