Cities and factories, tanks and ships were named after Kliment Voroshilov. Songs were composed about him, and every pioneer dreamed of earning the honorary title of "Voroshilovsky shooter". He was a symbol of the Soviet dream - a simple locksmith who became the people's commissar of defense and even the head of state.
But no one noticed the recent 135th anniversary of the national idol.
Young "rebel"
In April 1918, the commanders of the Red Guard detachments gathered at the Rodakovo station near Lugansk. The situation was serious: from the west the Germans were pressing with a steel roller, from the east the Cossacks of Ataman Krasnov were pushing. Only a pooling of forces could save the Reds, but choosing a common commander was not easy. Gradually, one name made its way through the chorus of voices: "Klim! Let's choose Klim!" A short, sturdy man in a leather jacket and oiled boots was pushed forward.
- Well, come on, - he denied. - What kind of military man am I?
- Do not play the fool, command! - rushed in response.
Finally he waved his hand.
- Only my conversation is short. If you are not afraid to die - go, if you are afraid - to hell!
So Klim Voroshilov became the commander of the 5th Soviet Army. Later it turned out that he had been preparing these elections for two weeks, persuading and sometimes intimidating the violent red leaders. Simple in appearance, even naive, he possessed remarkable cunning and iron will.
And without these qualities, he would not have lasted so many years on the political Olympus.
Comrade Volodya
Voroshilov was born in January 1881 in the Luhansk region, in the village of Verkhnee - today the city of Lisichansk. In his memoirs, unpretentiously titled "Stories about Life", he recalled childhood pictures: the endless steppe with mine waste heaps, the wooded bank of the Seversky Donets, the ever-hungry horde of brothers and sisters. Father Efrem Andreevich was a hot-tempered man, did not tolerate injustice, therefore he did not succeed in life. Losing one job after another, he ended up in a penny position of a track inspector. Quiet, pious mother Maria Vasilievna meekly endured poverty and beatings from her husband. She hired as cooks, laundresses, and when there was no money at all, she sent the children to beg. At the age of seven, Klim was given to a shepherd, and then to a mine, where from morning to evening he chose the rock from the mined coal for 10 kopecks a day.
A casual acquaintance, teacher Ryzhkov, got the guy to school, and then to a metallurgical plant in Lugansk. And then - everything, like many others: the Social Democratic circle, participation in rallies and strikes, the party pseudonym Volodya, denunciations to the police, transportation of twenty smuggled revolvers to Rostov, meeting with Lenin in Stockholm at the IV Congress of the RSDLP. After meeting the real Volodya, he staged a real revolution in Lugansk with the arson of the prison. Arrest, three years of northern exile …
And a mad love for the black-eyed Golda Gorbman, the daughter of an Odessa broker, exiled to Kholmogory for participating in the Socialist-Revolutionary underground.
According to the laws of the time, exiles could marry if the bride converted to Orthodoxy. Golda agreed and became Catherine. They lived together for almost half a century, and Voroshilov - a rare case for the Bolshevik leaders - remained faithful to his wife. Even after her botched thyroid surgery turned her into an overweight, swollen old woman. Their family idyll was spoiled only by the absence of children. However, not for long: in Tsaritsyn they adopted a three-year-old Petya, whose parents were shot by whites. Then - nine-year-old Lenya, the son of a factory friend Klim. Then - the children of the deceased Mikhail Frunze Timur and Tatiana.
The Voroshilovs raised all of them as their own children, and all their sons later became military men.
Commander
Retreating with the 5th Army to the Volga, the newly-minted army commander took over the 10th Army, which defended Tsaritsyn from the whites. This city was the only road that connected the Soviet Republic with the outside world. Here the Luhansk locksmith showed himself for the first time in all its glory - he led the fighters into the attack with a Mauser in his hand, urging on the lagging behind with obscenities and kicks. And after the battles he relaxed so much that even in the newspaper Pravda it was reported in paints how a drunken Voroshilov in Tsaritsyn was driving girls in troika, danced "lady", and then had a fight with a patrol who came to appease him. And thus, he "discredited the Soviet regime."
The article was published at the suggestion of Trotsky, with whom relations did not work out right away. The all-powerful People's Commissar of War was irritated by the independence of the "red general", who could not stand the former tsarist officers. Voroshilov sent the military experts sent from Moscow to prison instead of the headquarters, which overwhelmed Trotsky's patience. Klim was sent to Ukraine, where everyone fought against everyone: white, red, Petliurists, Makhnovists, countless gangs of "greens".
In this confusion, Voroshilov felt like a fish in water.
He relied on Semyon Budyonny and his 1st Cavalry Army, which was atypical for Soviet canons: it was replenished and fed at the expense of the local population, in the occupied areas it behaved like a gang of robbers, and above all, it valued courage and loyalty to comrades. Voroshilov also earned respect here, participating on an equal basis with everyone in horse attacks; in the saddle, he did not behave well, but he shot well and gave commands in a thunderous voice.
Budyonny recalled:
"Clement Efremovich, hot by nature, changed in battle and became unusually cold-blooded. From his appearance it seemed that he was not participating in an attack, where they could kill, but as if in a sports competition."
He and in March 1921, at the head of the combined detachment of delegates to the 10th Party Congress, went to suppress the Kronstadt rebellion ahead, not hiding from bullets. And miraculously remained intact: the losses among the storming forces (as usual under the command of Voroshilov) were enormous.
People's Commissar of Defense
Tukhachevsky, the recognized leader of the army progressives, said of Voroshilov: "Of course, he is very dubious, but he has that positive quality that he does not climb into wise men and readily agrees with everything."
Voroshilov also agreed with Stalin, who demanded an early restructuring of the army. The new people's commissar of defense led the army for 15 years, during which the mass production of weapons was established. If in 1928 there were only 9 tanks in the Red Army, then in 1937 there were almost 17 thousand, more than in any other country in the world. The Pacific and Northern fleets were created on the sea borders, and the construction of torpedo boats and submarines began. They often talk about the role of Tukhachevsky in the creation of the airborne troops, but Voroshilov is equally responsible for this. True, when Budyonny offered him to jump with a parachute himself, the 50-year-old people's commissar chose to refuse (Budyonny jumped, for which he received a reprimand from Stalin).
He also agreed with the leader in 1937, signing as a member of the Politburo "execution lists" for thousands of compatriots. And giving sanctions for the arrest of officers, never interceding for someone. When it came to his longtime opponent Tukhachevsky and his associates, Kliment Efremovich put a resolution on the list: "Comrade Yezhov. Take all the scoundrels." In the letter, one of the "scoundrels", Iona Yakir, assured Voroshilov of his innocence. The one who was friends with Yakir's families, scribbled on the letter: "I doubt the honesty of the dishonest person."
The People's Commissar for Skin felt that protest against repression and even insufficient zeal could make him the next victim.
It was rumored that when the Chekists came to arrest Yekaterina Davydovna, he, with a pistol in his hands, forced them to retreat. In fact, the husband would have meekly given his wife, as many of his comrades-in-arms did, but Stalin did not encroach on her. It seems that he was convinced of the absolute loyalty of the "first marshal."
But the "small victorious war" with Finland, which turned into huge sacrifices, did not save him from disfavor. After "debriefing" in May 1940, Marshal Timoshenko took the post of People's Commissar of Defense.
In the war and after
On the Western Front, he did his usual thing - he encouraged and punished. When neither one nor the other helped to stop the onslaught of the Germans, the marshal was transferred to Leningrad. There he managed to detain the enemy and even organized a counteroffensive near Soltsy, surrounding Manstein's tank corps. Out of habit, he walked in a line of soldiers - with a pistol on German tanks. But in this war, "cavalry" methods no longer worked. The Germans closed the blockade ring …
But he turned out to be a diplomat much better than a strategist. Voroshilov conducted difficult negotiations on an armistice with Romania, Finland, Hungary - not knowing a single language, he easily found a common language with representatives of various countries. And he found himself completely at ease after Stalin's death, when instead of the faceless Shvernik he was appointed Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. The formal head of state! In this position, he traveled all over the world, receiving many gifts - a rock crystal pagoda from Mao Zedong, a carved elephant tusk from Ho Chi Minh, a gold cigarette case from Marshal Tito …
It was only in his old age that the super-cautious Voroshilov blundered, joining the "anti-party group" of Molotov and Kaganovich. I had to humiliate repentance, and he was spared - perhaps because he was very upset by the recent death of Yekaterina Davydovna. She had cancer ("crustacean", she said), and her husband spent long hours near her bed, sang her favorite songs, tried to cheer. Maybe only with her he was sincere in his life …
On December 3, 1969, Kliment Efremovich died, a little short of the age of 89. When reproached for conformity, he invariably replied:
"I don't quarrel with anyone - I want to be buried in Red Square."
The dream has come true: twice Hero of the Soviet Union, Hero of Socialist Labor, holder of more than 200 orders and medals from different countries rests at the Kremlin wall next to his friend Budyonny, who briefly survived him.
