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e Cleansing y 93

read Tukhachevski’s books clearly saw that they were written by a very strange man com-
pletely infatuated with himself, a man with impossible ambitions. Such a man is extremely
dangerous in a position at the top of the military command.
Stalin for many years conducted preparations for eliminating high-ranking military
leaders whom he deemed untrustworthy. Tukhachevski was one of them: the most famous,
but certainly not the only one. Following are the most prominent examples.
On the night of July 2, 1935, Corps Commander G. Gay was arrested. e 3rd Cavalry
Corps under his command had been the main assault and maneuvering force in the battle
near Warsaw fought by Tukhachevski in 1920. In 1935 Gay was the head of the military his-
tory department at the Zhukovsky Air Force Academy. In those times the Soviet Union did
not have military history other than the Civil War. All that had preceded the Civil War was
treated as a foreword and reviewed very superficially and briefly. e history of the Civil War,
on the other hand, was learned meticulously. e reason Gay was arrested was that he was not
teaching military history “correctly,” and the required reading for his students was the history
of the Civil War prepared by Tukhachevski.
On April 17, 1936, N. I. Muralov, who had become commander of the Moscow mili-
tary district back in 1917, was arrested. It was under Muralov’s cover that the Lenin-Trotsky
government fled from Petrograd to Moscow in 1918. In 1936 Stalin began to put pressure on
all those who had been chosen by Lenin and Trotsky and placed in high positions.
On June 9, 1936, division commander D. Shmidt, a friend of Tukhachevski, was ar-
rested. On August 14, 1936, Corps Commander Primakov was arrested. Primakov was con-
nected with Tukhachevski for many years: he had been under Tukhachevski’s command back
in 1920, in the campaign to occupy Poland. Later Primakov was tried and executed at the
same time as Tukhachevski.
On August 15, 1936, Brigade Commander M. O. Zyuk, commander of the 25th
Chapaev Division, was arrested.
On August 20, 1936, another future codefendant was arrested—Corps Commander
Putna. Two of the eight defendants from Tukhachevski’s group were already in prison. e
process had begun.
Corps Commander S. A. Turovsky was arrested on September 2, 1936. Division
Commander Y. V. Sablin was arrested on September 25. e Byelorussian military district
commander, I. P. Uborevich, a friend and follower of Tukhachevski, was arrested on May
29, 1937. Later they were executed together. So, in January 1937 the composition of the
group of high commanders who were to fall under suspicion was already becoming clear:
as a group, they vocally opposed K. E. Voroshilov, Stalin’s perennial favorite, who then was
Minister of Defense.
On January 24, 1937, at an open court trial, former member of the Central Committee
of the Communist Party Karl Radek, who had been accused of espionage, treason, and prepa-
ration of a coup, named Tukhachevski as a collaborator. Anyone who knows anything about
Stalin’s open trials, and who has thought about the meaning and significance of these tri-
als, will agree that names were never mentioned there by accident. According to Radek,
Tukhachevski had sent Corps Commander Putna to Berlin, where he conducted talks with
Trotskyites. Tukhachevski personally was not yet being accused of anything: he only sent
Putna to Berlin on business, and Putna used the opportunity.