Life and death of Mikhail Frunze. Bolshevik Romantic
Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze died on October 31, 1925. The true circumstances of his death are still unknown: according to official data, the revolutionary died after the operation, but people's rumor connected the death ...
Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze died on October 31, 1925. The true circumstances of his death are still unknown: according to official data, the revolutionary died after the operation, but people's rumor connected Frunze's death either with Trotsky's sabotage or with Stalin's desire. Interesting Facts about the life and death of a party leader - in our material.
"Die is cast"
Mikhail Frunze was born in 1885 in the family of a petty bourgeois paramedic and the daughter of a Narodnaya Volya member. The place of his birth is Pishpek (as Bishkek was called at that time). In 1904, Frunze became a student at the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute, after which he joined the RSDLP. On January 9, 1905, he took part in a procession led by Georgy Gapon. A few months after this event, Frunze wrote to his mother: “Dear mother! On me, perhaps, you should put an end to it ... The streams of blood shed on January 9 require retribution. The die is cast, I give my all to the revolution.”
Review of the sentence
Frunze did not live long, but his life could have been even shorter. The fact is that in connection with the attempted murder of a police officer, the revolutionary was arrested and sentenced to hanging. However, Frunze managed to avoid such an outcome: the case was reviewed, and the death penalty was replaced by hard labor. The military prosecutor of the Moscow Military District Court wrote in 1910 to the head of the Vladimir prison where Frunze was kept: “Today I sent the verdict in the case of Mikhail Frunze and Pavel Gusev to the prosecutor of the Vladimir District Court, by whom the death penalty was commuted to penal servitude: Gusev for 8 years, and Frunze for 6 years. Reporting this, I consider it necessary to add that, in view of certain information, it seems appropriate to make sure that Frunze does not escape in one way or another or exchange names during any transfer from one prison to another.
"Katorga, what grace!" - Frunze could have exclaimed in this situation, if, of course, by that time this poem by Pasternak had already been written. The prosecutor's fears were not groundless: a few years later, Frunze still managed to escape.
The riddle of death
It is difficult to say what exactly caused the death - or still death - of Mikhail Frunze. There are several versions, each of which researchers find both refutation and confirmation. It is known that Frunze had serious stomach problems: he was diagnosed with an ulcer and sent for surgery. This was written about in party publications, and confirmation was also found in the personal correspondence of the Bolshevik. Frunze told his wife in a letter: “I am still in the hospital. On Saturday there will be a new council. I'm afraid that the operation will be refused."
The operation was not refused to the people's commissar, but it didn't get any better. After the operation, Frunze came to his senses, read a friendly note from Stalin, which he was sincerely glad to receive, and died some time later. Whether from blood poisoning, or from heart failure. However, there are also discrepancies about the episode with the note: there is a version that Stalin delivered the message, but Frunze was no longer destined to read it.
Few believed in the version of accidental death. Some were convinced that Trotsky had a hand in Frunze's death - only a few months had passed since the first replaced the second as People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs of the USSR. Others hinted unambiguously at Stalin's involvement. This version found expression in Boris Pilnyak's Tale of the Unextinguished Moon. Circulation of the magazine New world”, on the pages of which the work appeared, was confiscated. After more than ten years, Pilnyak was shot. Obviously, the "Tale of the Unextinguished Moon" played an important role in his case.
Frunze was buried on November 3, 1925 with full honors: his remains are buried in the necropolis near the Kremlin wall.
Frunze through the eyes of Brusilov's wife
In the diary of the wife of General Alexei Brusilov, one can find the following lines, written a month after the death of Frunze: “I would like to write down for memory a few details about the deceased Mikhail Vasilyevich. From a distance, from the outside, I know from rumors what an unfortunate person he was, and it seems to me that he is subject to a completely different assessment than his other "comrades" in crazy and criminal political nonsense. It is obvious to me that retribution, karma clearly manifested itself in his fate. A year ago, his beloved girl, it seems, the only daughter, through childish negligence, gouged out her eye with scissors. She was taken to Berlin for an operation and they barely saved her second eye, she almost went completely blind.
Also, Nadezhda Vladimirovna Brusilova-Zhelikhovskaya pointed out that the car accident in which Frunze got shortly before his death was obviously rigged. In addition, the general's wife wrote that she talked with several doctors who were sure "that without surgery, he could still live a long time."
Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze died on October 31, 1925. The true circumstances of his death are still unknown: according to official data, the revolutionary died after the operation, but people's rumor connected the death ...
Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze died on October 31, 1925. The true circumstances of his death are still unknown: according to official data, the revolutionary died after the operation, but people's rumor connected Frunze's death either with Trotsky's sabotage or with Stalin's desire. Interesting facts about the life and death of a party leader - in our material.
"Die is cast"
Mikhail Frunze was born in 1885 in the family of a petty bourgeois paramedic and the daughter of a Narodnaya Volya member. The place of his birth is Pishpek (as Bishkek was called at that time). In 1904, Frunze became a student at the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute, after which he joined the RSDLP. On January 9, 1905, he took part in a procession led by Georgy Gapon. A few months after this event, Frunze wrote to his mother: “Dear mother! On me, perhaps, you should put an end to it ... The streams of blood shed on January 9 require retribution. The die is cast, I give my all to the revolution.”
Review of the sentence
Frunze did not live long, but his life could have been even shorter. The fact is that in connection with the attempted murder of a police officer, the revolutionary was arrested and sentenced to hanging. However, Frunze managed to avoid such an outcome: the case was reviewed, and the death penalty was replaced by hard labor. The military prosecutor of the Moscow Military District Court wrote in 1910 to the head of the Vladimir prison where Frunze was kept: “Today I sent the verdict in the case of Mikhail Frunze and Pavel Gusev to the prosecutor of the Vladimir District Court, by whom the death penalty was commuted to penal servitude: Gusev for 8 years, and Frunze for 6 years. Reporting this, I consider it necessary to add that, in view of certain information, it seems appropriate to make sure that Frunze does not escape in one way or another or exchange names during any transfer from one prison to another.
Mikhail Vasilievich Frunze
"Katorga, what grace!" - Frunze could have exclaimed in this situation, if, of course, by that time this poem by Pasternak had already been written. The prosecutor's fears were not groundless: a few years later, Frunze still managed to escape.
The riddle of death
It is difficult to say what exactly caused the death - or still death - of Mikhail Frunze. There are several versions, each of which researchers find both refutation and confirmation. It is known that Frunze had serious stomach problems: he was diagnosed with an ulcer and sent for surgery. This was written about in party publications, and confirmation was also found in the personal correspondence of the Bolshevik. Frunze told his wife in a letter: “I am still in the hospital. On Saturday there will be a new council. I'm afraid that the operation will be refused."
The operation was not refused to the people's commissar, but it didn't get any better. After the operation, Frunze came to his senses, read a friendly note from Stalin, which he was sincerely glad to receive, and died some time later. Whether from blood poisoning, or from heart failure. However, there are also discrepancies about the episode with the note: there is a version that Stalin delivered the message, but Frunze was no longer destined to read it.
Funeral of Mikhail Frunze
Few believed in the version of accidental death. Some were convinced that Trotsky had a hand in Frunze's death - only a few months had passed since the first replaced the second as People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs of the USSR. Others hinted unambiguously at Stalin's involvement. This version found expression in Boris Pilnyak's Tale of the Unextinguished Moon. The circulation of the Novy Mir magazine, on the pages of which the work appeared, was confiscated. After more than ten years, Pilnyak was shot. Obviously, the "Tale of the Unextinguished Moon" played an important role in his case.
Frunze was buried on November 3, 1925 with full honors: his remains are buried in the necropolis near the Kremlin wall.
Frunze through the eyes of Brusilov's wife
In the diary of the wife of General Alexei Brusilov, one can find the following lines, written a month after the death of Frunze: “I would like to write down for memory a few details about the deceased Mikhail Vasilyevich. From a distance, from the outside, I know from rumors what an unfortunate person he was, and it seems to me that he is subject to a completely different assessment than his other "comrades" in crazy and criminal political nonsense. It is obvious to me that retribution, karma clearly manifested itself in his fate. A year ago, his beloved girl, it seems, the only daughter, through childish negligence, gouged out her eye with scissors. She was taken to Berlin for an operation and they barely saved her second eye, she almost went completely blind.
Frunze with children
Also, Nadezhda Vladimirovna Brusilova-Zhelikhovskaya pointed out that the car accident in which Frunze got shortly before his death was obviously rigged. In addition, the general's wife wrote that she talked with several doctors who were sure "that without surgery, he could still live a long time."
In the early morning of October 31, 1925, Stalin suddenly rushed to the Botkin hospital, accompanied by a pack of associates: 10 minutes before their arrival, Mikhail Frunze, a candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR, People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs, died there . The official version says: Frunze is an ulcer and it was impossible to do without surgery. But the operation ended with the fact that the leader of the Red Army died "with symptoms of paralysis of the heart."
On November 3, 1925, Frunze was escorted to last way, and Stalin delivered a brief funeral speech, as if remarking in passing: “Perhaps this is exactly how it is necessary for old comrades to descend into the grave so easily and so simply.” At that time, no attention was paid to this remark. As on the other: “This year has been a curse for us. He snatched from our midst a number of leading comrades…”
non-hunched man
They tried to forget about the deceased, but in May 1926, the writer Boris Pilnyak reminded him of him, who published his Tale of the Unextinguished Moon in the Novy Mir magazine. Once upon a time, wrote Pilnyak, the heroic army commander Gavrilov, "who commanded victories, death." And this army commander, “who had the right and the will to send people to kill their own kind and die,” took and sent to die on the operating table “a non-hunched man in the house number one,” “from the trio that did it.” In passing the secret reports of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs and the OGPU, the "non-hunching man" harshly reprimanded the legendary commander about the millstones of the revolution and ordered "to perform an operation", because "this is required by the revolution." You didn’t have to be seven spans in your forehead to guess: the commander Gavrilov was Frunze, the “troika” was the then ruling triumvirate consisting of Kamenev, Zinoviev and Stalin, and the “non-hunching man” who sent the hero to the slaughter was Stalin.Scandal! The Chekists immediately seized the circulation, but the author of the seditious version was not touched. Gorky then, with the envy of an informer, venomously remarked: “Pilnyak is forgiven the story of the death of Comrade Frunze - a story that claims that the operation was not needed and was done at the insistence of the Central Committee.” But the "non-hunched man" never forgave anyone and nothing, the time has come - October 28, 1937 - and they came for the author of The Tale of the Unextinguished Moon. Then Pilnyak was shot - as a Japanese spy, of course.
The picture of Frunze's death was brilliantly studied by the Kremlin death historian Viktor Topolyansky, who described in detail how Stalin literally forced Frunze to go under the knife and how the doctors "overdid it" with anesthesia, during which the people's commissar's heart could not withstand the excess amount of chloroform. “However, what written evidence should be sought in this situation?” - the researcher asked rhetorically. At no time have any leaders left this kind of evidence and do not leave it. Otherwise, they would not be leaders, and their retinue would not be a retinue.
"The Troika That Did It"
Outside the context of the events of those years, it is difficult to understand why Comrade. Stalin needed to eliminate comrade. Frunze - just then and so Jesuitically? It is easier to answer the last question: the possibilities of Stalin of the 1925 model were much thinner than ten years later. He still had to gradually grow up to the all-powerful “leader of the peoples”, wresting power from the hands of his comrades in the very “troika that ruled”. And in this progressive movement of the "non-hunched man" to the pinnacle of power, the liquidation of Frunze was only one of many steps. But archival: after all, he not only eliminated a deadly opponent, but also replaced him with his man - Voroshilov. Thus, gaining a powerful lever in the struggle for power - control over the armed forces.While Leon Trotsky held on to the chair of the people's commissar for military and naval affairs (and chairman of the RVS), the positions of Kamenev, Zinoviev and Stalin opposing him were so-so. In January 1925, Trotsky "gone". Stalin has his own creature for this place, but his accomplices in the triumvirate put forward another - Frunze. “Frunze didn’t suit Stalin very much, but Zinoviev and Kamenev were for him,” wrote Stalin’s ex-aide Boris Bazhanov in his memoirs, “and as a result of lengthy preliminary bidding on the troika, Stalin agreed to appoint Frunze to Trotsky’s place.”
Anastas Mikoyan carefully noted in his memoirs that Stalin, preparing for great upheavals in the course of his struggle for power, “wanted to have the Red Army under the reliable command of a person loyal to him, and not such an independent and authoritative political figure as Frunze was.” Zinoviev did contribute to the appointment of Frunze, but he was not at all his pawn: by moving Frunze, Zinoviev tried to shield him from Stalin. And it was a figure of equal size: Stalin's merits could not be compared with the brilliant (by party standards) pre-revolutionary and times civil war merit of Frunze. Not to mention very high ranking Frunze abroad after successful participation in a number of diplomatic actions.
And then there is a huge mass of Red Army soldiers, former and current, including military experts - former officers and generals of the old army, who enthusiastically treated Frunze as their leader during the Civil War. Since the military apparatus could be the only alternative to the party apparatus, the question of physical survival became extremely acute for Stalin: either he or Frunze.
Another Stalinist assistant, Mekhlis, commenting on new appointments in the Red Army, once told Bazhanov the opinion of the “master”: “Nothing good. Look at the list: all these Tukhachevskys, Korkis, Uboreviches, Avksentievskies - what kind of communists are they? All this is good for 18 Brumaire (the date of the coup of Napoleon Bonaparte. - V.V.), and not for the Red Army.
Frunze was included in the anti-Stalinist intrigue long before his appointment as People's Commissar: at the end of July 1923, he took part in the so-called cave meeting in Kislovodsk - Zinoviev's confidential meetings with a number of prominent party leaders who were dissatisfied with Stalin's excessive concentration of power. And, as Zinoviev wrote in a letter to Kamenev, Frunze agreed that "there is no troika, but Stalin's dictatorship"!
... And October 1925 came, when Stalin, having brilliantly outplayed Frunze on the field of an apparatus-bureaucratic game alien to that, initiated the decision of the Central Committee, forcing the people's commissar to go under the knife. Mikoyan, describing how Stalin played the play "in his own spirit," remarked in passing: "... it was enough for the GPU to 'process' the anesthetist." And the highly experienced Mikoyan, who at one time was even expected to become the head of the NKVD, knew well what it meant to "process"!
Bureau Grisha
Bazhanov understood that the matter was not clean, “when he learned that Kanner and the Central Committee doctor Pogosyants were organizing the operation. My vague suspicions turned out to be quite correct. During the operation, precisely the anesthesia that Frunze could not stand was cleverly applied.Grigory Kanner in the Stalinist environment was called "assistant in dark affairs." In particular, it was he who organized for Stalin the opportunity to listen to the phones of the then Kremlin celestials - Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, etc. The Czechoslovak technician who installed this system was shot by order of Kanner.
"Office Grisha" was engaged not only in telephones. There was such a comrade, Ephraim Sklyansky: deputy chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council, Trotsky's right hand, who actually steered the military apparatus from March 1918. In March 1924, the troika managed to remove Sklyansky from the RVS. In the spring of 1925, Stalin, who had hated Sklyansky since the Civil War, proposed to the surprise of many that he be appointed chairman of Amtorg and sent to America. Amtorg at that time combined the functions of an embassy, a trade mission, and most importantly, a residency, first of all military intelligence, and along the way also the OGPU and the illegal apparatus of the Comintern. But the comrade did not have time to really work in the States in the field of military-technical espionage. On August 27, 1925, Sklyansky, together with Khurgin (the creator and head of Amtorg before Sklyansky) and an unknown comrade, presumably from the OGPU residency, went kaiking on Longlake Lake (New York State). The boat was later found upside down, and later two bodies were found - Sklyansky and Khurgin. Three of us left, and two corpses ... The employees of Stalin's secretariat immediately realized who was the true author of this "accident": "Mehlis and I," Bazhanov recalled, "immediately went to Kanner and unanimously declared:" Grisha, you drowned Sklyansky?!” ... To which Kanner replied: "Well, there are things that it is better not to know even the secretary of the Politburo." ... Mehlis and I were firmly convinced that Sklyansky was drowned on Stalin's orders and that the "accident" was organized by Kanner and Yagoda."
"This year has been a curse for us"
The year 1925 turned out to be rich in death: high-ranking comrades died in batches, fell under cars and steam locomotives, drowned, burned down in airplanes. On March 19, 1925, an attack of angina pectoris happened to Narimanov, one of the co-chairs of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. And, although the Kremlin hospital was a stone's throw away, they took him home in some roundabout way in a cab - they drove him until they brought the corpse. Kalinin melancholy remarked on this occasion: "We are used to sacrificing comrades." On March 22, to meet with Trotsky from Tiflis to Sukhum, a group of high-ranking apparatchiks flew on a Junkers plane: 1st Secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee of the RCP (b) Myasnikov, OGPU Plenipotentiary in Transcaucasia Mogilevsky and Deputy People's Commissar of the Workers 'and Peasants' Inspection of Transcaucasia Atarbekov. By the way, Mogilevsky and Atarbekov were on good terms with Frunze. After takeoff, something suddenly broke out in the passenger cabin of the aircraft, the Junkers crashed and exploded. Frunze himself, as it turns out, twice got into car accidents in July 1925, surviving only by a miracle.On August 6, 1925, the commander of the 2nd Cavalry Corps, Grigory Kotovsky, received a well-aimed bullet in the aorta - shortly before that, Frunze offered him the position of his deputy. Then there was the boat of Sklyansky and Khurgin, and on August 28, 1925, old comrade Frunze, chairman of the board of Aviatrust V.N., died under the wheels of a steam locomotive. Pavlov (Aviatrust was established in January 1925 for the production of combat aircraft, its head was approved by the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR). “Vechernyaya Moskva” then even sarcastically asked: “Isn't it too much for our old guard of accidents? Some kind of epidemic of accidents.
In general, nothing out of the ordinary happened, just as part of the battle of the Kremlin giants for power, there was a pragmatic liquidation of obvious and potential supporters, in this case, Frunze. And those who left were immediately replaced by cadres from the Stalinist clip. “Why did Stalin organize the assassination of Frunze? - Bazhanov was perplexed. - Is it only to replace him with his man - Voroshilov? ... After all, in a year or two, having come to sole power, Stalin could easily carry out this replacement. Only now, without removing Frunze, Stalin could not have taken this very power.
Vladimir Voronov
Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze - revolutionary figure, Bolshevik, military leader of the Red Army, participant in the Civil War, theorist of military disciplines.
Mikhail was born on January 21 (O.S.) 1885 in the city of Pishpek (Bishkek) in the family of a paramedic Vasily Mikhailovich Frunze, a Moldavian by nationality. The boy's father, after graduating from the Moscow medical school, was sent for army service to Turkestan, where he remained. Mikhail's mother, Mavra Efimovna Bochkareva, a peasant by birth, was born in the Voronezh province. Her family moved to Turkmenistan in the middle of the 19th century.
Mikhail had an older brother Konstantin and three younger sisters - Lyudmila, Claudia and Lydia. All the children of Frunze studied at the Verny gymnasium (now the city of Almaty). The older children Konstantin, Mikhail and Claudia received gold medals after graduating from the middle level. Mikhail continued his studies at the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute, where he entered in 1904. Already in the first semester, he became interested in revolutionary ideas and joined the Social Democratic Labor Party, where he joined the Bolsheviks.
In November 1904, Frunze was arrested for participating in a provocative action. During the Manifestation on January 9, 1905 in St. Petersburg, he was wounded in the arm. Dropping out of school, Mikhail Frunze fled from the persecution of the authorities to Moscow, and then to Shuya, where he led the strike of textile workers in May of that year. He met Frunze in 1906 when he was hiding in Stockholm. Michael had to hide real name during the organization of the underground movement in Ivanovo-Voznesensk. The young party member was known under the pseudonyms Comrade Arseniy, Trifonych, Mikhailov, Vasilenko.
Under the leadership of Frunze, the first Soviet of Workers' Deputies was created, which was engaged in the distribution of anti-government leaflets. Frunze led city rallies and seized weapons. Mikhail was not afraid to use terrorist methods of struggle.
The young revolutionary led an armed uprising in Moscow on Presnya, seized the Shuya printing house with weapons, attacked police officer Nikita Perlov with the intent to kill. In 1910 he received a death sentence, which, at the request of members of the public, as well as the writer V.G. Korolenko was replaced by hard labor.
Four years later, Frunze was sent to permanent residence in the village of Manzurka, Irkutsk province, from where he fled to Chita in 1915. Under the name Vasilenko, he worked for some time in the local publication Transbaikal Review. Having changed his passport in the name of Mikhailov, he moved to Belarus, where he got a job as a statistician in the committee of the Zemsky Union on the Western Front.
The purpose of Frunze's stay in Russian army was the spread of revolutionary ideas among the military. In Minsk, Mikhail Vasilievich headed an underground cell. Over time, among the Bolsheviks, Frunze gained a reputation as a specialist in paramilitary actions.
Revolution
In early March 1917, Mikhail Frunze prepared the capture of the armed police department of Minsk by squads of ordinary workers. The archives of the detective department, weapons and ammunition of the station, several public institutions. After the success of the operation, Mikhail Frunze was appointed temporary head of the Minsk police. Under the leadership of Frunze, the publication of party newspapers began. In August, the military was transferred to Shuya, where Frunze took the post of chairman of the Council of People's Deputies, the District Zemstvo Council and the City Council.
Mikhail Frunze met the revolution in Moscow on the barricades near the Metropol Hotel. Two months later, the revolutionary received the post of head of the party cell of the Ivanovo-Voznesensk province. Frunze also dealt with the affairs of the military commissariat. The civil war allowed Mikhail Vasilyevich to fully demonstrate the military abilities that he acquired during his revolutionary activities.
From February 1919, Frunze took command of the 4th Army of the Red Army, which managed to stop the offensive against Moscow and launch a counteroffensive against the Urals. After such a significant victory for the Red Army, Frunze received the Order of the Red Banner.
Often the general could be seen on horseback at the head of the troops, which allowed him to form a positive reputation among the Red Army. In June 1919, Frunze received a shell shock near Ufa. In July, Mikhail Vasilievich headed the Eastern Front, but a month later he received a task in the southern direction, which included Turkestan and the territory of Akhtuba. Until September 1920, Frunze carried out successful operations along the front line.
More than once Frunze gave guarantees that the lives of those counter-revolutionaries who were ready to go over to the side of the Reds would be spared. Mikhail Vladimirovich contributed to a humane attitude towards the prisoners, which caused discontent among higher officials.
In the autumn of 1920, the Reds began a systematic offensive against the army, which was located in the Crimea and Northern Tavria. After the defeat of the Whites, Frunze's detachments attacked former comrades-in-arms - the brigade of the father, Yuri Tyutyunnik and. During the Crimean battles, Frunze was wounded. In 1921 he joined the Central Committee of the RCP(b). At the end of 1921, Frunze went on a political visit to Turkey. Communication Soviet general with the Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk allowed to strengthen Turkish-Soviet ties.
After the revolution
In 1923, at the October plenum of the Central Committee, where the distribution of forces between the three leaders (Zinoviev and Kamenev) was determined, Frunze supported the latter, making a report against Trotsky's activities. Mikhail Vasilyevich accused the People's Commissar for Military Affairs of the collapse of the Red Army and the lack of a clear system for training military personnel. On the initiative of Frunze, the Trotskyists Antonov-Ovseenko and Sklyansky were removed from high military ranks. The Frunze line was supported by the Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army.
In 1924, Mikhail Frunze went from deputy chief to chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR and People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs, became a candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee and the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b). Mikhail Frunze also headed the headquarters of the Red Army and military academy Red Army.
The main merit of Frunze during this period can be considered the implementation of a military reform, the purpose of which was to reduce the size of the Red Army, to reorganize the command staff. Frunze introduced unity of command, a territorial system for dividing troops, participated in the creation of two independent structures within Soviet army- permanent troops and mobile police units.
At this time, Frunze developed a military theory, which he outlined in a number of publications - "The Unified military doctrine and the Red Army", "Military-political education of the Red Army", "Front and rear in the war of the future", "Lenin and the Red Army", "Our military development and tasks of the Military Scientific Society".
Over the next decade in the Red Army, thanks to the efforts of Frunze, landing and tank forces, new artillery and automatic weapons, methods were developed for conducting rear support for the troops. Mikhail Vasilievich managed to stabilize the situation in the Red Army in a short time. The theoretical development of tactics and strategy for conducting combat under conditions of an imperialist war, laid down by Frunze, was fully implemented during the Second World War.
Personal life
Nothing is known about the personal life of the red commander before the revolution. Mikhail Frunze married only after 30 years the daughter of the Narodnaya Volya Sofya Alekseevna Popova. In 1920, a daughter, Tatiana, was born in the family, and three years later, a son, Timur. After the death of the parents of the children, the grandmother took care of them. When the grandmother died, the brother and sister ended up in the family of a friend of Mikhail Vasilyevich -.
After graduating from school, Timur entered flight school, served as a fighter pilot during the war. He died at the age of 19 in the sky over the Novgorod region. Posthumously awarded the title of Hero Soviet Union. Daughter Tatyana graduated from the Institute of Chemical Technology, worked in the rear during the war. She married Lieutenant General Anatoly Pavlov, from whom she gave birth to two children - son Timur and daughter Elena. The descendants of Mikhail Frunze live in Moscow. Granddaughter studies chemistry.
Death and murder rumors
In the autumn of 1925, Mikhail Frunze turned to doctors about the treatment of a stomach ulcer. The general was scheduled for a simple operation, after which Frunze died suddenly on October 31. The official cause of the general's death was blood poisoning, according to the unofficial version, Stalin contributed to Frunze's death.
A year later, Mikhail Vasilievich's wife committed suicide. Frunze's body is buried on Red Square, the grave of Sofya Alekseevna is located at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.
Memory
The unofficial version of Frunze's death was taken as the basis for Pilnyak's "The Tale of the Unextinguished Moon" and the memoirs of the emigrant Bazhanov "Memoirs of Stalin's Former Secretary". The biography of the general was of interest not only to writers, but also to Soviet and Russian filmmakers. The image of the brave commander of the Red Army was used in 24 films, in 11 of which Frunze was played by actor Roman Zakharyevich Khomyatov.
Streets named after the commander settlements, geographic features, ships, destroyers and cruisers. Monuments to Mikhail Frunze have been erected in more than 20 cities of the former Soviet Union, including Moscow, Bishkek, Almaty, St. Petersburg, Ivanovo, Tashkent, Kyiv. Photos of the general of the Red Army are in all textbooks on modern history.
Awards
- 1919 - Order of the Red Banner
- 1920 - Honorary Revolutionary Weapon
« Mikhail Frunze was a revolutionary to the marrow of his bones, he believed in the inviolability of the Bolshevik ideals, - says Zinaida Borisova, head of the Samara House-Museum of M. V. Frunze. - After all, he was a romantic, creative nature. He even wrote poems about the revolution under the pseudonym Ivan Mogila: “... the cattle will be driven away by deceit from fooled women by a horse dealer - a godless merchant. And a lot of effort will be wasted in vain, the blood from the poor will be sucked up by a cunning businessman ... "
I.I. Brodsky. “M.V. Frunze on maneuvers”, 1929. Photo: Public Domain
“Despite his military talent, Frunze shot at a man only once - at sergeant Nikita Perlov. He couldn’t point a weapon at a person anymore, ”says V. Vladimir Vozilov, candidate historical sciences, Director of the Shuya Museum named after Frunze.
Once, due to the romantic nature of Frunze, several hundred thousand people died. During the hostilities in the Crimea, he had a beautiful idea: “What if we offer white officers to surrender in exchange for a pardon?” Frunze officially addressed Wrangel: "Who wants to - freely leave Russia."
“About 200,000 officers then believed Frunze's promise,” says V. Vozilov. - But Lenin and Trotsky ordered to destroy them. Frunze refused to obey the order and was removed from command of the Southern Front.
“These officers were executed in a terrible way,” continues Z. Borisova. - They were built on the seashore, each was hung with a stone around his neck and shot in the back of the head. Frunze was very worried, fell into a depression and almost shot himself.”
In 1925, Mikhail Frunze went to a sanatorium to treat a stomach ulcer that had tormented him for almost 20 years. The commander was happy - he gradually got better.
“But then something inexplicable happened,” he says. historian Roy Medvedev. - The council of doctors recommended going for an operation, although the success of conservative treatment was obvious. Stalin added fuel to the fire, saying: “You, Mikhail, are a military man. Cut out, finally, your ulcer! It turns out that Stalin gave Frunze such a task - to go under the knife. Like, solve this issue like a man! There is nothing to take the ballot all the time and go to the sanatorium. Played on his ego. Frunze hesitated. His wife later recalled that he did not want to lie down on the operating table. But he accepted the challenge. And a few minutes before the operation he said: “I don’t want to! I'm already fine! But here Stalin insists ... "By the way, Stalin and Voroshilov before the operation, they visited the hospital, which indicates that the leader was following the process.”
Frunze was given anesthesia. Chloroform was used. The warlord did not sleep at all. The doctor ordered to increase the dose ...
“The usual dose of such anesthesia is dangerous, and an increased one could be fatal,” says R. Medvedev. - Fortunately, Frunze fell asleep safely. The doctor made an incision. It became clear that the ulcer had healed - there was nothing to cut out. The patient was sewn up. But chloroform caused poisoning. 39 hours fought for Frunze's life... In 1925, medicine was on a completely different level. And Frunze's death was written off as an accident.
Naughty minister
Frunze died on October 31, 1925, he was solemnly buried in Red Square. Stalin, in a solemn speech, sadly lamented: "Some people leave us too easily." Historians, to this day, are arguing about whether the famous military leader was stabbed to death by doctors on the operating table on the orders of Stalin or died as a result of an accident.
“I don’t think that father was killed,” admits Tatiana Frunze, the daughter of a famous military leader. - Rather, it was a tragic accident. In those years, the system had not yet reached the point of killing those who could interfere with Stalin. Things like that only started in the 1930s.”
“It is quite possible that Stalin had thoughts of getting rid of Frunze,” says R. Medvedev. - Frunze was an independent man and more famous than Stalin himself. And the leader needed an obedient minister.”
“Legends that Frunze was stabbed to death on the operating table by order of Stalin were launched by Trotsky,” V. Vozilov is sure. - Although Frunze's mother was convinced that her son had been killed. Yes, the Central Committee was then almost omnipotent: it had the right both to insist that Frunze go on an operation and to forbid him to fly on airplanes: aviation equipment was then very unreliable. In my opinion, Frunze's death was natural. By the age of 40, he was a deeply ill person - advanced tuberculosis of the stomach, peptic ulcer. He was severely beaten several times during arrests, during the Civil War he was shell-shocked by an exploding bomb. Even if there had been no operation, most likely, he would soon have died himself.
There were people who blamed not only Stalin for the death of Mikhail Frunze, but also Kliment Voroshilov- after all, after the death of a friend, he received his post.
"Voroshilov was good friend Frunze, - says R. Medvedev. - Subsequently, he took care of his children, Tanya and Timur, although he himself already had an adopted son. By the way, Stalin also had an adopted son. Then it was common: when a major communist leader died, his children were taken under the care of another Bolshevik.
“Kliment Voroshilov took great care of Tatyana and Timur,” says Z. Borisova. - On the eve of the Great Patriotic War Voroshilov came to Samara to our museum and before the portrait of Frunze handed Timur a dagger. And Timur swore that he would be worthy of his father's memory. And so it happened. He did military career, went to the front and died in 1942 in battle.