Vasily Blyukher
Encyclopedia
Vasily Konstantinovich Blyukher (also spelled Bliukher, Blücher, etc., ( – November 9, 1938), Soviet
military commander, was among the prominent victims of Joseph Stalin
's Great Purge
of the late 1930s.
Blyukher was born into a Russian peasant family in village Barschinka, in Yaroslavl Governorate. Despite his German surname, he was not of German descent as is sometimes written: the name was given to his family by a 19th century landlord after a famous Prussia
n Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher
. A factory worker before World War I, he joined the army of the Russian Empire
in 1914 and served as a non-commissioned officer
until he was discharged in 1915 after being seriously wounded in the Great Retreat of that year. In 1916 he joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party
, and took part in the Russian Revolution of 1917
in Samara
.
In late November 1917 he was sent into Chelyabinsk
to suppress Alexander Dutov
's revolt as Red Guard
commissar. Blyukher joined the Red Army
in 1918 and was soon a commander. During the Russian Civil War
he was one of the outstanding figures on the Bolshevik side. After Czech Legion Revolt started, in August–September 1918 the 10,000-strong South Urals Partisan Army under Blyukher's command marched 1,500 km in 40 days of continuous fighting to attack the White
forces from the rear, then join with regular Red Army units. For this achievement in September 1918 he became the first recipient of the Order of the Red Banner
(later he was awarded it four more times: twice in 1921 and twice in 1928), his citation saying: "The raid made by Comrade Blyukher forces under impossible conditions can only be equated with Suvorov's crossings in Switzerland
."
After the force rejoined the Red Army lines in the 3rd Red Army area, Blyukher's force was reorganised as the 51st Division, which he later led to further triumphs against Baron Wrangel
in November 1920.(John Erickson, 1962)
After the Civil War, he served as military commander of the Far Eastern Republic
in 1921-1922. From 1924 to 1927 Blyukher was a Soviet military adviser in China
, where he used the name Galen (after the name of his wife, Galina) while attached to Chiang Kai-Shek
's military headquarters. He was responsible for the military planning of the Northern Expedition which began the Kuomintang
unification of China. Among those he instructed in this period was Lin Biao
, later a leading figure in the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army. Chiang allowed Blyukher to "escape" after his anti communist purge. On his return he was given command of the Ukraine military district
, and then in 1929 he was transferred to the vitally important military command in the Soviet Far East, known as the Special Red Banner Eastern Army
(OKDVA).
Based at Khabarovsk
, Blyukher exercised a degree of autonomy in the Far East unusual for a Soviet military commander. With Japan
steadily extending its grip on China
and hostile to the Soviet Union, the Far East was an active military command. In the Russo-Chinese Chinese Eastern Railroad War of 1929-1930
he defeated the Chinese warlord forces in a lightning campaign. For this outstanding achievement he became the first recipient of the Order of the Red Star
in September 1930. In 1935 he was made a Marshal of the Soviet Union
. In July and August 1938 he commanded the Soviet Far East Front
in a less decisive action against the Japanese at the Battle of Lake Khasan
, on the border between the Soviet Union and Japanese-occupied Korea
.
The importance of the Far East Front gave Blyukher a certain degree of immunity from Stalin's purge of Red Army command, which had begun in 1937 with the execution of Mikhail Tukhachevsky
. In fact, Blyukher had been a member of the tribunal that convicted Tukhachevsky. In 1938 he was accused of inadequate armed forces leadership during the battle of Lake Khasan
and dismissed from his post. On October 22 he was arrested, convicted of espionage
for Japan
. A contributory factor in Blyukher's downfall was the defection to Japan in June, 1938, of the NKVD
chief in the Far East, Genrikh Lyushkov
, who feared arrest.
In prison Blyukher refused to confess and was never formally tried. He was severely tortured in Lefortovo jail in Moscow
, which according to one source led to his death on November 9, 1938, though another says he was shot on Joseph Stalin
's orders. When people began to ask on his whereabouts they were told that he was fighting in China under a pseudonym. His death was officially known in 1956 when he was posthumously rehabilitated. He continues to be a popular figure in Russia, and a documentary film on his life and several publications by family members have appeared.
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
military commander, was among the prominent victims of Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
's Great Purge
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
of the late 1930s.
Blyukher was born into a Russian peasant family in village Barschinka, in Yaroslavl Governorate. Despite his German surname, he was not of German descent as is sometimes written: the name was given to his family by a 19th century landlord after a famous Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
n Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher
Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher
Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, Fürst von Wahlstatt , Graf , later elevated to Fürst von Wahlstatt, was a Prussian Generalfeldmarschall who led his army against Napoleon I at the Battle of the Nations at Leipzig in 1813 and at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 with the Duke of Wellington.He is...
. A factory worker before World War I, he joined the army of the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
in 1914 and served as a non-commissioned officer
Non-commissioned officer
A non-commissioned officer , called a sub-officer in some countries, is a military officer who has not been given a commission...
until he was discharged in 1915 after being seriously wounded in the Great Retreat of that year. In 1916 he joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party
The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party , also known as Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party or Russian Social Democratic Party, was a revolutionary socialist Russian political party formed in 1898 in Minsk to unite the various revolutionary organizations into one party...
, and took part in the Russian Revolution of 1917
Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...
in Samara
Samara, Russia
Samara , is the sixth largest city in Russia. It is situated in the southeastern part of European Russia at the confluence of the Volga and Samara Rivers. Samara is the administrative center of Samara Oblast. Population: . The metropolitan area of Samara-Tolyatti-Syzran within Samara Oblast...
.
In late November 1917 he was sent into Chelyabinsk
Chelyabinsk
Chelyabinsk is a city and the administrative center of Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, located in the northwestern side of the oblast, south of Yekaterinburg, just to the east of the Ural Mountains, on the Miass River. Population: -History:...
to suppress Alexander Dutov
Alexander Dutov
Alexander Ilyich Dutov , one of the leaders of the Cossack counterrevolution in the Urals, Lieutenant General .Dutov was born in Kazalinsk...
's revolt as Red Guard
Red Guards (Russia)
In the context of the history of Russia and Soviet Union, Red Guards were paramilitary formations consisting of workers and partially of soldiers and sailors formed in the time frame of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
commissar. Blyukher joined the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
in 1918 and was soon a commander. During the Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
he was one of the outstanding figures on the Bolshevik side. After Czech Legion Revolt started, in August–September 1918 the 10,000-strong South Urals Partisan Army under Blyukher's command marched 1,500 km in 40 days of continuous fighting to attack the White
White movement
The White movement and its military arm the White Army - known as the White Guard or the Whites - was a loose confederation of Anti-Communist forces.The movement comprised one of the politico-military Russian forces who fought...
forces from the rear, then join with regular Red Army units. For this achievement in September 1918 he became the first recipient of the Order of the Red Banner
Order of the Red Banner
The Soviet government of Russia established the Order of the Red Banner , a military decoration, on September 16, 1918 during the Russian Civil War...
(later he was awarded it four more times: twice in 1921 and twice in 1928), his citation saying: "The raid made by Comrade Blyukher forces under impossible conditions can only be equated with Suvorov's crossings in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
."
After the force rejoined the Red Army lines in the 3rd Red Army area, Blyukher's force was reorganised as the 51st Division, which he later led to further triumphs against Baron Wrangel
Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel
Baron Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel or Vrangel was an officer in the Imperial Russian army and later commanding general of the anti-Bolshevik White Army in Southern Russia in the later stages of the Russian Civil War.-Life:Wrangel was born in Mukuliai, Kovno Governorate in the Russian Empire...
in November 1920.(John Erickson, 1962)
After the Civil War, he served as military commander of the Far Eastern Republic
Far Eastern Republic
The Far Eastern Republic , sometimes called the Chita Republic, was a nominally independent state that existed from April 1920 to November 1922 in the easternmost part of the Russian Far East...
in 1921-1922. From 1924 to 1927 Blyukher was a Soviet military adviser in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, where he used the name Galen (after the name of his wife, Galina) while attached to Chiang Kai-Shek
Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek was a political and military leader of 20th century China. He is known as Jiǎng Jièshí or Jiǎng Zhōngzhèng in Mandarin....
's military headquarters. He was responsible for the military planning of the Northern Expedition which began the Kuomintang
Kuomintang
The Kuomintang of China , sometimes romanized as Guomindang via the Pinyin transcription system or GMD for short, and translated as the Chinese Nationalist Party is a founding and ruling political party of the Republic of China . Its guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, espoused...
unification of China. Among those he instructed in this period was Lin Biao
Lin Biao
Lin Biao was a major Chinese Communist military leader who was pivotal in the communist victory in the Chinese Civil War, especially in Northeastern China...
, later a leading figure in the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army. Chiang allowed Blyukher to "escape" after his anti communist purge. On his return he was given command of the Ukraine military district
Kiev Military District
The Kiev Military District was a Russian unit of military-administrative division of the Imperial Russian Army and subsequently of the Ukrainian Army, RKKA, and Soviet Armed Forces...
, and then in 1929 he was transferred to the vitally important military command in the Soviet Far East, known as the Special Red Banner Eastern Army
Far Eastern Military District
The Far Eastern Military District was a military district of the Russian Ground Forces. In 2010 it was merged with the Pacific Fleet and part of the Siberian Military District to form the new Eastern Military District....
(OKDVA).
Based at Khabarovsk
Khabarovsk
Khabarovsk is the largest city and the administrative center of Khabarovsk Krai, Russia. It is located some from the Chinese border. It is the second largest city in the Russian Far East, after Vladivostok. The city became the administrative center of the Far Eastern Federal District of Russia...
, Blyukher exercised a degree of autonomy in the Far East unusual for a Soviet military commander. With Japan
Empire of Japan
The Empire of Japan is the name of the state of Japan that existed from the Meiji Restoration on 3 January 1868 to the enactment of the post-World War II Constitution of...
steadily extending its grip on China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
and hostile to the Soviet Union, the Far East was an active military command. In the Russo-Chinese Chinese Eastern Railroad War of 1929-1930
Sino-Soviet conflict (1929)
The Sino–Soviet conflict of 1929 was a minor armed conflict between the Soviet Union and Chinese warlord Zhang Xueliang of the Republic of China over the Manchurian Chinese Eastern Railway....
he defeated the Chinese warlord forces in a lightning campaign. For this outstanding achievement he became the first recipient of the Order of the Red Star
Order of the Red Star
Established on 6 April 1930, the Order of the Red Star was an order of the Soviet Union, given to Red Army and Soviet Navy personnel for "exceptional service in the cause of the defense of the Soviet Union in both war and peace". It was established by Resolution of the Presidium of the CEC of the...
in September 1930. In 1935 he was made a Marshal of the Soviet Union
Marshal of the Soviet Union
Marshal of the Soviet Union was the de facto highest military rank of the Soviet Union. ....
. In July and August 1938 he commanded the Soviet Far East Front
Soviet Far East Front
The Far Eastern Front was a Front — a formation equivalent to a Western Army Group — of the Soviet Army during the Russian Civil War and the Second World War....
in a less decisive action against the Japanese at the Battle of Lake Khasan
Battle of Lake Khasan
The Battle of Lake Khasan and also known as the Changkufeng Incident in China and Japan, was an attempted military incursion of Manchukuo into the territory claimed by the Soviet Union...
, on the border between the Soviet Union and Japanese-occupied Korea
Korea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...
.
The importance of the Far East Front gave Blyukher a certain degree of immunity from Stalin's purge of Red Army command, which had begun in 1937 with the execution of Mikhail Tukhachevsky
Mikhail Tukhachevsky
Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky was a Marshal of the Soviet Union, commander in chief of the Red Army , and one of the most prominent victims of Joseph Stalin's Great Purge.-Early life:...
. In fact, Blyukher had been a member of the tribunal that convicted Tukhachevsky. In 1938 he was accused of inadequate armed forces leadership during the battle of Lake Khasan
Battle of Lake Khasan
The Battle of Lake Khasan and also known as the Changkufeng Incident in China and Japan, was an attempted military incursion of Manchukuo into the territory claimed by the Soviet Union...
and dismissed from his post. On October 22 he was arrested, convicted of espionage
Espionage
Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...
for Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. A contributory factor in Blyukher's downfall was the defection to Japan in June, 1938, of the NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
chief in the Far East, Genrikh Lyushkov
Genrikh Lyushkov
Genrikh Samoilovich Lyushkov was an officer in the Soviet secret police and its highest-ranking defector....
, who feared arrest.
In prison Blyukher refused to confess and was never formally tried. He was severely tortured in Lefortovo jail in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, which according to one source led to his death on November 9, 1938, though another says he was shot on Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
's orders. When people began to ask on his whereabouts they were told that he was fighting in China under a pseudonym. His death was officially known in 1956 when he was posthumously rehabilitated. He continues to be a popular figure in Russia, and a documentary film on his life and several publications by family members have appeared.
Honours and awards
- Two Orders of Lenin (1931, 1938)
- Order of Red Banner of RSFSROrder of the Red BannerThe Soviet government of Russia established the Order of the Red Banner , a military decoration, on September 16, 1918 during the Russian Civil War...
, three times- Resolution of the Central Executive Committee on 30 September 1918, presented 11 May 1919 by the Special Representative at the headquarters of the Central Executive Committee of the 3rd Army on the Eastern Front;
- Order 197 of 14 June 1921 - for the battles on the Eastern Front, the 30th Infantry Division;
- Order 221 of RVSR, 20 June 1921 - for the assault on Perekopa by 51st Infantry Division;
- Order of Red Banner of the USSR, twice
- Order RVS USSR 664 of 25 October 1928 - for the defence of the Kakhovka bridgehead;
- Order RVS USSR 101 1928 - in commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the Red Army;
- Order of the Red Star Order of the Red StarEstablished on 6 April 1930, the Order of the Red Star was an order of the Soviet Union, given to Red Army and Soviet Navy personnel for "exceptional service in the cause of the defense of the Soviet Union in both war and peace". It was established by Resolution of the Presidium of the CEC of the...
(1930) - Medal «XX years of the Red Army" (1938)
- Badge "5 years of the Cheka-GPU" (1932)
- Cross of St. GeorgeCross of St. Georgethumb|Original Cross of St. George.Ist and 2nd class were in gold.The Cross of St. George ', or simply the George's Cross, was, until 1913, officially known as the Sign of Distinction of the Military Order of St. George....
, 3rd and 4th classes - Medal of St. George