Kliment Voroshilov

Russian Revolution and Civil War

Voroshilov was in Petrograd (St Petersburg) during the February Revolution, but returned to Lugansk, where he was chairman of the town soviet, and was elected to the Constituent Assembly. His military career began early in 1918, when he was given command of the Fifth Ukrainian Army, which was made up of a few scattered units, who were driven out of Ukraine by the German army. After a long, hazardous retreat, his group reached Tsaritsyn, where Stalin was posted in summer 1918 as representative of the central party leadership, and where Voroshilov was given command of the Tenth Army. Stalin and Voroshilov led the Red Army's 1918 defense of Tsaritsyn. They also sponsored the creation of the first Red Cavalry unit, commanded by Semyon Budyonny, which was composed chiefly of peasants from southern Russia. In Tsaritsyn, Voroshilov clashed with Leon Trotsky, the People's Commissar for War, who considered him undisciplined and unfit to command an army, and in October 1918 threatened him with court-martial. Voroshilov was transferred to Ukraine, as commander of the Kharkiv military district, and later People's Commissar for War in the Ukraine soviet republic. He sided with the 'Military Opposition', who opposed the formation of a centralised army, preferring to rely on local mobile units, and objected to the recruitment into the Red Army of former officers from the Tsarist army. Later, during the Polish–Soviet War, Voroshilov was political commissar with Budyonny‘s First Cavalry.

Interwar period

Voroshilov served as a member of the Central Committee from his election in 1921 until 1961. In April 1921, he was appointed commander of the North Caucasus military district. In March 1924, he was promoted to the post of commander of the Moscow military district. In 1925, after the death of Mikhail Frunze, Voroshilov was appointed People's Commissar for Military and Navy Affairs and Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR, a post he held until 1934. Despite the high offices he held, Voroshilov appears not to have been part in the inner leadership. In November 1930, the chairman of the Russian government, Sergey Syrtsov, alleged that a "tiny group", which excluded Voroshilov but included nominally much less senior figures such as Pavel Postyshev, was making decisions "behind the back of the Politburo".

His main accomplishment in this period was to move key Soviet war industries east of the Urals, so that the Soviet Union could strategically retreat, while keeping its manufacturing capability intact. Frunze's political position adhered to that of the Troika (Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev, Stalin), but Stalin preferred to have a close, personal ally in charge (as opposed to Frunze, a "Zinovievite"). Frunze was urged by a group of Stalin's hand-picked doctors to have surgery to treat an old stomach ulcer, despite previous doctors' recommendations to avoid surgery and Frunze's own unwillingness. He died on the operating table of a massive overdose of chloroform, an anaesthetic. Voroshilov became a full member of the newly formed Politburo in 1926, remaining a member until 1960.

Voroshilov was appointed People's Commissar (Minister) for Defence in 1934 and a Marshal of the Soviet Union in 1935.

The Great Purge

During the first of the Moscow trials, in August 1936, Voroshilov was one of four Politburo members who signed the order that appeals for clemency were to be denied and that the defendants were to be executed without delay. He was also of the main speakers at the March 1937 plenum of the Central Committee, which ended with the arrests of Nikolai Bukharin and Alexei Rykov, whom Voroshilov denounced as "renegades". In the early stages, he seemed to have believed that the purge would not affect the armed forces, and was seemingly unprepared for the arrest of Marshal Tukhachevsky and others in April and May. Voroshilov did not personally share the paranoia towards upper-class elements of the officer corps. He openly declared that the saboteurs in the Red Army were few in number and tried to save the lives of officers like Lukin, who would serve with distinction during the Second World War, and Sokolov-Strakhov, and he was sometimes successful. But on 30 May, he telephoned the commander of the Ukraine military district, Iona Yakir, ordering him to take a train to Moscow for a meeting of the Military Revolutionary Council, knowing that he would be arrested on the way. When the Council met on 1 June 1937, Voroshilov vacated the chair to deliver a report in which he said, apologetically: "I could not believe we would reveal so many and such scoundrels in the ranks of the highest command of our glorious, our valiant Workers' and Peasants' Army."

After that, he played a central role in Stalin's Great Purge of the 1930s, denouncing many of his own military colleagues and subordinates when asked to do so by Stalin. He wrote personal letters to exiled former Soviet officers and diplomats such as commissar Mikhail Ostrovsky, asking them to return voluntarily to the Soviet Union and falsely reassuring them that they would not face retribution from authorities. Voroshilov personally signed 185 documented execution lists, fourth among the Soviet leadership after Molotov, Stalin and Kaganovich. He had no problem denouncing officers he disliked such as Tukhachevsky.

Despite taking part in the purging of many "mechanisers" (supporters of wide usage of tanks rather than cavalry) from the Red Army, Voroshilov became convinced that reliance on cavalry should be decreased while more modern arms should receive higher priority. Marshal Budyonny tried to recruit him to his cause of protecting the status of cavalry in the Red Army but Voroshilov openly declared his intention to do the opposite. He praised the army's combined arms warfare capabilities as well as the high quality and ability to take initiative of the officers during the 1936 summer manoeuvers. However he also pointed out issues in the Red Army as a whole in his full report. Among the issues he pointed out were insufficient communication, ineffective staffs, insufficient cooperation between arms, and the rudimentary nature of the command structure in tank units and other modern arms.

When the Great Purge ended, some reforms were undertaken by the high command to reconcile Red Army doctrine (for example deep operations doctrine) with the real state of the Red Army. The politically appointed commanders of the post-purge Red Army saw that the army, especially after the purge, was not suitable to carry out deep operations style warfare. Commanders such as Voroshilov and Kulik were among the instigators of these reforms which positively impacted the Red Army. These commanders themselves turned out not to be able to carry out such operations in practice. Likewise, Voroshilov and Kulik turned out to be unable to institute the necessary reforms. One of the reforms that was implemented was a reorganization of Red Army field units, which accidentally moved Red Army organization to a far less advanced state than it had been in 1936. This reorganization was conceived by Kulik but put into practice by Voroshilov.

When territorial units were abolished Voroshilov noted that among the reasons for disbanding them was inability to train conscripts in the use of modern technology. He had openly proclaimed that the system was inadequate in an era in which imperialist powers (such as Germany) were expanding the capabilities of their armies. The territorial units had been very unpopular, not only with Voroshilov, but with the Red Army leadership a whole. They were hopelessly ineffective: territorial conscript Alexey Grigorovich Maslov noted that he never fired a shot during his training, while it was noted that these units only underwent real training in the one month a year when experienced veterans returned.

World War II

Voroshilov commanded Soviet troops during the Winter War from November 1939 to January 1940 but, due to poor Soviet planning and Voroshilov's incompetence as a general, the Red Army suffered about 320,000 casualties compared to 70,000 Finnish casualties. When the leadership gathered at Stalin's dacha at Kuntsevo, Stalin shouted at Voroshilov for the losses; Voroshilov replied in kind, blaming the failure on Stalin for eliminating the Red Army's best generals in his purges. Voroshilov followed this retort by smashing a platter of food on the table. Nikita Khrushchev said it was the only time he ever witnessed such an outburst. Voroshilov was nonetheless made the scapegoat for the initial failures in Finland. He was later replaced as Defense Commissar by Semyon Timoshenko. Voroshilov was then made Deputy Premier responsible for cultural matters. Voroshilov initially argued that thousands of Polish army officers captured in September 1939 should be released, but he later signed the order for their execution in the Katyn massacre of 1940.

Between 1941 and 1944, Voroshilov was a member of the State Defense Committee.

After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Voroshilov became commander of the short-lived Northwestern Direction (July to August 1941), controlling several fronts. In September 1941 he commanded the Leningrad Front. Working alongside military commander Andrei Zhdanov as German advances threatened to cut off Leningrad, he displayed considerable personal bravery in defiance of heavy shelling at Ivanovskoye; at one point he rallied retreating troops and personally led a counter-attack against German tanks armed only with a pistol. However, the style of counterattack he launched had long since been abandoned by strategists and drew mostly contempt from his military colleagues; he failed to prevent the Germans from surrounding Leningrad and he was dismissed from his post and replaced by Georgy Zhukov on 8 September 1941. Stalin had a political need for popular wartime leaders, however, and Voroshilov remained as an important figurehead.

Post war

Hungary

Between 1945 and 1947, Voroshilov supervised the establishment of the socialist republic in postwar Hungary. He attributed the poor showing of the Hungarian Communist Party in the October 1945 Budapest municipal elections to the number of minorities in leadership positions, arguing that it was "detrimental to the party that its leaders are not of Hungarian origin".

1952–1953 Soviet leadership

In 1952, Voroshilov was appointed a member of the Presidium of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Stalin's death on 5 March 1953 prompted major changes in the Soviet leadership. On 15 March 1953, Voroshilov was approved as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (i.e., the head of state) with Nikita Khrushchev as First Secretary of the Communist Party and Georgy Malenkov as Premier of the Soviet Union. Voroshilov, Malenkov, and Khrushchev brought about the 26 June 1953 arrest of Lavrenty Beria after Stalin's death.

One of Voroshilov's responsibilities as chairman of the Presidium was to oversee the appeal review of Soviet death row inmates. Analysis by Jeffrey S. Hardy and Yana Skorobogatov describe his role thus:

"Chairman Voroshilov presided over the meetings and clearly had the most influential voice, but split votes were not uncommon and Voroshilov was sometimes outvoted... Throughout his tenure as Presidium chair, he behaved like someone who believed that one should follow established procedure and not act too quickly in matters of life and death."

Hardy and Skorobogatov indicate that Voroshilov frequently exerted his influence on the committee toward leniency, especially in the case of those who expressed repentance in their appeal documents and those convicted of crimes of passion or under the influence of alcohol; he judged those convicted of political crimes or acts with financial motives more harshly. During his tenure, many individuals sentenced to death had their punishments commuted to prison terms of varying lengths. The authors of the study observe that his successor, Brezhnev, took a noticeably harder line in appeals cases.

However, the contrast between Voroshilov's relatively magnanimous attitude toward pardon cases in the 1950s with his well-documented participation in the deadly purges of the 1930s (as described above) was noted even at the time by Khrushchev, who asked him, "So when were you acting according to your conscience, then or now?"

Fall from grace

After Khrushchev removed most of Stalin's closest associates, such as Molotov and Malenkov, from the party, Voroshilov's career began to fade. On 7 May 1960, the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union granted Voroshilov's request for retirement and elected Leonid Brezhnev chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Council (the head of state). The Central Committee also relieved him of duties as a member of the Party Presidium (as the Politburo had been called since 1952) on 16 July 1960. In October 1961, his political defeat was complete at the 22nd party congress when he was excluded from election to the Central Committee.

Following Khrushchev's fall from power, Soviet leader Brezhnev brought Voroshilov out of retirement into a figurehead political post. Voroshilov was again re-elected to the Central Committee in 1966. Voroshilov was awarded a second medal of Hero of the Soviet Union 1968.

Death

During a winter night in 1969, Voroshilov started to feel unwell. His family proposed to call an ambulance immediately, but he adamantly refused. In the morning he put on his military uniform, and after calling a car, he went to the hospital himself, fully decorated. Voroshilov died on 2 December, at the age of 88, and was buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis, in one of the twelve individual tombs located between the Lenin Mausoleum and the Kremlin Wall.

Personal life

Voroshilov was married to Ekaterina Voroshilova, born Golda Gorbman, a Ukrainian Jew from Mardarovka. She changed her name when she converted to Orthodox Christianity in order to be allowed to marry Voroshilov. They met while both were exiled in Arkhangelsk, where Ekaterina was sent in 1906. While both serving on the Tsaritsyn Front in 1918, where Ekaterina was helping orphans, they adopted a four-year-old orphan boy who they named Petya. They also adopted the children of Mikhail Frunze following his death in 1925. During Stalin's rule, they lived in the Kremlin at the Horse Guards.

His personality as it was described by Molotov in 1974: "Voroshilov was nice, but only in certain times. He always stood for the political line of the party, because he was from a working class, a common man, very good orator. He was clean, yes. And he was personally devoted to Stalin. But his devotion was not very strong. However in this period he advocated Stalin very actively, supported him in everything, though not entirely sure in everything. It also affected their relationship. This is a very complex issue. This must be taken into account to understand why Stalin treated him critically and not invited him at all our conversations. At least at private ones. But he came by himself. Stalin frowned. Under Khrushchev, Voroshilov behaved badly."

Honours and awards

Soviet Union

The Kliment Voroshilov (KV) series of tanks, used in World War II, was named after him. Two towns were also named after him: Voroshilovsk in Donbas (now Alchevsk) Voroshilovgrad in Ukraine (now changed back to the historical Luhansk) and Voroshilov in the Soviet Far East (now renamed Ussuriysk after the Ussuri river), as well as the General Staff Academy in Moscow. Stavropol was called Voroshilovsk from 1935 to 1943.

• Hero of the Soviet Union, two times (No. 10840 – 3 February 1956 (in conjunction with his 75th birthday), No. 47 – 22 February 1968 (in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the Armed Forces of the USSR))
• Hero of Socialist Labour (No. 10268 – 7 May 1960)
• Order of Lenin, eight times (No. 880 – 23 February 1935, No. 3582 – 22 February 1938, No. 14851 – 3 February 1941, No. 26411 – 21 February 1945, No. 128065 – 3 February 1951, No. 313410 – 3 February 1956, No. 331807 – 3 February 1961, No. 340967 – 22 February 1968)
• Order of the Red Banner, six times (No. 47 – 26 June 1919, No. 629 – 2 April 1921, No. 27 – 3–2 December 1925, No. 5 – 4–22 February 1930, No. 1 – 5–3 November 1944, No. 1–24 June 1948)
• Order of Suvorov, 1st class (No. 125 – 22 February 1944)
• Order of the Red Banner of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (17 February 1930)
• Order of the Red Banner of the Tajik SSR (No. 148 – 14 January 1933)
• Order of the Red Banner ZSFSR (25 February 1933)
• Jubilee Medal "XX Years of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army" (22 February 1938)
• Medal "For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945" (1945)
• Medal "For the Defence of Leningrad"
• Medal "For the Defence of Moscow"
• Medal "For the Defence of the Caucasus"
• Medal "In Commemoration of the 800th Anniversary of Moscow" (21 September 1947)
• Jubilee Medal "30 Years of the Soviet Army and Navy" (22 February 1948)
• Jubilee Medal "40 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR" (17 February 1958)
• Jubilee Medal "50 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR"
• Jubilee Medal "Twenty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945" (1965)
• Honorary Revolutionary Weapon (1920, 1968)

Foreign awards

Mongolia

• Hero of the Mongolian People's Republic (29 May 1957)
• Order of Sukhbaatar, twice
• Order of the Red Banner
• Order of the Polar Star

Finland

• Grand Cross of the Order of the White Rose of Finland (1955)

Turkey

• Honorary citizen of İzmir, November 1933; in İzmir a street was also named after him. In 1951, it was renamed "Plevne Bulvarı".