Khrushchev's myth about the "brilliant" Marshal Tukhachevsky

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

In June 1937, the Soviet people had to learn about, as the press of the time put it, "the savage betrayal of the Tukhachevsky gang." A special judicial presence of six senior military leaders sentenced Marshal of the Soviet Union Mikhail Tukhachevsky and the "group of traitors" to capital punishment …

And after the XX Congress of the CPSU, within the framework of Khrushchev's criticism of Stalin's "personality cult", a myth about a genius commander arose and began to grow in the USSR.

Summons were sent to the soldiers of the reserve, The German infantry climbs ahead, Hurry up, Marshal Tukhachevsky, Present to the troops in the guise of combat.

Let your genius shine again in the order

And the stunned world will surprise.

Let Fedko send liaison officers to you

And Yakir radiates about business.

But those sentenced to death

Not to resurrect God, but for now

Irreplaceable losses in battles

Orphaned troops are being carried.

So the poet Rasul Gamzatov responded to the wishes of Khrushchev and formulated the essence of the legend about Tukhachevsky. The brilliant commander was shot, they say, and without his strategic talents in 1941, the "orphaned troops" suffered "irreparable losses."

But the question remained open: where, in fact, and when did Tukhachevsky's genius shine, surprising the "stunned world"?

Perhaps this should be considered a sign of genius: “Hostages are taken from among the most prominent people (priests, teachers, paramedics, etc.). Then the volost gathering gathers, at which orders for numbers 130 and 171 are read, as well as the verdict of this volost. All its residents are given two hours to issue weapons and hiding bandits and their families. The entire population of the volost is informed that in case of refusal to extradite all the hostages will be shot. If in two hours the weapons and all those in question are not issued, then again, the gathering is assembled again and the hostages are shot in front of its participants. And everything starts all over again."

This is from the so-called decree No. 116, which Tukhachevsky and Antonov-Ovseenko, the military and political leaders of the suppression of the uprising of the Tambov peasants, signed on June 23, 1921. Tukhachevsky was such a genius commander that he needed the best units of the Red Army, gases, armored cars, tanks, aviation, armored trains and artillery to fight the insurgent peasants of one province.

It is clear that the first step was to exterminate the priests. But how did the village paramedics with teachers interfere with Tukhachevsky? Let's leave aside the moral assessment of the activities of the Russian guard officer, who became a traitor, his role as an executioner in the bloody pacification of Kronstadt and the Tambov uprising. Let's try to figure out a legend created in the second half of the 1950s - early 1960s about a brilliant commander, whose execution allegedly became a hardest blow to the combat capability of the Red Army.

In August 1920, the offensive of the Western Front on Warsaw, commanded by Tukhachevsky, ended in a gigantic disaster. Of course, the delay in the transfer of Budyonny's 1st Cavalry Army from the South-Western Front to the Western Front also played a role. But that was not the only point. Wanting to be "holier than the Pope" or, accordingly, "redder than Trotsky", Tukhachevsky decided that it was possible to replace the strategic reserve with the revolutionary enthusiasm of the masses and tried to implement this "theory". So, for example, to decide the outcome of the battle on the Kulikovo field instead of the Ambush Regiment, Prince Dmitry's inspired appeal to the warriors, who, filled with enthusiasm, would overturn the hordes of Mamai, could have been decided. For Napoleon's troops, accordingly, the same enthusiasm was to replace the Old Guard that appeared at the decisive moment of the battle.

The Poles in August 1920 very clearly explained to Tukhachevsky that reserves for the decisive moment of the battle are still desirable to have, and even the most revolutionary enthusiasm will not replace them. Under Khrushchev, the role of Tukhachevsky in the technical equipment of the Red Army, the mechanization and motorization of troops was emphasized. A legend was created that Stalin with his stupid cavalrymen Budyonny, Voroshilov and Timoshenko did not understand the role of motors in the coming war and made the main bet on cavalry. And only the talented Tukhachevsky sagaciously introduced advanced technology. On closer inspection, this legend does not hold up to scrutiny.

Too much is known about the great importance Stalin attached to the development of aviation and tank forces, how he personally followed the choice of equipment for production and implementation. Suffice it to recall the discussion at the beginning of the 1930s, when the tank of the American designer Christie came to the attention of the Soviet military and political leadership. Tukhachevsky quite seriously insisted on the purchase of 50,000 of these tanks.

The figure is absolutely fantastic. The insane cost of such an order would be accompanied by colossal costs for the maintenance of machines that no one knew who could drive (the technical revolution in the USSR was just beginning). And these tanks in a matter of years became obsolete and would very quickly turn into useless scrap metal. It was such a time, the 1930s … Military equipment developed rapidly. Aircraft created, say, in 1930, by 1940 became a complete anachronism. The same thing happened with other types of weapons.

Instead of implementing Tukhachevsky's proposal, the Soviet leadership preferred to purchase samples of a truly advanced American design machine at that time and, on its basis, create a series of BT tanks (BT-2, BT-5, BT-7M). In the West they were called "Russian Christi". And the money, instead of buying 50 thousand tanks, to spend on the construction of tractor (i.e. tank) factories. Historians of artillery weapons with an unkind word recall Tukhachevsky's passion for the so-called "universal gun".

The designers were given an obviously impossible task - to create an artillery gun for all occasions, capable of destroying enemy trenches, setting fire to tanks, and even shooting at planes. A sort of hybrid of anti-aircraft guns, howitzers and anti-tank guns. The designer of artillery pieces Vasily Grabin described in his memoirs the termination of a useless “universal” undertaking: “Stalin's manner of speaking quietly, slowly has been described many times. It seemed that he mentally weighs every word and only then pronounces it. He said that we must stop practicing universalism. And he added: "This is harmful." Then he added that the universal gun cannot solve all issues equally well. We need a special-purpose divisional gun.

"From now on, you, comrade Grabin, deal with divisional guns, and you, comrade Makhanov, with anti-aircraft guns." The decision turned out to be correct. Not a single army in the world has universal guns suitable for all occasions of military life …

Tukhachevsky had many such utopian hobbies, testifying to anything but military genius …