The Death of Marshal Tukhachevskii
Stalin’s Purges Cost One of the 1930s’ Best Military Minds
Aug 1, 2008
On 30 November 1939 the Red Army crossed the USSR’s border with Finland. Soviets and foreigners alike expected Finland to quickly collapse under the massive strength of the Soviet Union. Instead, the Finnish army, led by Field Marshal Carl Mannerheim, inflicted close to 600,000 casualties upon the Soviets, compared to less that 70,000 killed and wounded for the Finns.[1] This crushing defeat, and the staggering failures of the Red Army in 1941, was mostly Joseph Stalin’s fault. Starting in 1937 he purged the Red Army of its most promising officers, most notably Mikhail Tukhachevskii.
Tukachevskii had a long military career beginning as a lieutenant in a Tsarist Guards unit. During the Revolution, he defeated Admiral Kolchak, General Denikin, and Marshal Pilsudski. He was one of the most vocal supporters of the Russo-Polish war, and led the narrowly defeated invasion. Tukhachevskii was a loyal communist and trusted by Lenin, who chose him to crush the Kronstadt rebellion of 1921, as well as the peasant uprising in Tambov Province. He was an outspoken proponent of strengthening the armor and aviation branches of the military, occasionally disagreeing with a, at that point, less militaristic Stalin.[2]
Tukhachevskii also disagreed with the Soviet generals who favored a defensive war of attrition, which the Red Army was eventually forced to use against the Nazis. Instead of attrition, Tukhachevskii envisioned a mobile, mechanized army with depth, capable of Blitzkrieg type attacks.[3] He also developed the idea of airborne soldiers and pushed for the aggressive development of rockets. In 1933 he was awarded the Order of Lenin for “exceptional personal services to the revolution in the efficient organization of the defenses of the USSR … and subsequently organizing measures to strengthen the Red Army.”[4] He was made a Marshal of the Soviet Union in 1935 and continued to push for modernization.
In May 1937, Tukhachevskii was arrested during the opening stages of Stalin’s Great Purge. On 24 May 1937, the Politburo accused Marshal Tukhachevskii and Central Committee Member Rudzutak participating in a Trotskyist movement and of spying for Nazi Germany. Worse, the Politburo proposed that they should be expelled from the party and turned over to the NKVD. A memo to that effect was written by Stalin, and was hand signed by Politburo members Budennyi and Unshlikht. When signing, Budennyi wrote “Unconditionally yes. It's necessary to finish off this scum.”[5]
The burden of proof was never on the NKVD. President Eduard Benes of Czechoslovakia had apparently told Stalin that members of the Red Army were plotting against Stalin. Tukhachevskii eventually confessed to spying for Nazi Germany, though the confession is somewhat suspect. His signed paper has blood stains on it. [6] He was only the first senior officer killed, 37,000 other officers followed him.
While we can not know if Tukhachevskii and his brother officers could have saved the USSR from the savage Nazi invasion in 1941, we know that their successors could not. Russia was the hardest hit of all combatants during World War II, largely because of the incompetence of the officers left in command after the purges. Tukhachevskii couldn’t have done worse.
Sources:
[1] Ronald Grigor Suny, The Soviet Experiment (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 304.
[2] Georgii Zhukov, The Memoirs of Marshal Zhukov, trans. APN. (London: Jonathan Cape, 1971), 113.
[3] Ronald Grigor Suny, The Soviet Experiment (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 256, 313-314.
[4] Quoted by Thos. G. Butson, The Tsar’s Lieutenant: The Soviet Marshal. (New York: Praeger, 1984), 189.
[5] Joseph Stalin, “Resolution to expel Rudzutak and Tukhachevskii, May 1937,” 1939: Tractor Drivers. <www.soviethistory.com>.
[6] Ronald Grigor Suny, The Soviet Experiment (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 264.
