Mikhail Tukhachevsky

Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky (Russian: Михаи́л Никола́евич Тухаче́вский) (February 16 [O.S. February 4] 1893 – June 12, 1937) was a Soviet military commander, chief of the Red Army (1925–1928), and one of the most prominent victims of Stalin's Great Purge of the late 1930s.

He became an officer in the newly-established Red Army in 1918 and rapidly advanced in rank due to his great ability. During the Russian Civil War he was given responsibility for defending Moscow. The Bolshevik Defence Commissar Leon Trotsky gave Tukhachevsky command of the 5th Army in 1919, and he led the campaign to capture Siberia from the White forces of Aleksandr Kolchak. Tukhachevsky used concentrated attacks to exploit the enemy's open flanks and threaten them with envelopment.

He also helped defeat General Anton Denikin in the Crimea in 1920, conducting the final operations. In February 1920, he launched an offensive into the Kuban, using cavalry to disrupt the enemy's rear. In the retreat that followed, Denikin's force disintegrated, and Novorossiisk was evacuated hastily.

In the final stage of the civil war, Tukhachevsky commanded the Seventh Army when they suppressed the sailors' revolt at Kronstadt in March 1921. He also ran the antipartisan war against the Tambov Republic in 1921 and 1922.

Simon Sebag Montefiore has described Tukhachevsky as being, "as ruthless as any Bolshevik. He was known for using hostage execution and poison gas in his suppression of peasant uprisings.