Blucher Vasily Konstantinovich
19.11(1.12).1890–9.11.1938

Marshal of the Soviet Union

Born in the village of Barshchinka near Yaroslavl in a peasant family. In 1909 he entered the Mytishchi Carriage Works as a mechanic. For participating in a labor strike in Moscow (1910) he was arrested and imprisoned. In 1914, with the outbreak of the First World War, he was sent to the front as a private. For 4 months spent at the front, he was awarded 2 St. George's crosses and 2 medals. In 1915, in a battle near Ternopil, he was seriously wounded and barely survived. The October Revolution found him in Samara, where he was a member of the Military Revolutionary Committee. During the Civil War, Blucher, at the head of a Red Guard detachment, fights against Ataman A.I. Dutov. For the heroic 1,500-kilometer raid of the army of South Ural partisans, V. K. Blucher was the first to be awarded the newly established Order of the Red Banner (11/30/1918). He fought heroically with Kolchak’s troops, traveling the battle route from Tyumen to Baikal and Tobol. Then the division was transferred against Wrangel, where, under the overall command of M.V. Frunze, it became famous in the battles near Kakhovka and the storming of Perekop (1920). In 1921, Blucher became Minister of War and Commander-in-Chief of the People's Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republic. And again the legendary victories at Volochaevka and Spassk (1922). In total, Blucher received 18 wounds on the fronts of the First World War and the Civil War.

After the Civil War, Blücher (pseudonym "General Galin") was the chief military adviser to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek in China (1924–1927). In 1929, Blucher defeated the Chinese at Jalainor and Hailar (conflict on the Chinese Eastern Railway). The Special Far Eastern Army under the command of Blucher was awarded the Order of the Red Banner, and its commander received the newly established Order of the Red Star for No. 1 (05/13/1930). In 1935, V.K. Blucher became Marshal of the Soviet Union. In the summer of 1938, he commanded the Far Eastern Front during the battles with the Japanese at Lake. Hassan.

In October of the same year, Blucher was repressed and soon died in Lefortovo prison (Moscow).

Marshal V.K. Blucher had:

• 2 Orders of Lenin,
• was the first holder in the country of 5 Orders of the Red Banner and the Order of the Red Star, received the medal “XX Years of the Red Army”,
• personalized saber - a gift from Zlatoust gunsmiths for the victory at the Chinese Eastern Railway.

V.A. Egorshin, “Field Marshals and Marshals.” M., 2000

Blucher Vasily Konstantinovich

Born on November 19 (December 1), 1890 in the village of Barshchinka, Yaroslavl province, in a peasant family, Russian. In 1927 he graduated from the land management and reclamation technical school, in 1935 from the metallurgical institute, in 1936 from the “regimental school with a specialty as a tankman.”

In 1914, “sent to the front as a private, ... promoted to junior non-commissioned officer.”

In 1917, he “volunteered in the 102nd reserve infantry regiment”, then commissar of the Red Guard detachment (November 1917 - September 1918).

On September 28, 1918, V.K. Blucher was awarded “... the first in time... Order of the Red Banner.”

Until January 1919 - head of the division, assistant commander of the 3rd Army, head of the fortified area (until August 1920), commander of the strike group (October-November 1920), Minister of War of the Far Eastern Republic and Commander-in-Chief of the People's Revolutionary Army (June 1921), commander-commissar of the rifle corps (1922 - 1924), chief military adviser to the Chinese revolutionary government (1924 - 1927), assistant commander of the Ukrainian Military District (1927 - 1929 .), commander of the armed forces located in the Far East (special Far Eastern Army) (1929 - October 1938).

On May 13, 1930, “noting the outstanding and skillful leadership of the commander of the special Far Eastern Army,” the USSR Central Executive Committee awarded V.K. Blucher the newly established Order of the Red Star.

In the summer of 1938, V.K. Blucher commanded the Far Eastern Front during the military conflict in the area of ​​Lake Khasan.

Awarded the Order of Lenin. 5 Orders of the Red Banner, Order of the Red Star, medal “XX Years of the Red Army”, 2 Crosses of St. George and St. George Medal.

Member of the CPSU since 1916, member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (1921 - 1924), member of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR (1930 - 1938), deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 1st convocation.

Marshals of the Soviet Union: personal stories tell. M., 1996

Vasily Konstantinovich Blucher was born on November 19 (December 1), 1889 in the village of Barshchinka, Rybinsk district, Yaroslavl province, 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.

The landowner named Blucher's great-grandfather, a serf who was a serf and returned from the Crimean War with many awards, after the name of the famous Prussian field marshal of the Napoleonic wars, the hero of the Battle of Waterloo. The nickname eventually turned into a surname.

In 1904, after a year of studying at a parochial school, Vasily’s father took Vasily to work in St. Petersburg, where he worked as a “boy” in a store and as a laborer at the Franco-Russian Machine-Building 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 in Nizhny Novgorod, then moved to Kazan and began working at a mechanical plant. He joined the Bolshevik Party.

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.

During the establishment of Soviet power in Russia, he arrived in Chelyabinsk with a detachment of Bolsheviks, seized power in the city and headed the Military Revolutionary Committee.

In March 1918, Vasily Blucher commanded the eastern detachment operating against the Cossacks of Ataman Alexander Ilyich Dutov. After the start of the uprising of the White Bohemian Corps, Blucher created the Ural Red Detachment, which in July became part of the united Ural partisan detachment (about 6,000 fighters); Blucher himself became the deputy of its commander N. Kashirin. The first attempt to break out of the encirclement failed, Kashirin was wounded, and on August 2, 1918, Blucher replaced him; the detachment was soon transformed into the Ural Partisan Army.

By mid-July, the partisan detachments, pressed by the White Cossack 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. He 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 he 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 Sima River with battles, occupied the Iglino station (12 km east of Ufa) and, having destroyed a section of the Ufa-Chelyabinsk railway, interrupted the Whites' communication 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 and others, the army entered the Askino region, broke through the encirclement near the village of Tyino-Ozerskaya and on September 12–14 united with the advanced units of the 3rd Army of the Eastern 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, it contributed to the offensive of the Eastern Front troops in the fall of 1918. For his 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.” Although Blucher was the first to be awarded the Order of the Red Banner, the order itself, awarded to him on May 11, 1919, had number 114. He received a duplicate of Order No. 1 only in 1937.

In 1918, Blucher commanded the 30th Infantry Division in Siberia and fought against the troops of A.V. Kolchak.

Since February 1919 - commander of the 3rd Army.

Blucher commanded the Perekop strike group, which delivered the main blow to Wrangel’s army from the Kakhovsky bridgehead. In the combat operations of the troops of the Southern Front to liberate Crimea, the Perekop strike group had the most difficult task: two of its brigades, together with the 15th and 52nd divisions, crossed the Sivash and then, from the Lithuanian Peninsula, struck the enemy’s flank and rear, the other two stormed “impregnable” Turkish Wall from the front. Blucher and his soldiers became the heroes of the assault on Perekop and the Ishun positions.

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.

Blucher did not take losses into account in order to complete the task.

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. Under the leadership of Blucher, the National Revolutionary Army of China was created and plans for the most important operations of the Northern Expedition of the Kuomintang Army were developed.

In 1929, when Chinese nationalists captured the Chinese Eastern Railway (CER), it was decided to unite all armed forces located in the Far East into the Special Far Eastern Army. Blucher, who knew the Far East very well, was appointed its commander, a position he held until the end of his military career. Blücher led the defeat of the Chinese Nationalists during the Sino-Soviet conflict of 1929. In the opinion of Admiral N.G. Kuznetsov, who knew the marshal well, Blucher attached particular importance to reconnaissance and timely detection of the enemy. For the first time in military history, the USSR used tanks. 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.

Since 1934 - member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. In 1935 he became one of the first marshals of the Soviet Union. He was directly involved in unleashing the Great Terror in his army. In June 1937, Blucher headed the military tribunal in the “military case”, in which Tukhachevsky, Yakir, Uborevich, Kork, Gamarnik and others were involved. During the year, during the repressions that followed this case in the Red Army, all of Blucher’s entourage in the Far East were 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.

In July - August 1938, the first armed conflict took place on the territory of the USSR - the battles at Lake Khasan. Blücher provided general leadership of military operations against the Japanese army in the area.

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, the head of the GUGB Frinovsky and the deputy people's commissar of defense - the head of the political department of the Red Army Mehlis with the task of establishing “revolutionary order” in the DKF troops, increasing their combat readiness and “within seven days carry out mass operational measures to remove opponents of Soviet power,” and at the same time churchmen, sectarians, suspected of espionage, Germans, Poles, Koreans, Finns, Estonians, etc. living in the region. Since the whole country was swept by waves of “the fight against the enemies of the people "and "spies", the emissaries had to find such in 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" in 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 who want to devour me, they will devour me or I don’t know. The second is unlikely." As life has shown, the marshal was not mistaken.

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.” The main culprit of these “major shortcomings” was primarily named the commander of the DKF. Blucher, among other things, was accused of “failing or not wanting to truly implement the cleansing of the front from enemies of the people,” as the People’s Commissar of Defense emphasized, he surrounded himself with “enemies of the people.”

The Main Military Council of the Red Army and the People's Commissariat of Defense recognized Blucher's performance as a commander as unsatisfactory, and he was removed from office. The celebrated 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. So, in the fall of 1938, Blucher left the Far East.

On October 22, 1938, Blucher was arrested. In prison he was subjected to torture and beatings. On November 9, 1938, 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; Blucher's eye was torn out. 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.”

Blucher was married three times. Based on the testimony given by Blucher, his first two wives - Galina Pokrovskaya and Galina 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.

Rehabilitated after the 20th Congress of the CPSU in 1956. At the same time, the surviving members of his family were also rehabilitated. Son Vasily became a scientist, rector of the institute.

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 become a soldier and returned from the Russian-Turkish War with many awards, after the name of the then famous Prussian field marshal. The nickname eventually turned into a surname.

In 1904, after a year of studying at a parochial school, Blucher’s father took Blucher to work in St. Petersburg. 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.

With the outbreak of the First World War, he was sent to the front as a private. Blucher served as a private in the 8th Army, commanded by General A. A. Brusilov. For military distinctions, he was awarded two St. George Crosses and a medal, and promoted to junior non-commissioned officer.

In 1915, after being seriously wounded near Ternopil, 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. He joined the Bolshevik Party.

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.

But red flags did not fly for long over the cities and towns of the Southern Urals. The White Cossack ataman Dutov raises a rebellion in order to restore the monarchy. Cossacks, cadets, and officers led by him captured Orenburg, Troitsk, Verkhne-Uralsk, and surrounded Chelyabinsk. Near Chelyabinsk, the whites had to feel the crushing blows of detachments of workers and soldiers, who were brought to the aid of the besieged by the chief of staff of the Red Guard of Samara, V.K. Blucher.

A fierce war has been going on for six months, cities and villages are changing hands. Cut off from the main forces of the Red Army, Blucher's regiments find themselves surrounded. At a meeting of commanders and political workers, he proposes a bold plan: a military raid behind the white lines - into the working-class regions of the Northern Urals. Over one and a half thousand kilometers in three months, insufficiently armed, poorly dressed and shod revolutionary soldiers, workers, and peasants fight. The iron will, military talent and outstanding courage of Vasily Konstantinovich and the communists lead them forward. In continuous bloody battles, Blucher's regiments crushed the numerically superior enemy and broke the encirclement, connecting with units of the 4th Ural Division.

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. The partisan army led by Blucher carried out a 40-day raid, fighting more than 1,500 km. Blucher commanded a rifle 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 November 1920, by order of the front commander M.V. Frunze, a group of troops under the command of V.K. Blucher stormed the Perekop Isthmus and Yushun positions. To ensure the success of the operation, individual units ford the Sivash, which was considered impassable, and break into the Crimea. Wrangel is defeated, the last stronghold of the White Guard in the European part of the country is eliminated. The pinnacle of Vasily Konstantinovich’s military-strategic talent was the organization of the capture of Spassk and Volochaevka in the Far East, sung in songs. In forty-degree frosts, the Red warriors took the fortifications that were considered impregnable and completely defeated the White Guards.

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 (Volochaevsky fortified area). Awarded four Orders of the Red Banner (1921, 1928).

In 1922-1924 - commandant and military commissar of the Petrograd fortified area.

In 1924-1927, Blucher was the main military adviser in China, using the pseudonym “Ga Lin” (in honor of his wife Galina). 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.

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).

A year later, during the repressions that followed this case in the Red Army, Blucher himself was arrested.

In July 1938, during the fighting near Lake Khasan, as a result of mistakes made, 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.” They really existed due to the continuous “cleansing” of the army. 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.”

The gloomy dissatisfaction of Mehlis, who inspected him after the Khasan events, the cold silence of Stalin, who usually supported him during the analysis in the Kremlin of the same Khasan operation, Voroshilov’s polite offer to rest in Sochi until a position corresponding to the marshal’s rank was found for him after his removal from command of the army.

Blucher was arrested in Sochi. He barely had time to lie down to pacify the unbearable pain from old wounds in his back when four silent figures in strict civilian suits appeared at the door. Vasily Konstantinovich understood everything.

This day, October 22, 1938, highlighted a lot for Blucher... The interrogation was conducted by Beria. V.K. Blucher rejected the charges brought against him of treason and intention to escape to Japan.

In prison he was subjected to torture and beatings. On November 9, 1938, while under investigation, V.K. Blucher died in Lefortovo prison.

On March 10, 1939, he was posthumously 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.” Blucher was married three times.

His first two wives - Galina Pokrovskaya and Galina 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.

Rehabilitated after the 20th Congress of the CPSU in 1956. At the same time, the surviving members of his family were also rehabilitated.

In the Far East, near the village of Volochaevka, where hot battles once took place, a stone was erected in memory of an outstanding Soviet military leader, whose name is Vasily Konstantinovich Blucher. The biography of this man is the path of a soldier who did not spare his health or life for his country, and who fell victim to its inhumane regime.

Russian guy with a German surname

The future Marshal Vasily Blucher was born in 1889 into a peasant family in the Yaroslavl province. The German surname given to this Russian guy is somewhat surprising. The answer can be found in their family legend. They say that one of the serf ancestors of the future military leader distinguished himself with courage in the War of 1812, and, returning to the village, brought many military awards. The master - the hero's owner - on this occasion gave him a nickname in honor of the famous German general, who became famous in the Battle of Waterloo - Gebhard Blucher. Over time, it replaced the real surname, and since then namesakes of the Bavarian warrior have appeared in the Russian outback.

When his son was fifteen years old, his father sent him to work in St. Petersburg. The fate of teenagers who found themselves from their native villages in a large and inhospitable city was difficult. They usually served as servants in taverns, as peddlers in stores, or in other hard work. Among them was Vasily Blucher. His biography of those years tells of the joyless and difficult life of a delivery boy in a merchant's shop, and then of a laborer in a workshop.

First baptism of fire

After some time, he moved to Moscow, where he worked at a carriage factory, but in 1911 he was arrested for active participation in strikes. The future Marshal Blucher spends three years in prison; after being released, he immediately finds himself in the trenches of the First World War, where he quickly proves that it is not for nothing that he bears the name of his hero ancestor. Participating in battles as part of the famous Brusilov Army, he received two St. George Crosses and the rank of non-commissioned officer for personal bravery.

But war is like war. A year later, the brave soldier was seriously wounded during an offensive operation on the Dunajets River near Ternopil. A grenade that exploded nearby mutilated his left thigh and both forearms. In addition, the hip joint was severely damaged. For this reason, one leg became shorter by one and a half centimeters.

At the front-line hospital where the wounded man was taken, the famous military surgeon Professor Pivovansky worked at that time. He extracted eight large fragments from Vasily’s body. Under his leadership, to save the soldier’s life, a complex and rare operation at that time was carried out, during which orderlies twice carried Blucher to the morgue, since there was no doubt about his death.

A short period of peaceful life

But he did not die, and for further treatment he was sent to Moscow, to a hospital named after Peter I. The explosions and fumes of the front line gave way to peace and cleanliness. Here the heroes, who mistook their wounds for their faith and fatherland, were once honored by Emperor Nicholas II with a personal visit. Soon, the medical commission of the main hospital issued a resolution according to which non-commissioned officer Vasily Konstantinovich Blucher was discharged from the army due to disability.

His biography during this period is sparse in information. It is only known that the pre-revolutionary years passed on the Volga - first in Nizhny Novgorod, and then in Kazan. Here he joins the RSDLP (b). According to him, this path was quite logical and natural for him - the son of a farm laborer, a simple working guy. The February Revolution found him in the city of Petrovsky, Kazan province, where he worked at an oil mill. In the spring of the same year, having moved to Samara, Blucher met V.V. Kuibyshev. This meeting determined his entire subsequent life.

Wanting peace at any cost, the Bolsheviks sent hundreds of agitators into the army. Vasily Blucher also received a referral. “Death to tsarism and end to war!” - their main slogan. During the days of these dramatic events, the future marshal was elected chairman of the regimental committee, and a month later he became a member of the military revolutionary committee of Samara.

This was a serious progress in the life of a young man, because by that time he was only twenty-eight years old. What did Vasily Blucher experience during the revolution and red terror? A brief biography of him from those years provides only laconic information about his official movements, omitting the main thing - the personal perception of that bloody wave that swept across all of Russia and destroyed many, many.

The beginning of the fratricidal war

In 1918, the young commander found himself in the Urals. There, active resistance to the new government was put up by units under the command of Orenburg Cossack Colonel A.I. Dutov. Vasily Blucher was sent to fight him. The civil war engulfed this entire vast region. A consolidated detachment was formed, which was based in Chelyabinsk. The fight against Dutov's Cossacks was carried out in several stages. At the end of January 1918, they managed to capture Orenburg, and in March - Verkhneuralsk. The particular significance of this success was that the second city was one of the main centers of the White Guard Cossack army.

Such a decisive offensive by the formations under the command of Blucher forced Colonel Dutov and his units to retreat and temporarily take refuge in the vastness of the Turgai steppe. Their further actions were purely partisan in nature, although they caused significant damage to the enemy. In April, the situation at the front became more complicated because the White Guards, not associated with the Dutovites, managed to blockade Orenburg. As a result, they cut off the city from Turkestan, where Soviet power had already been established.

Battles near Orenburg

Military formations were urgently sent to this area, headed by the future Marshal Blucher. His biography leaves no doubt that by this time he had managed to gain a well-deserved reputation as a reliable combat commander with his decisive and competent actions. The units entrusted to him were formed mainly from volunteer workers, as well as a significant number of old, still tsarist, officers who expressed a desire to serve the revolution. In addition, they included Ufa Tatars and some local ethnic groups.

At the end of May, Blucher's detachment managed to approach besieged Orenburg and establish contact with its defenders. By this time, a rebellion broke out in the city among the captured soldiers and officers of the Austro-Hungarian army, which greatly complicated the situation. In the summer of 1918, detachments of the Cossack liberation movement, together with the rebel units located inside the city, pushed back the red detachments and captured Orenburg. Building on their success, they continued the offensive and took control of many cities and villages of the region. Cut off from supply areas, Blücher's units were forced to switch to guerrilla warfare.

March through enemy territory and further battles

The most striking episode of those years is considered to be the forty-day raid carried out by his unit behind enemy lines. During this short period, the partisans managed to overcome more than one thousand four hundred kilometers in battles. In the subsequent report of the Revolutionary Military Council, this unprecedented march was compared with the legendary march of Suvorov.

This was a time when the Bolsheviks, who had seized power, were still in vital need of talented military leaders, such as Vasily Konstantinovich Blucher. The civil war was still in full swing, and the fate, and ultimately the life, of the new owners of the Kremlin depended on their actions. The time has not yet come to get rid of them as unnecessary ballast. Everything was ahead...

For his heroic raid, the young military leader became a holder of the very first Order of the Red Banner and continued his career in Siberia, commanding a rifle division in battles with Kolchak. This was followed by battles on the Kakhovsky bridgehead, battles near Volochaevka and Perekop. Everywhere, as the official Soviet press emphasized, Blucher showed himself to be a talented and energetic commander, capable of solving tactical problems of any scale. Obviously, this was the pure truth, but it’s scary to imagine the thousands of lives that stand behind the lines of this description. By this time, his chest was decorated with two more Orders of the Red Banner.

At the very end of the twenties, the future Marshal Blucher received a new appointment - the post of army commander in the Far East. By this time he was already forty years old, a fully formed person with life experience so rich that it would be more than enough for several ordinary people. Having become a professional military man, he went through a difficult battle path. He often had to see death, and it became an everyday reality. But soon Blucher had to face a completely different war - the one that was secretly unleashed by Stalin and his entourage against his own people.

Inhumane regime

It would hardly be appropriate to repeat everything that has been said and written in recent years about the period of lies, betrayals and crimes into which the country has entered. Many people from all walks of life were stained with dirt and blood. The absurd, senseless game of self-destruction was played out according to the rules dictated by the “leader of the peoples.”

Modern historians often compare Stalin's methods with the tactics of another statesman - Machiavelli, who at the beginning of the 16th century declared that the interests of the state justify any means, and even crime. In his opinion, in these cases the very concept of immorality is abolished.

Very often, high-ranking proponents of such theories confuse the interests of the state with their own, and in their concept, the patriotism of citizens is expressed by devotion to them personally. Such moral mutations give rise to all kinds of personality cults, and, as a consequence, totalitarian regimes.

However, let's return to the topic of the story. Blucher Vasily Konstantinovich, who had proven himself to be a fearless commander in the civil war, suddenly turned into a submissive executor of someone else’s criminal will during the period of Stalin’s bloody purges. In the units entrusted to him, as a result of total repression, most and the best part of the command staff was destroyed - people with whom he fought together, and whose purity he could not doubt. But this does not give rise to open protest on his part or at least an attempt to save his slandered comrades.

In 1935, Blücher was awarded the rank of marshal. Already in this new rank, he acted as chairman of the military tribunal, which condemned to death many of his former comrades - high-ranking commanders of the Red Army, among whom was M. N. Tukhachevsky. All these people were both the product of the revolution and its victims. They were destroyed when they were no longer needed, and their authority among the people became dangerous for those in power. Marshal Blucher (a photo of those years is presented at the beginning of the article) eventually became one of them.

Fights with the Japanese

In July 1938, an armed conflict broke out in the Far East near Lake Khasan. On our side, military operations were led by Marshal Blucher. The hero's biography, filled with a list of victories in previous battles, left no doubt about the quick and easy defeat of the enemy. However, it came at too great a price. The Red Army suffered significant and, from a military point of view, unjustified losses. Marshal Blucher was found to be the culprit. This failure was a convenient reason for the authorities to destroy another extraordinary personality. All previous merits were immediately forgotten, and the Main Military Council, which included Stalin, Voroshilov, Budyonny and Molotov, unanimously recognized the hero of the civil war as an enemy of the people and a participant in a fascist military conspiracy. His career, and with it his life, came to its tragic end.

Fabrication of charges against Blucher

This sad ending was preceded by the following events. From documents declassified after Stalin's death, it is known that, starting in 1936, the NKVD authorities began systematic work to falsify materials in which Marshal Blucher was presented as a hidden enemy of Soviet power. The head of this department, Yezhov, was preparing for submission to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) a whole selection of intelligence reports that he was a participant in some kind of anti-Soviet conspiracy, which set itself one of the tasks - the separation of the Far East from Russia. However, Stalin, having familiarized himself with these materials, temporarily did not give them a go.

During this period, there was a wave of repression throughout the country, but in 1938 in the Far East it gained special momentum. The impetus for this was the flight to Manchuria of the recently appointed head of the NKVD Directorate for the Far East, deputy of the Supreme Council G. S. Lyushkov. Having arrived shortly before in Khabarovsk and taking over the affairs of his predecessor, on June 13, 1938, he illegally crossed the border and surrendered to their border guards, asking for political asylum. Obviously, having worked for many years in the NKVD, he understood that sooner or later he would have to become another victim of this inhumane system.

In the face of the inevitable

The reaction followed immediately, and mass repressions began against army personnel. Honored military man, Marshal Vasily Konstantinovich Blucher, whose biography was an example of selfless service to the homeland, turned out, according to investigators, to be the central figure of the conspiracy. His entire entourage was immediately arrested, only he himself was not touched for some time. What was the reason? Hard to say. Probably, someone at the top enjoyed the thought of the moral torment that a person must experience, awaiting imminent arrest and realizing that there is no hope of salvation.

A direct and decisive person by nature, Blucher found the strength to turn personally to Stalin and raise the question of trust in him. The Father of Nations assured him of his complete confidence and even awarded the marshal the Order of Lenin, mentioning in the order his special services to the fatherland in increasing the country's defense capability and modernizing the units entrusted to him. Considering that Vasily Konstantinovich had only a few months left to remain free, it is difficult to imagine greater deceit and shamelessness.

The end of the military career and life of a marshal

However, the award was followed by removal from his position. The reason for it, according to the conclusion of the Supreme Military Council, was the shortcomings in the organization of repelling Japanese aggression in the area of ​​Lake Khasan. The same composition of the Council decided that Marshal Blucher Vasily Konstantinovich was unable or, more likely, did not want to take all measures to increase the combat effectiveness of the units entrusted to him, which led to the loss of 408 people killed and 2807 wounded on our side. One of the reasons for the military failure was recognized as the ineffective cleansing of the ranks of the command staff from hidden enemies of the people, which indisputably indicates that he belonged to the military-fascist conspiracy that was brewing in the ranks of the armed forces.

From the case materials it is known that on October 22 in Adler, at the Bocharov Ruchey boarding house, Blucher was arrested. He was taken by a special train to Moscow to the Lubyanka and placed in the internal section of the NKVD prison. What followed is eloquently evidenced by the fact that during the eighteen days he spent behind bars, he was interrogated twenty-one times. The methods of interrogation can be judged by the fact that the arrested person fully admitted the charges brought against him and left the necessary signatures in the protocols.

During the next interrogation, which took place on November 9, he died. Having learned about this, Stalin ordered the corpse to be delivered to Butyrka for a medical examination, and upon completion, to be burned in the crematorium. The official cause of death was a blood clot that formed in the pulmonary artery. Only four months later a trial was held, which handed down a retroactive death sentence on charges of creating an anti-Soviet organization, espionage for Japan and a number of other crimes.

The tragedy of his family and friends

This is how the hero of the civil war, Marshal Blucher Vasily Konstantinovich, tragically ended his life. His family was also repressed. At the time of his arrest, he was in his third marriage. His first two wives were shot, and the third was sentenced to eight years in prison. In the whirlpool of bloody and senseless events, the marshal’s ten-month-old son disappeared without a trace.

When the wind in the country blew in the other direction and the time came to expose Stalin’s personality cult, the surviving family members received a message from the Main Military Prosecutor’s Office that the case against Blucher was fabricated by Beria (another enemy of the people). After some time, he was posthumously rehabilitated. In conclusion, I would only like to say that Vasily Konstantinovich Blucher, whose short biography is outlined in this article, became in a certain sense a symbol of his era. Millions of people like him, believing the imaginary ideals of the revolution, died under its merciless wheels.