Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky (1893-1937) - Soviet military leader, commander of the Red Army during the Civil War, military theorist and Marshal of the Soviet Union. Shot in 1937 on the "case of the anti-Soviet Trotskyist military organization", rehabilitated in 1957.

Mikhail Tukhachevsky was born on February 4 (February 16), 1893 in Aleksandrovskoe (Smolensk province). He grew up in a simple working-class family of Nikolai Nikolaevich and Mavra Petrovna. He was the third of 7 children of his parents.

When Tukhachevsky was about 11 years old, he was sent to a gymnasium, where he studied for 5 years. After that, the young man continued to receive education in the capital's cadet corps, and then at the Alexander Military School. It is curious that he graduated from college, being in the top three of the strongest graduates.

Tukhachevsky's military life began in the Semyonovsky Life Guards Regiment, where he entered as a second lieutenant at the beginning of the First World War (1914-1918). In February 1915, near the Polish city of Lomza, his company was encircled, after which Mikhail was taken prisoner.

An interesting fact is that Tukhachevsky made 4 unsuccessful escapes, after which he was assigned to a camp for incorrigible fugitives. No less interesting is the fact that here he managed to get acquainted with the future general and president of France, Charles de Gaulle.

Tukhachevsky began to think about another escape plan, which was successfully implemented in the fall of 1917. Returning home, he continued to serve in his native regiment as a company commander. During the war years, he participated in a number of battles, was wounded and in total was awarded 5 orders of various degrees.

Tukhachevsky joined the Red Army as a volunteer in 1918. He was appointed military commissar, who was to keep the defense of the capital. Later, Leon Trotsky instructed him to lead the 5th Army.

During this period of his life, Mikhail Tukhachevsky was the leader of the campaign against the army of Alexander Kolchak in Siberia. He then continued to fight the Whites in southern Russia. In 1920, the commissar's army was transferred to the Kuban.

Here, Tukhachevsky's cavalry managed to inflict significant damage on the troops of General Denikin, forcing them to retreat to the Black Sea coast. At the end of the civil war, he led the 7th Army, and in the spring of 1921 he was able to successfully suppress the uprising in Kronstadt.

Mikhail Tukhachevsky was instructed to subdue the rebellious Tambov peasants. He approached this task with particular cruelty: poison gases were used against the peasants, while not only the rebels were shot, but even their relatives.

After that, military successes were replaced by failures. The campaign of the Red Army during the Soviet-Polish war turned out to be a failure: after a bold advance, Tukhachevsky's army faced strong resistance. Near Warsaw he was defeated by Jozef Pilsudski. This defeat will be remembered to him in 1937.

Joseph Stalin was also a participant in that war. After the defeat in it, Stalin and Tukhachevsky accused each other of a number of blunders at the front. Having led the party in 1929, Iosif Vissarionovich did not forget Mikhail's mistakes, receiving denunciations against him and considering reprisals against him.

However, at that time in his biography, Stalin did not yet have unconditional support among party members, thanks to which Tukhachevsky was able to stay alive. In the following years of his life, Mikhail became the author of hundreds of manuals on the theory of warfare, education and training of troops.

In 1931, Tukhachevsky was elected chief of armaments of the Red Army, and then deputy people's commissar for military and naval affairs. A couple of years later he was awarded the Order of Lenin. In the autumn of 1935, he was awarded the highest military rank - Marshal of the Soviet Union!

Mikhail made every effort to prepare the Red Army for the upcoming war, advocating the active militarization of the country. He called for radical reforms in the areas of weapons systems, strategy and training of troops. Marshal was a staunch supporter of the offensive strategy, and also paid great attention to chemical weapons in battles with the enemy.

It is important to note that many of Mikhail's ideas were negatively perceived by Stalin, who by that time had much greater leverage in his hands. Soon the future head of the USSR will become the initiator of the Great Terror, which will not bypass Tukhachevsky either.

Stalin began the persecution against Tukhachevsky in the summer of 1936. A few months later he was removed from the post of deputy defense commissar and appointed to lead the Volga military district. In Kuibyshev, the commander was detained on charges of preparing an anti-state conspiracy, which he himself later admitted.

In the spring of 1937, the NKVD forced Mikhail to confess that he had been spying for Germany and preparing a violent overthrow of power. As a result, he was accused on several counts of Article 58 and sentenced to death.

Seven more commanders of the Red Army were sentenced to the same execution. Mikhail Tukhachevsky was shot on June 12, 1937 at the age of 44. Almost all of his relatives were subjected to repression. Only his sister Natalya was able to avoid repression by taking the surname - Rostova.