The Terror Lives on

The 1930s  were a period of particularly intense repression in the Soviet Union. It manifested itself in various ways across numerous regions of the country. However, in every case, its implementation was driven by the Soviet security services – the NKVD (specifically the Main Directorate of State Security, GUGB, operating within its structure). Anyone could become a victim: from an ordinary peasant to a prominent Bolshevik activist (as illustrated by the cases of Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev). At the beginning of 1937, the only institution (apart from the NKVD) that still resisted the wave of terror while maintaining a position of neutrality was the Red Army. However, even it could not be certain of its future…

“Marshal a traitor!”

On 22 May 1937 in Kuibyshev, the NKVD arrested Marshal of the Red Army Mikhail Tukhachevsky, the same man who 17 years earlier had reached the outskirts of Warsaw. He was accused of treason and membership in a counter-revolutionary organisation. A few days later, he was transferred to the Lubyanka prison in Moscow. There, Soviet investigators knew well how to “interrogate” in order to obtain a confession. The methods of torture they employed produced the intended result – Tukhachevsky admitted to being a traitor and a German spy. Only formalities remained…

A Court in Name Only, Yet a Theatre

On 11 June 1937 in Moscow, a judicial but carefully staged trial began, in which the defendants included Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, Komkor Boris Feldman, Komandarm 1st Rank Ieronim Uborevich, Komkor Vitaly Primakov, Komandarm 2nd Rank August Kork, Komkor Robert Eideman, Komkor Vitovt Putna, and Komandarm 1st Rank Iona Yakir. The trial lasted only one day: it began at 9 a.m. and the verdict was delivered at 11 p.m. The court ruled that all defendants had confessed to the charges of espionage and treason. The death penalty was imposed on all of them. That very night, Mikhail Tukhachevsky was executed by a shot to the back of the head. The execution was most likely carried out by Vasily Blokhin, one of the most notorious executioners in the history of the USSR, who also later took part in the Katyn massacre three years later.

This Is Just the Beginning

The trial and execution of Mikhail Tukhachevsky marked only the beginning of the “Great Purge” carried out among the officers of the Red Army. Further arrests and executions continued for months. By the outbreak of the Second World War, the NKVD had executed more than 40,000 officers, including: three of the five Marshals of the Soviet Union, three of the eight Commanders of the First Rank (Komandarms, 1st Rank), all 10 Commanders of the Second Rank (Komandarms, 2nd Rank), and all 17 Army Commissars (Armkoms). The devastating blow inflicted on the Soviet military leadership left the Red Army strategically and tactically paralysed for several years. The Soviet invasion of Poland did not yet expose these weaknesses, as the Soviet Union attacked a country whose armed forces had already been exhausted by weeks of fighting. The Winter War against Finland (1939–1940), and above all the opening months of the German–Soviet War, revealed the full extent of the deficiencies within the Red Army’s command structure, highlighting the inexperience and inadequate training of many Soviet officers.

Piotr Bosko

Translated from Polish by Małgorzata Giełzakowska