In the summer of 1941, Joseph Davis, the former US ambassador to the USSR in 1937-1938, would write in his diary: “Today we know, thanks to the efforts of the FBI, that Hitler’s agents were operating everywhere, even in the United States and South America. The German entry into Prague was accompanied by the active support of Gehlen's military organizations. The same thing happened in Norway (Quisling), Slovakia (Tiso), Belgium (de Grell) ... However, we do not see anything like this in Russia. “Where are the Russian accomplices of Hitler?” I am often asked. “They were shot,” I answer ... Only now you are beginning to realize how far-sighted the Soviet government acted during the years of the purges. (quoted in: V. A. Chernenky. “Joseph E. Davis. 1937: Cleansing”, Duel, 1998, No. 39.)
On June 11, 1937 in Moscow, the Special Judicial Presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR at a closed court session considered the case of M. Tukhachevsky, I. Yakir, I. Uborevich, R. Eideman and others on charges of the most serious crimes, including treason homeland, espionage... On the same day, at 11:35 p.m., the presiding V. V. Ulrich announced the verdict, the death penalty was execution. On June 12, 1937, the sentence was carried out...
Ever since the Civil War, two groups have competed in the Red Army - the so-called. "cadres of Trotsky" (the organizer of the Red Army) and cavalrymen, natives of the First Cavalry - supporters of Stalin. After the defeat of the Trotskyist opposition by the end of the 1920s, Trotsky's henchmen found themselves in the position of persons who are treated with distrust and suspicion. This affected their career growth, causing, in turn, dissatisfaction and the understanding that further well-being is possible only as a result of a change of power. The confrontation between these two groups formed the basis of the so-called. conspiracy in the Red Army. It should be clarified what exactly is considered a conspiracy in this case, since this concept can be interpreted quite broadly. Since we are talking about the USSR of the 30s, the concept of “conspiracy” is quite specific. The country was dominated by one party, one ideology, one leader, who did not allow the slightest deviation from the general line, even among his fellow party members. At the same time, it is quite natural that there were dissatisfied people who disagreed with the current course (in all its areas - foreign and domestic policy, economy, etc.), as in any other state. But if in democratic countries there are legal opportunities for expressing one's disagreement, then under totalitarian-dictatorial regimes there are no such opportunities. Consequently, the dissatisfied find themselves in an illegal position. In the same way, the coming to power under the conditions of the Stalinist USSR is ruled out legally. The only option is a revolution. Thus, any opposition - that is, those who are dissatisfied and disagree with the general line, and even more so those claiming power under the conditions of a totalitarian dictatorship, can be considered as conspirators. For the simple reason that the opposition, for objective reasons, cannot act otherwise to achieve its goals and ideas. On the other hand, the specificity of the illegal (i.e., outside the official laws) situation forces one to rely on external factors - conflicts, crises, wars, etc.
Of course, Stalin understood all this. Moreover, he had before his eyes the example of his own party, which had seized power thanks to the First World War.
Schellenberg materials
In the literature devoted to the conspiracy in the Red Army, the theme of falsified materials on Tukhachevsky, provided by the Germans to Stalin, sounds. At the same time, they invariably refer to the data of Walter Schellenberg, the former head of the political intelligence of the Reich. And as a motive for the Germans - the weakening of the Red Army by provoking repression among the highest command staff. The most striking thing is that Schellenberg wrote just the opposite: his memoirs only prove the validity of the existence of a conspiracy led by Tukhachevsky. In this regard, it is worth saying a few words about the relations between the military circles of the USSR and Germany, since this is an important point. From the beginning of the 1920s until Hitler came to power, there was close military-technical cooperation between the two countries. It proceeded against the backdrop of the political isolation of the USSR and Germany in the international arena, and for the Germans - also in the most difficult conditions of the Treaty of Versailles, which forbade having a full-fledged army. Both Moscow and Berlin until 1933 considered the same countries as the most likely adversaries - Poland, France, England. Naturally, in the course of close contacts, ties were also established between the highest command cadres, something like a “combat brotherhood” arose. Germanophilism grew among the Soviet military, and Russophilism among the Germans ... However, since 1933, cooperation was interrupted, and the political leadership began to search for new allies. Ideological differences between Moscow and Berlin are aggravated, actively fueled by propaganda from both sides. In 1934, the USSR joins the League of Nations, in 1935-1936. signs a series of defensive treaties with France and Czechoslovakia, which had an anti-German character. And then there's the war in Spain, which began in 1936, where the Soviet and Nazi armies first clashed...
But if it was quite easy for Stalin, as a politician, to change allies and enemies, then in the military environment, views could not change so sharply and drastically. The state of disorientation in which the military of both states found themselves is characterized by the words spoken by the Deputy People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR Krestinsky military attaché of Germany on April 3, 1933: “There cannot be such a situation in which relations of friendship and cooperation, and other government bodies of Germany are pursuing a hostile policy towards the USSR ”(Gorlov S. Top secret. Alliance Moscow-Berlin 1920-1933. M .: Olma-press, 2001. - P. 298). (It is worth paying attention to a modern example in the post-Soviet countries - how persistent stereotypes are in relation to NATO in army circles.) In addition, a number of top generals simply did not agree with Stalin's new line on defense issues. Similar thoughts were also overcome by the generals of the German General Staff ...
What is Walter Schellenberg's version?
At the beginning of 1937, he was instructed by Heydrich (at that time the head of the SD) to prepare materials on contacts between the Reichswehr and the Red Army. Based on the results of his work, Schellenberg made a report to the chief. He wrote: “It was a kind of review on a topic that was eternal under the Nazi regime, which was based on the question of whether to focus on Western Europe or on Russia” (Shellenberg V. Hitler's Secret Service. K .: Doverie, 1991. - P. 23) . From the materials of Schellenberg it followed that in the circle of the German military there are two groups with different orientations. Unexpectedly for intelligence, the greatest support for the idea of German cooperation with Soviet Russia was expressed by officers of the German General Staff.
By the time Schellenberg made his report, Heydrich already had “information from the White Guard emigrant General Skoblin that Marshal Tukhachevsky, together with the German General Staff, organized a conspiracy to overthrow the Stalinist regime” (ibid., p. 24).
It should be noted that just as in the USSR there was a rivalry between the "cadres of Trotsky" and the cavalry, so in Germany there was a confrontation between conservatives, representatives of the old officer corps and nominees of the new Nazi regime. The headquarters of the conservatives was the General Staff. In addition, the generals of the Kaiser's hardening, mostly from the upper class, treated Hitler himself with poorly concealed contempt - a commoner corporal, who suddenly found himself at the helm of the state.
Attack on the General Staff
Combining the materials he had with Schellenberg's data, Heydrich decided to use them in two directions. Inside the country - against the conservatives from the General Staff, and along the line of intelligence - against the USSR. By the way, as Schellenberg notes, there were those in the SD service who did not believe Skoblin's information. So, one high-ranking officer, Rudolf Hess's personal expert on intelligence and espionage, a certain Janke, suggested that "Skoblin is playing a double game." And in fact, the materials were planted by the NKVD at the direction of Stalin, who wanted, “by arousing Heydrich’s suspicion of the German General Staff, to weaken it [German. General Staff] and at the same time resist the Soviet military clique headed by Tukhachevsky” (ibid., p. 24). Heydrich, “having suspected Janke of loyalty to the German General Staff,” puts him under house arrest. Further, the chief of the SD reports the information to Hitler, knowing that the latter is wary of the General Staff. But there is not enough hard evidence of the participation of the German military elite in the conspiracy of Heydrich. And then he instructs his people to concoct "fake materials compromising the German generals." Note that the linden was not on Tukhachevsky, but on the German General Staff. Heydrich explained to his subordinates that such an operation "would weaken the growing power of the Red Army."
Next, Heydrich goes to Hitler, who must make the final decision. Analyzing the situation, Hitler bases his thoughts on two points: a) there is a conspiracy of Tukhachevsky and the generals against Stalin; b) the conspiracy is supported by the generals of the German General Staff, disloyal to Hitler. Moreover, with regard to the General Staff, Heydrich strengthened Hitler's suspicions with the help of linden. On the one hand, it is logical that the Fuhrer could not arrange the coming to power in the USSR of Tukhachevsky, who was in close relations with the German military elite, who were in opposition to Hitler. On the other hand, having decided to support a conspiracy against the official authorities, Hitler would have rudely intervened in the internal affairs of the USSR. In case of failure, this threatened with unpredictable consequences, up to war. “In the end,” writes Schellenberg, “Hitler decided to oppose Tukhachevsky ... on the side of Stalin” (ibid., p. 25).
The Fuhrer, fearing that the General Staff officers would warn Tukhachevsky, ordered that the military not be involved in the plans of the operation at all. Moreover, on his orders, Heydrich organized the penetration of special groups into the archives of the General Staff and the Abwehr (military intelligence). During these special measures, additional materials were found and confiscated "confirming the cooperation of the German General Staff with the Red Army" (ibid., p. 25). Further, through the President of Czechoslovakia, Dr. Beneš, the materials got to the NKVD and to Stalin. Regarding their reliability, Schellenberg writes: “It was believed that the materials collected by Heydrich about Tukhachevsky were based on fakes. In fact, there were very few false materials. This is confirmed by the fact that extensive dossiers were prepared and presented to Hitler in four days ”(ibid., p. 25, highlighted by the author). The conclusion suggests itself: firstly, Heydrich pursued the goal of striking not at the Red Army, but at the German General Staff. Secondly, Heydrich and Hitler considered Tukhachevsky and his group as potential enemies of the fascist regime, which, if Stalin was removed, could provide support to the forces of the anti-Hitler opposition.
At the end of 1937 - beginning of 1938. Hitler replaced the entire military and diplomatic elite. So, in February 1938, under various pretexts, the Minister of War, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, von Blomberg, were resigned; Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces von Fritsch; Chief of the General Staff of the Ground Forces Beck; Foreign Minister von Neurat; 16 generals have been retired, and another 44 have been removed. The War Office was abolished, and Hitler took command of the Wehrmacht. By the way, many of those who were displaced turned out to be participants in a conspiracy against Hitler in 1944 and were executed at the same time ...
On May 24, at a meeting of the Politburo, materials received from Germany were considered. However, Stalin shot his generals not on the basis of German data. Moreover, he simply could not but question their reliability and objectivity.
Stalin's last doubts about the existence of a conspiracy among the military disappeared by April 1937. This is evidenced by the beginning of mass personnel transfers of the highest commanding staff. The conspiracy was taken quite seriously and they feared the intervention of the troops. For example, Commander Feldman (one of the key figures in the conspiracy), who led the management of the NPO in command, was moved to the post of deputy commander of the Moscow Military District. The commander of the Belarusian military district, Uborevich, lost two of his deputies, who were transferred to another job. On April 21, Tukhachevsky, under a far-fetched pretext, was denied a trip to England for the coronation of George VI. On May 1, 1937, Stalin, during a festive dinner at Voroshilov’s apartment, according to the then head of the intelligence department of the Red Army Uritsky, “said that the enemies would be exposed, the party would erase them in powder, and raised a toast to those who, remaining faithful, will worthily take their place at the glorious table on the October anniversary ”(Military Archives of Russia. 1993. Issue 1. - P. 35)
In early May, the Politburo decides to eliminate the unity of command in the Red Army. The institution of political commissars is being revived. In the military districts, military councils are established (comprising a commander and two officers). The same thing happens in fleets, armies, etc. Commissars appear in all military units, from regiments upwards. This measure deprived commanders of all ranks of the right to make decisions and issue orders without the sanction of military councils or political workers.
On May 10, another resolution was adopted on mass reshuffles in the highest military circles. Yakir is transferred from the post of commander of the Kyiv military district to the post of commander of the Leningrad military district. Marshal Tukhachevsky is demoted, relieved of his duties as Deputy People's Commissar of Defense. He was appointed commander of the secondary importance of the Volga military district.
On May 14, without explanation, the head of the Frunze Military Academy, A. Kork, is dismissed from his post. On May 15, a month-old resolution on the appointment of Commander Feldman as deputy commander of the Moscow Military District was canceled. On May 20, Yakir was removed from his post as commander of the Leningrad Military District. Commander of the 1st rank Uborevich is appointed to the post of commander of the Central Asian Military District ... And so on ...
"... I admit the existence of an anti-Soviet conspiracy and that I was at the head of it."
In May, the main actors are arrested. Particular attention is drawn to the speed with which the top military leaders admitted their guilt. On May 6, reserve brigade commander M. Medvedev, who until 1934 headed the air defense of the Red Army, was detained, but was fired and expelled from the party for squandering public funds. On the same day, he testifies against some of his former subordinates. And on May 8, Medvedev announced his participation in the Trotskyist military organization headed by the aforementioned B. Feldman. On May 10, Medvedev testifies against Tukhachevsky (characterizing him as a candidate for dictators), Yakir, Putna, etc.
Commander B. Feldman was arrested on May 15, 1937. On the very first day, in a statement, he asks to be acquainted with the materials available to the investigation and expresses his readiness to testify in accordance with these materials. It was the data given in Feldman's testimony that formed the basis for the decision to arrest Tukhachevsky. For obvious reasons, we cannot quote all the testimonies and documents related to this case. We present only the most characteristic.
Investigator Ushakov (later arrested), who dealt with Feldman, will indicate in his testimony: “I realized that Feldman was connected by conspiracy with Tukhachevsky, and called him on May 19 early in the morning for interrogation. The interrogation had to be interrupted, since Leplevsky I.M. (head of the investigation department, led the investigation into the military case - Auth.) called me to an operational meeting. After talking about Feldman's testimony and analyzing what was reported, I began to orient the investigators during interrogations to pay more attention to the discovery of a military conspiracy that undoubtedly existed in the Red Army. During my report, one of the investigators, Karelin, shook his head and said in a whisper that "I hastily draw such conclusions and should not speak so definitely about Tukhachevsky and Yakir." And Leplevsky threw a remark: “You analyze logically, but in reality you are still very far from such results.” I replied: "I think that today I will receive from Feldman a complete confirmation of my conclusions." To which Leplevsky said with even greater causticity: "Well, well, we'll see." (quoted from: Viktorov B. Unmarked secret. M .: Legal Literature. - 1990. - P. 226)
What is remarkable about the testimony of investigator Ushakov? First, as early as May 19, three days before Tukhachevsky's arrest, his guilt was in doubt. As well as in general the presence of the conspiracy itself in the Red Army. So, there is no reason to talk about this case as a pre-planned performance. Another interesting document has survived to this day - a note from the arrested Feldman addressed to the investigator dated May 31, 1937: “To the assistant to the head of the 5th department of the GUGB of the NKVD of the USSR, comrade. Ushakov. Zinovy Markovich! I wrote the beginning and the end of the statement at my own discretion ... Thank you for your attention and care - on the 25th I received cookies, apples, cigarettes and today cigarettes. From where, from whom - they don’t say, but I know from whom. Feldman 31. V. 37 (quoted from: Zenkovich N. Marshals and general secretaries., M .: Olma-press. - 2000. - P. 518-519). It is clear that the investigator Ushakov did not have warm feelings for the accused. Surely he played some kind of psychological combination - "spun". But the fact that he didn’t hit is a fact.
Ushakov did receive evidence from Feldman about the conspiracy. Presenting to Stalin, Molotov, Voroshilov and Kaganovich the protocol of the interrogation of Feldman, Yezhov on May 20, 1937, asked to discuss the question of the arrest of "the rest of the participants in the conspiracy", including Tukhachevsky.
On May 22, 1937, Tukhachevsky was arrested at a new duty station in Kuibyshev. On the same day, the chairman of the Central Council of Osoaviakhim R. Eideman was detained; May 28 - I. Yakir; May 29 - I. Uborevich. Arrested on May 22, Tukhachevsky was brought to Moscow by the night of the 25th. At the first interrogation, he denies everything. But already on the 26th, that is, after less than a day in the cell, Tukhachevsky wrote to Yezhov: “I was given confrontations with Primakov, Putna and Feldman, who accuse me as the leader of the anti-Soviet military-Trotskyist conspiracy ... Please provide me with a couple more testimonies from other participants in this conspiracy who also accuse me. I undertake to give frank testimony without the slightest concealment of anything from my own guilt in this case, as well as from the guilt of other persons in the conspiracy. On the same day, a statement was made with a confession: “Being arrested on May 22, having arrived in Moscow on May 24 (by nightfall. - Auth.), I was interrogated for the first time on May 25 and today, May 26, I declare that I admit the existence of an anti-Soviet conspiracy and that that I was in charge of it. I undertake to independently state to the investigation everything related to the conspiracy, without concealing any of its participants, not a single fact or document. (quoted from: Zenkovich N. Marshals and general secretaries. M .: Olma-press. - 2000. - P. 490).
Tukhachevsky's testimony during the investigation is 143 pages of his own written text. And the data that the marshal cites give no reason to doubt that Tukhachevsky wrote himself, without prompting! ..
From June 1 to June 4, 1937, an expanded meeting of the Military Council under the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR was held in the Kremlin with the participation of members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. K. Voroshilov makes a report "On the counter-revolutionary conspiracy in the Red Army uncovered by the NKVD." In addition to the permanent members, the Military Council is attended by 116 military workers invited from the localities and from the central apparatus of the People's Commissariat of Defense. Such a concentration in Moscow of the highest commanding staff looks like an intention to prevent a speech in defense of those arrested. Before the start of the work of the Military Council, all its participants were acquainted with the testimony of M. Tukhachevsky and other accused. Subsequently, many participants in this meeting were arrested. Some have suffered in vain...
P.S. Stalin dealt with the conspirators in his usual style - he shot them. However, judging from objective historical positions (all the more we know what happened after 1937), then for the country as a whole, the destruction of the anti-Stalinist opposition was rather a boon. First, there is no reason to believe that Tukhachevsky would have been a better dictator than Stalin. And it is absolutely impossible to imagine the consequences for the state and the number of victims if a civil war had also broken out during the Great Patriotic War ...
This process went down in history under the name of the “Tukhachevsky case”. It arose 11 months before the execution of the sentence in July 1936. Then, through Czech diplomats, Stalin received information that a conspiracy is brewing among the leadership of the Red Army, led by Deputy People's Commissar of Defense Mikhail Tukhachevsky, and that the conspirators are in contact with the leading generals of the German high command and the German intelligence service. In confirmation, a dossier stolen from SS Security Service, which contained documents of the special department "K" - a camouflaged organization of the Reichswehr, which dealt with the production of weapons and ammunition prohibited by the Treaty of Versailles. The dossier contained records of conversations between German officers and representatives of the Soviet command, including minutes of negotiations with Tukhachevsky. With these documents, a criminal case began under the code name "Conspiracy of General Turguev" (Tukhachevsky's pseudonym, under which he came to Germany with an official military delegation in the early 30s of the last century).
Today, in the liberal press, the version that “stupid Stalin” has become a victim of a provocation by the special services of fascist Germany, who planted fabricated documents about the "conspiracy in the Red Army" for the purpose of beheading Soviet Armed Forces on the eve of the war.
I happened to get acquainted with the criminal case of Tukhachevsky, but there was no evidence of this version. I'll start with the confessions of Tukhachevsky himself. The first written statement of the marshal after the arrest is dated May 26, 1937. He wrote to People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Yezhov: “Being arrested on May 22, having arrived in Moscow on May 24, I was interrogated for the first time on May 25 and today, May 26, I declare that I admit the existence of an anti-Soviet military Trotskyist conspiracy and that I was at the head of it. I undertake to independently state to the investigation everything related to the conspiracy, without concealing any of its participants, not a single fact or document. The foundation of the conspiracy dates back to 1932. Participation in it was taken by: Feldman, Alafuzov, Primakov, Putna and others, about which I will show in detail later. During interrogation by the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, Tukhachevsky said: “Back in 1928, I was drawn into a right-wing organization by Yenukidze. In 1934 I personally contacted Bukharin; I established a spy connection with the Germans since 1925, when I went to Germany for exercises and maneuvers ... When traveling to London in 1936, Putna arranged a meeting with Sedov (son of L.D. Trotsky. - S.T.) .. ."
There are also materials in the criminal case previously collected on Tukhachevsky, which at one time were not given a move. For example, testimonies from 1922 of two officers who served in the past in the tsarist army. They called ... Tukhachevsky the inspirer of their anti-Soviet activities. Copies of the protocols of interrogations were reported to Stalin, who sent them to Ordzhonikidze with such a significant note: "Please read it. Since this is not excluded, it is possible." The reaction of Ordzhonikidze is unknown - he apparently did not believe the slander. There was another case: the Secretary of the Party Committee of the Western Military District complained about Tukhachevsky to the People's Commissariat for Military and Naval Affairs (wrong attitude towards the Communists, immoral behavior). But People's Commissar M. Frunze imposed a resolution on the information: "The Party believed Comrade Tukhachevsky, believes and will believe." An interesting extract from the testimony of the arrested brigade commander Medvedev that he "knew" back in 1931 about the existence of a counter-revolutionary Trotskyist organization in the central departments of the Red Army. On May 13, 1937, Yezhov arrested A. Artuzov, a former associate of Dzerzhinsky, and he testified that information received from Germany in 1931 reported on a conspiracy in the Red Army led by a certain General Turguev (pseudonym Tukhachevsky), who was in Germany. Yezhov's predecessor, Yagoda, declared at the same time: "This is not a serious material, hand it over to the archive."
After the end of the Great Patriotic War, fascist documents with assessments of the “Tukhachevsky case” became known. Here are some of them.
An interesting diary entry by Goebbels dated May 8, 1943: “There was a conference of Reichsleiters and Gauleiters ... The Fuhrer recalled the incident with Tukhachevsky and expressed the opinion that we were completely wrong when we believed that Stalin would destroy the Red Army in this way. The opposite was true: Stalin got rid of the opposition in the Red Army and thus put an end to defeatism.
In his speech in front of subordinates in October 1943, Reichsführer SS Himmler declared: “When great show trials were going on in Moscow, and the former tsarist cadet, and later the Bolshevik general Tukhachevsky and other generals, were executed, all of us in Europe, including us, members of the party and the SS, adhered to opinion that the Bolshevik system and Stalin made one of their biggest mistakes here. By assessing the situation in this way, we have greatly deceived ourselves. We can truthfully and confidently state this. I believe that Russia would not have survived all these two years of the war - and now it is already in its third - if it had kept the former tsarist generals.
On September 16, 1944, a conversation took place between Himmler and the traitor general A.A. Vlasov, during which Himmler asked Vlasov about the Tukhachevsky case. Why did he fail. Vlasov replied: "Tukhachevsky made the same mistake as your people on July 20 (the assassination attempt on Hitler). He did not know the law of the masses." Those. and one and the second conspiracy is not denied.
AT in his memoirs, a major Soviet intelligence officer Lieutenant General Pavel Sudoplatov states: “The myth of the involvement of German intelligence in Stalin's massacre of Tukhachevsky was first launched in 1939 by the defector V. Krivitsky, a former officer of the Intelligence Department of the Red Army, in the book "I was Stalin's agent." At the same time, he referred to the white general Skoblin, a prominent agent of the INO NKVD among the white emigration. Skoblin, according to Krivitsky, was a double who worked for German intelligence. In reality, Skoblin was not a double. His intelligence work completely refutes this version. The invention of Krivitsky, who became a mentally unstable person in exile, was later used by Schellenberg in his memoirs, attributing to himself the merit in the falsification of the Tukhachevsky case.
Even if Tukhachevsky had turned out to be clean before the Soviet authorities, in his criminal file I found such documents, after reading which his execution seems quite deserved. I will cite some of them.
In March 1921, Tukhachevsky was appointed commander of the 7th Army, aimed at suppressing the uprising of the Kronstadt garrison. To as you know, it was drowned in blood.
In 1921 Soviet Russia was engulfed in anti-Soviet uprisings, the largest of which in European Russia was a peasant uprising in the Tambov province. Considering the Tambov rebellion as a serious danger, the Politburo of the Central Committee in early May 1921 appointed Tukhachevsky commander of the troops of the Tambov district with the task of completely suppressing it as soon as possible. According to the plan developed by Tukhachevsky, the uprising was basically suppressed by the end of July 1921.
From the orders of Tukhachevsky
All the defendants were found guilty and shot immediately after the verdict (Ya. B. Gamarnik shot himself on the eve of his arrest). All defendants in the case were posthumously rehabilitated due to the lack of corpus delicti.
Version of the prosecutionWording of the accusationAccording to the indictment dated June 9, 1937, all the accused were members of the anti-Soviet Trotskyist military organization associated with L. Trotsky, his son L. Sedov, convicted in January 1937 by G. Pyatakov and L. Serebryakov, already arrested by that time N. Bukharin and A. Rykov, as well as the German General Staff. The purpose of the organization was declared a violent seizure of power in the USSR in the face of a military defeat from Germany and Poland. The list of allegations included:
Some researchers (for example, the writer E. A. Prudnikova) point to the inconsistency of the accusation and believe that the real reason for the process was a conspiracy to seize power, and the promotion of an external factor in the form of espionage in favor of Germany was intended to oppose the accused to public opinion of their comrades from the Red Army. In particular, Tukhachevsky himself did not admit to accusations of espionage. A week before the trial, on June 2, 1937, an expanded meeting of the Military Council under the NPO of the USSR was convened. The scale of the event is evidenced by the fact that, in addition to the members of the Military Council, 116 invitees participated in the meeting. Stalin spoke to the army public with an explanation of the government's position on the "Tukhachevsky case". He began his speech with the words:
In his speech, Stalin also emphasized the similarity of the accusations against the Tukhachevsky group with the military mutiny in Spain that had happened a year earlier, with which Soviet military advisers were familiar in practice. Preliminary investigation and trialIn 1929-1934, information about the presence of opposition groups in the Red Army led by Tukhachevsky came from the daughter of General Zaionchkovsky, in 1932 - from the agent "Surprise" (Adolf Khairovsky), in 1933-1936 - from the agent "Venus", in 1932 -1934 - from agent Ilinich. However, this information came out of the bowels of the secret services and became known to the government only after Artuzov's note in January 1937. The first defendants in the case - V. Putna and V. Primakov - were arrested in connection with another case. In the trial in the case of the Anti-Soviet United Trotskyist-Zinoviev Center (August 21-23, 1936), they were named as participants in the army "military Trotskyist organization". However, until May 1937, the arrested did not disclose any new names. At the court session of January 24, 1937, the accused Radek denied Tukhachevsky's connection with the opposition. Based on this, the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR Voroshilov, at a meeting of the Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on February 23, 1937, assured those present that:
True, subsequent events dispelled the Marshal's optimism. At the end of January, a note was received by A. Kh. Artuzov about the reports of Surprise in 1932. On March 11, 1937, the commander of the Ural Military District commander Garkavy was arrested, who immediately began to confess. On April 12, in the Japanese diplomatic mail opened by the Chekists, the Japanese military attache in Poland reports on establishing contact with Tukhachevsky. On April 15, the first movement took place - Feldman was transferred to the post of assistant commander of the Moscow Military District. On April 22, the Politburo cancels Tukhachevsky's trip abroad. From April 22 to April 27, arrested leaders of the NKVD M. Gai, G. Prokofiev, Volovich, Peterson testify against the Tukhachevsky group (although their testimony was not used in the trial). The main events related to the arrest and investigation of the accused: transfers to new duty stations, arrests, confessions and Gamarnik's suicide take place between May 2-31. And already on June 2, Stalin speaks at an expanded meeting of the Military Council. Critics of the "Tukhachevsky case" point to the transience of the trial and the execution of the sentence - the investigation took less than a month, the court session took place 2 days after the indictment was approved, it took only one day, and a few hours after the sentence was passed, it is carried out. At the same time, the hearing was closed, the defendants were deprived of the right to defense and appeal against the verdict. The weak side of the verdict of June 11, 1937 is that it is entirely based on the confessions of the defendants. All these shortcomings of the trial caused many observers and subsequent researchers to doubt the validity of the verdict, made them suspect in illegal methods of obtaining evidence. Those researchers who take the side of Stalin in this matter (for example, E. A. Prudnikova) point out that the haste can only be explained if the conspiracy of the military really existed and posed a real danger to the government (by analogy, they refer to the speed of reprisals against the participants conspiracy against Hitler in 1944). The guarantee of respect for the rights of the defendants should have been that the judicial staff consisted of comrades-in-arms and colleagues of the accused - the chief of the General Staff, the commander of the Air Force, five commanders of military districts - that is, people who have sufficient military strength to have an independent point of view. The real existence of a conspiracy is indirectly confirmed by the return of the institute of commissars to the Red Army on May 10, 1937. In addition, the “Tukhachevsky case” was discussed in detail during the open process of the “bloc of Rights and Trotskyites” . Finally, some military leaders (K.K. Rokossovsky, A.V. Gorbatov), despite the severe torture and blackmail of the investigators, found it possible not to confess. However, they survived. RehabilitationBy a verdict of January 31, 1957, all the defendants were acquitted. The new decision was based on the conviction that the confessions of the defendants, on which the conviction was based, were obtained using torture and beatings. However, in 1997 the materials of the “Tukhachevsky case” were published. In this regard, it became possible, for example, the following opinion of a modern researcher:
A special place in the rehabilitation of the defendants in the “Tukhachevsky case” is occupied by the certificate of the commission of the Central Committee of the CPSU. The commission, consisting of the chairman of the Party Control Commission N. M. Shvernik and the leaders of the KGB of the USSR A. N. Shelepin and V. E. Semichastny, prepared this certificate on the instructions of the Central Committee of the CPSU and sent it to the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU N. S. Khrushchev in 1964 . Critics of the objectivity of the reference note that two of its authors, the Chairman of the KGB of the USSR A.N. Shelepin and, who replaced him in this post, V.E. Khrushchev. Consequences of the processThe "Tukhachevsky Affair" made the government suspicious and forced it to give broad powers to the NKVD to expose conspiracies across the country. This sparked the Great Terror of 1937-1938. On the other hand, some observers considered the consequences of the case so positive for the strengthening of Stalin's personal power that they saw in it a special successful idea of the latter. As Hitler said after the failure of the military conspiracy in July 1944:
Protection versionbackgroundThe defendants belonged to a group of senior Soviet military leaders who negatively assessed the activities of K. E. Voroshilov as People's Commissar of Defense. They believed that in the conditions of the preparation of the USSR for a big war, Voroshilov's incompetence had a negative impact on the process of technical and structural modernization of the Red Army. A similar case was being developed by the OGPU back in 1930: it was alleged that a group of major military leaders led by Tukhachevsky was preparing to seize power and assassinate Stalin (testimonies were obtained from the arrested teachers of the Military Academy Kakurin and Troitsky). But Stalin did not give him a move. In mid-October of the same year, Tukhachevsky confronted Kakurin and Troitsky; Tukhachevsky was found not guilty. Investigation and trialV. Primakov and V. Putna were arrested in August 1936, the rest of the accused - in May 1937. Ya. B. Gamarnik shot himself on the eve of his arrest. The investigation lasted less than a month. Interrogation protocols were sent personally to Stalin for editing. On June 11, the case was considered in the manner established by the decision of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR of December 1, 1934, that is, in a closed court session without the presence of defense lawyers and without the right to appeal the verdict. The court record does not provide any facts confirming the charges of espionage, conspiracy and preparation of terrorist acts. Testimony of contemporaries
Consequences of the caseThe Tukhachevsky case was the beginning of large-scale repressions in the Red Army. During these repressions, including all members of the "special presence", except for Ulrich, Budyonny and Shaposhnikov, were killed. The case sparked widespread international backlash. Thus, the German magazine Verfront wrote in 1937:
In 1957, all the defendants in the case were rehabilitated due to the lack of corpus delicti. Investigation of the case by the commission of the Central Committee of the CPSUTo investigate the circumstances of the case, the Central Committee of the CPSU created a commission under the leadership of a member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU N. M. Shvernik. The commission also included A. N. Shelepin and V. E. Semichastny, who held the post of Chairman of the KGB of the USSR during the years of the commission. In 1964, the commission presented the results of its work in a certificate addressed to the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, N. S. Khrushchev. The full text of the help is available on Wikisource. Links and notes
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Ilya Kramnik, military observer for the Voice of Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company, especially for RIA Novosti.
The story of Mikhail Tukhachevsky, one of the brightest representatives of the early Soviet military elite, born on February 16, 1893, is still the subject of lengthy discussions. His rapid rise during the years of the civil war, his subsequent activities in senior command positions, and his equally rapid fall with execution became one of the main mysteries in the history of the USSR.
The price of success
The decisive character trait of the future was decisiveness combined with perseverance. Here are five escapes from German captivity (the fifth finally became successful), and decisively irrevocable joining the Bolsheviks in the spring of 1918, when their fate was more than questionable, and the entire subsequent career.
Successful actions on the eastern front of the Civil War quickly promoted Tukhachevsky to the ranks of the best commanders of the Red Army, and at the height of the Soviet-Polish war of 1919-1921, on April 29, 1920, Tukhachevsky was appointed to the post of commander of the Western Front. Here he was waiting for the biggest success and the biggest defeat. Having brilliantly coped with the task of expelling the interventionists from the territory of Ukraine and Belarus, Tukhachevsky was captured by political mirages that prompted him to continue the offensive in Poland, despite numerous objections.
At that moment, Tukhachevsky was saved from personal responsibility by the fact that the same mirages - promising revolutionary actions of the Polish proletariat - also dominated the minds of the top leadership of the RSFSR. The vain political hopes were aggravated by the military mistakes of Tukhachevsky himself, who did not realize the difference between a civil war and a war with a regular enemy.
According to many experts, including Marshal of the Soviet Union Konev, the risk taken by Tukhachevsky was unjustified - while conducting an offensive with open flanks and stretched communications, he himself "fell under the rout" near Warsaw.
The "Polish" page of Tukhachevsky's biography is interesting for the possible influence on his fate: none other than Joseph Stalin, who at that time was a member of the military council (deputy commander for political affairs) of the Southwestern Front, bore his share of the blame for the defeat in Poland. Further disputes in the Soviet leadership about the degree of guilt of the leadership of the Western and Southwestern fronts in the unsuccessful outcome of the war could influence Stalin's attitude towards Tukhachevsky and the decision of the latter's fate in 1937.
The Polish failure required rehabilitation, and Tukhachevsky regained his confidence by leading the suppression of anti-Soviet uprisings - in Kronstadt in March 1921 and in the Tambov province in the summer of that year. In both cases, the future marshal did not have to take decisiveness: the suppression of Kronstadt took two weeks, it took almost three months for a larger operation in Tambov. At the same time, Tukhachevsky did not stop at anything, including the execution of hostages and the use of chemical weapons against the rebellious peasants.
"New look" of the Red Army
The rapid suppression of the uprisings at the final stage of the civil war provided Tukhachevsky with a career take-off after it. At the highest command posts - Deputy People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs, Commander of the Leningrad Military District, Deputy Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR, again Deputy People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs (from March 1934 - People's Commissar of Defense), Tukhachevsky actively worked to increase the combat capability of the army, preparing it for " engine war.
His activity in this field is evaluated ambiguously - in particular, because of his passion for technical innovations that later did not justify themselves - such as, for example, universal guns (combining the properties of anti-aircraft and field guns) or Kurchevsky's dynamo-reactive guns. In addition, Tukhachevsky was in favor of an immediate transition to large-scale production of weapons, while the top leadership of the USSR intended to move to mass production of weapons gradually, as the industrial base was formed and the economy strengthened.
During this period, Tukhachevsky was noted in another dubious case, becoming one of the initiators of Operation Spring - a large-scale purge of the Red Army from cadres of royal training, including former whites, which took place in 1930-1931. In terms of the number of lost military specialists with higher education, "Spring" caused more damage to the army than the "great terror" of 1937-1938, whose great fame is due to the post-Stalinist political processes: to rehabilitate former tsarist officers as loudly and openly as the repressed commanders of the Red Army, the Soviet government was uncomfortable.
Often Mikhail Tukhachevsky is called the author of the theory of deep operation. The essence of the theory, which became the basis of Soviet operational art during the Great Patriotic War and the post-war period, is to strike at the entire depth of the enemy’s defense, break it in several places and introduce highly mobile mechanized units into the breakthrough to develop a tactical breakthrough into operational success.
Mikhail Tukhachevsky, of course, was a supporter of this theory, but its authorship belongs to other people - the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Red Army Vladimir Triandafillov and the chief inspector of tank troops Konstantin Kalinovsky.
"Tukhachevsky case"
Tukhachevsky's activity and his desire for leadership in the Red Army could not but arouse resistance. Usually the conflict is carried out along the line "progressor Tukhachevsky - inert Voroshilov and Budyonny." But it should be noted that in opposition to Tukhachevsky there were also people who can in no way be accused of either inertia or insufficient education - former colonels of the tsarist army, Marshal of the Soviet Union Yegorov and commander of the 1st rank (later also Marshal) Shaposhnikov. On the side of Tukhachevsky, too, were by no means the last "stars" of the Red Army, including Jerome Uborevich, whom almost all Soviet commanders who left memoirs about the war and the pre-war period evaluate as a military specialist of the highest standard.
Tukhachevsky actively criticized Voroshilov and his entourage, including in the presence of Stalin, and in the summer of 1936 Tukhachevsky's supporters raised the question of replacing Voroshilov as People's Commissar of Defense before Stalin.
Certainly, for a long time, Stalin hesitated in choosing between the two "clans" of the military, and the choice in favor of Voroshilov was made in view of his undoubted loyalty to Stalin personally, which Tukhachevsky could not boast of. The methods of political struggle in the USSR at that time were as simple as they were terrible - the losers went "under the axe."
Arrests began already in August 1936; on May 22, 1937, Tukhachevsky was arrested, two weeks earlier transferred from Moscow to the post of commander of the Volga Military District. On June 11, 1937, by a special judicial presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR, he, as well as army commanders Yakir, Uborevich, Kork, commanders Eideman, Putna, Feldman, Primakov and army commissar Gamarnik were accused of plotting to seize power, found guilty and sentenced to death. The sentence was carried out immediately.
Tukhachevsky was judged by his colleagues - Marshals Blucher and Budyonny, army commanders Shaposhnikov, Alksnis, Belov, Dybenko, Kashirin. The chairman of the court was the military lawyer Ulrich. All participants in the process, except for Ulrich, Budyonny and Shaposhnikov, in turn, became victims of repression and were shot the following year, 1938.
At the XXII Congress of the CPSU, N.S. Khrushchev publicly stated that Soviet military leaders led by M.I. Tukhachevsky were arrested on false charges. According to him, German intelligence was able to pass the materials fabricated by the Gestapo to the President of Czechoslovakia, E. Benes, who, in turn, passed them on to Stalin. This version was repeated in his writings by Colonel-General D.A. Volkogonov.
Stalin and his entourage were accused of blind trust in the Hitlerite fake and unwillingness to believe the Marshal of the Soviet Union and other military leaders. Are such accusations true?
Back in the mid-1930s, opposition sentiments intensified in the leadership of the Red Army, among which there were many Trotsky's nominees. The struggle of various factions among Soviet military leaders, which was described in detail by Professor S.T. Minakov, focused on the confrontation between the leadership of the People's Commissariat of Defense, headed by K.E. Voroshilov, and a number of individuals, headed by Gamarnik, Yakir, Tukhachevsky and others. This confrontation intensified, according to Minakov, “in the face of the impending catastrophic threat for the country of war“ on two fronts ”(Minakov ST. “1937. There was a conspiracy!”, Publisher: Eksmo 2012).
From the very beginning of the creation of the anti-government conspiracy, the military component played an ever-increasing role in it. The importance of the military conspirators increased after the fall of Yenukidze and Yagoda. Minakov emphasizes: “With all its behavior, the military elite, which had developed by 1931, showed disobedience, put pressure on both domestic political processes, and especially on foreign policy, insisting, in essence, on a change in political course.” At the same time, the military elite “tried to force Stalin and his imperious entourage to make a radical change in the system and structure of the country's top leadership: transfer one of the key posts - People's Commissar of Defense - to his representative, a military professional ...
The current situation provoked a search for alternative leaders to Stalin, galvanizing the interest of the political and military elites in the former "leaders", looking more and more closely at the "leader" of the military in the conditions of the impending war, "guessing" one primarily in Tukhachevsky.
In the meantime, as Trotskyists real and imaginary were being arrested, military participants in the conspiracy also fell into the hands of NKVD workers. Arrested in July 1936, division commander D. Schmidt began to testify against the commander of the Kyiv military district, I.E. Yakir. When Schmidt was taken to Moscow, Yagoda informed the conspirator Ya. Gamarnik about this. Apparently, with this message, Yagoda wanted to show that he was forced to arrest a person from the entourage of Gamarnik and Yakiraoda, because the circumstances of the investigation got out of his control, Yagoda, and now Yezhov and Agranov, devoted to him, are engaged in this matter.
After the arrest of D. Schmidt in August 1936, one of the accused at the trial of Zinoviev, Kamenev and others, I.I. military attaché in Great Britain commander VK Putna.
During the process of the "parallel center" words were heard that could be interpreted as a warning to Tukhachevsky. Defendant K.B. Radek stated that in 1935 "Vitaly Putna came to me with a request from Tukhachevsky." True, at the evening meeting of the same day, Radek, declaring that Putna belonged to an underground organization, resolutely denied Tukhachevsky's involvement in the activities of the Trotskyist "parallel center". And yet, a shadow of suspicion was cast on the Deputy People's Commissar of Defense.
Obviously, the first information about the conspiracy of the military in Moscow came from Paris. There is evidence that Yezhov sent a note to Stalin with the materials of the ROVS (the Parisian white émigré organization "Russian Combined Arms Union"). It talked about the fact that “in the USSR, a coup d'état is being prepared by a group of top commanders ... It was alleged that Marshal M.N. Tukhachevsky was at the head of the conspiracy. Stalin sent a note to Ordzhonikidze and Voroshilov with the resolution: "Please read." Perhaps it was not without reason that Stalin sent Ordzhonikidze a note about the Tukhachevsky conspiracy. Unlike Voroshilov, whom Stalin decided to acquaint with this message because Tukhachevsky was his deputy, the likely meaning of Stalin's gesture to Ordzhonikidze could be interpreted as follows: look, they say, look at what they say about the person you defended.
A lot was told about the military conspirators by various figures of the Third Reich. They were aware of the cooperation between the Reichswehr and the Red Army during the period of the secret agreement from 1923 to 1933. In the course of this cooperation, close personal ties were established between Tukhachevsky and a number of other Soviet military leaders with German generals. This, in particular, was told by one of the most informed people of Nazi Germany, the personal translator of A. Hitler, Paul Schmidt, who wrote his books under the pseudonym Paul Carell. In his book Hitler Goes East, Paul Schmidt-Karell described in detail how Tukhachevsky, Yakir and others tried to revive the ties that had been established with the German military leaders during the period of the Radek-Sect agreement. The head of German foreign intelligence, Walter Schellenberg, also wrote about this in his memoirs.
Paul Schmidt-Carell presented information known to the top of Nazi Germany about a conspiracy of military and political figures of the USSR, headed by M.N. Tukhachevsky and Ya.B. Gamarnik. The backbone of the conspiracy was the Far Eastern Army, commanded by V.K. Blucher. According to Schmidt-Karell, “from 1935 Tukhachevsky set up a kind of revolutionary committee in Khabarovsk... It included the highest army authorities, but also some party functionaries who held high posts, such as the party leader in the North Caucasus, Boris Sheboldaev ". Although Schmidt-Karell did not know many aspects of the conspiracy and the composition of its participants, he correctly noted its "military-political" nature.
According to Paul Schmidt-Carell, when in early 1936 Tukhachevsky, who led the Soviet delegation at the funeral of King George V, passed through Berlin on his way to England and back, he had meetings with “leading German generals. He wanted assurances that Germany would not use any possible revolutionary developments in the Soviet Union as a pretext for marching east. For him, the main thing was the creation of a Russian-German alliance after the overthrow of Stalin.
To a large extent, this was due to the fact that Tukhachevsky, like other conspirators, feared an armed clash with Germany. Similar fears were experienced by the German military leaders. Fully supporting Hitler's rise to power and his efforts to rearm Germany, they realized that Germany was not yet ready for war.
Among the generals in Germany, a conspiracy against Hitler also matured. They responded to the proposal to conclude a secret "non-aggression pact" between the military of Germany and the USSR. It is possible that already at this stage they were ready to guarantee Tukhachevsky and others non-interference in the affairs of the USSR during the military coup in exchange for the non-interference of the military dictatorship established in the USSR after a similar coup in Germany.
Meanwhile, rumors of a secret collusion between the military of the two countries began to arrive in the capitals of European states. The envoy of Czechoslovakia in Berlin, Mastny, in January 1937, anxiously informed the president of his country, Benes, that the Germans had lost interest in the negotiations that they were then conducting with Czechoslovakia on resolving controversial issues, because they began to proceed from the inevitability of drastic changes in the Soviet foreign politics after the soon-to-be-anticipated coup d'état in the USSR. In the event that pro-German forces came to power in Moscow, Czechoslovakia could no longer count on the support of the USSR, with which it was bound by a 1935 mutual assistance treaty.
This is confirmed by Beneš's statement in his conversation with the Soviet plenipotentiary Aleksandrovsky on July 7, 1937. As stated in the recording of the conversation, Benes from January 1937 “received indirect signals about the great proximity between the Reichswehr and the Red Army. Since January, he has been waiting to see how this will end. The Czechoslovak envoy Mastny in Berlin is an exceptionally accurate informant... Mastny had two conversations in Berlin with prominent representatives of the Reichswehr...”
Of course, the meetings of Tukhachevsky and other contacts of the Soviet military with the Germans could not pass by the attention of the Gestapo. Having learned from Gestapo agents about a secret collusion between the military of the two countries, the head of the RSHA, R. Heydrich, informed Hitler about this. Of course, Hitler could have arrested the conspirators. However, all his plans were based on propaganda of the military power of Germany. Any mass repression in the ranks of the armed forces would undermine the belief in their omnipotence, while Hitler at first relied mainly on a crude bluff. Therefore, he decided to disrupt the collusion between the Soviet and German military, without disclosing what he knew about it.
In his memoirs, V. Schellenberg wrote that, having received information about the conspiracy of the military of the two countries, "Hitler ordered that the officers of the headquarters of the German army be kept in the dark about the step plotted against Tukhachevsky." “And then one night Heydrich sent two special groups to break into the secret archives of the General Staff and the Abwehr, the military intelligence service headed by Admiral Canaris ... Material was found and seized relating to the cooperation of the German General Staff with the Red Army. Important material was also found in the files of Admiral Canaris. In order to hide the traces, fires were set up in several places, which soon destroyed all signs of forced entry. This happened around March 1-3, 1937.
As Schellenberg emphasized, “at one time it was argued that the material collected by Heydrich in order to confuse Tukhachevsky consisted for the most part of deliberately fabricated documents. In fact, very little was forged - no more than needed to fill in some gaps. This is confirmed by the fact that the entire very voluminous dossier was prepared and presented to Hitler in a short period of time - four days. The dossier made a strong impression on Hitler, and he approved the proposal to hand over these materials to Stalin. To transfer information, it was decided to use people who participated in the German-Czechoslovak negotiations.
Carell claimed that Benes received information about the upcoming coup in Moscow and at the same time the same information was sent by German intelligence to Paris. The then French Minister of Defense, E. Daladier, informed the Soviet ambassador in Paris, V. Potemkin, about "the possibility of changes in Moscow" and "a deal between the Nazi Wehrmacht and the Red Army."
Specifying how information was transmitted through Prague to Moscow, V. Schellenberg wrote: “It was decided to establish contact with Stalin through the following channels: one of the German diplomatic agents who worked under the command of SS Standartenführer Boehme was a certain German emigrant living in Prague. Through him, Boehme established contact with a trusted friend of Dr. Benes... Dr. Benes immediately wrote a letter to Stalin personally, from which Heydrich received an answer through the same channels to establish contact with one of the employees of the Soviet embassy in Berlin. So they did, and the named Russian immediately flew to Moscow and returned, accompanied by Stalin's personal envoy, who had special powers on behalf of Yezhov. Obviously, by this time, Stalin had already received enough information to suspect the military and their allies among the party leaders of foul play, but still the exact names and evidence had not yet been presented. In addition, information from Berlin indicated that the conspirators turned to the military of Germany, a country hostile to the Soviet Union, for support.
By this time, the conspirators had made significant progress in their preparations for a military coup. The arrests of a number of participants in the conspiracy, as well as the disgrace of Yenukidze and Yagoda, forced the conspirators to act faster and more energetically. Moreover, after the removal of Yenukidze and Yagoda from power, the military wing of the conspiracy began to play a decisive role in it. In mid-February 1937, Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Zinoviy Kanzelson informed his relative A. Orlov (Feldbin) that the leaders of the Red Army "were in a state of" gathering forces ". Although at that time the conspirators "had not yet reached agreement on a firm plan for a coup ... Tukhachevsky believed that he should "under some plausible pretext" convince "People's Commissar of Defense Voroshilov ... to ask Stalin to convene a supreme conference on military problems concerning Ukraine , the Moscow Military District and some other regions, the commanders of which were privy to the plans of the conspiracy. Tukhachevsky and other conspirators were to appear with their trusted assistants. At a certain hour or on a signal, two elite regiments of the Red Army block the main streets leading to the Kremlin in order to block the advance of the NKVD troops. At that very moment, the conspirators would announce to Stalin that he had been arrested.
Tukhachevsky was convinced that the coup could be carried out in the Kremlin without riots.” Kanzelson was confident of success: “Tukhachevsky is a respected leader of the army. In his hands is the Moscow garrison. He and his generals have passes to the Kremlin. Tukhachevsky regularly reports to Stalin, he is beyond suspicion. He will arrange a conference, alert two regiments - and that's it.
Tukhachevsky believed that after seizing power, Stalin should have been shot immediately. However, Kanzelson himself, as well as a number of other participants in the conspiracy, in particular, the first secretary of the Central Committee of the CP (b) of Ukraine S. Kosior and People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Balitsky, believed that "Stalin should have been submitted to the plenum of the Central Committee for trial." The actions of the conspirators accelerated after the completion of the February-March plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. Simultaneously with the purge in the NKVD, Moscow continued its offensive against the Ukrainian leadership. On March 17, Postyshev was relieved of his post as Second Secretary of the CP(b)U Central Committee and elected First Secretary of the Kuibyshev Regional Party Committee. A campaign against Postyshev's "non-Bolshevik methods of work" was launched in Kyiv.
Meanwhile, rumors began to spread widely in Western Europe that a military coup was being prepared in Moscow. In the Bulletin of the Opposition, Trotsky wrote that "the dissatisfaction of the military with Stalin's dictate puts their possible action on the agenda." On April 9, 1937, the head of the GRU of the Red Army, S. Uritsky, informed Stalin and Voroshilov that there were rumors in Berlin about opposition to the Soviet leadership among the country's military leaders. Uritsky, however, stipulated this message with the remark that few believe in these rumors.
In April, Deputy Head of the Armored Directorate of the Red Army M.M. Olshansky, commander of the 9th Rifle Corps of the Moscow Military District G.N. Kutateladze, former head of government security V. Pauker, former commandant of the Kremlin R.A. Peterson, deputy commandant of the Kremlin were arrested divisional commissar M.A. Imyaninnikov.
These events forced the participants in the conspiracy to speed up the time of the speech. According to Carell, it was scheduled for May 1, 1937. The choice of the day of the coup was due mainly to the fact that "the holding of the May Day military parade would allow military units to enter Moscow without arousing suspicion." However, foreign policy circumstances intervened in the development of events.
At the end of April, it was announced in London that on May 12, 1937, the coronation of George VI, who had ascended the throne five months earlier instead of Edward VIII, who had abdicated, would take place. In Moscow, it was decided that Tukhachevsky would again head the Soviet delegation to this royal ceremony. According to Carell, having learned about his business trip to London, Tukhachevsky decided to use this opportunity to once again talk with the German generals about cooperation during and after the coup. “Tukhachevsky postponed the coup for three weeks. This was his fatal mistake."
There is evidence that the actions of the conspirators were prevented at the last minute. The celebration of May 1 in Moscow for those who were initiated into the essence of the matter took place in an atmosphere of anxious anticipation of unforeseen events. On May 1, 1937, during the parade, a rumor spread among those present on Red Square that the Mausoleum, where Stalin and other leaders of the country were, was about to be blown up. There were rumors about other impending terrorist attacks.
The English journalist Fitzroy MacLean, who was present on May 1, 1937 on Red Square, wrote that he was struck by the increased tension in the behavior of the leaders who stood on the Lenin Mausoleum: “Members of the Politburo nervously grinned, shifted awkwardly from foot to foot, forgetting about the parade and their high position." Only Stalin was imperturbable, and the expression on his face was both "condescending and bored-impenetrable." Tension also reigned among the military leaders located at the foot of the Mausoleum. As V. Krivitsky, who fled the USSR, wrote, those present on Red Square noticed that Tukhachevsky “was the first to arrive at the podium reserved for military leaders ... Then Yegorov arrived, but he did not respond to Tukhachevsky's greeting. Then Gamarnik silently joined them. The military stood frozen in an ominous, gloomy silence. After the military parade, Tukhachevsky did not wait for the demonstration to begin, but left Red Square.
Apparently, at that time Tukhachevsky was preparing to leave for London. On May 3, 1937, documents on Tukhachevsky were sent to the British Embassy in the USSR, and already on May 4 they were withdrawn. Deputy People's Commissar of Defense for the Navy V.M. Orlov was appointed head of the Soviet delegation to the coronation of George VI. Obviously, the suspicions that intensified after May 1 forced the country's leadership to suddenly reconsider the decision regarding Tukhachevsky's departure.
In the meantime, reserve brigade commander M.E. Medvedev was arrested on May 6. As noted in Izvestia of the Central Committee of the CPSU (Izvestia of the Central Committee of the CPSU, 1989, No. 12), a day after his arrest, Medvedev announced his participation in a conspiratorial organization "headed by Deputy Commander of the Moscow Military District B.M. Feldman."
On the night of May 14, the head of the Frunze Military Academy, commander A.I. Kork, was arrested. A day after his arrest, Kork wrote two statements to Yezhov. The first is about the intention to carry out a coup in the Kremlin. The second is about the headquarters of the coup, headed by Tukhachevsky, Putna and Kork. According to him, Yenukidze involved him in the conspiratorial organization, and “the main task of the group was to carry out a coup in the Kremlin.
Arrested on May 15, B.M. Feldman, on the fourth day after his arrest, began to testify against other participants in the conspiracy. By this time, a month and a half after his arrest, G.G. Yagoda began to testify against Yenukidze, Tukhachevsky, Peterson and Kork. About a month after their arrest, arrested NKVD workers Gai and Prokofiev began to testify against their colleagues in the conspiracy.
On May 22, Tukhachevsky and the chairman of the central council of OSOAVIAKhIM, commander R.P. Eideman, were arrested. Three days after his arrest, Tukhachevsky began to confess. The book by N.A. Zenkovich “Marshals and General Secretaries” published the testimony of Tukhachevsky, written by him in the inner prison of the NKVD (Published: Military History Journal. 1991. No. 8. S. 44-53. No. 9. S. 55-63) . He wrote that the coup was originally planned for December 1934. But it had to be postponed due to the assassination of Kirov.
The conspirators were frightened by the outburst of popular indignation. R. Balandin and S. Mironov do not exclude the possibility that after December 1, 1934, "the security of the leaders of the state was strengthened."
On May 24, Stalin, with his signature, sent to the members and candidate members of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks for voting by poll a document stating: anti-Soviet Trotskyist-right conspiratorial bloc and espionage work against the USSR in favor of fascist Germany, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks puts to a vote a proposal to expel Rudzutak and Tukhachevsky from the party and transfer their case to the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs. On the same day, a candidate member of the Politburo and Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR Ya.E. Rudzutak was arrested. Around the same time, the former plenipotentiary of the USSR in Turkey, L.K. Karakhan, was arrested. Other arrests followed. June 11, M.I.Tukhachevsky, I.P.Uborevich, I.E.Yakir, B.M.Feldman, R.P.Eideman, A.I.Kork, V.K.Putna and V.M.Primakov appeared before the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR. On the same day the verdict was pronounced.
Stalin categorically refused to explain the actions of the conspirators by their ideological and political convictions. As at the February-March plenum, Stalin rejected the sweeping condemnation of people for their former adherence to Trotskyism. Stalin also rejected the explanation of the participation in the conspiracy of a number of persons by their "class alien" origin. He declared: “They say that Tukhachevsky is a landowner ... Such an approach, comrades, does not solve anything ... Lenin was of noble origin ... Engels was the son of a manufacturer - non-proletarian elements, as you wish. Engels himself managed his factory and fed Marx with it ... Marx was the son of a lawyer, not the son of a farm laborer and not the son of a worker ... We consider Marxism not a biological science, but a sociological science ”(Stalin I.V. Works in 16 volumes. Volume 14. Speech at an expanded meeting of the Military Council under the People's Commissar of Defense on June 2, 1937 (uncorrected transcript) ..
While dismissing those accusations that could become the basis for unleashing repressions on an ideological or class basis and thereby destabilizing Soviet society, Stalin at the same time emphasized that in the USSR there were no conditions for mass dissatisfaction with the existing system and government policy.
Stalin said: “Here we have arrested 300-400 people. There are good people among them. How were they recruited? Stalin argued that only "weak people" could be recruited. He seemed to be thinking aloud, “I think they acted that way. A person is dissatisfied with something, for example, dissatisfied with the fact that he is a former Trotskyist or Zinovievite and is not being promoted so freely, or dissatisfied with the fact that he is an incapable person, does not manage his affairs and is reduced for this, but he considers himself very capable. It is very difficult sometimes for a person to understand the measure of his strength, the measure of his pluses and minuses. Sometimes a person thinks that he is a genius, and therefore is offended when he is not nominated.
Stalin said: “If they read the plan, how they wanted to capture the Kremlin ... They started small - with an ideological group, and then moved on. They had conversations like this: here, guys, what's the matter. The GPU is in our hands, Yagoda is in our hands... The Kremlin is in our hands, because Peterson is with us, the Moscow District, Kork and Gorbachev are also with us. We have everything. Either move forward now, or tomorrow, when we come to power, stay on the beans. And many weak, unstable people thought that this was a real deal, damn it, it seemed to be even profitable. So you miss, during this time the government will be arrested, the Moscow garrison will be captured, and all that kind of thing, and you will remain aground. This is exactly what Peterson argues in his testimony. He throws up his hands and says: it's real, how can you not enlist here? Turns out it's not so real. But these weak people reasoned just like this: how, damn it, not to be left behind everyone. Let's quickly apply to this matter, otherwise you will remain stranded ”(I. Stalin, ibid.).
Proceeding from the fact that the core of the conspiracy was small, and only a few weak people were involved in it, Stalin called for limiting the scale of repression: “I think that among our people, both in the command line and in the political line, there are still such comrades who are accidentally hurt . They told him something, they wanted to involve him, they frightened him, they took him by blackmail. It’s good to introduce such a practice so that if such people come and tell about everything themselves, forgive them.”
It is quite obvious that the military-political conspiracy, in which prominent figures of the Red Army participated, was a reality. At the same time, it is clear that in the course of his exposure, Stalin and his entourage sought to limit themselves at first to the demotion of prominent military figures, and after the arrest of 300-400 military figures, not to expand the circle of those arrested, even if there were people involved in the conspiracy (See O. Kozinkin "Tukhachevsky's conspiracy" - prospects and consequences). These circumstances refute the myth that accusations of a conspiracy of military figures were only the result of Stalin's blind trust in the Hitlerite fake or his desire to crack down on military leaders who were objectionable to him.
Rehabilitated by Khrushchev after the XX Congress of the CPSU:
- in 1955: Gamarnik Ya.B. (even before the XX Congress);
- in 1956: Egorov A.I., Medvedev M.E., Blucher V.K.;
- in 1957: Tukhachevsky M.I., Feldman B.M., Kork A.I., Putna V.K., Peterson R.A., Eideman R.P., Uborevich I.P., Primakov V. M., Yakir I.E.
It is very interesting that if a lot is now known about how each case was “unwound” in the 30s of the last century, what charges were brought, how the process went (including from documents published at the same time), then almost nothing is known about how Khrushchev's rehabilitation was carried out (as well as Gorbachev's and Yeltsin's, by the way). Meanwhile, if Stalin at least took steps to strengthen the rule of law, then the specific style of understanding the laws of Khrushchev's prosecutors and judges does not climb into any gates. Different things, of course, happened in 1937-1939, but such a desecration of all and sundry laws, such neglect of all the rules of investigation and trial ... Unless something similar happened in 1918, and then not in the Cheka, but in the field revolutionary tribunals (See A. Sukhomlinov's book "Who are you, Lavrenty Beria?").
How many feathers have been worn out about the repressions, but it seems that no one has really dealt with the nuances of rehabilitation so far. A strange aberration of vision: for some reason, it is believed that there could have been a conviction for opportunistic reasons in 1937, but rehabilitation for the same reasons in 1956 - well, never, and under no circumstances!
Meanwhile, Nikita Sergeevich really needed to make his name in history, and what could be more convenient than returning to such a famous person as the executed Marshal Tukhachevsky and his accomplices?
And here's what's curious: in all publications on rehabilitation, there is practically no specifics. The "Conclusion" of the chief military prosecutor's office states: "The verdict in this case was issued only on the basis of the testimony given by the convicts during the preliminary investigation and trial and not confirmed by any other objective data." And then the same theme was repeated over and over again: the lack of physical evidence. Maybe someone will explain what material evidence could be in this case? Lists of conspirators lost in the casino? Yagoda's diary with a description of each step? Pre-prepared manifestos in Tukhachevsky's safe?
Well, sorry, it didn’t work out - stupid Russian generals and marshals by 1937 were unable to learn such exquisite things from the Germans ... Asia, sir ...
From all the materials devoted to rehabilitation, one can only extract information about the verification, during which it was "established that the case was falsified" and "testimony was obtained by criminal methods." At the same time, for some reason, the materials of the inspection itself are protected more than the notorious operational plan of some major military operation.
I would like to add the following to what has been said. Tukhachevsky (he personally, and when he was deputy commissar for armaments, and even earlier as chief of the General Staff) proposed to flood the Army with "armored tractors" - hang "armor" on collective farm tractors and put a machine gun (for which he was nicknamed among the generals " mechanic"). He also closed Shavyrin's mortar design bureau, prevented the introduction of Grabin's guns in the Red Army (which won the war), while his accomplice Alksnis in every possible way prevented the adoption of the I-16 fighter in the Air Force in 1933. Already in 1940, his student Pavlov hampered the adoption of the T-34 tank ... But there was no opposition to Stalin and no “military conspiracies” in the USSR and could not be !!! It was Stalin who suffered from paranoia!
Of course, Tukhachevsky and his accomplices were not half-wits, offering the same "radio-controlled tanks" and other "innovative ideas" for service and spending public funds on them. It’s just that this is the easiest way to ruin both the Army and the country - to sabotage the adoption of the necessary and sensible samples, and either accept any rubbish, or fiddle long and hard with “promising” types such as “Kurchevsky’s gas-dynamic guns” (all the guns were only mock-ups , they were not presented for field tests), or “PTR Rukavishnikov” (calculation of four people, very heavy weight), spending time and money on fine-tuning these samples, and then writing them off as scrap metal. The same "Katyusha" ("BM-13/16") under Marshal Kulik, head of the GAU and Deputy People's Commissar of Defense for armaments, for a whole year, already in 1940, "could not" be made for military trials - as many as 5 cars! Well, for this (including) Kulik first rose from marshal to major general, and then stood up against the wall in 1950.
But under Tukhachevsky, British and American light tanks were adopted, making them "main" in the Red Army. And in 1941, our tankers saw for themselves how “strong our armor” is and what the “protection” of these tanks is worth when their “armor” was pierced by any heavy machine gun, not to mention the standard 37 mm Wehrmacht anti-tank gun, which Germany adopted back in the early 1930s. There were also "medium" T-28 tanks in the Red Army, as many as 600 pieces, and even 56 pieces of "heavy" T-35. True, their armor was the same as that of the BT and T-26 light tanks (only additional armor plates were placed on the frontal armor of medium and heavy tanks).
The same Polikarpov, to replace his I-16, by the end of 1940, had developed and manufactured a new I-185 fighter, with better characteristics than the La-7 and other FV-190s that appeared only in 1943. At least at that time, by 1941, there were no such machines in the world. But specific, future "victims of repression", from among the surviving admirers-supporters of Tukhachevsky, the adoption of this aircraft for service in the Air Force was thwarted. How they tried to stop the production and adoption of the same T-34 in 1940. But then, from their words, we were told that Stalin interfered with all of them.
The marshals themselves, arrested in the first place, did not represent anything significant in reality. None of them (with the possible exception of Uborevich) shone with military leadership talents and great theoretical knowledge in the military sphere due to their military career, service activities and other biography facts (See K. Simonov "Through the eyes of a man of my generation. Reflections on I.V. .Stalin". M., APN, 1989). But these "generals" dragged along hundreds and thousands of senior commanders from those same brigades, divisions and regiments - their direct subordinates who were associated with these failed "underground putschists" by the nature of their service. For example, one marshal was arrested. The NKVD begins to ask the usual questions in these cases about his "connections" with other officers in this case and carry out similar routine activities.
And here begins the manifestation of human meanness, so common during the "Stalinist repressions" among our "elite". The arrested person begins to tie everyone who is possible to "his case", slandering dozens, or even hundreds of his acquaintances-colleagues. At the same time, he considers himself almost a hero. The standard question of the investigator is asked: “With whom did you discuss your dissatisfaction with the “party policy”, the “existing regime”? And the "hero" immediately begins to list everyone with whom he generally serves and could chat in the smoking room, or at the table on similar topics. By virtue of his duties, the investigator is obliged to interrogate everyone whom the interrogated person named in his testimony. And thus, purely mechanically, dozens and hundreds of completely outsiders and useless people (especially the NKVD) are drawn into the investigation machine. The investigation machine is working, people are being interrogated, and someone is deliberately slandered and arrested.
Let us linger in more detail on the topic of "denunciations".
Ordinary citizens (except for “professional slanderers” who wrote to various authorities since tsarist times) did not write denunciations against each other (which the “whistleblowers of Stalinism” rubbed into us all these years), but complaints to various authorities, primarily against their officials - local bosses who interfered with people's lives and did not fulfill their official duties. And the authorities seem to have reacted to these "complaints of the workers." But denunciations as such (as a desire to spoil a neighbor) appeared by the mid-30s. And here our intelligentsia was ahead of everyone - they planted and slandered dozens and hundreds of innocent people at a time. And a “wonderful” example is the Tukhachevsky case.
After all, according to the very military “conspiracy of marshals”, who were going to carry out a coup on May 12, 1937, a dozen marshals with a dubious military reputation were arrested. But then the conspirators began to name dozens of names of their accomplices-subordinates, who were probably involved in the conspiracy, and already those, in turn (the 2nd and 3rd echelons of the conspiracy), began to pull along, or even simply stipulate, hundreds and thousands of officers who probably had nothing to do with the conspiracy as such. According to these denunciations, several thousand officers were already arrested and dismissed from the Red Army (Rokossovsky and Gorbatov are still the most famous among them). But in the “Tukhachevsky case”, weapons designers and developers of the latest and promising types of weapons were also arrested - the same Korolev in rocketry, planted on the basis of a denunciation of his senior bosses, who are involved in the case of the “conspiracy of marshals”.
And there were thousands of them—innocent ones. And these thousands, after the trial, were returned to the Army, or to their design bureaus. But this took time. And they were not imprisoned by Stalin and his comrades. They were imprisoned by their own "colleagues", who cunningly believed that the more they slander the innocent, the easier it would be for them to get out on their own. Or they were slanderers out of hatred for the state system in Russia, for Stalin personally, who deprived them of the hope of seizing power in the USSR-Russia themselves. Well, and then, these “victims of repression” began to hang this human meanness on the whole people, they say, this is the people in Russia-USSR - they can only scribble denunciations against each other ...
After the disclosure of the conspiracy and the subsequent arrests and executions (about 4.5 thousand arrested and of them 1.6 thousand executed, with about 400 thousand officers in the Red Army at that time) high-level commanders, the conspirators were replaced by the same commanders in high ranks and with the same education. And the fact that in some units they were indeed appointed to the positions of senior officers - junior ones, this was primarily due to the fact that the Army, starting from 1940, began to increase sharply in the total number and number of units. On the eve of the War, the Army grew from one and a half million to five and a half, which also increased the number of command positions in the Army before the War.
Did the conspiracy of Tukhachevsky and his accomplices have prospects for success? Weak, but they were. Although Tukhachevsky and his team would not have had much support among the people, because. Stalin's reforms would have been curtailed, still having support in the country, but sometimes the main thing in such cases is "support" from abroad. It would be enough for Germany without Hitler to recognize the legitimacy of the military regime in Russia and the problem would disappear by itself. In the end, Stalin's position in the 37th was not yet as stable and strong as it was before the war itself, and even more so after the Victory - so Tukhachevsky certainly had a chance in the 37th. But the consequences of the failure of the conspiracy turned out to be bloody for Russia in any case, as could be bloody and the consequences of the possible success of the coup and the seizure of power. And the consequences of the quite possible "success" of the coup could have been even more bloody and terrible for Russia.
The failure of the failed “military coup of the Marshals” in the USSR eventually led to Munich, to the surrender of all of Europe to Hitler (in the person of England and the United States behind it), arming Hitler with an arsenal of all of Europe, reaching the common border with Russia-USSR and unleashing the Second World Wars.
The success of the Tukhachevsky conspiracy could lead to an even more global world war of Eurasia against the Anglo-Saxon world and the United States, and possibly with the use of nuclear missile technologies and jet aircraft. But if there were no conspiracy and coup attempts at all (as Stalin rejoiced in the early 1930s, they say, how good it is that Tukhachevsky is not an enemy), then here there was definitely a high probability that the Second World War in the 20th century might not have been.
Note: Data from the book by Yu. Emelyanov "10 myths about 1937" are used.
