130 years ago, on January 21 (February 2), 1885, the Soviet statesman and military leader Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze was born. The Soviet statesman and commander gained fame as the winner of Kolchak, the Ural Cossacks and Wrangel, the Petliurists and Makhnovists, the conqueror of Turkestan.
At the most important turning point in the history of Soviet Russia, when, during the illness and after the death of Lenin, there was a threat of the seizure of power by Trotsky, behind whom stood the so-called. The "golden international" ("financial international", "world backstage"), Stalin and Frunze carried out an interception of control over the armed forces. Trotsky had great influence in the authorities, including in the Red Army, was the second leader of the party after Lenin, therefore, as a counterweight, he needed to select an authoritative commander, a respected commander. He became a hero of the civil war, a man defending the true interests of the people - Mikhail Frunze.
In early 1925, Trotsky's resignation followed. Frunze headed the Revolutionary Military Council, which until then was completely subordinate to Leon Trotsky, became the people's commissar for military and naval affairs. Stalin's ally Voroshilov became his deputy. The army as a whole accepted the appointment of MV Frunze, and in a short time he carried out a number of transformations, strengthening the one-man command, improving the quality of the command staff and combat training of the troops, removing a significant part of Trotsky's cadres. Obviously, the armed forces under the leadership of Frunze would have continued to strengthen, but his unexpected death deprived the Soviet Union of a valuable military and political figure. To denigrate Stalin, the myth was created that Stalin was the customer of the liquidation of Frunze, and that he was "stabbed to death on the operating table" on his orders. Meanwhile, Frunze was completely loyal to Stalin and posed a danger to the unfinished Trotskyist-internationalist wing, which still retained positions in many state and party bodies, including the armed forces (Tukhachevsky and others).
M. V. Frunze. Artist I. Brodsky
Mikhail was born in the city of Pishpek (Bishkek) in the family of a paramedic Vasily Mikhailovich Frunze, who served in Turkestan, and a Voronezh peasant woman, Sofia Alekseevna. Mikhail graduated from high school in Verny with a gold medal. There he first became acquainted with revolutionary ideas in a self-education circle. In 1904 he entered the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute, studied economics. Mikhail was a romantic and idealist, which brought him into the ranks of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP). In 1904, Mikhail wrote to his brother: "To deeply learn the laws governing the course of history, plunge headlong into reality … radically alter everything - this is the goal of my life." The young socialist believed that it was necessary: "To change your whole life so that there is no poverty and hardship for anyone, never … I am not looking for an easy one in life."
It is not surprising that already in 1905, Mikhail became an active revolutionary, which he combined with patriotism. So, Frunze was not a defeatist during the Russo-Japanese War, like many leading revolutionaries. Mikhail took part in the demonstration on January 9, 1905 ("Bloody Sunday"), was wounded. He was expelled from the capital without graduating from the institute. During the revolution, he conducted party work in Moscow, Ivanovo-Voznesensk and Shuya, where he was known under the pseudonym "Comrade Arseny". He led the fighting squad of the Ivanovo-Voznesensk and Shuya workers, taking part in the December 1905 armed uprising in Moscow. In 1906, being a deputy from the Ivanovo-Voznesensk regional organization, he took part in the congress of the RSDLP in Stockholm, where he met Lenin.
1907 Mikhail was arrested and sentenced to 4 years in hard labor. Already being a prisoner, he participated in an attack on a police officer. He was twice sentenced to death for attempted murder. But under pressure from the public, the sentence was commuted and replaced by 6 years of hard labor. He was imprisoned in Vladimirskaya, Nikolaevskaya and Aleksandrovskaya prisons, in 1914 he was exiled to an eternal settlement in the Irkutsk province. In 1915, after being arrested for creating an organization of exiles, he fled to Chita, then to Moscow. In 1916, with a fake passport, he volunteered for military service, served in a zemstvo organization that provided supplies for the army on the Western Front.
After the February Revolution, Mikhail became the interim head of the militia of the All-Russian Zemstvo Union for the Protection of Order in the city of Minsk (March 4 is considered the birthday of the Belarusian militia). After that, Frunze held various leading positions in the party, was the editor of several publications, and was engaged in revolutionary agitation among the soldiers.
During the October Revolution he took part in battles in Moscow. After the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks, Mikhail Frunze, whose character was dominated by creative features, became an active builder of the Soviet state and the new armed forces. Mikhail was elected a deputy of the Constituent Assembly, held a number of leading positions in the Ivanovo-Voznesensk province. From the beginning of 1918 - a member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, in August 1918 he became a military commissar of the Yaroslavl Military District, which included eight provinces. Mikhail took part in the defeat of the Left SR revolt. Mikhail Frunze was supposed to restore the district after the recent uprising in Yaroslavl and in a short time form rifle divisions for the Red Army.
So Frunze became a military leader. In this field, Frunze began to cooperate with a participant in the First World War, Major General Fyodor Novitsky. The former tsarist general became Frunze's main ally on the Eastern, Turkestan and Southern fronts for a long time. As Novitsky Frunze noted: “… he had an amazing ability to quickly understand the most difficult and new issues for him, to separate the essential from the secondary in them and then distribute the work among the performers in accordance with the abilities of each. He also knew how to select people, as if guessing by instinct who was capable of what …”.
Mikhail Frunze did not possess theoretical and practical knowledge of the preparation and organization of military operations. However, he appreciated military professionals, former officers of the tsarist army, rallied around himself a whole group of experienced general staff officers. At the same time, Frunze was an excellent organizer and manager, who knew how to organize the work of the headquarters and the rear in difficult conditions, directed the work of military experts, possessed the charisma of a military leader, whom the soldiers happily followed. Frunze possessed great personal courage and will, was not afraid to go with a rifle in his hands to go in the front ranks of the advancing troops (in the battles near Ufa in 1919 he was concussed). This attracted people to him. Realizing his lack of literacy in military matters, Mikhail did a lot of self-education (in this he resembled Stalin), carefully studied military literature. All this made Frunze a first-class military leader.
In addition, Frunze was a man of the people, in which there was no contempt, arrogance, characteristic of Trotsky and similar "chosen ones". Nor was he cruel, like the same Trotsky (he reached the point of sadism in cruelty), who issued orders for a humane attitude towards the prisoners. For this Mikhail Frunze was loved by the Red Army men and commanders.
Frunze perfectly understood the national interests of Russia. In 1919, Mikhail Frunze said: “… there, in the camp of our enemies, there can be no national revival of Russia, which is precisely from the other side that there can be no talk of a struggle for the well-being of the Russian people. Because not because of their beautiful eyes, all these Frenchmen, the British help Denikin and Kolchak - it is natural that they are pursuing their own interests. This fact should be clear enough that Russia is not there, that Russia is with us … We are not a rascal like Kerensky. We are fighting a deadly battle. We know that if they defeat us, then hundreds of thousands, millions of the best, staunch and energetic in our country will be exterminated, we know that they will not talk to us, they will only hang us, and our whole homeland will be buried in blood. Our country will be enslaved by foreign capital”.
From January 1919 he commanded the 4th Army on the Eastern Front. In the shortest possible time, Frunze, with the help of military experts (so Novitsky was the chief of staff of the 4th Army), transformed semi-partisan detachments into regular units, which conducted successful operations to liberate Uralsk and the Ural region from white and Cossack formations. Since March 1919, Frunze headed the Southern Group of the Eastern Front. The troops of his group in a number of operations defeated the Western army of the troops of Admiral Kolchak. In May-June he led the Turkestan army, from July the Eastern Front. The troops of the Red Army under his leadership liberated the Northern and Middle Urals, cut the front of the White Army into northern and southern parts. Since August 1919, he commanded the troops of the Turkestan Front, Frunze's formations completed the defeat of the southern group of Kolchak's army, then eliminated the Krasnovodsk and Semirechye groupings of white troops. During the Ural-Guryev operation, the troops under the command of Frunze defeated the Ural White Cossack army and the Alash-Horde troops. As a result of the Bukhara operation, the regime of the Bukhara Emir was liquidated. Significant successes were achieved in the fight against the Basmachism (Islamic bandit formations). From September 1920 he commanded the Southern Front, which completed the rout of the White forces in European Russia. First, units of the Southern Front repelled the last White counteroffensive, defeated it in Northern Tavria and liberated Crimea.
In 1920-1924. Mikhail Frunze was a commissioner of the Revolutionary Military Council (RVS) in Ukraine, commanded the armed forces of Ukraine and Crimea, then the troops of the Ukrainian Military District. He supervised the rout of bandit formations in Ukraine. In battles with the Makhnovists, he was again wounded. In 1921, he established relations with Turkey, negotiated with Ataturk. For his successes in the fight against the army, Makhno was awarded the second Order of the Red Banner (the first received for his successes in the fight against the army of Kolchak).
Thus, after the defeat of the White Army and victory in the Civil War, Mikhail Frunze acquired the status of the winner of Kolchak and Wrangel. He was also the conqueror of Turkestan and the commander who defeated the bandit formations in Ukraine. This made Frunze one of the leading figures of the young Soviet state.
Since March 1924, Deputy Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR and the People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs, since April simultaneously chief of the Red Army Staff and chief of the Military Academy. From January 1925 he headed the Revolutionary Military Council and the People's Commissariat for Military and Naval Affairs. In the shortest possible time, he carried out a military reform that strengthened the defense capability of the Soviet Union.
Frunze published a number of fundamental works that made a great contribution to the formation and development of Soviet military science, the theory and practice of military art: "Unified Military Doctrine and the Red Army" (1921), "Regular Army and Militia" (1922), "Military-Political Education Red Army "(1922)," Front and rear in the war of the future "(1925)," Our military development and the tasks of the Military Scientific Society "(1925). Under the leadership of Mikhail Vasilyevich, the foundations of military scientific work in the armed forces of the USSR were laid, discussions were held on the problems of military development, and controversial issues of future wars. Based on the analysis of the experience of the First World War and the Civil War, M. V. Frunze considered the future war to be a war of machines, but in which a man would play the leading role.
Frunze considered the main type of combat operations to be an offensive, with a large scale and high maneuverability, encirclement operations where the correctly chosen direction of the main attack and the formation of a powerful strike group play an important role. At the same time, careful preliminary preparation played an important role. Frunze did not diminish the importance of defense. In his activities, the new people's commissar paid serious attention to scientific and technological progress, the development of the country's rear. Frunze noted that the Soviet Union should become independent from abroad, not only in industrial activity, but in the design and inventive field.
The future big war fully confirmed Frunze's opinion - becoming a "war of engines", where broad offensive operations will play a major role in the success of both the German Wehrmacht and the Red Army. But the human factor played a decisive role, the elimination of illiteracy in the Soviet Union, including mass technical education, allowed Russia-USSR to become a leading world power.
M. V. Frunze in 1920
After the death of 40-year-old Frunze, on the operating table of the Soldatenkovskaya (Botkinskaya) hospital, at the suggestion of Trotsky and his henchmen, the myth was immediately launched that the Soviet commander was killed on the orders of Stalin, who allegedly feared an independent and authoritative military-political figure. In literary form, this myth was reflected in the work of the writer Boris Pilnyak-Vogau "The Tale of the Unquenched Moon", where everyone recognized Mikhail Frunze in the image of the commander Gavrilov, who died during the operation. This writer's speculation became almost the main proof of Stalin's guilt in the fact that Frunze was "stabbed" on the operating table by his order. And in confirmation, the slander of Boris Bazhanov, the former secretary of Stalin, who fled to the West, is usually cited. Bazhanov said that Stalin killed Frunze in order to put Voroshilov, who was completely devoted to him, in his place.
In reality, if Frunze did not die by accident (there is also such a possibility, and a great one: a difficult life undermined his health), then he became a victim of the confrontation between two groups of Bolsheviks - "internationalists" and "Bolsheviks" proper (future Stalinists). The "internationalists" led by Trotsky, behind whom the "financial international" stood, advocated the use of Russia as brushwood to kindle the fire of the "world revolution". Russia had to die for the sake of building a New World Order - a global totalitarian concentration camp with a Marxist bias. Actually, the “Bolshevik-Stalinists” stood, in fact, on national, imperial principles, for the territorial integrity of Russia almost completely within the borders of the former empire, for the revival of Great Russia on new principles and principles, for the construction of socialism in a single country. This contradiction after the victory in the Civil War, when the problem of whites, nationalists, external invasion and mass banditry (anarchism, anarchy) was resolved, led to a confrontation between two elite groups.
During Lenin's illness and after his death, things were heading towards a military coup. Trotsky controlled the military and saw himself as the "Red Bonaparte." Another candidate for the role of "Bonaparte" was Trotsky's former protégé, Tukhachevsky. In 1923-1924. the top leadership of the party and the country has accumulated ample amount of reliable information about the unreliability of the top military leadership. One of the closest and most open supporters of Trotsky, the head of the Political Administration (GlavPUR) of the Red Army Antonov-Ovseenko on December 27, 1923.sent a letter to the Central Committee of the party in which he openly threatened the leadership of the party and the state with a military coup in support of Trotsky. There was evidence of a conspiracy in the Caucasian army, led by Yegorov. The head of the OGPU, Dzerzhinsky, at a meeting of the Politburo on January 24, 1924, personally reported on a conspiracy in the military sphere, in particular, in the Caucasian army. Tukhachevsky started an active fuss on the Western Front.
It was necessary that the country's leadership urgently reshuffled the entire deck of the military elite in order to ensure security and maintain the chosen course. There was no self-confidence, so they did not dare to take more radical steps (according to the Criminal Code). The general replacement of commanders began, the reshuffling proceeded on the basis of the principle of "checks and balances", and personal hostility was also taken into account. First, Trotsky, worried about the vigorous activities of the commander of the Western Front, eliminated his rival, Tukhachevsky. He was appointed to the post of Assistant Chief of Staff of the Red Army, depriving him of his post as a front commander. In fact, Tukhachevsky, who was aiming at the Red Bonapartes, was deprived of his former influence on the military-political situation in the country and of his armed forces. At the same time, Tukhachevsky formally remained in the country's top military elite. After the demonstrative flogging of Tukhachevsky, who dared to go against such a political "heavyweight" as Trotsky, he was retained as an important figure. On July 18, 1924, Trotsky appointed Tukhachevsky as Deputy Chief of Staff of the Red Army and, on the same day, as Acting Chief of Staff.
However, Trotsky was unable to maintain leverage in the army. The chairman of the RVS and the people's commissar for military and naval affairs, Trotsky, was replaced by Frunze. At the same time, Frunze, which had never been done before, apparently just in case, retained command of the Ukrainian Military District. Frunze and Trotsky have been in hostile relations since the Civil War, which guaranteed his non-participation in the conspiracy. Trotsky, even during the Civil War, tried to eliminate Frunze, groundlessly accusing him of massive robberies of his troops, Bonapartism and almost framed him under the terror of the Cheka.
I must say that the West quite clearly understood the meaning of the reshuffle in the top military leadership of the USSR. The British Foreign Office wrote that Stalin was switching to politics using "national instruments." This was correct. Frunze was a patriot, a statesman, although he adhered to Stalin in everything, with whom, however, he had very good relations.
Frunze immediately reduced the size of the armed forces, which had increased by more than 5 million during the war. They were reduced by almost 10 times to over 500 thousand people. The administrative apparatus, which had been incredibly swollen during the years of Trotsky’s leadership, was cut especially sharply. The central apparatus of the Revolutionary Military Council, the People's Commissariat for Military and Naval Affairs and the General Staff were literally packed with Trotskyists. They were thoroughly cleaned. Therefore, it is not surprising that Frunze in the summer and autumn of 1925 "got" three times in car accidents.
Interestingly, Frunze sought to appoint another deputy for himself, the hero of the Civil War, Grigory Kotovsky. Ever since the Soviet-Polish war, Kotovsky fought side by side with Stalin and Budyonny. Thus, a course was outlined for the creation of a patriotic military leadership of the USSR in the person of Frunze, Voroshilov, Budyonny and Kotovsky. All of them were strong, strong-willed commanders and patriots of Russia-USSR. All, albeit to varying degrees, were "on a short leg" with Stalin. It should come as no surprise that Kotovsky was shot dead on August 6, 1925 by contract killer Meyer Seider.
It is quite possible that Frunze was also eliminated at the "order" of Trotsky. Too many people got in the way. The armies were able to finally liquidate the "fifth column" in the country only in the 1930s, already in a pre-war situation.
M. V. Frunze takes a parade of troops on Red Square. 1925 g.
