On June 11, 1937, a death sentence was imposed on the leaders of the “military-Trotskyist conspiracy” led by Marshal Tukhachevsky. This high-profile case marked the beginning of large-scale purges of the Red Army command staff. In 1937–1938 alone, about 16 thousand officers were arrested, and 65% of the senior command staff of the Red Army were subjected to repression. The bloody purge of the Red Army completely changed the face of the army and became one of the factors contributing to Nazi Germany’s attack on the USSR, since Hitler personally was confident that the purges had bled the army dry and destroyed it, and convinced the Wehrmacht generals that this was the most opportune moment for an attack.

Mikhail Tukhachevsky is often called the Red Bonaparte, hinting at his colossal ambitions. Allegedly, books about Napoleon were tabletop for Tukhachevsky all his life. Tukhachevsky’s ambitions are difficult to dispute, because, guided by them, he joined the Red Army and the party, being an officer in the tsarist army.

Tukhachevsky was born in 1893 into the family of a poor nobleman and a peasant woman. After graduating from the cadet corps, he enlisted in the army. He took part in the First World War with the rank of second lieutenant. This rank was roughly equivalent to a modern lieutenant.

Tukhachevsky did not fight for long, although quite bravely (five orders in a few months). In 1915 he was captured. Tukhachevsky tried unsuccessfully to escape from captivity several times, but luck smiled only in the fall of 1917.

Soon after Tukhachevsky's return, the Civil War began. As a tsarist officer, he had two options for his further path: either go to the nascent White Army, where there are so many officers that there are even officer regiments in which all the privates are officers. Or go to the Red Army, which is experiencing a monstrous lack of command personnel and tsarist officers have to be mobilized there by force, or even with the use of threats.

For a truly ambitious person there was only one option: to join the Red Army and make a lightning-fast career. To be sure to achieve something, Tukhachevsky simultaneously joined the party. This was already quite a rarity.

In the Red Army everything went like clockwork for him. Already in the summer of 1918, Second Lieutenant Tukhachevsky was appointed commander of the 1st Army. However, here it is necessary to make a reservation that the armies of the Civil War period had little in common with the armies of pre-revolutionary times. For example, in the fall of 1918, Tukhachevsky’s army numbered no more than eight thousand people. But in any case, even taking into account that the army was no more than a division in size, this was a very serious increase by several steps at once.

He acted quite successfully and by the end of the war he was the front commander. In conditions of severe personnel shortage, loyal commanders were worth their weight in gold in the Red Army, so Tukhachevsky grew very quickly and really resembled the young Bonaparte.

Serious setbacks awaited Tukhachevsky in the Polish war, which, due to the inconsistency of the Soviet command staff and blindness by political illusions, ended in a crushing failure.

Commander Tukhachevsky during the Civil War and the leaders of the Tambov uprising. Photo: © wikimedia.org © wikimedia.org © wikimedia.org

Punisher of Tambov region

Meanwhile, the war-ravaged Russian hinterland responded to the policies of war communism and forced grain seizures with massive peasant uprisings. The largest of them was the Tambov uprising, which was joined by most of the province.

A few months before him, Tukhachevsky had already taken part in the suppression of the Kronstadt uprising. But it was much easier to deal with it: the sailors settled in the fortress, and then, after several attempts at assault, they left across the ice to Finland. Here it was necessary to fight with the rebels who were operating throughout the province and using guerrilla tactics.

Tukhachevsky knew no pity. When suppressing the uprising, he did approximately the same thing for which the Germans were tried by the Nuremberg Tribunal. Even the orders of Tukhachevsky and Antonov-Ovseenko are surprisingly similar in style to the orders of the Nazis and their practices: taking hostages and shooting them for failure to hand over weapons in the village, for destroying bridges, for harboring and helping the rebels, arresting the families of the rebels.

Undoubtedly, any tribunal would condemn him for such egregious orders, but he was lucky to be on the winning side. He could not even make the excuse that he was only following orders, since the orders came directly from him, he was only given the task of suppressing the uprising in the shortest possible time. It got to the point that Tukhachevsky tried to use chemical weapons against the rebels (he was generally a passionate admirer of chemistry), but due to a number of organizational problems, the shelling was limited to only a few episodes.

Marshal

With the beginning of peacetime, Tukhachevsky headed the Military Academy of the Red Army - the main educational institution for training senior command personnel. However, he remains in this position for only six months, after which he is again appointed front commander, and then the chief of staff Frunze takes him as his deputy.

Soon Frunze dies during an operation, and Tukhachevsky becomes chief of staff of the Red Army. At this time he was only 33 years old.

Just at this time, the shaking up of the army began. Stalin's supporters managed to achieve the removal of the leader of the Red Army, Trotsky, under the pretext of his "Bonapartism" and the unsatisfactory state of affairs in the army. All of Trotsky’s promoters began to be removed from there, but this did not affect Tukhachevsky, since he was never close to the disgraced politician.

Tukhachevsky had an even relationship with almost everyone - with the exception of Voroshilov, with whom they could not stand each other. Later this played a significant role in the fate of Tukhachevsky. He subsequently served as Deputy People's Commissar of Defense and in 1936 was one of five Soviet military leaders awarded the title of marshal (three of them did not survive the period of repression).

Tukhachevsky even began to enjoy some political influence, joining the list of candidates for the Central Committee.

Tukhachevsky case

In fact, Tukhachevsky could have fallen under the hammer of repression back in the early 30s, when the security officers initiated the “Spring” case, directed against pre-revolutionary officer cadres in the army. During the 10 years of Soviet power, a new generation of commanders grew up, and old and potentially disloyal officers were no longer needed. It is curious that “Spring” was inspired and promoted by investigator Israel Leplevsky. He was also an investigator in the Tukhachevsky case seven years later.

Several dozen high-ranking military officials were arrested in connection with the case. Unexpectedly, Kakurin gave evidence against Tukhachevsky. He spoke vaguely and indistinctly, they say, Tukhachevsky publicly said in a narrow circle that the military needs to wait to see who will prevail in the internal party struggle - the Stalinists or the right-wing deviationists. And supposedly things may turn out in such a way that the army will still have to intervene and everything will end in a military dictatorship. However, at the beginning of the 1930s, this was clearly not enough to bring down such a prominent military man. Therefore, Stalin himself preferred to hush up the matter. Tukhachevsky was summoned to a confrontation with Kakurin, after which it was decided not to allow the case against the future marshal to proceed.

Kakurin’s cousin, the daughter of General Zayonchkovsky, who was recruited by the security officers back in the early 20s, also testified against Tukhachevsky. Thanks to her origins, she easily gained the trust of old military experts who willingly shared their experiences with her. But over time, her testimony became more and more incredible, and, in the end, she was even summoned to the OGPU and reprimanded for her “crazy fantasies.”

Clouds began to gather over Tukhachevsky, or rather over his comrades, in 1936. The reason was another scandal between People's Commissar Voroshilov and his first deputy Tukhachevsky. After the May Day parade, the military leadership quarreled at a banquet. The drunken marshals began to recall old grievances to each other, even going so far as to mutually accuse each other of the Warsaw failure, and it all ended with Tukhachevsky accusing Voroshilov of placing people loyal to him in all positions, often with very low qualifications. This scandal reached Stalin and was sorted out at a meeting of the Politburo.

True, Tukhachevsky later retracted his words, but his comrades Gamarnik, Yakir and Uborevich aggressively attacked Voroshilov, demanding his resignation. Stalin supported the struggle between Tukhachevsky and Voroshilov, encouraging their squabbles, but did not intend to change Voroshilov, although he perfectly understood that he was not very well suited to his position.

Meanwhile, completely different times have come compared to the early 30s. In Spain, the leftist government was overthrown by the army, and a civil war began. Stalin feared that events in the USSR would follow this scenario; he even voiced this at the military council following the Tukhachevsky affair: “They wanted to make a second Spain out of the USSR.”

The ambitious Tukhachevsky was potentially dangerous for Stalin. The young military leader, who had certain talents, naturally wanted to take the place of People's Commissar of Defense, which was occupied by Voroshilov. But Voroshilov was, frankly speaking, an unintelligent man and understood perfectly well that without Stalin’s support he was worth little as an independent unit. Unlike Tukhachevsky.

That is why in their protracted conflict, Stalin took the side of the safe Voroshilov. In August 1936, commanders Putna and Primakov (who became famous as the commander of the Chervony Cossacks) were arrested. Tukhachevsky did not connect their arrest with his position, and, indeed, the investigation made no progress for the first few months. The corps commanders flatly refused to admit to Trotskyism and only admitted that they criticized Voroshilov. Tukhachevsky did not appear in their testimony at all.

But in 1937 the situation changed. The willful Yagoda was replaced by the unquestioningly loyal Yezhov, who was no longer shy about the methods of inquiry. In the winter of 1937, the Second Moscow Trial of politicians took place: Radek confirmed that Putna participated with them in the Trotskyist conspiracy, but claimed that Tukhachevsky was not aware of this.

Apparently, in March-April, a fundamental decision had already been made to involve Tukhachevsky, especially since Putna and Primakov were in prison and, with the proper skill, could give any testimony the investigation needed. In April 1937, Tukhachevsky, as part of the Soviet delegation, was supposed to take part in the coronation ceremony of the British monarch, but at the last moment he was not allowed to leave the country.

On May 10, Voroshilov, at a meeting of the Politburo, criticized Tukhachevsky and proposed to relieve him from his post as deputy people's commissar. The proposal was supported and Tukhachevsky was sent to command the Volga Military District.

But Tukhachevsky was not arrested immediately. Already in April, Stalin had testimony from the former head of the Special Department, Guy, who claimed that the recent head of the NKVD, Yagoda, had attracted Tukhachevsky and other high-ranking military officers to the Trotskyist group. Yagoda stubbornly denied this during interrogations, claiming that he had no connections with the military at all.

However, Yagoda's former deputy Volovich turned out to be not so strong - he immediately signed all the necessary testimony about Tukhachevsky's involvement in the Trotskyist conspiracy.

On May 15, Corporal Commander Boris Feldman, Tukhachevsky’s closest ally and personal friend, was arrested. Only then did he understand what was happening. On May 22, he was also arrested. Postyshev (soon also shot) called him to his office, where Tukhachevsky was tied up, dressed in civilian clothes and taken out the back door. On May 28, Army Commander Yakir was arrested, and a day later, Army Commander Uborevich.

It is curious that along with the testimony against Tukhachevsky and the rest of the arrested military men, the investigation also had testimony against Boris Shaposhnikov. However, Shaposhnikov not only was not brought to trial, but was also one of the judges at the trial of the military, and at the height of the repressions he was appointed head of the General Staff. The only possible explanation for this is the personal intervention of Stalin, who considered him an outstanding strategist and theorist and gave instructions not to involve the “brains of the army” in this matter.

There was evidence against Tymoshenko, who was also not involved in the case, and later was even promoted to People's Commissar of Defense. By the end of the investigation, evidence of involvement in the Trotskyist conspiracy was available against almost all high-ranking military personnel, including three members of the Special Judicial Presence, which tried Tukhachevsky’s group.

The main testimony against Tukhachevsky was given by Feldman, his best friend. He immediately gave in and readily signed all the statements, in the hope of mitigating his fate. Moreover, at the trial he was the only one who even denounced his comrades, since the investigators made it clear to him that his fate would depend on his behavior at the trial. Feldman did not yet know that the fate of everyone, regardless of their behavior, was already predetermined.

What did Tukhachevsky admit to?

Tukhachevsky, like the others with the exception of Feldman, did not admit to anything during the first interrogations, but eventually gave in and a few days later admitted himself to be a participant in the “military-Trotskyist conspiracy.” On Trotsky's orders, he recruited the military in order to specifically lose the war in the event of an attack by Germany and Poland. Allegedly, the Germans are going to attack the USSR in order to bring Trotsky to power, and the military should help.

At the same time, it was necessary to overthrow Stalin through a military conspiracy, but immediately in his testimony Tukhachevsky admits that this is practically impossible: “It was impossible to count on any uprising with the participation of any broad sections of the population. The political and moral state of the Red Army masses was high level. It was impossible to allow the thought that the participants in the conspiracy would be able to lead an entire unit."

But is a coup possible if the conspirators do not have a single loyal part? Of course no. Further, Tukhachevsky also reports that the German army is too weak to attack the USSR.

That is, if we proceed from the testimony he signed, we get the following confusing picture: Trotsky ordered the military to prepare for the defeat of the Red Army, because Germany, in exchange for Ukraine, would attack the USSR and bring Trotsky to power, who would restore capitalism. But the German army is weak and cannot attack the USSR, so the conspirators must at the same time overthrow Stalin, which is impossible, since they do not have a single loyal unit.

The first five Marshals of the Soviet Union (from left to right): Tukhachevsky, Mikhail Nikolaevich, Voroshilov, Kliment Efremovich, Egorov, Alexander Ilyich (sitting) Budyonny, Semyon Mikhailovich and Blucher, Vasily Konstantinovich (standing). Collage: © L!FE Photo: © wikipedia.org

Court

The investigation lasted only a few days. All defendants were instructed that they must behave “good” during the trial, i.e. confirm the testimony, their future fate depends on it. They were also given testimonies so that they could answer the judges’ questions without getting confused or contradicting them.

Tukhachevsky confirmed all the testimony at the trial, but refused to admit that he was a German spy.

Feldman was the soloist at the trial, tirelessly denouncing himself and his comrades and hoping that his punishment would be commuted. Tukhachevsky showed with all his appearance that this trial was a farce.

On the evening of June 11, 1937, all defendants were sentenced to death, which was immediately carried out. Together with Tukhachevsky, army commanders Uborevich, Kork and Yakir, commanders Eideman, Primakov, Feldman and Putna were shot. The investigation now had evidence against a large number of prominent military leaders, who began to be involved in the following miraculously uncovered conspiracies, one after another.

German intrigues

After the war, Walter Schellenberg’s memoirs were published, in which he claims that the Tukhachevsky case was a brilliant development of the German intelligence services from the very beginning. Allegedly, the Germans planted incriminating evidence on Stalin about his military leaders, for which they added some documents indicating a conspiracy to Tukhachevsky’s completely harmless work correspondence with the Germans. This compromising evidence was sold to Moscow through the President of Czechoslovakia, Benes.

However, upon closer inspection, there are many oddities in this version. Schellenberg claimed that Heydrich received information about the conspiracy in the Red Army from the White Guard general Skoblin, who lived in Europe. However, even emigrant circles that did not have their own intelligence suspected that Skoblin was working for the NKVD, and German intelligence even more so should have known this.

There are other inconsistencies. Schellenberg writes that the USSR paid three million gold rubles for the incriminating evidence. But the golden chervonets had extremely limited circulation in the USSR only in the very beginning of the 20s; in 1937 it was long gone.

In addition, Schellenberg confuses dates and details. Thus, he writes that the incriminating evidence was handed over in mid-May, but at that time Tukhachevsky had already been arrested and testified.

Most likely, Schellenberg simply attributed this successful operation to German intelligence in order to make an impression.

Rehabilitation

In 1957, all those involved in the Tukhachevsky case were rehabilitated, and the case was declared falsified. In the early 60s, on behalf of the Central Committee, a special commission was created under the leadership of Shvernik, Shelepin and Semichastny, which was supposed to investigate the circumstances of the case.

She carefully studied all the materials on the case, familiarized herself with the data of the investigators (most of them were soon repressed), and also found living witnesses from among the NKVD employees of that time, including foreign residents, who were also additionally questioned about the Marshal’s foreign connections .

The commission came to the conclusion that Tukhachevsky’s case was completely falsified; there was not a single piece of evidence in the materials that would indicate a connection between army commanders and corps commanders with Trotsky, as well as evidence indicating the existence of a military conspiracy in the USSR.

Evgeniy Antonyuk

On June 11, 1937, a special judicial panel of six senior military commanders sentenced Marshal of the Soviet Union Mikhail Tukhachevsky and a “group of traitors” to capital punishment on charges of conspiracy. The destruction of part of the leadership of the Red Army is known as the “Affair of the Military” (the case of the “Anti-Soviet Military Organization”).

On June 12, 1937, the Izvestia newspaper published the following text: “The spies Tukhachevsky, Yakir, Uborevich, Kork, Eideman, Feldman, Primakov and Putna, who sold themselves to the sworn enemies of socialism, dared to raise their bloody hand on the life and happiness of the one hundred and seventy million people who created the Stalinist Constitution, who has built a society where there are no more exploiting classes..."

There are several versions. According to the “canonical” version, Marshal of the Soviet Union Mikhail Tukhachevsky and his associates became victims of a general “purge” that was carried out everywhere in the second half of the 1930s.

But there is another version: there was still a conspiracy, but it was directed not against Soviet power, but personally against Stalin. This version became famous thanks to an article published in 1953 in the American magazine Life. The author of this article, as well as the book of the same name entitled “The Secret History of Stalin’s Crimes,” was General Alexander Orlov, who fled from Spain, where he headed the Soviet intelligence station in the 1930s, to the United States.

In his article, he claimed that a group of security officers discovered documents in the archives, from which it irrefutably followed that Stalin was an agent provocateur of the Tsarist secret police. The documents were brought to the attention of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Balitsky, who, in turn, reported this to the commander of the Kyiv Military District Iona Yakir and the head of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine Stanislav Kosior. Soon the news reached Marshal Tukhachevsky. This is how a conspiracy arose: during a large meeting of command staff, it was decided to seize the Kremlin and arrest Stalin. However, information about the preparation of the coup became known to Stalin before the conspirators carried it out.

Supporters of another version believe that the dossier about the “conspiracy in the Red Army” was fabricated by the intelligence services of Nazi Germany and, as a result of a very subtle Abwehr operation, was “slipped” to Stalin.

According to another version, the dossier on Tukhachevsky was born within the walls of the NKVD and was planted on the German intelligence services in the hope that they, interested in “decapitating” the Red Army, would play along with Stalin and help him unleash anti-army terror.

It is known that state security agencies began accumulating incriminating documents on Tukhachevsky back in the mid-1920s. However, in 1932, Tukhachevsky was appointed first deputy people's commissar, in 1933 he was awarded the Order of Lenin, and in 1935 he was awarded the title of Marshal of the Soviet Union. He became the youngest marshal of the USSR.

But already on May 11, 1937, Tukhachevsky was removed from his post as deputy people's commissar and sent to Kuibyshev to command the troops of the Volga Military District. Before leaving, he secured a meeting with Stalin. The leader promised that he would soon return him to Moscow. Stalin kept his word: on May 24, Tukhachevsky returned to Moscow, to the Lubyanka, under escort.

During the first days, Tukhachevsky tried to deny his guilt, but then he signed a confession. Perhaps the reason for this was torture, which the Politburo of the Central Committee allowed to be used on those arrested in this case, having adopted a special resolution.

A Special Judicial Presence of the Supreme Court was formed, headed by Vasily Ulrich, which included Deputy People's Commissar of Defense Yakov Alksnis, Chief of Staff of the Red Army Boris Shaposhnikov, Commander of the Far Eastern Army Vasily Blucher, District Commanders Semyon Budyonny, Ivan Belov, Pavel Dybenko, Nikolai Kashirin. Many of them were subsequently repressed.

The verdict in the military conspiracy case was announced on June 11, 1937 at 23:35. On the morning of June 12, Tukhachevsky was shot in the basement of the prison in Lefortovo.

In 1957, the military collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR rehabilitated Mikhail Tukhachevsky, overturned the verdict against all those convicted and dismissed the case due to the lack of corpus delicti in their actions.

A. Kuznetsov:“The bloody verdicts in Moscow are horrifying. You can't make out anything there anymore. Everyone there is sick. This is the only explanation for what is happening there. A huge shock throughout the world." Two days later: “The dance of death in Moscow arouses disgust and indignation. The published list of those executed in a short time shows the full depth of the disease.”

These are the memoirs of Nazi Germany's propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, which he recorded in his diary two days after the execution of Tukhachevsky and other military leaders.

S. Buntman: Who would say, of course...

A. Kuznetsov: Agree. Among researchers, controversy surrounding this matter still continues. In particular, one of the foreign historians writes that despite the fact that both regimes (Nazism and Stalinism) are essentially very similar, Hitler and Stalin built their relations with the generals differently. The first, for example, did this through complex intrigues, by building a system of checks and balances. The main goal of his activities, as the above-mentioned historian writes, was the desire to divert the military from politics, to direct their energy into a “military channel.”

Gamarnik, Tukhachevsky, Voroshilov, Egorov and Yagoda, 1935. (gazeta.ru)

Stalin went through the Red Army like a skating rink. What is the point of this action? Most likely, with this process and the avalanche of judicial and extrajudicial reprisals against the leadership of the Red Army that would follow it, he wanted to solve two problems. First, to eliminate, as it seemed to him, the “red Bonapartist conspiracy” that had long been brewing among high-ranking military personnel. And secondly, he apparently believed that a victorious army is a completely obedient, controlled army.

S. Buntman: So let's start with who judged?

A. Kuznetsov: Military. Almost all of them are figures of the first magnitude. Armed military lawyer Vasily Vasilyevich Ulrich, two marshals - Vasily Konstantinovich Blyukher and Semyon Mikhailovich Budyonny, five army commanders - Boris Mikhailovich Shaposhnikov, Yakov Ivanovich Alksnis, Ivan Panfilovich Belov, Pavel Efimovich Dybenko, Nikolai Dmitrievich Kashirin and division commander Elisey Ivanovich Goryachev. Five of them (except Ulrich, Budyonny, Shaposhnikov and Goryachev) subsequently became victims of repression and were shot.

Even before the trial began, an official order was issued by the People's Commissar of Defense Kliment Efremovich Voroshilov, which read: “June 7, 1937. Comrade Red Army soldiers, commanders, political workers of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army!

From June 1 to June 4 this year, in the presence of members of the government, the Military Council under the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR was held. At the meeting of the Military Council, my report was heard and discussed about the treacherous, counter-revolutionary military fascist organization discovered by the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs, which, being strictly undercover, existed for a long time and carried out vile subversive, sabotage and espionage work in the Red Army.

The Soviet court has more than once deservedly punished the terrorists, saboteurs, spies and murderers identified from the Trotskyist-Zinovievite gangs, who carried out their treacherous work with the money of German, Japanese and other foreign intelligence services under the command of the brutal fascist, traitor and traitor to the workers and peasants of Trotsky. The Supreme Court pronounced its merciless verdict on the bandits from the gang of Zinoviev, Kamenev, Trotsky, Pyatakov, Smirnov and others.


Tukhachevsky, Voroshilov, Egorov, Budyonny and Blucher, 1935. (milportal.ru)

However, the list of counter-revolutionary conspirators, spies and saboteurs was far from exhausted by previously convicted criminals. Many of them, hiding under the guise of honest people, remained free and continued to do their dirty work of treason and betrayal.

Among these traitors and traitors who remained unexposed until recently are members of the counter-revolutionary gang of spies and conspirators who built their nest in the Red Army. The leadership of this military fascist-Trotskyist gang consisted of people who held high command positions in the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army.<…>

The ultimate goal of this gang was to liquidate the Soviet system in our country at any cost and by any means, to destroy Soviet power in it, to overthrow the workers' and peasants' government and to restore the yoke of landowners and factory owners in the USSR.

To achieve this treacherous goal, the fascist conspirators did not hesitate in their choice of means: they prepared the murders of the leaders of the party and government, carried out all kinds of malicious sabotage in the national economy and in the defense of the country, tried to undermine the power of the Red Army and prepare for its defeat in the event of war. They hoped that through their treacherous actions and sabotage in the field of technical and material supplies to the front and in the management of military operations, in the event of war they would be able to achieve the defeat of the Red Army and the overthrow of the Soviet government...”

S. Buntman: That's for sure. But that’s not why Tukhachevsky was shot?

A. Kuznetsov: Well, how can I tell you? Here, in fact, is his testimony given at the investigation: “In 1928 and 1929, I worked a lot on the combat training of the district and, studying the problems of the five-year plan, came to the conclusion that if this plan was implemented, the character of the Red Army should change dramatically. I wrote a note on the reconstruction of the Red Army, where I argued for the need to develop metallurgy, automotive and tractor manufacturing and general mechanical engineering in order to prepare for the war a reconstructed army consisting of up to 260 divisions, up to 50,000 tanks and up to 40,000 aircraft.

The sharp criticism that my note was subjected to from the army leadership outraged me extremely, and therefore, when at the XVI Party Congress Enukidze had a second conversation with me, I very willingly accepted his instructions. Enukidze, calling me over during a break, said that although the rightists were defeated, they did not lay down their arms, transferring their activities underground. Therefore, Enukidze said, I also need to secretly move from probing the command and political cadres to their underground organization on the platform of fighting the general line of the party for the installations of the right. Enukidze said that he is connected with the leadership of the right and that I will receive further directives from him ... "


Marshal Tukhachevsky, 1936. (wikipedia.org)

So, let's figure it out. Tukhachevsky is often called the “red Bonaparte,” hinting at his colossal ambitions. It is quite possible that Mikhail Nikolaevich had private conversations with people known to him from the Civil War, but it is unlikely that these conversations had any specifics in terms of action, since in the 30s not two, but several positions took shape in the leadership of the Red Army regarding the direction in which military development should go on the eve of the obviously approaching huge war.

S. Buntman: But Tukhachevsky was accused that his plan, had it been accepted, that is, the production of a gigantic amount of weapons, could have broken the still fragile Soviet industry.

A. Kuznetsov: It is quite possible to assume that Tukhachevsky was really keen on the ideas of manufacturing as much military equipment and other weapons as possible, but this was a trend of that time, and not only in the Soviet Union.

S. Buntman: The second figure who fell under the “skating rink” was Jerome Petrovich Uborevich.

A. Kuznetsov: Yes. Like Tukhachevsky, a junior officer of the First World War, a man who quickly jumped into the command of the army during the Civil War, a man who, according to the reviews of many people who served under his command in the 30s, was a brilliant military specialist.

As for Ion Emmanuilovich Yakir, who at the time of his arrest was the commander of the troops of the Kyiv Military District, his participation in the Civil War is assessed more carefully. But be that as it may, then he was also a man of his own business.

S. Buntman: And yet, by the Decision of January 31, 1957, all the defendants were acquitted and rehabilitated for lack of corpus delicti.

A. Kuznetsov: Yes. This decision was based on the fact that the conviction was based on the confessions of the defendants, obtained through torture, beatings, and so on. In particular, the Determination states: “The Military Collegium of the Supreme Court, having studied the materials of the case and additional verification, considers it indisputably established that the criminal case against Tukhachevsky, Kork, Yakir and others on charges of anti-Soviet activities was falsified.”

Well, in conclusion, it should be said that one of the many consequences of this case was the absolute paralysis of the slightest initiative in the leadership and middle command of the Red Army. When, literally a few months later, they began to report to Stalin that in units captains commanded regiments, and majors commanded brigades, he asked: “Why don’t you appoint someone?” - “Honestly, we are looking. There is no better."

MILITARY AFFAIRS MILITARY AFFAIRS

THE MILITARY CASE (full. The case of the “Anti-Soviet Military Organization”), the destruction in 1937 of part of the leadership of the Red Army on charges of conspiracy. In the spring of 1937, on the eve of the Great Terror (cm. GREAT TERROR), from Stalin (cm. STALIN Joseph Vissarionovich) fears arose that the army might oppose the ongoing extermination of the Bolshevik elite. In April, a reshuffle of command personnel began, which, if there was a conspiracy, could disrupt the plans of the military leaders to carry out a coup. It was possible to obtain testimony about the existence of a conspiracy from a number of previously arrested officers who were suspected of having connections with L. D. Trotsky (cm. TROTSKY Lev Davidovich)(V. M. Primakov (cm. PRIMAKOV Vitaly Markovich), V. Putna), and then from high-ranking military officers A. Kork and B. Feldman, arrested on May 14-15. On May 22-29, M. N. Tukhachevsky was arrested (cm. TUKHACHEVSKY Mikhail Nikolaevich), I. E. Yakir (cm. YAKIR Jonah Emmanuilovich), I. P. Uborevich (cm. UBOREVICH Ieronim Petrovich), R. P. Eideman (cm. EIDEMAN Robert Petrovich). Top military leaders quickly admitted that they were preparing a military coup, spying for foreign intelligence services and Trotsky, and trying to ensure the defeat of the USSR in the war with Germany. On May 31, having received news of his removal from office the day before, Head of the Main Political Directorate Ya. B. Gamarnik (cm. GAMARNIK Yan Borisovich), realizing what awaited him, committed suicide,
The speed with which senior military leaders confessed to incredible crimes (except for plotting a coup) remains a mystery, especially in comparison with the time that was spent on “persuading” party functionaries and economic specialists convicted in the trials of the 1930s. This may indicate either the real existence of the confrontation, or the extremely low moral qualities of the Soviet military elite of that time. In prison, Tukhachevsky wrote a detailed note in which he admitted guilt and tried to prove his military qualifications (however, not only he himself, but all members of his family were subsequently repressed). Stalin did not believe that these military leaders were irreplaceable. But, probably, the investigators were able to convince senior officers of the Red Army that only complete and public repentance would allow them to receive forgiveness in the future for political sins against Stalin.
A Special Judicial Presence of the Supreme Court was formed, headed by V. Ulrich, into which Deputy People's Commissar of Defense Ya. I. Alksnis was introduced (cm. ALKSNIS Yakov Ivanovich), Chief of Staff of the Red Army B. M. Shaposhnikova (cm. SHAPOSHNIKOV Boris Mikhailovich), commander of the Far Eastern Army V.K. Blucher, (cm. BLUCHER Vasily Konstantinovich) commanders of the districts of S. M. Budyonny (cm. BUDENNY Semyon Mikhailovich), I. P. Belova (cm. BELOV Ivan Panfilovich), P. E. Dybenko (cm. DYBENKO Pavel Efimovich), N. Kashirina. Most of these judges were subsequently shot. At the trial on June 11, all the accused admitted guilt. On the night of June 12, they were shot. The process marked the beginning of a large-scale purge of the officer corps. Already on June 20, 980 officers were arrested, including 29 brigade commanders, 37 division commanders and 21 corps commanders. In total, about 40,000 officers were dismissed from the army, of which over 14,000 were arrested and several thousand died. The cleansing of the army continued in waves until 1938, completely protecting the Stalinist group from the threat of a military coup. Thousands of commanders who had experience of the Civil War died. In 1957, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR overturned the verdict against all those convicted and terminated the case due to the lack of corpus delicti in their actions.


encyclopedic Dictionary. 2009 .

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Books

  • "The Case of the Military" 1937. Why Tukhachevsky was shot, German Vladimirovich Smirnov. Marshal M.N. Tukhachevsky, shot on charges of treason in 1937, was rehabilitated by Khrushchev in 1957 as “falsely accused” - which added to the confusion on the issue of...