View source for Mikhail Tukhachevsky

{{short description|Russian and Soviet military leader (1893-1937)}}
{{Redirect|Tukhachevsky|his great-grandfather|Alexander Tukhachevsky}}
{{family name hatnote|Nikolayevich|Tukhachevsky|lang=Eastern Slavic}}
{{Infobox military person
| name          = Mikhail Tukhachevsky<br>{{Nobold|{{lang|ru|Михаил Тухачевский}}}}
| image         = Mikhail Tukhachevsky.jpg
| caption       = Tukhachevsky circa 1935
| birth_name    = Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky<br>{{Lang|ru|Михаил Николаевич Тухачевский}}
| nickname      = [[Red Napoleon]]
| birth_date    = {{Birth date|1893|2|16|df=yes}}
| birth_place   = [[Safonovsky District|Alexandrovskoye]], [[Dorogobuzhsky Uyezd]], [[Smolensk Governorate]], [[Russian Empire]]
| death_date    = {{Death date and age|1937|6|12|1893|2|16|df= yes}}
| death_place   = [[Moscow]], [[Russian SFSR]], [[Soviet Union]]
| placeofburial = [[Donskoye Cemetery]]
| allegiance    = {{flag| Russian Empire|1914}} <small>(1914–1917)</small><br>{{flag|Russian SFSR|1918}} <small>(1918–1922)</small><br>{{flagcountry|Soviet Union|1936}} <small>(1922–1937)</small>
| branch        = [[File:Russian Imperial Standart 1883.png|25px]] [[Imperial Russian Army]]<br/>[[File:Red Army flag.svg|25px]] [[Red Army]]
| serviceyears  = 1914–1937
| rank          = [[File: 1914ir018-pf12.png|12px]] [[Podporuchik|Second Lieutenant]] (Imperial Russia) <br>[[File:Red Army Marshal 1935 .svg|16px]] [[Marshal of the Soviet Union]] (Red Army)
| commands      = Chief of General Staff
| battles       = [[World War I]]<br>[[Russian Civil War]]<br>[[Polish–Soviet War]]
}}

'''Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky''' ({{lang-rus|Михаил Николаевич Тухачевский|Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevskiy|p=tʊxɐˈtɕefskʲɪj}}; {{OldStyleDate|16 February|1893|4 February}} – 12 June 1937), nicknamed the '''[[Red Napoleon]]''',<ref>{{Cite web |last=Котельников |first=Константин |date=November 11, 2022 |title='Красный Наполеон' Михаил Тухачевский |url=https://diletant.media/articles/45310426/ |website=Diletant (Дилетант)}}</ref> was a Soviet general who was prominent between 1918 and 1937 as a military officer and [[military theory|theoretician]]. He was later executed during the [[Moscow trials]] of 1936–1938.

He served as an officer in [[World War I]] of 1914–1917 and in the [[Russian Civil War]] of 1917–1923, leading the defense of the [[Moscow Military District|Moscow district]] (1918), commanding forces on the [[Eastern Front of the Russian Civil War|Eastern Front]] (1918), commanding the [[5th Army (RSFSR)|Fifth Army]] in the recapture of Siberia from [[Alexander Kolchak]], and heading Cossack forces against [[Anton Denikin]] (1920). From 1920 to 1921 he commanded the [[Western Front (RSFSR)|Soviet Western Front]] in the [[Polish–Soviet War]]. Soviet forces under his command successfully repelled the [[Kiev offensive (1920)|Polish forces]] from Western Ukraine, driving them back into Poland, but the [[Red Army]] suffered [[Battle of Warsaw (1920)|defeat outside of Warsaw]], and the war ended in a [[Peace of Riga|Soviet defeat]]. Tukhachevsky blamed [[Joseph Stalin]] for his defeat at the Battle of Warsaw.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Brackman |first1=Roman |title=The Secret File of Joseph Stalin: A Hidden Life |date=2004 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-135-75840-0 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PY2RAgAAQBAJ&dq=stalin+tukhachevsky+1920&pg=PA135 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Grey |first1=Ian |title=Stalin, Man of History |date=1979 |publisher=Doubleday |isbn=978-0-385-14333-2 |page=482 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XV9pAAAAMAAJ&q=tukhachevsky+blamed+stalin |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Davies |first1=Norman |title=Heart of Europe: The Past in Poland's Present |date=2001 |publisher=OUP Oxford |isbn=978-0-19-164713-0 |page=103 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yWi-WLvY_v0C&dq=tukhachevsky+blamed+stalin&pg=PA103 |language=en}}</ref>

He later served as [[chief of staff]] of the Red Army from 1925 to 1928, as assistant in the [[Minister of Defence (Soviet Union)|People's Commissariat of Defense]]<ref name=":0" /> after 1934 and as commander of the [[Volga Military District]] in 1937. He achieved the rank of [[Marshal of the Soviet Union]] in 1935.

As a major proponent of modernisation of Soviet armament and [[Red Army#Reorganization|army force structure]] in the 1920s and 1930s, he became instrumental in the development of Soviet [[Soviet Air Forces|aviation]], and of [[armoured warfare|mechanized]] and [[airborne forces]]. As a theoretician, he was a driving force behind the Soviet development of the theory of [[deep operation]]s in the 1920s and 1930s. Soviet authorities accused Tukhachevsky of [[treason]], and after he confessed during torture, he was executed in 1937 during the [[Great Purge|military purges]] of 1936–1938, led by Stalin and [[Nikolai Yezhov]].

== Early life ==
[[File:Tuhacsevszkijcsalád.JPG|thumb|left|The Tukhachevsky family in 1904]]
Tukhachevsky was born at [[Alexandrovsky, Russia#Smolensk Oblast|Alexandrovskoye]], [[Safonovsky District]] (in the present-day [[Smolensk Oblast]] of Russia), into a family of impoverished [[Russian nobility|hereditary nobles]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Simon Sebag Montefiori |title=Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar |date=2003 |isbn=9781842127261 |page=252|publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson }}</ref> Legend states that his family descended from a Flemish count who ended up stranded in the East during the [[Crusades]] and took a Turkish wife before settling in Russia.<ref>Norman Davies, ''White Eagle, Red Star: The Polish-Soviet War 1919–20'', p. 130.</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/government/red-army/1937/wollenberg-red-army/ch03.htm|title = The Red Army: Part 3}}</ref> His great-grandfather [[Alexander Tukhachevsky]] (1793–1831) served as a colonel in the [[Imperial Russian Army]]. He was of [[Russians|Russian]] ethnicity.<ref>{{cite web|url= http://lists.memo.ru/index19.htm |title= Жертвы политического террора в СССР |publisher= Lists.memo.ru |access-date= 2013-06-12}}</ref> After attending the [[Cadet Corps (Russia)|Cadet Corps]] in 1912, he moved on to the {{Interlanguage link|Aleksandrovskoye Military School|ru|3=Александровское военное училище}}, where he graduated in 1914.

==World War I==
At the outset of the [[First World War]], he joined the [[Semenovsky Regiment|Semyenovsky Guards Regiment]] (July 1914) as a second lieutenant, declaring:

<blockquote>I am convinced that all that is needed in order to achieve what I want is bravery and self-confidence. I certainly have enough self-confidence.... I told myself that I shall either be a general at thirty, or that I shall not be alive by then.<ref>''The Red Army'' – p. 111 – by Michel Berchin, Eliahu Ben-Horin – 1942</ref></blockquote>

Taken prisoner by the [[German Army (German Empire)|Imperial German Army]] in February 1915, Tukhachevsky escaped four times from [[prisoner-of-war]] camps and was finally held as an incorrigible escapee in [[Ingolstadt]] fortress in Bavaria.<ref>Weintraub, Stanley. ''A Stillness Heard Round the World''. Truman Talley Books, 1985, p. 340</ref>

=== Captivity in Ingolstadt ===
Fluent in French, there he met journalist [[Remy Roure]] and shared a cell with Captain [[Charles de Gaulle]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Arzakanian|first=Marina|date=2012-06-15|title=De Gaulle et Toukhatchevski|url=http://journals.openedition.org/rha/7464|journal=Revue historique des armées|language=fr|issue=267|pages=91–101|doi=10.3917/rha.267.0091 |issn=0035-3299}}</ref> Tukhachevsky played his violin, assailed [[Nihilism|nihilist]] beliefs and spoke against [[Christians]] and [[Jews]], whom he called dogs who "spread their fleas throughout the world".<ref>The General: Charles De Gaulle and the France He Saved by Jonathan Fenby p. 68</ref> Later in various works he made Russians familiar with De Gaulle's military thinking.<ref>[[:fr:Jean-Luc Barré|Jean-Luc Barré]],''De Gaulle:Une Vie,'' [[Éditions Grasset|Grasset]] {{isbn|978-2-246-83417-5}} 2023 vol. 1 p. 133.</ref> Roure, under the pseudonym of Pierre Fervacque, wrote about his encounter with Tukhachevsky. He reported that Tukhachevsky highly praised [[Napoleon]], and also in a certain conversation, Tukhachevsky said he hated Jews for bringing Christianity and the "morality of capital" to Russia.<ref name=":02">{{Cite thesis|title=Mikhail Tukhachevsky in the Russian Civil War|url=https://eleanor.lib.gla.ac.uk/record=b2142198|publisher=University of Glasgow|date=2002|degree=PhD|language=en|first=Neil Harvey|last=Croll}}</ref> Roure then asked him if he was a socialist, and he replied:

{{Blockquote|text=Socialist? Certainly not! What a need for classification you have! Besides, the great socialists are Jews and the socialist doctrine is a branch of universal Christianity. I laugh at money, and whether the land is divided up or not is all one to me. The barbarians, my ancestors, lived in common, but they had chiefs. No, I detest socialists, Jews, and Christians.|author=|title=|source=}}

According to Roure, Tukhachevsky said that he would follow Lenin only if he "de-europeanised and threw Russia into barbarism", but feared Lenin would not do that. After ranting about how he could use Marxism as a justification to secure the territorial aims of the tsars and cement Russia's position as a world power, he laughed and said he was only joking. Roure said the laugh had an ironic and despairing tone.<ref name=":02" />

On another occasion, following the [[February Revolution]], Roure observed Tukhachevsky carving a "scary idol from colored cardboard", with "burning eyes", a "gaping mouth", and a "bizarre and terrible nose". He inquired about its purpose, to which Tukhachevsky responded:<ref>{{Cite book|script-title=ru:Заговор "красных маршалов". Тухачевский против Сталина |trans-title=The Conspiracy of the Red Marshals: Tukhachevsky vs. Stalin |last=Minakov |first=Sergei Timofeevich |author-link=:ru:Минаков, Сергей Тимофеевич |date=2017|publisher=Algoritm Publishing|page = 182|isbn= 978-5-906-99594-0
|language=ru}}</ref>

{{Blockquote|text="This is [[Perun]]. A powerful person. This is the god of war and death." And Mikhail knelt down before him with comic seriousness. I burst out laughing. "Don't laugh," he said, getting up from his knees. – I told you that the Slavs need a new religion. They are given Marxism, but there is too much modernism and civilization in this theology. (...) There is [[Dazhbog]] – the god of the Sun, [[Stribog]] – the god of the Wind, [[Veles (god)|Veles]] – the god of arts and poetry, and finally, Perun – the god of thunder and lightning. After some deliberation, I settled on Perun, since Marxism, having won in Russia, will unleash merciless wars between people. I will honor Perun every day."
|author=Remy Roure|title=|source=}}

Tukhachevsky's apparent neopaganism was also corroborated by another prisoner at Ingolstadt, {{Interlanguage link|Nikolay Alexandrovich Tsurikov|ru|3=Цуриков, Николай Александрович}}, who recalled that he once saw a "scarecrow" in the corner of Tukhachevsky's cell, and upon asking him as to what it was, Tukhachevsky responded (to what Tsurikov interpreted as heavy sarcasm), that it was an effigy of [[Yarilo]] (the Slavic god of vegetation, fertility and springtime), which he had created during [[Shrovetide]].<ref name="Minakov, page 183">Minakov, p.  183.</ref>

Tukhachevsky never denied and later even confirmed those stories about his imprisonment in Germany, but always said that he was politically immature in 1917 and greatly regretted his early views. In France 1936, when confronted with what Roure wrote about him, he said that he had read his book and stated the following:<blockquote>I was still very young... a novice at politics, and all I knew about revolutions was the last phase of the citizens' revolution in France: the Bonapartism whose military triumphs filled me with boundless admiration. (...) I never think of my views at Ingolstadt without regretting them, since they could cause doubts about my devotion to the Soviet motherland. I'm taking advantage of our reunion to tell you my true feelings.<ref name=":02" /></blockquote>Whether or not Tukhachevsky really gave up on his old views, the assertion that he was a fully-fledged Bolshevik by the time he joined them is considered to be most likely not true.<ref name=":02" />

Tukhachevsky's fifth escape met with success, and after crossing the Swiss-German border and carrying with him some small pagan idols,<ref name="Minakov, page 183"/> he returned to Russia in September 1917. After the [[October Revolution]] in 1917, Tukhachevsky joined the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Bolsheviks]] and went on to play a key role in the [[Red Army]] despite his noble ancestry.

==Russian Civil War==
[[File:Tuchaczewski 1920.jpg|thumb|259x259px|Tukhachevsky in 1920]]
Tukhachevsky became an officer in the newly-established Red Army and rapidly advanced in rank because of his great ability.{{citation needed|date=April 2019}} During the [[Russian Civil War]], he was given responsibility for defending Moscow.{{citation needed|date=April 2019}} The Bolshevik Defence Commissar, [[Leon Trotsky]], gave Tukhachevsky command of the [[5th Army (RSFSR)|5th Army]] in 1919, and he led the campaign to capture [[Siberia]] from the [[anticommunist]] [[White movement|White]] forces of [[Aleksandr Kolchak]]. Tukhachevsky used concentrated attacks to exploit the enemy's open flanks and threaten them with envelopment.{{citation needed|date=October 2025}}

According to Tukhachevsky's close confidant [[Leonid Sabaneyev]], when Tukhachevsky was in the service of the Military Department of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee in 1918, in his last overt display of [[neopaganism]], Tukhachevsky drew up a project for destruction of [[Christianity]] and restoration of [[Slavic paganism]]. To that end, Tukhachevsky submitted a memo on declaring paganism as the state religion of [[Soviet Russia]], which although mocked, also received some serious discussion in the Small [[Council of People's Commissars]], which commended Tukhachevsky for his "joke" and his commitment to [[atheism]]. Sabaneyev observed that Tukhachevsky seemed "as happy as a schoolboy who had just succeeded in a prank."<ref>Minakov, p. 184.</ref>

Tukhachevsky also helped defeat General [[Anton Denikin]] in the [[Crimea]] in 1920, conducting the final operations. In February 1920, he launched an offensive into the [[Kuban]] and used cavalry to disrupt the enemy's rear. In the retreat that followed, Denikin's force disintegrated, and [[Novorossiysk]] was evacuated hastily.<ref name="Stalin page 222">{{cite book |last1=Simon Sebag Montefiori |title=Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar |date=2003 |isbn=9781842127261 |page=222|publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson }}</ref>

In the final stage of the civil war, Tukhachevsky commanded the [[7th Army (RSFSR)|7th Army]] during the suppression of the [[Kronstadt rebellion]] in March 1921. He also commanded the assault against the [[Tambov rebellion|Tambov Republic]] between 1921 and 1922.<ref name="Stalin page 222"/><ref>Pipes, Richard. ''Russia under the Bolshevik Regime''. New York: Vintage Books, 2004.</ref><ref>Suvorov, Viktor. ''The Chief Culprit: Stalin's Grand Design to Start World War II''. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2008.</ref>

==Polish–Soviet War==
[[File:Polish-soviet war 1920 Aftermath of Battle of Warsaw.jpg|thumb|left|Polish soldiers displaying captured Soviet battle flags after the [[Battle of Warsaw (1920)|Battle of Warsaw]] in 1920|242x242px]]
Tukhachevsky commanded the Soviet invasion of Poland during the [[Polish–Soviet War]] in 1920. In the lead-up to hostilities, he concentrated his troops near [[Vitebsk]], which he theatrically dubbed, "The Gates of [[Smolensk]]". When he issued his troops orders to cross the border, Tukhachevsky said, "The fate of world revolution is being decided in the west: the way leads over the corpse of Poland to a universal conflagration.... On to [[Wilno]], [[Minsk]], and [[Warsaw]] – forward!"<ref>Richard M. Watt (1979), ''Bitter Glory: Poland and Its Fate, 1918–1939'', [[Simon & Schuster]], New York. p. 126.</ref>

According to Richard M. Watt, "The boldness of Tukhachevsky's drive westward was the key to his success. The Soviet High Command dispatched 60,000 men as reinforcements, but Tukhachevsky never stopped to let them catch up. His onrushing armies were leaving behind greater numbers of stragglers every day, but Tukhachevsky ignored these losses. His supply services were in chaos and his rear scarcely existed as an organized entity, but Tukhachevsky was unconcerned; his men would live off the land. On the day his troops captured Minsk, a new cry arose – 'Give us Warsaw!'<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3DtwdU7921YC&q=Give+us+Warsaw+Tukhachevsky&pg=PA168|title=Stalin: The First In-depth Biography Based on Explosive New Documents from Russia's Secr|last=Radzinsky|first=Edvard|date=2011|publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-307-75468-4|language=en}}</ref> Tukhachevsky was determined to give them what they wanted. All things considered, Tukhachevsky's performance was a virtuoso display of energy, determination, and, indeed, rashness."<ref>Watt (1979), p. 128.</ref>

In the summer of 1920, Tukhachevsky successfully pushed back the joint [[Second Polish Republic|Polish]]-[[Ukrainian People's Republic|Ukrainian]] army of [[Józef Piłsudski|Piłsudski]] and [[Symon Petliura|Petliura]] that had conquered [[Kyiv]] in May.<ref>{{cite book |last=Smith |first=Stephen A. |author-link=Stephen Smith (historian) |date=2018 |title=[[Russia in Revolution|Russia in Revolution: An Empire in Crisis, 1890 to 1928]] |location=New York |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |page=175 |isbn=9780198734833}}</ref> However, his armies were defeated by Piłsudski in the [[Battle of Warsaw (1920)|Battle of Warsaw]] shortly after. It was during the Polish war that Tukhachevsky first came into conflict with [[Joseph Stalin]]. Both blamed each other for the Soviet failure to capture [[Warsaw]]. Tukhachevsky later lamented:

{{blockquote|There can be no doubt that if we had been victorious on the [[Vistula]], the revolutionary fires would have reached the entire continent.<ref>''A century's journey: how the great powers shape the world'', p. 175, by Robert A. Pastor, Stanley Hoffmann – Political Science – 1999.</ref>}}

His book about the war was translated into Polish and published, together with a book by Piłsudski.

==Reform of the Red Army==
[[File:5marshals 01.jpg|thumb|right|Tukhachevsky with the other first four [[Marshal of the Soviet Union|Marshals of the Soviet Union]] in November 1935. (l–r): Tukhachevsky, [[Semyon Budyonny]], [[Kliment Voroshilov]], [[Vasily Blyukher]], and [[Alexander Yegorov (soldier)|Aleksandr Yegorov]]. Only Budyonny and Voroshilov survived the [[Great Purge]].]]
Tukhachevsky fervently criticised the Red Army's performance during the 1926 Summer manoeuvres.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=The Red Army and the Second World War|last=Hill, Alexander |isbn=9781107020795|location=Cambridge, UK|oclc=944957747|year = 2017}}</ref> He criticised the officers' inability to determine what course of action to take and communicate that with their troops especially harshly.<ref name=":0" /> Tukhachevsky noted that initiative among officers was lacking, that they responded slowly to changes in the situation and that communication was poor.<ref name=":0" /> That was not purely the officers' fault, as the only way of communication from local unit headquarters to the field positions was a single telephone line.<ref name=":0" /> In contrast, German divisions that mobilised shortly after during the interwar period had telephones, radio, horse, cycle and motorcycle messengers, signal lights and flags and pieces of cloth, and messages were conveyed mostly to aircraft.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The German infantry handbook, 1939–1945: organization, uniforms, weapons, equipment, operations|last=Buchner, Alex |isbn=0887402844|location=West Chester, PA|oclc=24303833|date =  1991}}</ref>

Tukhachevsky reached the position of First Deputy Commissar for [[Minister of Defence|defence]] to Defence Commisar [[Kliment Voroshilov]].<ref name=":0" /> Voroshilov disliked Tukhachevsky and would later be one of the initiators of the [[Great Purge]] in which Tukhachevsky was executed.<ref name=":0" /> According to [[Georgy Zhukov]], it was Tukhachevsky, not Voroshilov, who ran the ministry in practice. Voroshilov disliked Tukhachevsky, but his perception of military doctrine was impacted significantly by Tukhachevsky's ideas.<ref name=":0" />

According to [[Simon Sebag Montefiore]], Stalin regarded Tukhachevsky as his most bitter rival and dubbed him ''Napoleonchik'' (little [[Napoleon]]).<ref>''Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar'', pp. 221–222.</ref> Upon Stalin's ascension to the party leadership in 1929, he began receiving denunciations from senior officers who disapproved of Tukhachevsky's tactical theories. In 1930, the [[Joint State Political Directorate]] forced two officers to testify that Tukhachevsky was plotting to overthrow the [[Politburo]] via a [[coup d'état]].<ref>''Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar'', pp. 58–59.</ref>

According to Montefiore:

{{blockquote|In 1930, this was perhaps too outrageous even for the Bolsheviks. Stalin, not yet [[dictator]], probed his powerful ally [[Sergo Ordzhonikidze]]: "Only [[Vyacheslav Molotov|Molotov]], myself, and now you are in the know.... Is it possible? What a business! Discuss it with Molotov...". However, Sergo would not go that far. There would be no arrest and trial of Tukhachevsky in 1930: the commander "turns out to be 100% clean," Stalin wrote disingenuously to Molotov in October, "That's very good." It is interesting that seven years before the [[Great Purge|Great Terror]], Stalin was testing the same accusations against the same victims – a dress [[rehearsal]] for 1937 – but he could not get the support. The archives reveal a fascinating sequel: once he understood the ambitious modernity of Tukhachevsky's strategies, Stalin apologised to him: "Now the question has become clearer to me, I have to agree that my remark was too strong and my conclusions were not right at all."<ref>''Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar'', p. 59.</ref>}}

Tukhachevsky later wrote several books on modern warfare, In 1931, after Stalin had accepted the need for an industrialized military, Tukhachevsky was given a leading role in reforming the army.<ref name=":0" /> Tukhachevsky held advanced ideas on military strategy, particularly on the use of tanks and aircraft in combined operations.<ref name=":0" />

Tukhachevsky took a keen interest in the arts and became a political patron and close friend of the composer [[Dmitri Shostakovich]]; they met in 1925<ref>Elizabeth Wilson, ''Shostakovich: a Life Remembered'', p. 39.</ref> and subsequently played music together at Tukhachevsky's home (Tukhachevsky played the violin). In 1936, Shostakovich's music was under attack after ''[[Pravda]]'' denounced his opera ''[[Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (opera)|Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk]]''. However, Tukhachevsky intervened with Stalin on his friend's behalf.{{citation needed|date=March 2013}} After Tukhachevsky's arrest, pressure was put on Shostakovich to denounce him, but Shostakovich was saved from doing so by the fact that the investigator was himself arrested.<ref>Elizabeth Wilson, pp. 124–125.</ref>

==Theory of deep operation==
{{Main|Deep operation}}
[[File:Tuhacsevszkij1936.JPG|thumb|upright|Tukhachevsky in 1936]]
Tukhachevsky is often credited with the theory of deep operation in which combined arms formations strike deep behind enemy lines to destroy the enemy's rear and logistics,<ref name=Simpkin>[[Richard Simpkin]] in association with [[John Erickson (historian)|John Erickson]] ''Deep battle: the brainchild of Marshal Tukhachevskii'', London, Brassey's Defence, 1987 {{ISBN|0-08-031193-8}}</ref><ref>[[Aleksandr Vasilevsky|Alexander Vasilevsky]] ''The Case of All My Life'' (Дело всей жизни). 3d ed. Политиздат, 1978 [http://victory.mil.ru/lib/books/memo/vasilevsky/08.html Chapter8] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929120459/http://victory.mil.ru/lib/books/memo/vasilevsky/08.html |date=2007-09-29 }} {{in lang|ru}}</ref> but his exact role is unclear and disputed because of shortage of firsthand sources, and his published works containing only limited amounts of theory on the subject. The theories were opposed by some in the military establishment<ref>[[John Erickson (historian)|John Erickson]] ''The Soviet High Command: A Military–Political History, 1918–1941'', Routledge, 2001. {{ISBN|0-7146-5178-8}}</ref> but were largely adopted by the Red Army in the mid-1930s. They were expressed as a concept in the Red Army's ''Field Regulations of 1929'' and more fully developed in the 1935 ''Instructions on Deep Battle''. The concept was finally codified into the army in 1936 in the ''Provisional Field Regulations of 1936''. An early example of potential effectiveness of deep operations can be found in the Soviet victory over Japan at the [[Battle of Khalkhin Gol]] {{citation needed|date=April 2019}} in which a Soviet Corps under the command of Zhukov defeated a substantial Japanese force in August and September 1939 in [[Nomonhan]].

It is often stated that the widespread purges of the Red Army officer corps in 1937 to 1939 made "deep operation" briefly fall from favour.<ref>{{Cite book|last= Sebag|first= Simon|title=Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar|isbn=978-1-4000-7678-9|page=342|chapter=31|year= 2005|publisher= National Geographic Books}}</ref> However, it was certainly a major part of Soviet doctrine after its efficacy was demonstrated by the Battle of Khalkin Gol and the success of similar German operations in Poland and France. The doctrine was used with great success during [[Eastern Front (World War II)|World War II on the Eastern Front]] in such victories as the [[Battle of Stalingrad]] {{citation needed|date=April 2017}} and [[Operation Bagration]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/combat-studies-institute/csi-books/connor.pdf|title=Analysis of Deep Attack Operations – Operation Bagration Belorussia 22 June–29 August 1944|last=Connor|first=William|date=March 1987|website=armyupress.army.mil|access-date=24 March 2019}}</ref>

==Fall and death==
[[File:Tuchaczewski Warszawa.jpg|thumb|Tukhachevsky at the Warsaw Railway Station, en route to London, 1936]]
On November 20, 1935, Tukhachevsky was made a [[Marshal of the Soviet Union]] when he was 42. In January 1936, Tukhachevsky visited the [[United Kingdom]], [[French Third Republic|France]] and [[Nazi Germany|Germany]].

Just before his arrest, Tukhachevsky was relieved of duty as assistant to Marshal Voroshilov and was appointed military commander of the Volga Military District.<ref name="Tainye">Fyodor Mikhailovich Sergeyev, ''Tainye operatsii natsistskoi razvediki, 1933–1945'' (In Russian). Moscow: Politizdat, 1991. {{ISBN|5-250-00797-X}}: p. 18</ref> Shortly after departing to take up his new command, he was secretly arrested on May 22, 1937, and brought back to Moscow in a prison van.<ref>Barmine, Alexander, ''One Who Survived'', New York: G. P. Putnam (1945), pp. 7–8</ref>

Tukhachevsky's interrogation and torture were directly supervised by [[NKVD]] Chief [[Nikolai Yezhov]]. Stalin instructed Yezhov, "See for yourself, but Tukhachevsky should be forced to tell everything.... It's impossible he acted alone".<ref name="Stalin page 222"/>

According to Montefiore, a few days later, as Yezhov buzzed in and out of Stalin's office, a broken Tukhachevsky confessed that [[Avel Yenukidze]] had recruited him in 1928 and that he was a German agent co-operating with [[Nikolai Bukharin]] to seize power. Tukhachevsky's confession, which survives in the archives, is dappled with a brown spray that was later found to be blood-spattered by a body in motion.<ref name="Stalin page 223">{{cite book |last1=Simon Sebag Montefiori |title=Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar |date=2003 |isbn=9781842127261 |page=223|publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson }}</ref>

[[File:May 25 1937 Tukhachevsky recognition.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Tukhachevsky's bloodstained confession]]
Stalin commented, "It's incredible, but it's a fact, they admit it".<ref name="Stalin page 223"/>

On June 11, 1937, the [[Supreme Court of the Soviet Union]] convened a special [[military tribunal]] to try Tukhachevsky and eight generals for treason. The trial was dubbed the [[Case of the Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization]]. Upon hearing the accusations, Tukhachevsky was heard to say, "I feel I'm dreaming".<ref name="Stalin page 225">''Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar'', p. 225.</ref> Most of the judges were also terrified. One was heard to comment, "Tomorrow I'll be put in the same place".<ref name="Stalin page 225"/>

At 11:35 that night, all of the defendants were declared guilty and sentenced to death. Stalin, who was awaiting the verdict with Yezhov, Molotov and [[Lazar Kaganovich]], did not even examine the transcripts. He simply said, "Agreed".<ref name="Stalin page 225"/>

Within the hour, Tukhachevsky was summoned from his cell by NKVD Captain [[Vasily Blokhin]]. As Yezhov watched, the former Marshal was shot once in the back of the head.<ref name="Rayfield">Donald Rayfield, Donald (2005). ''Stalin and His Hangmen: the tyrant and those who killed for him''. Random House. pp. 322–325.</ref>

Immediately afterward, Yezhov was summoned into Stalin's presence. Stalin asked, "What were Tukhachevsky's last words?"<ref name="Stalin page 225"/> Yezhov responded, "The snake said he was dedicated to the Motherland and Comrade Stalin. He asked for [[clemency]]. But it was obvious that he was not being straight, he hadn't laid down his arms".<ref name="Stalin page 225"/>

==Aftermath==
[[File:The Soviet Union 1963 CPA 2824 stamp (Russian Civil War Hero Marshal of the Soviet Union Mikhail Tukhachevsky. Map of Eastern Front of Russian Civil War).jpg|thumb|1963 Soviet stamp featuring Tukhachevsky]]
Tukhachevsky's family members all suffered after his execution. His wife, Nina Tukhachevskaya, and his brothers Alexandr and Nikolai, both of whom were instructors in a Soviet military academy, were shot. Three of his sisters were sent to the [[Gulag]]. His daughter Svetlana, aged 15 when he was executed, lived in the Nizhneisetsky orphanage in Sverdlovsk (now [[Yekaterinburg]]) and then the Gulag until the [[Khrushchev Thaw]]. She moved to Moscow afterwards and died in 1982.<ref name="Tainye page 44">Sergeyev (1991): p. 44</ref>

{{Quote box|width=25em|align=left|bgcolor=|quote=“To the Red army, Stalin has dealt a fearful blow. As a result of the latest judicial frameup, it has fallen several cubits in stature. The interests of the Soviet defense have been sacrificed in the interests of the self-preservation of the ruling clique.”|source=Trotsky on the Red Army purges of 1937.<ref>{{cite web |title=Leon Trotsky: How Stalin's Purge Beheaded the Red Army (1937) |url=https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/themilitant/1941/v05n40/trotsky.html |website=www.marxists.org}}</ref>}}

[[Leon Trotsky]] described Tukhachevsky posthumously as an "outstanding talent" for his strategic skills and viewed the purge of the Red Army by the [[Stalinist]] bureaucracy as a means of preserving its political position.<ref>{{cite web |title=Leon Trotsky: How Stalin's Purge Beheaded the Red Army (1937) |url=https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/themilitant/1941/v05n40/trotsky.html |website=www.marxists.org}}</ref>

Before [[Nikita Khrushchev]]'s [[On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences|Secret Speech]] in 1956, Tukhachevsky was officially considered a [[fascist]] and [[fifth columnist]]. Soviet diplomats and supporters in the West enthusiastically promulgated this opinion. Then, on January 31, 1957, Tukhachevsky and his codefendants were declared innocent of all charges and were rehabilitated.{{Citation needed|date=July 2023}}

Although Tukhachevsky's prosecution is almost universally regarded as a sham, Stalin's motivations continue to be debated. In his 1968 book ''The Great Terror'', the British historian [[Robert Conquest]] accuses [[Nazi Party]] leaders [[Heinrich Himmler]] and [[Reinhard Heydrich]] of forging documents that implicated Tukhachevsky in an [[anti-Stalinist]] conspiracy with the [[Wehrmacht]] [[General Staff]], to weaken the Soviets' defence capacity. The documents, Conquest said, were leaked to President [[Edvard Beneš]] of [[Czechoslovakia]], who passed them to the Soviet Union through diplomatic channels. Conquest's thesis of an SS conspiracy to frame Tukhachevsky was based upon the memoirs of [[Walter Schellenberg]] and Beneš.<ref name="Lukes, Igor 1996 p. 95">Lukes, Igor, ''Czechoslovakia Between Stalin and Hitler: The Diplomacy of Edvard Beneš in the 1930s'', Oxford University Press (1996), {{ISBN|978-0-19-510267-3}}, p. 95</ref>

In 1989, the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union announced that new evidence had been found in Stalin's archives indicating German intelligence's intentions to fabricate disinformation about Tukhachevsky with the goal of eliminating him. "Knowledge of personal characteristics of Stalin – like paranoia and extreme suspicion, had been possibly highest factor in it."<ref name="Tainye page 3">Sergeyev (1991): p. 3</ref>

According to the opinion of Igor Lukes, who conducted a study on the matter, it was Stalin, Kaganovich and Yezhov who actually concocted Tukhachevsky's "treason" themselves. At Yezhov's order, the NKVD had instructed a known [[double agent]], [[Nikolai Skoblin]], to leak to Heydrich's [[Sicherheitsdienst]] (SD) concocted information suggesting a plot by Tukhachevsky and the other Soviet generals against Stalin.<ref name="Lukes, Igor 1996 p. 95"/>

Seeing an opportunity to strike a blow at the Soviet military, Heydrich immediately acted on the information and undertook to improve on it. Heydrich's forgeries were later leaked to the Soviets via Beneš and other neutral nations. While the SD believed that it had successfully fooled Stalin into executing his best generals, in reality, it had merely served as an unwitting pawn of the Soviet NKVD. Ironically, Heydrich's forgeries were never used at trial. Instead, Soviet prosecutors relied on signed "confessions" beaten out of the defendants.<ref name="Lukes, Igor 1996 p. 95"/>

In 1956, the NKVD [[defector]] [[Aleksandr Mikhailovich Orlov]] published an article in ''[[Life Magazine]]'' with "The Sensational Secret Behind the Damnation of Stalin" as title. The story held that NKVD agents had discovered papers in the tsarist [[Okhrana]] archives proving Stalin had once been an informer.<ref>{{Cite magazine |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SE8EAAAAMBAJ&q=The+Sensational+Secret+Behind+the+Damnation+of+Stalin%22&pg=PA34 |title=The Sensational Secret Behind Damnation of Stalin |magazine=Life|date=1956-04-23|publisher=Time Inc|language=en}}</ref> From this knowledge, the NKVD agents had planned a [[coup d'état]] with Tukhachevsky and other senior officers in the Red Army.<ref>Roman Brackman [https://books.google.com/books?id=zQL8POkFGIQC&dq=the+fatal+find+in+menzhinsky+office&pg=RA1-PA262 ''The secret file of Joseph Stalin: a hidden life''] 466 pp. Published by Routledge, 2001  {{ISBN|978-0-7146-5050-0}}</ref> According to Orlov, Stalin uncovered the conspiracy and used Yezhov to execute those responsible.<ref>{{cite journal |author =Paul W. Blackstock |author-link=Paul W. Blackstock  |url= https://www.jstor.org/pss/127506 |title= The Tukhachevsky Affair |journal = The Russian Review |date = April 1969 |volume=28 |issue=2 |pages = 171–190|doi=10.2307/127506 |jstor=127506 |url-access=subscription }}</ref> The article lists the [[Eremin letter]] as documentary evidence that Stalin was part of the Okhrana, but most historians agree it's a forgery.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Lee|first=Eric|date=1993-06-01|title=The Eremin letter: Documentary proof that Stalin was an Okhrana spy?|journal=Revolutionary Russia|volume=6|issue=1|pages=55–96|doi=10.1080/09546549308575595|issn=0954-6545}}</ref>

[[Simon Sebag Montefiore]], who has conducted extensive research in Soviet archives, states:

{{blockquote|Stalin needed neither Nazi disinformation nor mysterious Okhrana files to persuade him to destroy Tukhachevsky. After all, he had played with the idea as early as 1930, three years before Hitler took power. Furthermore, Stalin and his cronies were convinced that officers were to be distrusted and physically exterminated at the slightest suspicion. He reminisced to Voroshilov, in an undated note, about the officers arrested in the summer of 1918. "These officers," he said, "we wanted to shoot en masse." Nothing had changed.<ref>Montefiore, ''Stalin: Court of the Red Tsar'', p. 226.</ref>}}

It has been speculated that the reason that Stalin had Tukhachevsky and other high-ranking generals executed was to remove a potential threat to his political power. Ultimately, Stalin and Yezhov would orchestrate the arrest and execution of thousands of Soviet military officers as well as five of the eight generals who presided over Tukhachevsky's show trial.<ref name="Barmine, Alexander 1945 p. 322">Barmine, Alexander, ''One Who Survived'', New York: G.P. Putnam (1945), p. 322</ref>

While at the time of his death the Red Army was still firmly in the grip of the cavalry, Tukhachevsky had changed the Red Army's mentality quite significantly. While many [[Armoured warfare|machine-gunners]] were being arrested and Marshal [[Semyon Budyonny|Budyonny]] spoke in favour of cavalry, influential people, even including Marshal Voroshilov, under whom Tukhachevsky served and who took part in the arrests, began to question the cavalry's position inside the Red Army.<ref name=":0" /> The horse remained ingrained in the Red Army, however.<ref name=":0" /> In peacetime, cavalry made sense to the Red Army; it was effective in smaller actions and internal security actions, many horse riders were available without requiring significant training, and there were the memories of the effectiveness of cavalry during the Civil War, all of which helped the horse in maintaining its central position inside the Red Army.<ref name=":0" /> When the Second World War began [[Combined arms|mixed units]] were set up, which included both cavalry and tanks; these played a central role in use of the deep operations doctrine during WWII.<ref name=":0" />

==Honours and awards==
;Imperial awards
* [[File:Order of Saint Anna ribbon bar.svg|60x60px]] [[Order of St. Anna|Order of St. Anne]], 2nd class with swords, also awarded 3rd class with swords and bow; and 4th class with the inscription "For Courage"
* [[Order of St. Stanislaus]], 2nd class with swords, also awarded 3rd class with swords and bow
* [[File:Order of Saint Vladimir, ribbon bar.svg|60x60px]] [[Order of St. Vladimir]], 4th class with swords
;Soviet awards
* [[File:SU Order of Lenin ribbon.svg|60x60px]] [[Order of Lenin]] (21 February 1933)
* [[File:SU Order of the Red Banner ribbon.svg|60x60px]] [[Order of the Red Banner]] (August 7, 1919)
* [[Honorary Revolutionary Weapon|Honorary revolutionary weapon]] (December 17, 1919)

==Work==

* Kurt Agricola, "Der rote Marschall. Tuchatschewskis Aufstieg und Fall" (The Red Marshall: The Rise and Fall of Tukhachevsky), 1939, Kleine "Wehrmacht" – Bücherei, 5

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

== Further reading ==

{{refbegin}}

* {{Cite journal |last1=Croll |first1=Neil |title=The role of M.N. Tukhachevskii in the suppression of the Kronstadt Rebellion |journal=Revolutionary Russia |volume=17 |issue=2 |pages=1–48 |date=December 2004 |doi=10.1080/0954654042000289688 |s2cid=144649336 |issn=0954-6545 |via=[[Taylor & Francis]] |df=mdy-all }}

{{refend}}

==External links==
{{commons category|Mikhail Tukhachevsky}}
{{Wikiquote}}
* [http://www.pwhce.org/rus/tukhachevsky.html The Red Bonaparte]
* {{PM20|FID=pe/039261}}

{{s-start}}
{{s-mil}}
{{succession box
|before =[[Sergey Kamenev]]
|title = [[Chief of the General Staff (Russia)|Chief of the Staff of the Red Army]]
|years = November 1925 – May 1928
|after =[[Boris Shaposhnikov]]}}
{{s-end}}

{{Marshals of the Soviet Union}}
{{Chiefs of the Russian General Staff}}

{{Authority control}}

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