Mysterious death Commissar
Ninety years ago, on October 31 on 1925 of the year, the USSR People's Commissar of Defense and the Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council, Mikhail Frunze, died. He was an extraordinarily gifted and strong-willed person, just like him, made up the "golden fund" of the Bolsheviks.Frunze took part in the armed uprising in Moscow in December 1905 and in October 1917. Revolutionary underground activist, functionary of the RSDLP - he was twice sentenced to death, but she was still replaced with hard labor, where Frunze spent six years. He happened to prove himself in various posts. He headed the Shuya Soviet of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, was a deputy of the Constituent Assembly from the Vladimir Province, headed the Ivano-Voznesensky Provincial Committee of the RCP (b) and the Executive Committee.
But, of course, first of all, Mikhail Vasilyevich became famous as an outstanding commander-nugget. In 1919, at the head of the 4 Army of the Red Army, he defeated Kolchak. In the year 1920 (together with the Rebel Army N.I. Makhno) took Perekop and crushed Wrangel (later he directed the “cleansing” of the Makhnovists themselves).
And in the same year he led the Bukhara operation, during which the emir was overthrown and the People’s Soviet Republic was established. In addition, Frunze was a military theorist and creator of the military reform of 1924 – 1925. He lived a bright life, and his death caused many questions.
1. Unclear reasons
Frunze died after surgery caused by a stomach ulcer. According to the official version, the cause of death was blood poisoning. However, later another version was put forward - Mikhail Vasilyevich died of cardiac arrest, as a result of the effects of anesthesia. The body tolerated it very badly, the operated one could not fall asleep for half an hour. At first he was given ether, but he did not work, then they began to give chloroform. The impact of the latter in itself is quite dangerous, and in combination with ether everything was more dangerous than doubly. Moreover, the narcotizer (as the anesthetists were then called) A.D. Ochkin also exceeded the dose. At the moment, the “narcotic” version prevails, but not all share it. So, according to the Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor V.L. Popov, the immediate cause of Frunze’s death was peritonitis, and anesthetic death was only an assumption, there is simply no evidence for this. Indeed, an autopsy showed that the patient had fibrinous-purulent peritonitis. And the severity of peritonitis is quite sufficient to be considered the cause of death. Yes, even in the presence of inferiority of the aorta and large arterial vessels. As suggested, it was innate, with this Frunze lived a long time, but the peritonitis exacerbated the whole thing. (Transmission "After death. MV Frunze." Fifth channel TV. 21. 11. 2009).
As we see, so far there is no possibility even to determine the exact cause of death of Frunze. Therefore, it is impossible to talk about murder, at least now. Although, of course, a lot of things look very suspicious. One year after the death of Frunze, people's commissar of health N.A. Semashko said the following. It turns out that the surgeon V.N. Rozanov, who operated on Frunze, suggested not to hurry with the operation. As, however, and his physician P.V. Mandryka, who for some reason was not allowed on the operation itself. In addition, according to Semashko, only a small part of the consultation that made the decision on the operation was competent. However, it should be noted that Semashko himself chaired this council.
In any case, one thing is obvious - Frunze had very, very serious health problems. By the way, the first symptoms he had appeared in the 1906 year. And in 1922, the council of doctors under the Central Committee of the RCP urged him to go abroad for treatment. However, Frunze "recommended" this recommendation, so to speak. It seemed to him that it would distract from the affairs. He went for treatment in Borjomi, and the conditions there were clearly not enough.
2. Trotsky trail
Almost immediately began talking about the fact that the Commissar was killed. Moreover, at first the murder was attributed to the supporters of LD Trotsky. But very soon they went on the offensive and began to blame everything on I.V. Stalin.
A powerful literary “bomb” was made: writer B.V. Pilnyak published in The New World Magazine The Tale of the Unpaid Moon, in which he subtly hinted at Stalin's involvement in the death of Frunze.
And he, of course, did not name either one or the other, the people's commissar was bred under the name of commander Gavrilov, a completely healthy man, but practically forced to go under a surgeon’s knife. Pilnyak himself felt it necessary to warn the reader: “The plot of this story suggests that the reason for writing it and the material was the death of M.V. Frunze. Personally, I hardly knew Frunze, I barely knew him, I saw him twice. I don’t know the actual details of his death - and they are not very significant for me, because the purpose of my story was not to report on the death of the military commissar. All this I find it necessary to inform the reader so that the reader does not look for real facts and living faces in him. ”
It turns out the following. On the one hand, Pilnyak dismissed all attempts to link the plot of the story with real events, and on the other, he pointed to Frunze. For what? Maybe so that the reader just does not have any doubts about who and what is at stake? Researcher N. Nad (Dobryukha) drew attention to the fact that Pilnyak dedicated his story to the writer AK To Voronsky, one of the leading theorists of Marxism in the field of literature and a supporter of the Left Opposition: “The archives contain evidence of how the idea of the Tale arose. It began, apparently, with the fact that Voronsky, as a member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, was included into the composition of the “Commission on the organization of a funeral comrade. Mv Frunze. Of course, at the meeting of the Commission, in addition to ritual issues, all the circumstances of the “unsuccessful operation” were discussed. The fact that the “Tale of the Unsettled Moon” Pilnyak dedicated to Voronsky speaks for the fact that Pilnyak received the main information about the reasons for the “unsuccessful operation” from him. And clearly from the "point of view" of Trotsky. No wonder that already in 1927, Mr. Voronsky, as an active participant in the Trotskyist opposition, was expelled from the party. Later Pilniak himself will suffer. So, Pilnyak was part of Voronsky’s literary circle, which, in turn, was part of Trotsky’s political circle. As a result, these circles closed ”. (“Who killed Mikhail Frunze” // Izvestia.Ru)
3. Opponent of the "demon of revolution"
Let us not rush to conclusions about the involvement of Trotsky in the death of the commander. We are talking about the attempt of the Trotskyists to push everything on Stalin - here everything is absolutely clear. Although Lev Davidovich had every reason for dislike for Frunze — he was the one who replaced him at the post of Commissar of Defense and the head of the FARC. However, the strings can be pulled in times of civil war.
The relations between Trotsky and Frunze were strained then, to put it mildly. In 1919, there was a serious conflict between them.
At that time, the Kolchak army led a successful offensive, moving swiftly and energetically towards the regions of Central Russia. And at first Trotsky became generally pessimistic, saying that it was simply impossible to resist this onslaught. (By the way, it is worth recalling that at one time the vast expanses of Siberia, the Urals and the Volga region departed from the Bolsheviks during the uprising of the White Czechs, which was, to a large extent, provoked by Trotsky, who ordered them to disarm.) However, then he nevertheless gathered with in spirit, he gave the order: to retreat to the Volga and build fortifications there.
The commander of the 4 Army Frunze did not obey this decree, having received the full support of Lenin. As a result of a powerful counterattack, units of the Red Army threw Kolchak troops far to the east, freeing the Ural region, as well as certain areas of the Middle and Southern Urals. Then Trotsky suggested stopping and transferring troops from the Eastern Front to the South. The Central Committee rejected this plan, and the offensive was continued, after which the Red Army liberated Izhevsk, Ufa, Perm, Chelyabinsk, Tyumen and other cities of the Urals and Western Siberia.
Stalin recalled all this in a speech to trade union activists (19 June 1924): “You know that Kolchak and Denikin were considered the main enemies of the Soviet Republic. You know that our country breathed freely only after defeating these enemies. And so, story says that both of these enemies, i. Kolchak and Denikin finished off our troops in defiance of Trotsky's plans. Judge for yourself: It happens in the summer of 1919. Our troops are attacking Kolchak and are operating near Ufa. The meeting of the Central Committee. Trotsky proposes to delay the offensive along the line of the Belaya River (near Ufa), leaving the Urals in the hands of Kolchak, withdraw part of the troops from the Eastern Front and transfer them to the Southern Front. There is a heated debate. The Central Committee does not agree with Trotsky, finding that it is impossible to leave Ural with his factories, with his railway network in Kolchak’s hands, where he can easily recover, muster a fist and find himself again at the Volga — you must first drive Kolchak behind the Ural Mountains to the Siberian steppes , and only after that do the transfer of forces to the south. The Central Committee rejects Trotsky's plan ... From this moment on, Trotsky departs from direct participation in the affairs of the Eastern Front. ”
In the fight against Denikin's troops, Trotsky also showed himself to the full - from the negative side. At the beginning, he very “successfully” commanded that the whites captured the Eagle and moved to Tula. One of the reasons for such failures was a quarrel with N.I. Makhno, whom the "demon of the revolution" outlawed, although the men of the legendary Farther stood to death. “It was necessary to save the situation,” notes S. Kuzmin. - Trotsky proposed to deliver the main attack on Denikinians from Tsaritsyn to Novorossiysk, through the Don steppes, where the Red Army would meet on its way a complete lack of roads and numerous White-Kazakh gangs. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin did not like this plan. Trotsky was removed from the leadership of the operations of the Red Army in the south. " ("Contrary to Trotsky")
One gets the impression that Trotsky did not want the victory of the Red Army at all. And quite possibly, it was so. Of course, he did not want to defeat. Rather, his plans included tightening the Civil War as much as possible.
This was also included in the plans of the “Western democracies”, with which Trotsky was associated, who insistently proposed that the entire first half of 1918 of the year should conclude a military-political alliance with England and France. Thus, in January 1919, the Entente proposed to hold a joint conference with white and red, make peace and maintain the status quo - everyone dominates within the territory controlled at the time of the truce. It is clear that this would only prolong the state of a split in Russia - the West did not need a strong and united one.
4. Fail Bonaparte
During the civil war, Trotsky showed himself to be an inveterate Bonapartist, and at some point was even close to seizing power, relying on the army.
31 August 1918, the attempt was made on the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars V.I. Lenin. He was in the worst condition, and this inevitably posed the question: who will be at the head of the country in the event of his death? The chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTSIK), Ya.M. Sverdlov, who simultaneously headed the rapidly growing apparatus of the RKP (b). But Trotsky also had the strongest resource - the army. And so, on September 2, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopts the following decree: “The Soviet Republic is turning into a military camp. At the head of all fronts and military institutions of the Republic is the Revolutionary Military Council. All the forces and means of the Socialist Republic are put at its disposal. "
Trotsky was put at the head of the new body. It is significant that neither the Council of People's Commissars or the party participate in the adoption of this decision. Everything is decided by the Central Executive Committee, or rather, its chairman, Sverdlov. “It is noteworthy that there was no decision of the Central Committee of the RKP (b) to create a Revolutionary Military Council, notes S. Mironov. - It is not known about any plenum of the Central Committee in these days. Sverdlov, who concentrated all the top party posts in his hands, simply removed the party from the decision to create the FAR. A "completely independent state power" was created. Bonapartist-type military power. No wonder contemporaries often called Trotsky the Red Bonaparte. ” ("The Civil War in Russia").
When Lenin recovered from his illness and took up state affairs again, an unpleasant surprise awaited him. It turned out that the power of the pre-council committee was severely curtailed, and the creation of the RVS played an important role in this. Ilyich, however, was not so easy to cut off, and he quickly found a way out of this situation. Lenin responded to one apparatus maneuver with others, creating a new body - the Union of Workers 'and Peasants' Defense (from 1920 onwards - the Union of Labor and Defense), at the head of which he himself rose. Now the megastructure of the RVS was forced to obey another - CPRC.
After Lenin's death, throughout the entire 1924 year, Trotsky’s supporters were removed from the top army leadership. The greatest loss was the displacement from the post of the Deputy RVS E.M. Sklyansky, who was just replaced by Frunze.
Commander of the Moscow Military District N.I. Muralov naughtlessly offered "the demon of the revolution to raise troops against the leadership. However, Trotsky did not dare to do this, he chose to act by political methods - and lost.
In January, 1925 Commissar-General and Chairman of the RVS became his opponent Frunze.
5. Thinker of the new army
The new Commissar was not only an outstanding commander, but also a thinker who created a coherent system of ideas about what the army of a new state should be. This system is rightly called the “single military doctrine of Frunze”.
Its foundations are set out in a series of works: “Reorganization of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army” (1921), “Unified Military Doctrine and the Red Army” (1921), “Military-Political Education of the Red Army” (1922), “Front and Rear in the Future War »(1924),« Lenin and the Red Army »(1925).
Frunze gave his definition of "unified military doctrine." In his opinion, it is “a doctrine that establishes the nature of the construction of the country's armed forces, the methods of combat training of troops, based on the prevailing views in the state on the nature of the military tasks before him and the way they are resolved, derived from the class essence of the state and determined by the level of development of productive country forces ".
The new, Red Army differs from the old armies of the bourgeois states in that it is built on ideological grounds. In this regard, he insisted on the special role of party-political organizations in the army. In addition, the new army should be popular, avoid any caste. Moreover, it should be characterized by the highest professionalism.
Ideology is an ideology, but one cannot rely only on it. “... Frunze did not accept the Trotskyist idea of a“ revolution on bayonets, ”notes Yury Bardakhchiev. - Back in the fall of 1921, he claimed that it was unwise to hope for the support of the foreign proletariat in a future war. Frunze believed that "it is entirely probable that an enemy appears in front of us, who will be very difficult to yield to the arguments of revolutionary ideology." Therefore, he wrote, in the calculations of future operations, the main attention should be paid not to hopes for the political disintegration of the enemy, but to the possibility of “actively physically crushing him”. ("The Unified Military Doctrine of Frunze" // "The Essence of Time").
In addition, it should be noted that if Trotsky did not tolerate national patriotism, then Frunze was not alien to him. “There, in the camp of our enemies, there can be no national revival of Russia, which is just from that side and there can be no talk about the struggle for the welfare of the Russian people.
Because it is not because of the beautiful eyes that all these Frenchmen, the British, help Denikin and Kolchak — naturally, they pursue their own interests. This fact should be clear enough that Russia is not there, that Russia is with us ...
We are not a mess like Kerensky. We are in a deadly battle. We know that if we are defeated, hundreds of thousands, millions of the best, steadfast and energetic in our country will be exterminated, we know that they will not talk to us, we will only be hanged, and our whole homeland will be drenched in blood. Our country will be enslaved by foreign capital. "
Mikhail Vasilyevich was convinced that the offensive is at the heart of the military actions, but the most important role belongs to the defense, which must be active. We should not forget about the rear. In the future war, the importance of military equipment will only increase, so this area should be given great attention. It is necessary to develop tank construction in every possible way, even if “to the detriment and at the expense of other kinds weapons". As for air fleet, then "its significance will be decisive."
The “ideocratic” approach of Frunze was clearly different from the approach of Trotsky, who emphasized his extra-ideological nature in matters of army building. CM. Budyonny recalls the military meeting at the XI Congress of the RCP (B) (March – April 1922) and the shocking speech of the “demon of the revolution”: “His views on the military question were directly opposed to those of Frunze. All of us were literally amazed: what he claimed contradicted Marxism, the principles of the proletarian construction of the Red Army. “What is he talking about? - I wondered. “Either he doesn’t understand anything in military affairs, or he deliberately confuses an extremely clear question.” Trotsky declared that Marxism, they say, is not applicable to military science in general, that war is a craft, a set of practical skills, and therefore there can be no science of war. He muddied the entire combat experience of the Red Army in the Civil War, saying that there was nothing instructive there. It is characteristic that during the whole speech Trotsky never referred to Lenin. He bypassed that well-known fact that Vladimir Ilyich, the creator of the theory of just and unjust wars, the creator of the Red Army, that he was in charge of the defense of the Soviet Republic, was developing the fundamentals of Soviet military science. But, noting in the theses the need for decisive offensive actions and educating the soldiers in the spirit of high combat activity, Frunze relied precisely on the works of V.I. Lenin, in particular, was guided by his speech at the VIII Congress of Soviets. It turned out that it was not Frunze who was "refuted" by Trotsky, but by Lenin! "
It is unlikely that Trotsky can be reproached with indifference to questions of ideology, especially in such an important area as the military. Most likely, he simply wanted to enlist the support of broad army circles, positioning himself as a supporter of their independence from party political bodies. Trotsky, in general, was very easily “rebuilt,” based on tactical considerations. He could demand the militarization of the trade unions, and then, after some time, act as an ardent advocate of intra-party democracy. (By the way, when the internal opposition was outlined in its IV International, the “democrat” Trotsky defeated it quickly and ruthlessly in 1930.) It is quite possible that it was Trotsky’s “outside ideology” in military affairs that supported his popularity in the military.
Frunze honestly and openly defended the ideocratic line, he did not need populist gestures, his popularity was firmly won by brilliant victories.
6. Kotovsky factor
The mysterious death of Frunze can be put on with one row with the murder of the hero of the civil war and the commander of the 2-M cavalry corps. Kotovsky. Mikhail Vasilyevich and Grigory Ivanovich were very close. The latter became the commander's right hand. And after Frunze headed the military commissariat and the PBC, he planned to make Kotovsky his first deputy. And he completely deserved it, and not only because of his past merits of the times of the Civil War. In 1923, Kotovsky won the largest military maneuvers, and then spoke at the Moscow meeting of the commanders and proposed to transform the core of the cavalry into armored subunits.
In 1924, Grigory Ivanovich offered Frunze a bold plan for reuniting Russia with his native Bessarabia. It was assumed that he, with one division, would cross the Dniester, immediately defeat the Romanian troops, raising the local population for an uprising (among which he himself was very popular). After this, Kotovsky will create his own government, which will propose reunification. Frunze, however, rejected this plan.
It is impossible to ignore the fact that Kotovsky was in a very conflicting relationship with I.E. Yakir, who was a relative of Trotsky and enjoyed his support in moving up the career ladder. This is what Kotovsky's son, Grigory Grigorievich, says: “During the Civil War, several clashes between his father and Yakir occurred. So, in 1919, at a major station, it seems, Zhmerinka, a detachment of former Galicians rebelled. Yakir, who happened to be at the station at that time, got into the headquarters car and drove off. Then Kotovsky applied the following tactics: his brigade began to dangle around the small streets of the small town, creating the impression of a huge amount of cavalry. With small forces he suppressed this rebellion, after which Yakir caught up with the train. The father was terribly quick-tempered, an explosive person (according to mom's words, when commanders came home, they first of all asked: “How is the commander’s head red or not?”; If red, then it was better not to approach). So, my father jumped into the car to Yakir, who was sitting at his desk, and shouted: “Coward! Zarublyu! And Yakir hid under the table ... Of course, such things are not forgiven. ” (“Who killed Robin Hood of the revolution?” // Peoples.Ru).
Thus, it can be assumed that the killing of Kotovsky in 1925 was somehow connected with the activities of the Trotsky group. Frunze took up the investigation himself, but death did not allow him to complete this case (like many other cases) to the end.
Today it is impossible to answer the question: whether Frunze was killed and to whom his death was beneficial. Stalin, who had a strong and reliable ally in the person of Mikhail Vasilyevich, was hardly interested in this. It is possible that new documents will be discovered that will shed new light on the circumstances of that unfortunate October operation.
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