Kliment Voroshilov

Kliment Voroshilov Климе́нт Вороши́лов
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Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union
In office 15 March 1953 – 7 May 1960
General Secretary	Nikita Khrushchev
Preceded by	Nikolay Shvernik
Succeeded by	Leonid Brezhnev
People's Commissar for Defense of the Soviet Union
In office 6 November 1925 – 7 May 1940
Premier	Alexey Rykov Vyacheslav Molotov
Preceded by	Mikhail Frunze
Succeeded by	Semyon Timoshenko
Full member of the Politburo
In office 1 January 1926 – 16 July 1960
Personal details
Born	(1881-02-04)4 February 1881 Lysychansk, Russian Empire
Died	2 December 1969(1969-12-02) (aged 88) Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Nationality	Soviet
Political party	Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Spouse(s)	Ekaterina Davidovna
Military service
Allegiance	Russian Empire Soviet Union
Service/branch	Russian Imperial Army Soviet Army
Years of service	1917 – 1953
Rank	Marshal
Commands	North Caucasus Military District Moscow Military District Leningrad Front
Battles/wars	World War I Russian Civil War Polish-Soviet War Winter War German-Soviet War
Awards

Kliment Yefremovich Voroshilov (Russian:  Климе́нт Ефре́мович Вороши́лов​ , Ukrainian language: Климент Охрімович Ворошилов , Klyment Okhrimovych Voroshylov), popularly known as Klim Voroshilov ([Клим Вороши́лов, Klim Vorošilov] Error: {{Lang-xx}}: text has italic markup (help)) (4 February 1881 – 2 December 1969) was a Soviet military officer, politician, and statesman.

Early life and Russian Revolution

Voroshilov was born in the settlement of Verkhnye, Bakhmut district (uyezd), Yekaterinoslav Governorate (now part of Lysychansk city in Luhansk Oblast, Ukraine), in the Russian Empire, into a railway worker's family of Russian ethnicity. However, according to the Soviet Major General Pyotr Grigorenko Voroshilov himself alluded to his Ukrainian heritage and the previous family name of Voroshilo. Voroshilov joined the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1905. Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, Voroshilov became a member of the Ukrainian Council of People's Commissars and Commissar for Internal Affairs along with Vasili Averin. He was well known for aiding Joseph Stalin in the Military Council (led by Leon Trotsky), having become closely associated with Stalin during the Red Army's 1918 defense of Tsaritsyn. Voroshilov was active as a commander of the Southern Front during the Russian Civil War and the Polish-Soviet War while with the 1st Cavalry Army. As Political Commissar serving co-equally with Stalin, Voroshilov was responsible for the morale of the 1st Cavalry Army, which was composed chiefly of peasants from southern Russia. Voroshilov's efforts as Commissar did not prevent a resounding defeat at the Battle of Komarów or regular outbreaks of murderous anti-Semitic violence within the Cavalry army's ranks.

He was the Head of Leningrad Police between 1917 and 1918.

Political career

File:Kaganovich stalin postyshev voroshilov1934.jpg

From left to right Kaganovich, Stalin, Postyshev, Voroshilov.

With the Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk at the celebration ceremony for the tenth anniversary of the Turkish Republic.

Voroshilov was elected to the in 1921 and remained a member until 1961. 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. His main accomplishment in this period was to move key Soviet war industries east of the Urals, so that the Soviet Union could give up vast amounts of land to an invader but still keep its war-making capability intact.^{[citation needed]} Frunze's position was compatible with^{[Clarification needed]} the Troika (Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev, Stalin), but Stalin preferred to have a close ally in charge (as opposed to Frunze, a "Zinovievite"). Frunze was urged to have surgery to treat an old stomach ulcer. He died on the operating table of an overdose of chloroform, an anesthetic. Stalin's critics charge that the surgery was used to disguise the assassination of Frunze^{[citation needed]}. Voroshilov was made a full member of the newly formed Politburo in 1926, remaining a member until 1960.

President Voroshilov with J.K. Paasikivi in Helsinki

Voroshilov was appointed People's Commissar for Defence in 1934 and a Marshal of the Soviet Union in 1935. Voroshilov 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 went so far as to write personal letters to exiled former Soviet officers and diplomats such as Mikhail Ostrovsky to return voluntarily to the Soviet Union, reassuring them that they would not face retribution from authorities (they did). Voroshilov personally signed 185 documented execution lists, fourth among the Soviet leadership after Molotov, Stalin and Kaganovich.

During World War II, Voroshilov was a member of the State Defense Committee. Voroshilov commanded Soviet troops during the Winter War from November 1939 to January 1940, but, due to his poor planning and overall incompetence, the Red Army suffered about 185,000 casualties. When the leadership gathered at Stalin's dacha at Kuntsevo Stalin shouted at Voroshilov who replied in kind, blaming the failure on Stalin for killing the Red Army's best generals in his purges. Voroshilov followed this by smashing a platter of roast suckling pig on the table. Nikita Khrushchev said it was the only time he ever witnessed such an outburst. Voroshilov still became the scapegoat for the initial failures in Finland. He was later replaced as Defence 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 later signed the order for their execution Katyn massacre. Vasili Blokhin of the NKVD personally shot 7000 of them in 28 nights using German Walther pistols.

Voroshilov, Maxim Gorky, Joseph Stalin (left to right) 1931 photo

After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Voroshilov was made commander of the short-lived Northwestern Direction, controlling several fronts. In September 1941 he commanded 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. Failing to prevent the Germans from surrounding Leningrad however, he was dismissed from that post and replaced by the far abler Georgy Zhukov on 8 September 1941. In an embarrassing incident at the 1943 Tehran Conference, during a ceremony to receive the "Sword of Stalingrad" from Winston Churchill, he took the sword from Stalin but then allowed the sword to fall from its scabbard onto his toes in the presence of the Big Three wartime leaders.

In 1945–1947, he supervised the establishment of the communist regime in Hungary.^{[citation needed]}

Voroshilov with Nikita Khrushchev and Finnish president Urho Kekkonen in 1960

In 1952, Voroshilov was appointed a member of the Presidium of the Central Committee. Stalin's death on 5 March 1953 prompted major changes in the Soviet leadership and in 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 26 June 1953 arrest of Lavrenty Beria after Stalin's death.

Retirement

After Khruschev removed most of the old Stalinists, like 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^{[citation needed]}. In October 1961, his political defeat was complete at the 22nd party congress when he was excluded from election to the Central Committee^{[citation needed]}.

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. He died in 1969 in Moscow and was buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis. The KV series of tanks, used in World War II, was named after Voroshilov. Two towns were also named after him: 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. Voroshilov was nominated honorary citizen of the Turkish town of Izmir in November 1933; in Izmir also a street was named after him (1951 renamed "Plevne Bulvarı").

Personal life

Voroshilov was married to Ekaterina Davidovna, born Golda Gorbman, who came from a Jewish Ukrainian family from Mardarovka. She changed her name when she converted to Orthodox Christianity in order to be allowed to marry Voroshilov. They met while both 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 last at private one. But he came himself. Stalin frowned. Under Khrushchev, Voroshilov behaved badly".

Honours and awards

Soviet

• Hero of the Soviet Union (3 February 1956 (in conjunction with his 75th birthday), 22 February 1968 (in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the Armed Forces of the USSR))
• Hero of Socialist Labour (7 May 1960)
• Eight Orders of Lenin (№880 - 23 February 1935, №3582 - 22 February 1938, №14851 - 3 February 1941, №26411 - 21 February 1945, №128065 - 3 February 1951, №313410 - 3 February 1956, №331807 - 3 February 1961, №340967 - 22 February 1968)
• Order of the Red Banner, six times (№47 - 26 June 1919, №629/2 от апреля 1921 года, №27/3–2 December 1925, №5/4–22 February 1930, №1/5–3 November 1944, №1/6 от 24 June 1948)
• Order of Suvorov, 1st class (№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 (№ 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

• Hero of the Mongolian People's Republic (29 May 1957)
• Order of Sukhbaatar, twice (Mongolia)
• Order of the Red Banner (Mongolia)
• Grand Cross of the Order of the White Rose (Finland)
• Honorary Citizen of Izmir (Turkey)

See also

• OSOAVIAKhIM badges: Voroshilov Sharpshooter (Russian: Ворошиловский стрелок) and Voroshilov Horse Rider (Russian: Ворошиловский всадник) etc.
• Kliment Voroshilov tank, KV-1 and KV-2
• Voroshilov Kirov class cruiser

References

Political offices
Preceded by Nikolay Shvernik	Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union 1953–1960	Succeeded by Leonid Brezhnev
Preceded by Mikhail Frunze	People's Commissar of Defense 1925–1940	Succeeded by Semyon Timoshenko