Page 133 - The Chief Culprit

94 y e Chief Culprit

From this moment, Tukhachevski could have blown his brains out—his fate had not
only been decided, but publicly declared. Walther Schellenberg, a Nazi foreign intelligence
agent, relates that in May 1937 German Intelligence had succeeded in passing to Stalin a
forged document which presented Tukhachevski as a head of the Red Army generals’ plot
to overthrow the Soviet government. As the story goes, Stalin was duped by this forgery
1
and started the purges in the Red Army. e Germans thus had crippled the Red Army with
Stalin’s hands.
But a simple check of chronology shows that Schellenberg’s story is not correct: the
above-mentioned purges started in the summer of 1935, long before the forged document
was allegedly created by German Intelligence.
ere are many tales about 1937. ey are surprisingly absurd and just as surprisingly
resilient. But it suffices to ask just one question for the picture that has been painted for de-
cades to immediately fall apart.
Here is one more myth: in 1937–38, Stalin executed forty thousand commanders,
therefore in 1941 most commanders had not been at their post for more than one year.
But this could not be!
Let us imagine that in 1937 Stalin executed all commanders—every single one, from
platoon commanders to marshals. He herded them all into abandoned cellars and machine-
gunned them down, and then appointed new commanders to their posts. Let’s imagine this
complete change of the command staff. Here is what would have happened: by the summer
of 1941, all the newly appointed commanders would have had four years of experience.
How could it be that the purge occurred in 1937, but by 1941 the majority of commanders
had less than a year’s experience in their positions? ere are objections that the executions
happened not only in 1937, but in 1938 as well. Good, we can allow that the commanders
appointed in 1937 were in the following year machine-gunned in the cellars. Another, third
group of command personnel was appointed. In this case, the third group appointed in 1938
should have had three years of experience by 1941. If a full change of command occurred, the
majority of these commanders could not have gone anywhere. Understandably during three
years someone drowned, someone became a drunk. One, two, three hundred were executed
in 1939, 1940, and the first half of 1941. ere could have been some shuffling and reshuf-
fling. But the majority should have stayed in their places. How did it happen that the purges
occurred in 1937–38, but in three to four years the new commanders did not have even a full
year of experience at their posts?
e answer to the mysterious lack of experience on the job is simple: in the years
1937–41 the Red Army grew five-fold, from 1.1 million to 5.5 million. e commanding
positions had to be filled, so the officers were promoted quickly and did not have time to
“grow” into their jobs. Similarly quick promotions occurred then in the German army as
well, but nobody claims that German commanders were incompetent.
is problem can be examined from another perspective. Stalin’s army was large. Forty
thousand commanders are not that many. e officer corps of the Red Army in February
1937 is known to have numbered 206,000. e source of this number is the top-secret
speech given at the February–March plenary session of the Central Committee by Politburo
member and People’s Commissar of Defense of the USSR, Marshal of the Soviet Union K.
E. Voroshilov. 2