Mikhail Tukhachevsky: photo, brief biography of Mikhail Nikolaevich Tukhachevsky

Tukhachevsky was one of the most talented and well-known commanders 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 in the Red Army.

Choice of military career

Tukhachevsky was born on February 16, 1893 in a noble family. The boy from the earliest childhood was fond of music. He mastered the game on the violin. Much later, the military became friends with the composer Dmitry Shostakovich.

On the eve of the First World War, Mikhail Tukhachevsky graduated from the Alexandrov Military School. He was the best in discipline and achievement among his peers. Before Tukhachevsky opened up a tempting career prospects. In the summer of 1914 the military decided to go to the Semenov regiment. Later he could go to the Academy of the General Staff.

A year before in Moscow, Mikhail Tukhachevsky, during the celebration of the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty, was introduced to Emperor Nicholas II. Later, throughout his life, the tsarist, and then Soviet, officer sought to achieve the maximum in his career. No doubt, he was ambitious and purposeful. Many friends and acquaintances compared him to Napoleon. For example, about his irrepressible ambitions in his memoirs, published in Prague in 1928, recollected classmate Vladimir Postobankin.

In the royal army

Many times, Mikhail Tukhachevsky took a lot of risk or decided on ambiguous acts in order to take advantage of the opportunities that he had before him. As a military man, he was very lucky to serve at a time when Russia experienced the First World War and the Civil War.

Eloquent and the next episode. Even in peacetime, while studying at the senior level of his military school, Mikhail Tukhachevsky wrote a report to the leadership, in which he reported on the inappropriate behavior of junior cadets. The proceedings began. As a result, three junkers (Krasovsky, Avdeev and Yanovskiy) committed suicide.

German captivity

During the First World War, Tukhachevsky was captured by the Germans. In the camp, in Ingolstadt, he met the future French President Charles de Gaulle. The conditions of the then captivity were completely different than, for example, in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. Prisoners on parole were released on a visit to the nearby city. Using the relaxations of this system, the tsarist officer fled.

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

The 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, on which the Red Army fought against Poland. By this moment the White movement was almost completely destroyed. Now the Bolsheviks could go on to implement their plan for a world revolution. If the Red Army had captured Poland, worker uprisings could begin 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 men in the suburbs of the Polish capital on August 14. However, within two days Piłsudski's counteroffensive began. As a result, the Poles reached Minsk. It was a total defeat. He was not connected with the failure of Tukhachevsky personally, but was explained by simple objective reasons. The Russians fought for 7 years since the beginning of the First World War. They were exhausted. At the same time, the revolutionary moods of 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.

Storm of Kronstadt

The peace treaty with Poland was signed on March 18, 1921, at a time when Tukhachevsky suppressed the uprising in Kronstadt. He arrived in Petrograd on the 5th. He was instructed to deal with the rebellious sailors on a neighboring island until March 8, when the opening of the Tenth Party Congress was planned.

The famous storms of cadets, who marched along the ice of the Gulf of Finland, began. Simultaneously, at the meeting of the Politburo, Lenin agreed to abolish the surplus-appropriation and thus fulfill one of the demands of the insurgent sailors, whose village families were starving because the Bolsheviks were taking their entire crop from them. The rebellion was suppressed after the second assault on March 18. On the eve of the insurgent sailors laid down their arms, washed the deck and waited for their fate. Some of them emigrated to Finland.

Suppression of the peasant insurrection

The Kronstadt uprising was the first part of the Bolshevik military campaign in 1921. After the victory over the sailors Tukhachevsky went to suppress the Antonov rebellion. This peasant revolt began in the Tambov province in mid-1920. The leader of the rebels was Alexander Antonov, because of which the counter-revolutionaries began to be called "Antonov". Dissatisfied with the Soviet authorities, the villagers took up arms and created the Union of Working Peasants. This organization even adopted its own political program. The demands of the peasantry consisted in the overthrow of the hated Bolsheviks and the convocation of the Constituent Assembly. Antonovschina emerged because of the terrible famine in the village because of the destructive surplus-appropriation and the policy of war communism.

In April 1921 Efraim Sklyansky, who was the right-hand man of Trotsky and his deputy in the Revolutionary Military Council, sent Lenin a memo in which he suggested making Tukhachevsky the main person responsible for defeating the Tambov rebels. The hero of the Civil War, however, could not fight with his own people. It was decided that Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky would be appointed as the sole commander in Tambov province without any publicity in the press. The military 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.

The war with the partisans

May 6 Mikhail Tukhachevsky came to Tambov. A brief biography of this man is an example of an amazing career fall and take-off. 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 mutiny and the Antonov uprising, he was able not only to justify himself in the eyes of the Politburo, but also to get an opportunity for further promotion in the Red Army.

Evaluating the situation on the spot, Mikhail Nikolaevich Tukhachevsky on May 12 issued an order No. 130, according to which partisan peasants had to surrender to the authorities. In case the rebel did not lay down his arms, his family was arrested. Relatives spent two weeks in special concentration camps. If the peasant was not announced after this period, the family went to Siberia.

Against this background, on May 28, the Red Army launched an offensive. On June 11, a new order was issued, authored by Mikhail Nikolaevich Tukhachevsky. Now the military has the right to shoot citizens who refused to call themselves by name. By August, about 70,000 relatives were subjected to deportation. It is interesting that in the army of Tukhachevsky the uprising of the Antonovites was suppressed by the future hero of the Great Patriotic War, 26-year-old Georgy Zhukov.

Use of chemical weapons

In Tambov province Tukhachevsky Mikhail Nikolayevich took advantage of the new tactics of war. Already in the 30's, while at the zenith of his career, he wrote and theoretical military works. Several materials were devoted to chemical weapons. Tugachevsky was offered gas by cadets from the city of Orel. This technology was used for smoking peasants from forests.

The gas began to be delayed, only after gas masks were brought from Moscow. The new tactic has borne fruit. In mid-July 1921, Lenin received a report that Soviet power was established in the Tambov province everywhere. The author of the paper was Mikhail Tukhachevsky. The biography of the 28-year-old soldier was marked by another victory at the head of the Red Army. The suppression of the Antonovo peasant uprising became the highest point of his practical activity in the army. Since then, he held senior positions, but he did not attend the war.

"Demon of the Civil War"

Why is Tukhachevsky Mikhail Nikolayevich so important for Soviet history? The biography of this man is an example of the ideal use of a royal officer in the Red Army. The Bolsheviks, having come to power, were able to win the Civil War in many ways precisely because 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, Lev Trotsky. The participation of such an officer as Mikhail Nikolaevich Tukhachevsky, in the Civil War, showed how right Lev Davidovich was. By the way, they were similar. Trotsky was called the "demon of the revolution." Lev Davidovich himself highly appreciated Tukhachevsky. Once he responded to the army commander as a "demon of the Civil War."

Under the sights of the Chekists

In 1929, German intelligence launched a disinformation about the fact that the agent of the German General Staff is not someone but Mikhail Tukhachevsky. The photo of the commander then turned out to be in the personal file of the Soviet special services. Another campaign of purges in the Red Army was held through the city. Several thousand tsarist officers were arrested by the OGPU. Two of them (Troitsky and Kokorin) testified against Tukhachevsky. Former subordinates accused him of conspiracy against the authorities and the desire to organize a military coup.

About the interrogation of Kokorin and Troitsky was told to Stalin. It was then, in 1930, the leader of the peoples decided the fate of Tukhachevsky. A black mark was placed on the commander. Nevertheless, Stalin waited for several years, gradually preparing for the total cleansing in the Red Army, which occurred during the Great Terror.

In the early thirties Tukhachevsky was the head of the Leningrad Military District. November 7, 1933, 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 commander was appointed Deputy People's Commissar of Defense Voroshilov.

A fall

At this time in Europe, tension increased. In Germany, the Nazis came to power. The war was approaching, and Stalin's suspicion grew stronger. It was his fear for his power that was the main reason for the repression in the Red Army. A popular, relatively young and educated marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky in the Great War was not needed by Stalin.

May 1, 1937, after the parade, the highest Soviet leadership continued to celebrate the holiday at Voroshilov's apartment. Stalin then after toast said that "enemies" inside the country will be identified and exterminated. Repression has already begun, but the army has not yet touched. A few days after this significant scene, Tukhachevsky was dismissed from the post of Deputy People's Commissar for Defense. He was sent to command the Privolzhsky Military District.

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