Mikhail Tukhachevsky (1893 – 1937)
Soviet military commander, chief of the Red Army (1925–1928), and one of the most prominent victims of Stalin's Great Purge of the late 1930s.
Page 1 of 1
Lenin sensed that Tukhachevsky was a kindred spirit. He delegated the most responsible jobs to the obscure lieutenant.
Tukhachevsky hid Napoleon's baton in his rucksack.
There can be no doubt that if we had been victorious on the Vistula, the revolutionary fires would have reached the entire continent.
I am convinced that all that is needed in order to achieve what I want is bravery and self-confidence. I certainly have enough self-confidence...I told myself that I shall either be a general at thirty, or that I shall not be alive by then.
Tukhachevsky was an especially damaging loss for the army and the state.
Many desire it. We are a slack people but deeply destructive. Should there be a revolution, only God knows where it will end. I think that a constitutional regime would mean the end of Russia. We need a despot!
I am also pretty sure that the purge in the Red Army had a great deal to do with Stalin's belief in an imminent war with Germany. What did Tukhachevsky stand for? People of the French Deuxieme Buereau told me long ago that Tukhachevsky was pro-German. And the Chechs told me the extraordinary story of Tukhachevsky's visit to Prague, when towards the end of a banquet - he had got rather drunk - he blurted out that an agreement with Hitler was the only hope for both Czechoslovakia and Russia. And he then proceeded to abuse Stalin. The Czechs did not fail to report this to Kremlin, and that was the end of Tukhachevsky - and so many of his followers.
Page 1 of 1