Forgotten God of War - Tukhachevsky
I Introduction
When we look back on the magnificent and unprecedentedly brutal World War II, we see a group of generals twinkling in that blazing sky of history. They created brilliant cases of war, their art of war reached the peak in the history of war, and the dazzling light they emitted makes it difficult for us to look directly at them. Guderian, Manstein, Rommel, Zhukov, Patton, and so on, these names always make us heard.
History, however, has not given a chance to someone who might have been even better, and he seems to have faded into oblivion - despite the fact that he so profoundly affected the war and the world. He had a genius for organization and military prowess, great personal charisma, and was also handsome and dignified.
He was Tukhachevsky, the forgotten god of war, the Red Napoleon.
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The Short Career of Tukhachevsky
Tukhachevsky was born on February 4, 1893, in Dologobuk County, Smolensk Province, to a landowner of aristocratic lineage, but Tukhachevsky was educated from an early age by his mother, who was the daughter of a poor peasant. Tukhachevsky was educated by his mother, who was a poor peasant's daughter. He was the fourth of nine siblings.
As a teenager, Tukhachevsky showed no interest in the military, but was fascinated by the violin, architecture, astronomy and meteorology. It seemed that the teenage genius was destined to further his education at university.
But fate played a joke on him: in 1911, at the age of 18, Tukhachevsky passed a challenging test and was selected for training in the 7th class of the first Moscow students of Ekaterina II. From there, Tukhachevsky began his military career.
He attended military school in 1912 and graduated in 1914, serving in the Tsar's Royal Kurds, where he fought against the Germans and became a German prisoner of war. During this time several attempts were made to escape from the POW camp, but each time they ended in failure and were punished.
There are claims that he met the future French president Charles de Gaulle in a German POW camp. But research by Western scholars has found that numerous pieces of evidence do not support this claim. Tukhachevsky may have indeed befriended a captured French officer and helped him escape from a POW camp, but probably not de Gaulle.
In the POW camp, Bolshevik propaganda had a great impact on Tukhachevsky, causing him to hate the Tsar's rule and embrace revolutionary ideas. This later proved to be a great influence on his life.
Returning to Russia in 1917 (it is not certain whether he escaped or was released), he spent some time at home thinking about the revolution, and in 1918 he accepted the call of the revolutionary Trotsky and began to devote himself to the cause of the revolution, joining the party on April 5, 1918.
From the very beginning he was highly regarded, and was appointed by Trotsky to key positions as a political commissar of the Moscow Defense District and the Military Committee of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. He took part in the battles against the White bandits and the Poles on the Eastern, Southern and Western fronts. Because of his excellent performance, he was noticed by Lenin and was promoted, and was eventually appointed commander of the Western Front at the age of 27, becoming the youngest commander of the Soviet Union's front armies. Keep in mind that Zhukov was still a company commander at the time. He was likened to the Red Napoleon because of his unusual organizational and military talents, outstanding personal charisma and vast knowledge.
The commander of the Western Front, which he commanded, took part in the Battle of Warsaw, but was thwarted by Biszuski. Although Tukhachevsky volunteered to take primary responsibility, he continued to be rehired and no one used this to accuse or doubt his military abilities.
After the war, he served as: director of the Military Academy of Workers and Peasants, commander of the Leningrad Military District, and head of the Red Army's Technical Equipment Department. Organized the regularization and modernization of the Red Army. in 1934 became one of the first four marshals appointed in the USSR. But not being a good flatterer, he could not fit into Stalin's coterie and was not trusted by him.
In 1937, Tukhachevsky was accused of espionage, colluding with Germany and attempting treason. He was soon executed by Soviet internal affairs forces.
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Three Remarkable Contributions to the Regularization and Modernization of the Soviet Red Army
Despite the wishful thinking of many after 1918 that World War I was the end of the line, and that eternal peace had arrived, the truth is that there was in fact a much larger and more brutal war in the making. . In order to win the next war, the military elite of various countries launched a new military revolution in the military field triggered by technology. Advances in technology such as tanks, airplanes, and radios had already made military change possible and necessary. De Gaulle of France and Fuller of Britain actively advocated the use of tanks, Guderian of Germany was committed to the formation of armored forces, and Douhey of Italy put forward the "right to control the air", all of which were aimed at staying ahead of the enemy technologically in order to win the future wars in the midst of the changes.
Tukhachevsky, who presided over the Soviet Union's military industry at the time, was also extremely sensitive and visionary about technology. But unlike others, Tukhachevsky's focus on technology was all-encompassing. He focused on the synthetic and flexible use of tanks, planes, radios and other technologies, rather than on the use of one type or class of weapon as others did, let alone attempting to have a once-and-for-all 'silver bullet' solution (the ultimate combat solution) such as Fuller's Tank-Centered Warfare, French-Centered Warfare and so on.
Under his active advocacy and presidency, the USSR made great achievements under regularization and modernization. The Soviet Union developed advanced tanks such as the T-34 tank, formed the first mechanized army in history and the first airborne unit. By the end of World War II, the USSR had not only the world's largest ground and air corps, but also a large, complete and efficient defense industry. All this could not have been achieved without the efforts of Tukhachevsky.
Interestingly, he took a particular interest in rockets, giving as much support as he could to the Soviet rocket scientist Korolev, whose first liquid rocket was successfully developed in 1932, and who in 1933 merged the Jet Propulsion Research Group with the Leningrad Laboratory of Aerodynamics to create the world's first jet science institute, where he was appointed deputy director of research. The following year he published a monograph, Rocket Flight, and in 1936 the institute succeeded in designing the first generation of Soviet rocket planes. Also in Korolev's development program were ballistic rockets, cruise rockets with wings, and rocket-propelled manned flights.
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Four Extremely High Military Theoretical Attainments
What is truly representative of Tukhachevsky's military accomplishments are not the glories he created during the Revolutionary War, but rather the results of his theoretical research achieved in his post-war work to carry out the regularization and modernization of the Red Army. The scope of these researches is very wide, briefly speaking, they mainly include the following points:
1 Understanding of technology and joint operations, grasping the movement of the ongoing military revolution from the current situation and trend of technological development, and striving to provide theoretical guidance for the USSR to set up a well-equipped modernized army with appropriate methods of warfare.
For the average military man, it is not difficult to grasp the trend of military changes, but what is difficult is to carry out correct and profound theoretical research on the use of a technology before it has matured, not to mention to conceptualize the future of war in terms of a series of new technologies, and to make predictions, analyses, and generalizations about its shape and principles. Tukhachevsky achieved great success precisely in this area and gained for himself wide respect and honor both at home and abroad.
It should be noted that Tukhachevsky did not neglect the human factor in war by focusing on technological advances. On the contrary, he did not ignore the importance of the common soldier. His personal experience made him realize that any war action is bound to break down to every ordinary soldier. Soldiers, the bearers and synthesizers of everything on the battlefield, without their participation and strong war spirit, everything on the battlefield is meaningless.
2Amazing insight and understanding of the three levels of strategy, battle, and tactics and their interrelationships.
Tukhachevs went beyond the average military man in recognizing the importance of politics, ideology, and economics to modern warfare. This was quite remarkable at the time. He also gave full consideration to the three types of warfare: sea, land, and air. For example, he had a correct understanding of the possibility and necessity of using air power at all levels of war, i.e., air power can be used as a front-line support force for combat operations and as a long-range strike weapon for strategic purposes.
Most notably, he had long recognized that the modern battlefield requires the use of all means of combat to carry out a three-dimensional attack on the entire depth of the enemy battlefield. Tukhachevs acutely recognized that the days of victory through a single combat operation were gone. Only through a series of battle operations can the enemy be completely defeated.
As can be seen from the above, the height and breadth of Tukhachevsky's military theories were incomparable to those of his contemporaries. After making a fair and objective understanding of him, we can come to the conclusion that he is one of the highest-ranking militarists in the history of war in terms of military theoretical attainments.
V Great Depth of Field Theory
Great Depth of Field Theory was the core of the Soviet Union's operational thinking for a long time, and y influenced the operational thinking of other countries. For example, the United States was under the threat of the Soviet Union in the 70s and 80s to form the idea of air-ground integrated warfare. The main point of the great deep battle is: infantry as the main body, and get armor, artillery and other types of support, in the whole battlefield front to the enemy to launch an attack, once the breakthroughs are opened immediately use mechanized forces to implement the consolidation and breakthroughs, to attack the enemy's deep defense, the formation of division and encirclement. At the same time, the aviation forces carry out strikes in the enemy's rear and, if necessary, commit airborne troops. If necessary, use various means to deceive the enemy to conceal the direction of their assault. This kind of combat idea is very suitable for the Soviet Union at that time, and it is in the "great depth of operation" under the guidance of the idea, the Soviet army to maximize their own advantages, and finally defeated Germany.
In general, it is believed that Tukhachevsky pioneered the theory of great depth operations. But the truth is probably closer to the fact that he simply spread the theory of great depth operations. In his writings, the Great Depth of Battle is not the most frequently mentioned term, but rather words such as strategy and tactics. It can be assumed that under his coordination and leadership, a group of Soviet military theorists proposed and perfected the theory of great depth operations. In Tukhachevsky edited the Red Army's New Operational Orders (1936 edition), the idea of great depth operations was systematically elaborated and guided the Soviet Union in the middle and late German-Soviet wars.
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VI Clash with Stalin leads to tragic end
Tukhachevsky's history of bad blood with Stalin, who also promoted violence, can be traced back to the Battle of Warsaw. At that time, Stalin's failure to firmly and immediately carry out orders from the Military Council to support Tukhachevsky was one of the reasons for the Soviet Union's defeat at Warsaw. Despite the fact that discussing the issue could have involved Stalin, whose prestige was on the rise, Tukhachevsky did not conceal this point, putting his relationship with Stalin in a state of tension.
On the face of it, the reason for Tukhachevsky's bad blood with Stalin was simply the question of responsibility for the failure of the Battle of Warsaw, but in fact it was more complicated than that. Personally, I think there were three reasons why Stalin could not have trusted Tukhachevsky:
1. Tukhachevsky had been introduced to the party by Trotsky and had always been in Trotsky's employ. This certainly gave Stalin reason to think that Tukhachevsky was on Trotsky's side. In order to maintain his absolute control over power, Stalin would not have allowed such a high-ranking "Trotskyist" as Tukhachevsky to remain in existence.
2. Tukhachevsky had a considerable sense of autonomy and was not good at (and with his rare genius did not need to be) flattering his superiors. He was also reluctant to get too involved in political strife. This kept him out of Stalin's confidence after Trotsky was completely defeated.
3. Tukhachevsky was highly respected in the army, and many of the best senior generals were promoted by him. This made Stalin feel that it was all the more necessary for him to get rid of Tukhachevsky as soon as possible.
Soon Stalin's chance came.
In 1937 the head of the German SS, Heydrich, set up a not very clever diversionary scheme to convince the Soviet Union that Tukhachevsky had secret dealings with Germany and was trying to overthrow Stalin. Stalin soon arrested Tukhachevsky after obtaining this "information" at a cost of 3 million marks. Tukhachevsky's confession was written in his own blood
It was clear that the only way to get Tukhachevsky to confess was to use violence. In the end, Tukhachevsky wrote his confession in his own blood and was executed by the Soviet internal affairs forces. It took only thirteen days from the time of his arrest to the pronouncement of the death sentence, which was carried out immediately.
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Seven Personal Life
Tukhachevsky was an easy-going man who did not look like a field marshal, and was able to mingle with others and have fun together. He once organized a ball for the soldiers, not only to participate personally, but also take the lead in the Mazurka single dance. Combined with his unique personal charisma, he once went to a theater to watch a performance, and suddenly found that the piano was played by his high school music teacher, Oudanko. The old man was poor and in a difficult situation. After the performance, Tukhachevsky went up to the old man and introduced himself to him, saying, "I am your student. I want to learn from you again. I still remember my music lessons from high school, and I can't forget them." The old man was a little frightened to see a marshal standing in front of him, but after listening to his kind words he felt a warmth in his heart. After hearing his kind words, he felt a warmth in his heart. Of course, Tukhachevsky did not take lessons from his teacher, but the old man did receive a considerable sum of money for his tuition - a year's tuition paid by Tukhachevsky. He financed the old man in such an affectionate and non-insulting way.
Tukhachevsky's interests were wide-ranging: music, painting, astronomy, architecture, and he excelled in sports. His versatility allowed him to speak and read fluently in German and French, and he had a good command of Latin. This knowledge of the language helped him a lot, enabling him to read foreign military works directly in the original version; once he led a delegation to visit abroad, the French state activist Edouard Hériot was shocked and marveled because he did not think that a commander of the Red Army could speak French so fluently.
His family life was rather unfortunate compared to his career.
During the Civil War, he married his fiancée who had braved the war to visit him at the front. But on one occasion his wife was caught smuggling food from the front - Russia was in the grip of a famine at the time of the war. The poor woman who was brought back to the front for trial eventually committed suicide with her husband's revolver. Apparently she did this so as not to bring any negative consequences to her husband's future. Tukhachevsky, who had married the woman he loved with an almost "saintly" mindset, was emotionally devastated by the incident.
Tukhachevsky's second wife, Nina Evgenievna, was 13 years younger than him and, like Tukhachevsky, was born into the nobility. Tukhachevsky seems to have focused most of his energies on his work, to the point of placing his wife in Smolensk until the birth of their daughter.
Tukhachevsky's family suffered great misfortune during the wave of purges against him in 1937. Tukhachevsky's wife, Nina Evgenievna, and his brothers Alexander and Nikolai. All three of his sisters were thrown into concentration camps. His daughter, who had not yet reached the age of majority, was also arrested and imprisoned; the Marshal's mother and sister Sofia died in exile. Only she and an aunt survived the years of captivity.
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VIII Conclusion
While history did not give him a chance, he y influenced it.
During the Great Purge campaign, a great deal of Tukhachevsky's work was destroyed, and many high-ranking generals who were close to Tukhachevsky or even just held the same ideas were implicated. In order to correct Tukhachevsky's "mistakes", the Soviet Union's mechanized army was broken up, and many military research projects came to a standstill. All of the above caused a serious decline in Soviet military power, and became an important reason for the Soviet Union in the Soviet Union-Finnish War and the German-Soviet war in the early stages of the war was unfavorable.
The Soviet Union began to return to Tukhachevsky's line after suffering the great shame of the Soviet-Finnish War. In order to win the Patriotic War, which would determine the life and death of the USSR as well as the ****productivist movement, Stalin rehired generals who held the same ideology as Tukhachevsky. Such as Zhukov and others. Tukhachevsky pre-war for the Soviet Red Army's regularization and modernization of the results of the efforts of the Soviet Union, under the auspices of the Soviet Union under the auspices of Tukhachevsky's booming defense industry, but also become the Soviet Union guided by the idea of the combat theory of the Great Depth of Battle, which are all the Soviet Union won the war with Germany and the Soviet Union is an important factor.
After the war, in the Soviet Union's great depth of operation on the Western world caused a huge threat, the United States created the air-ground integrated warfare, which has Tukhachevsky's military thinking of the imprint. This ideology, developed in the 1970s and 1980s, has remained the guiding ideology of the West to this day and for the foreseeable future
As historians have dug into it, more people have discovered that the height and breadth of his military theories were unmatched by any other military contemporaries of his time. A fair appraisal of the man is all that is needed to recognize that his military accomplishments were sufficient to qualify him for inclusion among the greatest militarists of all time.
Full List of Marshals of the USSR
1 Grand Marshal of the USSR
41 Marshals of the USSR (including Stalin) and 3 Marshals of the USSR Navy
13 Chief Marshals of the USSR Military Services (7 Chief Marshals of the Air Force, 4 Chief Marshals of the Artillery, and 2 Chief Marshals of the Armored Corps)
60 Marshals of the USSR Military Services (25 Chief Marshals of the Air Force, 9 Chief Marshals of the Navy, and Artillery Marshal 10, Armor Marshal 6, Engineer Marshal 6, Communication Marshal 4)
Grand Generals 101
Generals who were awarded Military Service Chief Marshal and Marshal of the USSR are not counted among Military Service Marshals and Grand Generals
Grand Marshal of the USSR 1
★Established June 26, 1945 and awarded on June 27: Stalin ( 1879.12.21-1953.3.5)
41 Marshals of the USSR in the second rank
★5 awarded in 1935
01, awarded on November 20, 1935: Egorov (1883.10.25-1939.2.23)
02, awarded on November 20, 1935: Bryukher (1890.12.1-1938.11.9)
03, awarded on November 20, 1935: Tukhachevsky (1893.2.16-1937.6.11)
04, awarded on November 20, 1935: Voroshilov (1881.2.4-1969.12.2)
p>05. Awarded on November 20, 1935: Bujoni (1883.4.25-1973.10.26)
★3 awarded in 1940
06. Awarded on May 07, 1940: Shaposhnikov (1882.10.2-1945.3.26)
07. 07 awarded: Temushinko (1895.2.18-1970.3.31)
08, May 07, 1940 awarded: Kulik (1890.11.9-1950.8.24)
★3 awarded in 1943
09, January 18, 1943 awarded: Zhukov ( 1896.12.1-1974.6.18)
10, Awarded on February 16, 1943: Vasilevsky (1895.9.18-1977.12.5)
11, Awarded on March 06, 1943: Stalin (1879.12.21-1953.3.5)
★ Awarded to 6 people in 1944 More,
12. Awarded on February 10, 1944: Konev (1897.12.28-1973.5.21)
13. Awarded on June 18, 1944: Govorov (1897.2.22-1955.3.19)
14. Awarded on 29.06.1944: Rokossovsky (1896.12.21-1968.8.3)
15. Awarded on 10.09.1944: Malinovsky (1898.11.23-1967.3.31)
16. Awarded on 12.09.1944: Tolbukhin (1894.6.16- 1949.10.17)
17, awarded on October 26, 1944: Meretzkov (1897.6.7-1968.12.30)
★1 awarded in 1945
18, awarded on July 09, 1945: Beria (1899.3.17-1953.12.23)
★1 awarded in 1946
19, awarded on July 03, 1946: Sokolovsky (1897.7.21-1968.5.10)
★1 awarded in 1947
20, awarded on November 03, 1947: Bulganin (1895.6.11-1975.2.24 )
Note: Reduced to the rank of general in 1957
★6 persons awarded in 1955
21. Awarded on March 11, 1955: Chrykov (1900.2.12-1982.3.18)
22. Awarded on March 11, 1955: Grechko (1903.10.17- 1976.4.26)
23. Awarded on March 11, 1955: Yeremenko (1892.10.14-1970.11.19)
24. Awarded on March 11, 1955: Biruzov (1904.8.21-1964.10.19)
25. Awarded on March 11, 1955: Bagramyan (1897.12.2-1982.9.21)
26. Awarded on March 11, 1955: Moskalenko (1902.5.11-1985.6.17)
★1 awarded in 1959 More highlights,
27. Awarded on May 08, 1959: Zaharov (1898.8.21-1964.10.19)
28. Awarded on May 08, 1955: Zaharov (1898.8.21-1964.10.19)
29. Kharov (1898.8.17-1972.1.31)
★1 awarded in 1961
28, awarded on May 06, 1961: Golikov (1900.7.29-1980.7.29)
★1 awarded in 1962
29, awarded on May 28, 1962 Krylov (1903.4.29-1972.2.9)
★1 awarded in 1967
30. Awarded on April 12, 1967 to Yakubovsky (1912.1.7-1976.11.30)
★2 awarded in 1968
31. Awarded on April 15, 1968 to Awarded on April 15, 1968: Koshevoy (1904.12.21-1976.8.30)
32. Awarded on April 15, 1968: Batitsky (1910.6.27-1984.2.17)
★Granted to 2 people in 1976
33. Awarded on May 07, 1976: Brezhnev ( 1906.12.19-1982.11.10)
34. Awarded on July 03, 1976: Ustinov (1908.10.30-1984.12.20)
★2 awarded in 1977
35. Awarded on January 14, 1977: Ogarkov (1917.10. 30-1994.1.23)
36, January 14, 1977 awarded: Kulikov (1921.7.5-)
★1 awarded in 1978
37, February 17, 1978 awarded: Sokolov (1911.7.1-)
★3 awarded in 1983
38. Awarded on March 25, 1983: Petrov (1917.1.15-)
39. Awarded on March 25, 1983: Kurkotkin (1917.2.13-1990.9.16)
40. Awarded on March 25, 1983: Akhromev (1923.5.5-)
41. 1991.8.24)
★1 awarded in 1990
41. Awarded on April 28, 1990: Yazov (1924.11.8-)
(Marshal Yazov moved his birth year forward by one year in order to get to the front as soon as possible and joined the army, so most of the information is in 1923, which is recorded in Kryuchkov's Personal Records)