Page 120 - The Chief Culprit
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About the Brilliant Military
Leader Tukhachevski
After the unheard-of violence conducted by the Bolsheviks against the very people whom
they betrayed and sentenced to starvation and death, there was no way back. e only
thing left was to run fast to their own grave, under the party flag and Stalin’s leadership.
—V. R, Y. A, I R,
BETRAYAL OF THE MOTHERLAND
n 1937, Stalin carried out an assault on the high command of the Red Army. ere are
countless legends about this period. is is what they sound like:
IMarshal Tukhachevski was a great strategist. Tukhachevski proposed a modernization of
the army and insisted on rearmament, but Stalin foolishly declined Tukha chevski’s proposals,
not understanding and not appreciating them. Hitler’s intelligence service decided to behead
the Red Army on the eve of the war, to eliminate Tukhachevski and other geniuses. e
Germans fabricated a false document, and paranoid, suspicious Stalin believed it, unleashing
a terror that took on catastrophic dimensions. Stalin destroyed the most talented men. e
total number of exterminated army commanders was 36,761, and another 3,000 men in the
navy. In total, this was 40,000 great troop commanders. e defeat of the Red Army in 1941
was a direct consequence of the terror in 1937 and 1938. In 1941, because of the mass ex-
termination of the command staff, the vast majority of Soviet commanders did not have the
necessary experience, because they had not been in their positions for more than a year.
All these legends fall apart as soon as they are examined. Let us begin with the first
legend about the brilliant troop leader Tukhachevski.
Mikhail Tukhachevski had no higher education. He never went to a university or
to a military academy. He graduated from a military school that trained junior officers.
Tukhachevski never commanded a company, battalion, regiment, brigade, division, or
corps. He was a deputy to a company commander in a Guards corps. His combat experience
in World War I had been six months. In the beginning of 1915, he was taken prisoner. After
his release, Tukhachevski returned to a reserve battalion of his old regiment. is was during
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