If the Civil War (1918-1922) and the events on the Chinese Eastern Railway (October-November 1929) were the rise and triumph of Vasily Blucher, then his real tragedy and the starting point of his fall was the first armed conflict on the territory of the USSR - the battles at Lake Khasan ( July-August 1938).
INGLOLOUS DEATH
One of the first five Soviet marshals, the first holder of the honorary military orders of the Red Banner and the Red Star, Vasily Konstantinovich Blyukher, died from cruel torture (according to the conclusion of a forensic expert, death was caused by blockage of the pulmonary artery with a blood clot formed in the veins of the pelvis; an eye was torn out. - Author) in the Lefortovo prison of the NKVD on November 9, 1938. By order of Stalin, his body was taken for a medical examination to the notorious Butyrka and burned in the crematorium. And only 4 months later, on March 10, 1939, the courts sentenced the dead marshal to capital punishment for “espionage for Japan,” “participation in an anti-Soviet right-wing organization and in a military conspiracy.”
By the same decision, Blucher’s first wife Galina Pokrovskaya and his brother’s wife Lydia Bogutskaya were sentenced to death. Four days later, the second wife of the former commander of the Separate Red Banner Far Eastern Army (OKDVA), Galina Kolchugina, was shot. The third, Glafira Bezverkhova, was sentenced exactly two months later by a Special Meeting of the NKVD of the USSR to eight years in forced labor camps. A little earlier, in February, Vasily Konstantinovich’s brother, Captain Pavel Blyukher, the commander of the aviation unit at the OKDVA Air Force headquarters, was also shot (according to other sources, he died in custody in one of the camps in the Urals on May 26, 1943 - Author). Before the arrest of Vasily Blucher, his assistant Pavlov and driver Zhdanov were thrown into the NKVD dungeons. Of the marshal’s five children from three marriages, the eldest, Zoya Belova, was sentenced to 5 years of exile in April 1951; the fate of the youngest, Vasilin (at the time of Blucher’s arrest on October 24, 1938, he was only 8 months old), according to his mother Glafira Lukinichna, who served term and completely rehabilitated (like all other family members, including Vasily Konstantinovich) in 1956, remained unknown.
So what was the reason for the reprisal against such a well-known and respected figure among the people and in the army?
As it turns out, if the Civil War (1918-1922) and the events on the CER (October-November 1929) were the rise and triumph of Vasily Blucher, then his real tragedy and the starting point of his fall was the first armed conflict on the territory of the USSR - the battles near Lake Khasan (July-August 1938).
HASAN CONFLICT
Lake Khasan is located in the mountainous part of the Primorsky Territory and has dimensions of about 800 m in width and a length of 4 km from south-east to north-west. To the west of it are the Zaozernaya (Zhangu) and Bezymyannaya (Shatsao) hills. Their heights are relatively small (up to 150 m), but from their peaks a view of the Posyetskaya Valley opens up, and in clear weather the outskirts of Vladivostok are visible. Just over 20 kilometers to the west of Zaozernaya flows the border river Tumen-Ula (Tumenjiang, or Tumannaya). In its lower reaches there was the junction of the Manchurian-Korean-Soviet border. In Soviet pre-war times, the state border with these countries was not marked. Everything was decided on the basis of the Hunchun Protocol, signed with China by the tsarist government in 1886. The border was recorded on maps, but only license plates were on the ground. Many heights in this border zone were not controlled by anyone.
Moscow believed that the border with Manchuria “passes along the mountains located to the west of Lake Khasan,” considering the Zaozernaya and Bezymyannaya hills, which were of strategic importance in this area, to be Soviet. The Japanese, who controlled the government of Manchukuo and disputed these heights, had a different opinion.
In our opinion, the reasons for the start of the Khasan conflict were at least three circumstances.
Firstly, June 13 at 5 o'clock. 30 min. In the morning, it was in this area (east of Hunchun), controlled by border guards of the 59th Posyet border detachment (chief Grebennik), who ran to the adjacent territory with secret documents “to transfer himself under the protection of the authorities of Manchukuo,” head of the NKVD Directorate for the Far Eastern Territory, State Security Commissioner 3rd rank Genrikh Lyushkov (formerly head of the NKVD for the Azov-Black Sea region).
As the defector (later advisor to the command of the Kwantung Army and the General Staff of Japan until August 1945) told the Japanese authorities and newspapermen, the real reasons for his escape were that he allegedly “came to the conviction that Leninism is no longer the fundamental law of the Communist Party in the USSR.” , that “The Soviets are under the personal dictatorship of Stalin,” leading “the Soviet Union to self-destruction and war with Japan, in order with its help to “divert the attention of the people from the internal political situation” in the country. Knowing about the mass arrests and executions in the USSR, in which he himself was directly involved (according to this “prominent security officer”, 1 million people were arrested, including 10 thousand people in the government and in the army - Author), Lyushkov realized in time that the danger of reprisals loomed over him too ", after which he escaped.
Having surrendered to the Manchurian border patrol troops, Lyushkov, according to the testimony of Japanese intelligence officers Koitoro and Onuki, gave them “valuable information about the Soviet Far Eastern army.” The 5th Department of the Japanese General Staff immediately fell into confusion, as it clearly underestimated the true number of Soviet troops in the Far East, which had an “overwhelming superiority” over their own troops stationed in Korea and Manchuria. The Japanese came to the conclusion that “this made it virtually impossible to implement the previously drawn up plan for military operations against the USSR.” The defector's information could only be verified in practice - through local clashes.
Secondly, taking into account the obvious “puncture” with crossing the border in the zone of the 59th detachment, its command three times - on July 1.5 and 7 - requested the headquarters of the Far Eastern Border District to give permission to occupy the Zaozernaya height in order to equip its observation positions on it. On July 8, such permission was finally received from Khabarovsk. This became known to the Japanese side through radio interception. On July 11, a Soviet border guard arrived at the Zaozernaya hill, which at night equipped a trench with wire barriers on it, pushing it to the adjacent side beyond the 4-meter border strip.
The Japanese immediately discovered the “border violation.” As a result, Japan's Chargé d'Affaires in Moscow Nishi handed over to the Deputy People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR Stomonyakov a note from his government demanding "to leave the captured Manchu land" and to restore on Zaozernaya "the border that existed there before the appearance of the trenches." In response, the Soviet representative stated that “not a single Soviet border guard even set foot on the adjacent land.” The Japanese were indignant.
And thirdly, on the evening of July 15, on the crest of the Zaozernaya height, three meters from the border line, the head of the engineering service of the Posyet border detachment, Vinevitin, killed the “intruder” - the Japanese gendarme Matsushima - with a rifle shot. On the same day, the Japanese Ambassador to the USSR Shigemitsu visited the Soviet People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs and again categorically demanded the withdrawal of Soviet troops from the heights. Referring to the Hunchun Agreement, Moscow rejected Tokyo’s demands for the second time.
Five days later the Japanese repeated their claims to the heights. At the same time, Ambassador Shigemitsu told the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR Litvinov that “his country has rights and obligations to Manchukuo” and otherwise “Japan will have to come to the conclusion that it is necessary to use force.” In response, the Japanese diplomat heard that “he will not find a successful use of this method in Moscow” and that “a Japanese gendarme was killed on Soviet territory, where he should not have come.”
The knot of contradictions has tightened.
NOT AN INCH OF LAND
In connection with the preparation of the Japanese for armed provocations, on April 23, 1938, combat readiness was increased in the border and internal troops of the Far Eastern Territory. Taking into account the difficult military-political situation developing in the Far East, a meeting of the Main Military Council of the Red Army was held on May 28-31, 1938. It featured a report from the OKDVA commander, Marshal Vasily Blucher, on the state of combat readiness of the army troops. The results of the Council were the transformation of the OKDVA into the Far Eastern Front (DKF) from July 1. By decision of the Defense Committee in June-July, the number of Far Eastern troops was increased by almost 102 thousand people.
On July 16, the command of the 59th Posyet border detachment turned to the headquarters of the 1st Red Banner Army with a request to reinforce the garrison of the Zaozernaya height with one rifle platoon from the support company of the 119th rifle regiment, which arrived in the area of the lake. Hassan back on May 11, by order of Blucher. The platoon was detached, but on July 20 the commander of the DKF ordered it to be taken to its place of permanent deployment. As you can see, even then the perspicacious and experienced marshal clearly did not want to escalate the conflict.
In view of the aggravation of the situation, on July 6, Stalin sent his emissaries to Khabarovsk: the first deputy people's commissar of internal affairs (on July 8, 1938, Beria became another "combat" deputy of the people's commissar Yezhov - author) - the head of the GUGB Frinovsky (in the recent past, the head of the Main Directorate of Border and internal security) and Deputy People's Commissar of Defense - Head of the Political Directorate of the Red Army (from January 6, 1938 - Author) Mehlis with the task of establishing "revolutionary order" in the DKF troops, increasing their combat readiness and "within seven days, carrying out mass operational measures to remove opponents of the Soviet authorities", as well as churchmen, sectarians, suspected of espionage, Germans, Poles, Koreans, Finns, Estonians, etc. living in the region.
The whole country was swept by waves of “the fight against enemies of the people” and “spies.” The emissaries had to find such emissaries at the headquarters of the Far Eastern Front and the Pacific Fleet (among the leadership of the Pacific Fleet alone, 66 people were included in their lists of “enemy agents and accomplices” during the 20 July days). It is no coincidence that Vasily Blucher, after Frinovsky, Mehlis and the head of the political department of the DKF Mazepov visited his home on July 29, confessed to his wife in his hearts: “... sharks have arrived that want to devour me, they will devour me or I don’t know. The second is unlikely." As we now know, the marshal was one hundred percent right.
On July 22, his order was sent to the troops to bring formations and units of the front to full combat readiness. The Japanese attack on Zaozernaya was expected at dawn on the 23rd. There were sufficient reasons for making such a decision.
To carry out this operation, the Japanese command tried to secretly concentrate the 19th Infantry Division of up to 20 thousand people, a brigade of the 20th Infantry Division, a cavalry brigade, 3 separate machine-gun battalions and tank units. Heavy artillery and anti-aircraft guns were brought to the border - up to 100 units in total. Up to 70 combat aircraft were concentrated at nearby airfields in readiness. In the area of sandy islands on the river. Tumen-Ula was equipped with artillery firing positions. Light artillery and machine guns were placed at the height of Bogomolnaya, 1 km from Zaozernaya. A detachment of Japanese Navy destroyers was concentrated in Peter the Great Bay near the territorial waters of the USSR.
On July 25, in the area of border checkpoint # 7, the Japanese fired at the Soviet border guard, and the next day a reinforced Japanese company captured the border height of Devil's Mountain. The situation was heating up day by day. To understand it and the reasons for its aggravation, Marshal Blucher on July 24 sent a commission from the front headquarters to Khasan to investigate. Moreover, only a narrow circle of people knew about its existence. The commission's report to the commander in Khabarovsk was stunning: "... our border guards violated the Manchurian border in the area of the Zaozernaya hill by 3 meters, which led to the outbreak of a conflict on Lake Khasan."
On July 26, by order of Blucher, a support platoon was removed from the Bezymyannaya Hill and only a border detachment of 11 people, led by Lieutenant Alexei Makhalin, was stationed. A company of Red Army soldiers was stationed on Zaozernaya. A telegram from the commander of the DCF "about violation of the Manchurian border" with a proposal for "the immediate arrest of the head of the border section and other culprits in provoking a conflict with the Japanese" was sent to Moscow addressed to People's Commissar of Defense Voroshilov. The “red horseman”’s answer to Blucher was brief and categorical: “Stop fussing with all sorts of commissions and strictly carry out the decisions of the Soviet Government and the orders of the People’s Commissar.” At that time, it seems that open conflict could still be avoided by political means, but its mechanism had already been launched on both sides.
On July 29, at 16:40, Japanese troops in two detachments of up to a company attacked Bezymyannaya Height. 11 Soviet border guards took on an unequal battle. Five of them were killed, and Lieutenant Makhalin was also mortally wounded. The reserve of border guards and the rifle company of Lieutenant Levchenko arrived in time by 18:00, knocking out the Japanese from the heights and dug in. The next day, between the Bezymyannaya and Zaozernaya hills at the heights, a battalion of the 118th Infantry Regiment of the 40th Infantry Division took up defense. The Japanese, with the support of artillery, launched a series of unsuccessful attacks on Bezymyannaya. Soviet soldiers fought to the death. Already the first battles on July 29-30 showed that an unusual incident had ensued.
At 3 o'clock in the morning on July 31, following a strong artillery barrage, two battalions of Japanese infantry attacked the Zaozernaya height and one battalion attacked the Bezymyannaya height. After a fierce, unequal four-hour battle, the enemy managed to occupy the indicated heights. Suffering losses, rifle units and border guards retreated deep into Soviet territory, to Lake Khasan.
From July 31, for more than a week, Japanese troops held these hills. Attacks by Red Army units and border guards were unsuccessful. On the 31st, the chief of staff Stern (previously, under the pseudonym "Grigorovich" fought for a year as the Chief Military Advisor in Spain) and Mehlis arrived on Hassan from the front command. On the same day, the latter reported to Stalin the following: “In the battle area, a real dictator is needed, to whom everything would be subordinated.” The consequence of this on August 1 was a telephone conversation between the leader and Marshal Blucher, in which he categorically “recommended” that the front commander “go to the place immediately” in order to “really fight the Japanese.”
Blucher carried out the order only the next day, flying to Vladivostok together with Mazepov. From there, they were transported to Posiet on a destroyer, accompanied by Pacific Fleet commander Kuznetsov. But the marshal himself was practically not very keen to participate in the operation. Perhaps his behavior was influenced by the well-known TASS report of August 2, which gave unreliable information that the Japanese had captured Soviet territory up to 4 kilometers. Anti-Japanese propaganda was doing its job. And now the whole country, misled by the official statement, began to furiously demand that the presumptuous aggressors be curbed.
On August 1, an order was received from the People's Commissar of Defense, which demanded: “Within our border, sweep away and destroy the invaders who occupied the Zaozernaya and Bezymyannaya heights, using military aviation and artillery.” This task was entrusted to the 39th Rifle Corps, consisting of the 40th and 32nd Rifle Divisions and the 2nd Mechanized Brigade under the command of Brigade Commander Sergeev. Under the current commander of the DKF, Kliment Voroshilov entrusted the general management of the operation to his chief of staff, corps commander Grigory Stern.
On the same day, the Japanese used their aircraft in the area of Lake Khasan. Three Soviet aircraft were shot down by enemy anti-aircraft fire. At the same time, having captured the heights of Zaozernaya and Bezymyannaya, the samurai did not at all strive to continue to capture “whole pieces of Soviet territory,” as claimed in Moscow. Sorge reported from Tokyo that “the Japanese have discovered a desire to resolve all unclear border issues by diplomatic means,” although from August 1 they began strengthening all defensive positions in Manchuria, including concentrating front-line units and reserves “in case of countermeasures from the Soviet side around the collision area , united by the command of the Korean garrison."
In this situation, the offensive of the Soviet troops, due to enemy opposition, shortcomings in the organization of interaction between artillery and infantry, without air support due to bad weather conditions, as well as poor training of personnel and poor logistics, failed every time. In addition, the success of the Red Army's military operations was significantly influenced by the ban on suppressing enemy fire weapons operating from Manchurian and Korean territories, and on any crossing of the state border by our troops. Moscow still feared that the border conflict would escalate into a full-scale war with Tokyo. And finally, on the spot, Mehlis began to constantly interfere in the leadership of formations and units, causing confusion and confusion. Once, when he tried to direct the 40th Infantry Division to advance, no matter what, head-on to the Japanese, along a ravine between two hills, so that the enemy would not “scalp” this formation, Marshal Blucher was forced to intervene and cancel the order of the “party emissary” . All this was considered a front in the near future.
On August 3, the 39th Corps was reinforced by another - the 39th Infantry Division. Stern was appointed commander of the corps. The next day, Voroshilov, in a new operational order # 71ss, “to be ready to repel provocative attacks of the Japanese-Manchus” and “at any moment to deliver a powerful blow to the burrowing, insolent Japanese aggressors along the entire front,” ordered that all troops of the Far Eastern Red Banner Front and the Trans-Baikal Front be put on full combat readiness military district. The order also emphasized: “We don’t want a single inch of foreign land, including Manchurian and Korean, but we will never give up even an inch of our Soviet land to anyone, including the Japanese invaders!” A real war was closer than ever to the threshold of the Soviet Far East.
VICTORY REPORT
By August 4, the 39th Rifle Corps in the Khasan area consisted of about 23 thousand personnel, armed with 237 guns, 285 tanks, 6 armored vehicles and 1 thousand 14 machine guns. The corps was supposed to be covered by the aviation of the 1st Red Banner Army, consisting of 70 fighters and 180 bombers.
A new offensive by Soviet troops on the heights began in the afternoon of August 6. Suffering heavy losses, by the evening they managed to capture only the southeastern slopes of the Zaozernaya heights. The ridge of its northern part and the northwestern command points of the height remained in the hands of the enemy until August 13, until the completion of peace negotiations between the parties. The neighboring heights Chernaya and Bezymyannaya were also occupied by Soviet troops only after reaching a truce, during August 11 and 12. Nevertheless, on August 6, a victorious report was sent to Moscow from the battlefield stating that “our territory has been cleared of the remains of Japanese troops and all border points are firmly occupied by units of the Red Army.” On August 8, another “misinformation” for the Soviet people hit the pages of the central press. And at this time, only on Zaozernaya, from August 8 to 10, the Red Army soldiers repelled up to 20 counterattacks of stubbornly unrelenting Japanese infantry.
At 10 o'clock in the morning on August 11, the Soviet troops received an order to cease fire from 12.00. At 11 o'clock 15 minutes. the guns were unloaded. But the Japanese until 12 o'clock. 30 min. They continued to shell the heights. Then the corps command ordered a powerful fire raid of 70 guns of various calibers on enemy positions within 5 minutes. Only after this did the samurai completely cease fire.
The fact of disinformation regarding the capture of the Khasan Heights by Soviet troops became known in the Kremlin from a report by the NKVD only on August 14. Over the following days, Soviet-Japanese negotiations between military representatives of the two countries took place on the demarcation of the disputed section of the border. The open phase of the conflict has subsided.
The marshal's premonitions were not deceived. On August 31, a meeting of the Main Military Council of the Red Army took place in Moscow. The main issue on the agenda was “Events in the area of Lake Khasan.” After hearing the explanations of the commander of the DKF, Marshal Blucher, and the deputy member of the military council of the front, divisional commissar Mazepov, the Main Military Council came to the following main conclusions:
“1. The combat operations at Lake Khasan were a comprehensive test of the mobilization and combat readiness of not only the units that directly took part in them, but also all the DKFront troops without exception.
2. The events of these few days revealed huge shortcomings in the state of the DC Front... It was discovered that the Far Eastern theater was poorly prepared for war. As a result of such an unacceptable state of the front troops, in this relatively small clash we suffered significant losses: 408 people were killed and 2,807 people were wounded (according to new, updated data, 960 people were killed and 3,279 people were wounded; the overall ratio of losses of the USSR and Japan is 3: 1. - Auth.)..."
The main results of the discussion on the agenda were the disbandment of the DKF Directorate and the removal of Commander Marshal of the Soviet Union Blucher from office.
The main culprit of these “major shortcomings” was primarily named the commander of the DKF, Marshal Vasily Blyukher, who, according to the People’s Commissar of Defense, surrounded himself with “enemies of the people.” The renowned hero was accused of “defeatism, duplicity, indiscipline and sabotaging the armed resistance to Japanese troops.” Leaving Vasily Konstantinovich at the disposal of the Main Military Council of the Red Army, he and his family were sent on vacation to the Voroshilov dacha "Bocharov Ruchei" in Sochi. There he, his wife and brother were arrested. Three weeks after his arrest
Blucher Vasily Konstantinovich (1890-1938), Russian and Soviet commander, hero of the Civil War, Marshal of the Soviet Union (1935).
Born on December 1, 1890 in the village of Barshchinka, Yaroslavl province, into a peasant family that bore as a surname the nickname given by the landowner to its founder in honor of the famous German field marshal.
In 1907, Blucher moved to Moscow and got a job at the Mytishchi Carriage Works. In February 1910, he appealed to the workers to start a strike, for which he was arrested and spent three years in Butyrka prison in Moscow.
In 1914, with the outbreak of World War I, Blücher was mobilized into the army. For several months of participation in battles, he managed to earn the St. George Medal and two St. George Crosses; he was also awarded the rank of non-commissioned officer.
In June 1916 he joined the RSDLP. In the spring of 1917, Blucher moved to Samara and, on instructions from the party, decided to serve as a clerk in a reserve rifle regiment with the goal of conducting revolutionary agitation among the soldiers. After October 1917, he was appointed commissar of the Red Guard detachment and sent to Chelyabinsk, besieged by the troops of Ataman A.I. Dutov.
In May 1918, in connection with the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps and the capture of Chelyabinsk and Samara by the rebels, Blucher's detachment found itself deep behind enemy lines. The Red Guards had to make a 1,500-kilometer trek across the Urals in two months to connect with units of the Red Army. During the campaign, their scattered detachments were united into the Ural Army, the command of which was taken by Blucher. For the Ural campaign he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner No. 1.
In February 1921, he was appointed Minister of War and Commander-in-Chief of the People's Liberation Army of the Far Eastern Republic (FER). In August 1921, Blucher led the defeat of the troops of Baron R. F. Ungern von Sternberg invading from Mongolia. In 1924, in connection with the outbreak of the revolution in China, he was sent there as a military adviser under the name of General Galin. While under the leader of the Chinese revolution, Sun Yat-sen, Blücher led the actions of the People's Liberation Army and managed to achieve serious successes.
Two years later, in 1929, due to the aggravation of the situation in the Far East, Blucher, well familiar with the conditions of this region, took over the post of commander of the Special Far Eastern Army. He carried out a successful military operation in Northern Manchuria against Chinese troops attacking the Chinese Eastern Railway (CER), which was jointly controlled by the USSR and China.
Blucher in 1930 became the first holder of the Order of the Red Star in history. In 1936, he led the repulse of the Japanese invasion at Lake Hanka. In July - August 1938 he commanded Soviet units in the battle of Lake Khasan.
Upon completion of the operation, Blucher was summoned to Moscow for a report; his actions in leading the troops were severely criticized. On October 22, 1938, he was arrested and placed in Lefortovo prison in Moscow. The marshal was accused of being a Japanese spy since 1921.
Refusing to admit the charges fabricated against him, the commander died in prison on November 9, 1938.
The landowner named Blucher's great-grandfather, a serf who had been a soldier and returned from the Crimean War with many awards, after the name of the famous Prussian field marshal of the Napoleonic wars. The nickname eventually turned into a surname.
early years
Vasily Blucher was born on November 19 (December 1, new style) 1889 in the village of Barshchinka, Rybinsk district, Yaroslavl province (modern Rybinsk district), into a peasant family. Father - Konstantin Pavlovich Blucher. Mother - Anna Vasilievna Medvedeva. Vasily was the first child in the family. In total there were four children in the family.
In 1904, after a year of studying at a parochial school, Blucher’s father took him to St. Petersburg to work. Blucher worked as a “boy” in a store and as a laborer at the Franco-Russian Engineering Plant, from where he was fired for participating in workers’ rallies. In search of work, he came to Moscow. In 1909 he became a mechanic at the Mytishchi Carriage Works near Moscow. In 1910, he was arrested and sentenced to prison for calling for a strike. In 1913-1914 he worked in the workshops of the Moscow-Kazan Railway.
With the outbreak of the First World War, he was sent to the front as a private. He served as a private in the 8th Army, commanded by General A. A. Brusilov. For military distinction he was awarded two St. George's crosses and a medal, and promoted to junior non-commissioned officer. In January 1915 he was seriously wounded near Ternopil. After 13 months spent in the hospital, he was released from military service. He entered the Sormovsky shipbuilding plant (Nizhny Novgorod), then moved to Kazan and began working at a mechanical plant. In 1916 he joined the Bolshevik Party.
Revolution and Civil War
In May 1917, Blucher met V.V. Kuibyshev, who sent him to the 102nd reserve regiment for campaigning, where he was elected to the regimental committee and the city Council of Soldiers' Deputies. By the beginning of the October Revolution, Blucher was a member of the Samara Military Revolutionary Committee.
Blucher was an active participant in the civil war; in 1918, at the head of a detachment, he was sent to the Southern Urals to fight the units of General A.I. Dutov. Blucher's detachment defeated Dutov and took Orenburg. Dutov with the remnants of his army temporarily took refuge in the Turgai steppe.
In the summer of 1918, the working detachments of the Southern Urals, operating in the Orenburg-Ufa-Chelyabinsk region, found themselves cut off from supply areas and regular units of the Red Army as a result of the mutiny of the Czechoslovak Corps and the Orenburg Cossacks and switched to partisan actions. By mid-July, partisan detachments (1st Uralsky I. S. Pavlishcheva, Bogoyavlensky M. V. Kalmykova, Yuzhny N. D. Kashirina, Troitsky N. D. Tomina, Verkhneuralsky I. D. Kashirina, etc.), pressed by the White Cossack The army of Ataman A.I. Dutov retreated to Beloretsk. Here, at a meeting of commanders on July 16, it was decided to unite forces into a consolidated Ural detachment and fight through Verkhneuralsk, Miass, and Yekaterinburg to meet the troops of the Eastern Front. Kashirin was elected commander, and Blucher was his deputy. Having set out on a campaign on July 18, the detachment reached the Verkhneuralsk-Yuryuzan region in 8 days with fierce fighting, but due to lack of forces (4,700 bayonets, 1,400 sabers, 13 guns) it was forced to return to the original area. On August 2, the wounded Kashirin was replaced by Blucher, who reorganized the detachments into regiments, battalions and companies and proposed a new plan for the campaign: through the Petrovsky, Bogoyavlensky and Arkhangelsk factories to Krasnoufimsk, so that they could rely on the workers, get reinforcements and food. Having started the campaign on August 5, the detachment by August 13 fought through the Ural ridge in the area of Bogoyavlensk (now Krasnousolsk), joined the Bogoyavlensky partisan detachment of M. V. Kalmykov (2 thousand people), and then the Arkhangelsk detachment of V. L. Damberg (1300 people) and other forces.
The detachment grew into an army consisting of 6 rifle regiments, 2 cavalry regiments, an artillery division and other units (10.5 thousand bayonets and sabers, 18 guns in total), with iron military discipline. On August 20, the army defeated White Guard units in the Zimino area. On August 27, she crossed the river with battles. Simu, occupied the Iglino station (12 km east of Ufa) and, having destroyed the railway section. village Ufa - Chelyabinsk, interrupted the communication of the Whites with Siberia for 5 days. By September 10, having inflicted new defeats on the enemy (on the Ufa River, near the village of Krasny Yar, etc.), the army reached the Askino region, near the village. Tyuino-Ozerskaya broke through the encirclement ring and on September 12-14 united with the advanced units of the 3rd Army East. front. After 10 days, the army arrived in Kungur, where the bulk of it joined the 4th Ural (from November 11 - 30th) rifle division. Over the course of 54 days, Blucher's army covered over 1,500 km through mountains, forests and swamps, fought more than 20 battles, and defeated 7 enemy regiments. Having disorganized the rear of the White Guards and interventionists, she contributed to the offensive of the Eastern Front troops in the fall of 1918. For the successful leadership of the heroic campaign, Blucher was the first among Soviet military leaders to be awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
The award list of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee dated September 28, 1918 stated: “A former Sormovo worker, chairman of the Chelyabinsk Revolutionary Committee, he united under his command several scattered Red Army and partisan detachments, with them he made a legendary march of one and a half thousand miles across the Urals, waging fierce battles with the White Guards. For this unprecedented campaign, Comrade. Blucher is awarded the highest award of the RSFSR - the Order of the Red Banner No. 1.”
In 1918, Blucher commanded the 30th Infantry Division in Siberia and fought against the troops of A.V. Kolchak. He proved himself to be a thoughtful and talented commander, especially distinguishing himself in the battles for the Kakhovka bridgehead and in the Perekop-Chongar operation.
In 1921, he was appointed Minister of War and Commander-in-Chief of the People's Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republic, carried out its reorganization, strengthened discipline and won a victory by taking the Volochaevsky fortified area. He was awarded four more Orders of the Red Banner.
Career
In 1922-1924 - commandant and military commissar of the Petrograd fortified area. He was appointed commandant as one of the most devoted to the cause of the revolution (the memory of the Kronstadt uprising was still fresh, although Blucher himself did not participate in the suppression of the uprising).
In 1924-1927, Blucher was Chiang Kai-shek's chief military adviser in China and participated in the planning of the Northern Expedition (he used the pseudonym "Zoya Galin" in honor of his daughter Zoya and his wife Galina). Among others, under the command of Blucher was the young Lin Biao.
In 1927-1929 he served as assistant commander of the Ukrainian Military District.
In 1929 he was appointed commander of the Special Far Eastern Army. Inflicted a crushing defeat on the White Chinese troops during the conflict on the Chinese Eastern Railway. For the victory on the Chinese Eastern Railway in May 1930, he was awarded the Order of the Red Star for No. 1. In 1931, he was awarded the Order of Lenin for No. 48.
In July 1938, during the fighting at Lake Khasan, he headed the Far Eastern Front. As a result of the mistakes made, the Soviet troops suffered heavy losses and were able to achieve success only by August 10. The Main Military Council (K. E. Voroshilov, S. M. Budyonny, V. M. Molotov, I. V. Stalin and others) noted that Lake Khasan revealed “huge shortcomings in the condition of the Far Eastern Front.” Blucher, among other things, was accused of “failing or not wanting to truly implement the cleansing of the front from the enemies of the people.” Only under I.R. Apanasenko (who was appointed commander of the front at the beginning of 1941) was the danger of encirclement of the front eliminated: before this, the only “artery” of supply was the railway, communication along which could easily be cut by a small group of saboteurs. Apanasenko built a parallel highway at a record pace, significantly increasing the combat readiness of the Far Eastern Front. The road from Khabarovsk to Kuibyshevka-Vostochnaya station was ready by September 1, 1941.
Repression in the army: participant and victim
Stalin included Blucher in the Special Judicial Presence, which condemned to death a group of senior Soviet military leaders in the “Tukhachevsky Case” (June 1937).
During the repressions that followed this case in the Red Army, the entire entourage of Blucher in the Far East was arrested. At the beginning of 1938, Blücher raised the question of his credibility with Stalin. Stalin assured Blucher that he trusted him completely. Blucher was awarded the second Order of Lenin, but was still arrested on October 22. In prison he was subjected to torture and beatings. On November 9, while under investigation, V.K. Blucher died in Lefortovo prison. According to the conclusion of the forensic examination, the marshal's death was caused by blockage of the pulmonary artery by a blood clot that formed in the veins of the pelvis. On March 10, 1939, he was posthumously and retroactively stripped of the rank of marshal and sentenced to death for “espionage for Japan,” “participation in an anti-Soviet right-wing organization and in a military conspiracy.”
Rehabilitated after the 20th Congress of the CPSU in 1956. At the same time, the surviving members of his family were also rehabilitated.
Family
Blucher was married three times. Based on the testimony given by Blucher, his two first wives - Galina Pokrovskaya and Galina Aleksandrovna Kolchugina, as well as his brother captain Pavel Blucher and Pavel's wife were shot. Blucher's third wife, Glafira Lukinichna Bezverkhova, was sentenced to 8 years in labor camp.
Son Vasily - engineer, scientist, teacher, public figure, in 1978-1985. first rector of SIPI.
Memorable places in Khabarovsk
Addresses in Petrograd - Leningrad
1923-1926 - Komissarovskaya street, 8.
Awards
- 2 Orders of Lenin (1931, 1938)
- 3 Orders of the Red Banner of the RSFSR
- Resolution of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of September 30, 1918 No. 1. Presented on May 11, 1919 by the special representative of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee at the headquarters of the 3rd Army on the Eastern Front;
- RVS Order No. 197 of June 14, 1921 - for distinction in battles on the Eastern Front of the 30th Infantry Division;
- Order of the RVSR No. 221 of June 20, 1921 - for distinction during the assault on Perekop by the 51st Infantry Division;
- 2 Orders of the Red Banner of the USSR
- Order of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR No. 664 of October 25, 1928 - for distinction in the defense of the Kakhovsky bridgehead;
- Order of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR No. 101 1928 - in commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the Red Army;
- Order of the Red Star (1930)
- medal "XX Years of the Red Army" (1938)
- badge “5 years of the Cheka-GPU” (1932)
Memory
- The following are named after Blucher:
- Bogoyavlensky Lane in Moscow in 1930 - 1938 was called Blyukherovsky
- streets in Verkhneuralsk, Dnepropetrovsk, Tyumen, Ekaterinburg, Irkutsk, Kazan, Kerch, Kyiv, Kirov, Konstantinovka, Krivoy Rog, Vinnitsa, Kurgan, Melitopol, Novosibirsk, Ozersk, Omsk, Okha, Perm, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Rybinsk, Samara, Sevastopol , Simferopol, Sterlitamak, Beloretsk, Ufa, Chelyabinsk, Magnitogorsk, Kharkov, Kherson, Yalta, Yaroslavl; Temirtau (Karaganda region);
- avenues in St. Petersburg and Ussuriysk;
- square and street in Khabarovsk.
- Also named after him:
- school No. 17, Vladivostok;
- secondary school No. 50, Komsomolsk-on-Amur;
- cinema in Kakhovka (Kherson region, Ukraine);
- the largest river pusher tug in the USSR;
- ship - canning plant "Vasily Blyukher" in the Far East.
- Blucher - railway station in the village of Slavyanka, Primorsky Krai
- Blyukherovo (formerly Mikhailo-Semenovskoye) - now the village of Leninskoye, Jewish Autonomous Region
- Blyukherovo - now the village of Chkalovo, Taiynshinsky district of the North Kazakhstan region
- Blyukherovo - now the holiday village of Chapaevka, Khabarovsk Territory
- In 1962, a USSR postage stamp dedicated to Blucher was issued.
Feature films in which Blucher appears
- “No password needed” (1967), in the role of Blucher - Nikolai Gubenko.
- “Marshal of the Revolution” (1978), in the role of Blucher - Boris Nevzorov.
- "Moscow Saga (TV series)" (
The life of Vasily Blucher, one of the five first marshals of the Soviet Union, is full of mysteries. A hero of the Civil War, a “commander under a pseudonym,” he did not compromise even with Stalin.
General "Nemo"
Vasily Blucher is one of the five first marshals of the Soviet Union, a hero of the Civil War - a personality shrouded in myths. Russian emigrant writer Roman Gul wrote about him: “Among the Red Marshals of the USSR, V.K. Blucher is a commander of the first rank. Blucher's track record is rich and brilliant. Blucher is a strong, colorful figure. But the most remarkable thing about Blucher is that no one knows either in the USSR or abroad: who is he really, this most popular marshal of the Soviets? Blücher - “General Nemo”, “commander under a pseudonym”.
Indeed, there are many rumors surrounding the Red Marshal, who took the name of the famous Prussian royal general. His last name alone, which poorly combines with his childhood biography, is worth something. Allegedly, the great-grandfather of Vasily Blucher, a serf peasant who returned from the Crimean War with awards, was christened by the landowner Blucher in honor of Gerhard Lieberecht von Blucher. The nickname later turned into a surname.
Childhood of a proletarian
This is what the official version says. In general, as they correctly note, Blucher’s childhood resembles the usual “proletarian cliché” - Blucher was born into a peasant family in the Yaroslavl province in 1889. Already in 1904, the father took his son to work in St. Petersburg, where he was given a job as a “boy” at a store, and then as a laborer at the Franco-Russian Machine-Building Plant, from where he was fired for participating in labor strikes. And in 1910, he allegedly tried to organize a strike at the Mytishchi Carriage Works, for which he was imprisoned.
And immediately after the October Revolution there was a sharp jump in his career. First, the assistant commissioner of the Samara region, and then the head of one of the Red Army detachments, sent to the Southern Urals.
Ferdinand von Galen
The version about the pseudonym “Blücher” and a fabricated biography is very popular among the Germans, who see the first marshal of the USSR as the captain of the Austro-Hungarian army, Count Ferdinand von Galen. Officially, he died on the Russian Front in 1915.
When the arrest of Blucher became known to the world in 1938, one person in Germany, von Galen’s orderly, read this information in the newspapers and looked at the marshal’s photograph, and said that V.K. Blücher is none other than the Austrian military man who was considered dead for so long. Allegedly, he did not rest in the Carpathians, but was captured by the Russians, and after the revolution of 1917 he took the side of the Reds. There are two more “weighty arguments” in favor of this version. Firstly, while working in China, Blucher had a passport in the name of Z.V. Galina (which could well be a fictitious derivative name from the names of his family - daughter Zoya, wife Galina), secondly, his wife’s story about how his friends sometimes called him “count”, and how Vasily changed his face after that. However, there are no significant arguments, confirmed by archives, about the Austrian origin of Blucher.
Slap in the face of the USSR
Whoever Vasily Blucher really was, on June 27, 1921, he was appointed Minister of War of the Far Eastern Republic of the Far Eastern Republic, and in 1929 - commander of the Special Far Eastern Army participating in resolving the conflict on the Chinese Eastern Railway. And finally, in 1938, he headed the Far Eastern Front, where in June of the same year a fatal conflict broke out between the Red Army and the Japanese army at Lake Khasan. There was no clear boundary in these areas. On July 15, Russian border guards, led by Stalin's favorite Mehlis (whose main task in the Far East was to identify potential spies), entered territory hitherto controlled by the Japanese and shot one gendarme.
The Japanese government demanded an investigation and the withdrawal of Russian troops to their previous positions. Marshal Vasily Blyukher, who commanded the army in this area, conducted an objective investigation and sent a secret report to Stalin: “Our border guards violated the Manchurian border in the area of the Zaozernaya hill by 3 meters, which resulted in a conflict on Lake Khasan.”
This was a real slap in the face to the Soviet leadership. Stalin categorically refused to admit that the border had been violated. Soviet propaganda talked about Japanese aggression. One of the mottos of that time was “We don’t need an inch of someone else’s land, but we won’t give it to our enemy either!” . And Blucher received a direct order from the center: “Stop fussing with all sorts of commissions and strictly carry out the decisions of the Soviet Government and the orders of the People’s Commissar.”
Denouement
By July 31, the Japanese had driven Russian troops out of the occupied territories. Only by concentrating colossal forces on the border, the Red Army managed to reach the line Stalin needed only by August 11. The operation was led personally by Blucher, suppressing Mehlis’s unprofessional attempts to command the troops. The losses of the Red Army amounted to 950 people - a considerable number for such an operation. For comparison, the Japanese army lost three times fewer soldiers.
As always in such cases, it was necessary to find the culprit. He became Vasily Blucher, accused of “indiscipline and sabotaging the armed resistance to Japanese troops.” He was arrested and tortured. Subsequently, during the 20th Congress, Khrushchev will talk about how Beria personally beat him, shouting: “Tell me how you sold the East.”
Vasily Blucher did not live to see the end of the investigation. He died as a result of brutal torture on November 9, 1938. The medical examiner ruled that death was caused by blockage of the pulmonary artery by a blood clot that had formed in the veins of the pelvis. An eye was torn out, which, according to the investigation, he gouged out himself with scissors.
Together with him, his entire family was subjected to repression. Blucher was married three times; his first wife, Galina Pokrovskaya, was shot. Vasily Blyukher’s brother, Pavel Blyukher, was also sentenced to death on charges of participating in a fascist military conspiracy.
Blucher Vasily Konstantinovich- Vasily Konstantinovich Blucher December 1, 1889 November 9, 1938 Place of birth ... Wikipedia
Blucher Vasily Konstantinovich- (18901938), Marshal of the Soviet Union (1935). Member of the Communist Party since 1916. Since the early 1900s. in St. Petersburg, served as a “boy” in the trading company of Ya. G. Klochkov, in 190507 he worked at the Franco-Russian plant. During the Civil War... ... Encyclopedic reference book "St. Petersburg"
BLUCHER Vasily Konstantinovich- (1890 1938) Marshal of the Soviet Union (1935). During the Civil War in the summer of 1918 he led the campaign of the Ural Army, for which he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. 1. Head of the 51st Infantry Division during the defense of the Kakhovsky bridgehead and the assault on Perekop. IN… … Big Encyclopedic Dictionary
Blucher Vasily Konstantinovich-, Soviet military and party leader, Marshal of the Soviet Union (1935). Member of the CPSU since 1916. Born in the village of Barshchinka, Yaroslavl province, into a peasant family, he worked as a mechanic in Petrograd and near Moscow. In 1910‒13… … Great Soviet Encyclopedia
Blucher Vasily Konstantinovich- (1890 1938), Marshal of the Soviet Union (1935). Member of the Communist Party since 1916. Since the early 1900s. in St. Petersburg, served as a “boy” in the trading company of Ya. G. Klochkov, in 1905-07 he worked at the Franco-Russian plant. During the Civil War... ... St. Petersburg (encyclopedia)
BLUCHER Vasily Konstantinovich (1890 1938), Marshal of the Soviet Union (1935). Participant of the Civil War in the Urals and Crimea; awarded the Order of the Red Banner No. 1 (1918). In 1921 22 Commander-in-Chief of the People's Revolutionary Army and Minister of War... ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary
Blucher Vasily Konstantinovich- (1890 1938), Marshal of the Soviet Union (1935). During the Civil War in the summer of 1918 he led the campaign of the Ural Army, for which he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner No. 1. Head of the 51st Infantry Division during the defense of the Kakhovsky bridgehead and the assault on Perekop.... ... encyclopedic Dictionary
Blucher Vasily Konstantinovich- Biography Vasily Konstantinovich BLUCHER, Soviet statesman and military leader, military leader. Marshal of the Soviet Union (1935). Came from a peasant background... Military biographical dictionary
Blucher, Vasily Konstantinovich- (b. 1889) worker communist, one of the prominent workers of the Red Army, awarded three badges of the Order of the Red Banner and a diploma from the government of the Far Eastern Republic. Before the World War he worked at the Mytishchensky carriage building... ... Large biographical encyclopedia
Blucher, Vasily Konstantinovich- (11.19 (12.01).1890, village Barshinka, Rybinsk district, Yaroslavl province. 11.11.1938, Moscow) owls. commander, Marshal Sov. Union (1935), state. activist From the cross. From 1904 to St. Petersburg. Worker. Member of the RSDLP(b) (1916). Led the roar. work in Moscow, Mytishchi, ... ... Ural Historical Encyclopedia
