Ieronim Petrovich Uborevich (January 14, 1896 near Užpaliai, - June 12, 1937
MoscowMoscow is the capital and the largest city of Russia. It is also the largest metropolitan area in Europe, and ranks among the largest urban areas in the world. Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the world, a...
) was a Soviet military commander of the
Red ArmyThe Red Army The Red Army The Red Army was the Soviet government’s revolutionary militia beginning in the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the USSR. Since 1946, after the Second World War, it was called the Soviet Army.The 'Red...
during the
Russian Civil WarThe Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed and the Soviets under the domination of the Bolshevik party assumed power, first in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a multi-party war that...
, and eventually attained the rank of Army Commander, 1st Rank, equivalent to
General of the ArmyGeneral of the Army is a military rank used in some countries to denote a senior military leader, usually a General in command of a nation's Army. It may also be the title given to a General who commands an Army in the field....
after tsarist ranks were reintroduced in 1940.
Uborevich began his military career during World War I, graduating from artillery school in 1916 and serving as a junior officer in the imperial Russian army.
Ieronim Petrovich Uborevich (January 14, 1896 near Užpaliai, - June 12, 1937
MoscowMoscow is the capital and the largest city of Russia. It is also the largest metropolitan area in Europe, and ranks among the largest urban areas in the world. Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the world, a...
) was a Soviet military commander of the
Red ArmyThe Red Army The Red Army The Red Army was the Soviet government’s revolutionary militia beginning in the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the USSR. Since 1946, after the Second World War, it was called the Soviet Army.The 'Red...
during the
Russian Civil WarThe Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed and the Soviets under the domination of the Bolshevik party assumed power, first in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a multi-party war that...
, and eventually attained the rank of Army Commander, 1st Rank, equivalent to
General of the ArmyGeneral of the Army is a military rank used in some countries to denote a senior military leader, usually a General in command of a nation's Army. It may also be the title given to a General who commands an Army in the field....
after tsarist ranks were reintroduced in 1940.
Uborevich began his military career during World War I, graduating from artillery school in 1916 and serving as a junior officer in the imperial Russian army. After the Russian Revolution, he served in a variety of command posts in the Red Army, commanding the 9th, 13th, and 14th Armies as well as in 1922 becoming War Minister of the short-lived
Far Eastern RepublicThe Far Eastern Republic , sometimes called the Chita Republic, was a nominally independent state established at Blagoveshchensk, covering the former Russian Far East and Siberia east of Lake Baikal on April 6, 1920...
, a buffer state between Soviet Russia and Japan. In 1925 he became commander of the North Caucasus Military District, and then in 1928 the Moscow Military District. He served as the Red Army's Director of Armaments from 1928-1931. From 1931-1937, he was commander of the
Belorussian Military DistrictThe Byelorussian Military District was a military district of the Soviet Armed Forces. Originally, the Western Military District, which was formed in April 1924 on the basis of the Russian Civil War era Western Front, was redesignated the Belorussian Military District, with its staff in Smolensk,...
, one of the two (along with the Ukrainian Military District) key commands that would bear the brunt of any Soviet war along its western border.
He was a prominent victim of
Joseph StalinJoseph Stalin was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953...
's purges of the Red Army. In 1937, at the orders of Stalin, Uborevich was tried and executed by the NKVD in a event known as the
Case of Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military OrganizationThe Case of Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization was a 1937 trial of high commanders of the Red Army, also known as "Case of Military" and "Tukhachevsky's Case"...
.
References:
Voennyi entsiklopedicheskii slovar' (Moscow, 1984)
Grazhdanskaia voina i voennaia interventsiia v SSSR: Entsiklopediia (Moscow, 1983)