Kliment Voroshilov

Voroshilov was born in the settlement of Verkhnyeye, Bakhmut uyezd, Yekaterinoslav Governorate, Russian Empire (now part of Lysychansk city in Luhansk Oblast, Ukraine).[2] His father, a former soldier, was employed at different times as a railway worker or miner, and went through periods of unemployment. According to the Soviet Major General Petro Grigorenko, Voroshilov himself alluded to the heritage of his birth-country (Ukraine) and to the previous family name of Voroshylo.[3]

Kliment Voroshilov with his teacher Semyon Ryzhkov

In his published autobiography, Voroshilov described a childhood of extreme hardship, working from the age of six or seven, and receiving frequent beatings from wealthy peasants, which left him with a lifelong aversion to 'kulaks'. He grew up illiterate, until he was able to enroll in a newly opened school in a nearby village, at the age of 12, and received two years' schooling.[4] During his school years, Voroshilov became a close friend and almost a member of the family of Semyon Ryzhkov.[5]

In 1896, he started work in a factory near his home village, where he led a strike in 1899. In 1903, he enrolled in a German owned factory in Luhansk (which was renamed Vorshilov during the Stalin era). There, he joined the Bolsheviks, and acted as a strike leader during the 1905 revolution. In April 1906, he travelled to Stockholm for the Fourth Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), using the provocative pseudonym 'Volodya Antimekov' or Anti-Menshevik.[6] In Stockholm, he shared a room with the delegate from Georgia, Josif Dzhugashvili, later known as Stalin.[7]

In spring 1907, he travelled to London for the Fifth RSDLP Congress. On his return, he was arrested and deported to Arkhangelsk, but in December he escaped and moved to Baku, where Stalin was also active. Arrested again in 1908, he was released from exile in 1912, and for a time worked in an ordnance factory in Tsaritsyn (Stalingrad/Volgagrad).[4]

Voroshilov in 1920

Voroshilov was in Petrograd (St Petersburg) during the February Revolution, but returned to Luhansk, where he was chairman of the town soviet, and was elected to the Constituent Assembly. His military career began early in 1918, when he was given command of the Fifth Ukrainian Army, which was made up of a few scattered units, who were driven out of Ukraine by the German army. After a long, hazardous retreat, his group reached Tsaritsyn, where Stalin was posted in summer 1918 as representative of the central party leadership, and where Voroshilov was given command of the Tenth Army. Stalin and Voroshilov led the Red Army's 1918 defense of Tsaritsyn. They also sponsored the creation of the first Red Cavalry unit, commanded by Semyon Budyonny, which was composed chiefly of peasants from southern Russia.[8][9] During the Polish–Soviet War, Voroshilov was political commissar with Budienny's First Cavalry. In Tsaritsyn, Voroshilov clashed with Leon Trotsky, the People's Commissar for War, who considered him undisciplined and unit unfit to command an army, and in October 1918 threatened him with court martial.[10] Voroshilov was transferred to Ukraine, as commander of the Kharkiv military district, and later People's Commissar for War in the Ukraine soviet republic. He sided with the 'Military Opposition', who opposed the formation of a centralised army, preferring to rely on local mobile units, and objected to the recruitment into the Red Army of former officers from the Tsarist army.[11]

The red banner from the Paris Commune, brought to Moscow by French communists. On the photo: Kliment Voroshilov first on the right, Grigory Zinoviev third from the right, Avel Enukidze fourth from the right and Nikolay Antipov fifth from the right. 1924

Voroshilov served as a member of the Central Committee from his election in 1921 until 1961. In April 1921, he was appointed commander of the North Caucasus military district. In March 1924, he was promoted to the post of commander of the Moscow military district. 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. Despite the high offices he held, Voroshilov appears not to have been part in the inner leadership. In November 1930, the chairman of the Russian government, Sergey Syrtsov alleged that a "tiny group", which excluded Voroshilov but included nominally much less senior figures such as Pavel Postyshev, was making decisions "behind the back of the Politburo".[12]

His main accomplishment in this period was to move key Soviet war industries east of the Urals, so that the Soviet Union could strategically retreat, while keeping its manufacturing capability intact.[13] Frunze's political position adhered to that of the Troika (Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev, Stalin), but Stalin preferred to have a close, personal ally in charge (as opposed to Frunze, a "Zinovievite"). Frunze was urged by a group of Stalin's hand-picked doctors to have surgery to treat an old stomach ulcer, despite previous doctors' recommendations to avoid surgery and Frunze's own unwillingness.[14] He died on the operating table of a massive overdose of chloroform, an anaesthetic.[14] Voroshilov became a full member of the newly formed Politburo in 1926, remaining a member until 1960.

Voroshilov was appointed People's Commissar (Minister) for Defence in 1934 and a Marshal of the Soviet Union in 1935.

During the first of the Moscow trials, in August 1936, Voroshilov was one of four Politburo members who signed the order that appeals for clemency were to be denied and that the defendants were to be executed without delay.[15] He was also of the main speakers at the March 1937 plenum of the Central Committee, which ended with the arrests of Nikolai Bukharin and Alexei Rykov, whom Voroshilov denounced as "renegades".[16]

In the early stages, he seemed to have believed that the purge would not affect the armed forces, and was seemingly unprepared for the arrest of Marshal Tukhachevsky and others in April and May. Voroshilov did not personally share the paranoia towards upper-class elements of the officer corps.[17] He openly declared that the saboteurs in the Red Army were few in number and tried to save the lives of officers like Lukin, who would serve with distinction during the Second World War, and Sokolov-Strakhov, and he was sometimes successful.[17]But on 30 May, he telephoned the commander of the Ukraine military district, Iona Yakir ordering him to take a train to Moscow for a meeting of the Military Revolutionary Council, knowing that he would be arrested on the way.[18] When the Council met on 1 June 1937, Voroshilov vacated the chair to deliver a report in which he said, apologetically: "I could not believe we would reveal so many and such scoundrels in the ranks fo the highest command of our glorious, our valiant Workers' and Peasants' Army."[19]

After that, he 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 wrote personal letters to exiled former Soviet officers and diplomats such as commissar Mikhail Ostrovsky, asking them to return voluntarily to the Soviet Union and falsely reassuring them that they would not face retribution from authorities.[20] Voroshilov personally signed 185 documented execution lists, fourth among the Soviet leadership after Molotov, Stalin and Kaganovich.[21] He had no problem denouncing officers he disliked such as Tukhachevsky.[17][22]

Voroshilov and Turkish President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk on 29 October 1933

Despite taking part in the purging of many "mechanisers" (supporters of wide usage of tanks rather than cavalry) from the Red Army, Voroshilov became convinced that reliance on cavalry should be decreased while more modern arms should receive higher priority.[17] Marshal Budyonny tried to recruit him to his cause of protecting the status of cavalry in the Red Army but Voroshilov openly declared his intention to do the opposite.[17] He praised the army's combined arms warfare capabilities as well as the high quality and ability to take initiative of the officers during the 1936 summer manoeuvers.[17] However he also pointed out issues in the Red Army as a whole in his full report.[17] Among the issues he pointed out were insufficient communication, ineffective staffs, insufficient cooperation between arms, and the rudimentary nature of the command structure in tank units and other modern arms.[17]

The first five Marshals of the Soviet Union, clockwise from top left: Budyonny, Blyukher, Yegorov, Voroshilov and Tukhachevsky (November 1935). Only Voroshilov and Budyonny would survive Stalin's Great Purge.

When the Great Purge ended, some reforms were undertaken by the high command to reconcile Red Army doctrine (for example deep operations doctrine) with the real state of the Red Army.[17] The politically appointed commanders of the post-purge Red Army saw that the army, especially after the purge, was not suitable to carry out deep operations style warfare.[17] Commanders such as Voroshilov and Kulik were among the instigators of these reforms which positively impacted the Red Army.[17] These commanders themselves turned out not to be able to carry out such operations in practice.[17] Voroshilov and Kulik turned out to be unable to put these reforms into practice.[17] One of these reforms was a reorganization of Red Army field units which accidentally moved Red Army organization to a far less advanced state than it had been in 1936. This reorganization was conceived by Kulik but put into practice by Voroshilov.[22]

When territorial units were abolished Voroshilov noted that among the reasons for disbanding them was inability to train conscripts in the use of modern technology.[17] He had openly proclaimed that the system was inadequate in an era in which imperialist powers (such as Germany) were expanding the capabilities of their armies.[17] The territorial units had been very unpopular, not only with Voroshilov, but with the Red Army leadership a whole.[17] They were hopelessly ineffective: territorial conscript Alexey Grigorovich Maslov noted that he never fired a shot during his training, while it was noted that these units only underwent real training in the one month a year when experienced veterans returned.[17]

Voroshilov with Joseph Stalin, Vyacheslav Molotov, Harry Hopkins and George Marshall at the Tehran Conference in Iran, December 1943

Voroshilov shows the Sword of Stalingrad to US President Franklin D. Roosevelt while the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Stalin look on.

Voroshilov commanded Soviet troops during the Winter War from November 1939 to January 1940 but, due to poor Soviet planning and Voroshilov's incompetence as a general,[23] the Red Army suffered about 320,000 casualties compared to 70,000 Finnish casualties.[24] When the leadership gathered at Stalin's dacha at Kuntsevo, Stalin shouted at Voroshilov for the losses; Voroshilov replied in kind, blaming the failure on Stalin for eliminating the Red Army's best generals in his purges. Voroshilov followed this retort by smashing a platter of food on the table. Nikita Khrushchev said it was the only time he ever witnessed such an outburst.[25] Voroshilov was nonetheless made the scapegoat for the initial failures in Finland. He was later replaced as Defense Commissar by Semyon Timoshenko. Voroshilov was then made Deputy Premier responsible for cultural matters.[26] Voroshilov initially argued that thousands of Polish army officers captured in September 1939 should be released, but he later signed the order for their execution in the Katyn massacre of 1940.[27]

Between 1941 and 1944, Voroshilov was a member of the State Defense Committee.

After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Voroshilov became commander of the short-lived Northwestern Direction (July to August 1941), controlling several fronts. In September 1941 he commanded the 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.[28] However, the style of counterattack he launched had long since been abandoned by strategists and drew mostly contempt from his military colleagues;[23] he failed to prevent the Germans from surrounding Leningrad and he was dismissed from his post and replaced by Georgy Zhukov on 8 September 1941.[29] Stalin had a political need for popular wartime leaders, however, and Voroshilov remained as an important figurehead.[23]

Voroshilov's grave at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis in Moscow

During a winter night in 1969, Voroshilov started to feel unwell. His family proposed to call an ambulance immediately, but he adamantly refused. In the morning he put on his military uniform, and after calling a car, he went to the hospital himself, fully decorated. Voroshilov died on 2 December, at the age of 88, and was buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis,[32] in one of the twelve individual tombs located between the Lenin Mausoleum and the Kremlin wall.

Voroshilov (far right in hat) during the famous Kitchen Debate in 1959

Voroshilov was married to Ekaterina Voroshilova, born Golda Gorbman, a Ukrainian Jew from Mardarovka. She changed her name when she converted to Orthodox Christianity in order to be allowed to marry Voroshilov. They met while both were 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.[33] 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.[34]

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 least at private ones. But he came by himself. Stalin frowned. Under Khrushchev, Voroshilov behaved badly."[35]

• Bibliography of the Russian Revolution and Civil War
• Bibliography of Stalinism and the Soviet Union
• Bibliography of the Post Stalinist Soviet Union
• Stalin's Peasants: Resistance and Survival in the Russian Village after Collectivization
• Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s
• Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929–1941
• Voroshilov Sharpshooter
• "Stalin and Voroshilov in the Kremlin," a famous Soviet painting
• List of mayors of Luhansk

• Collection of Soviet songs about Klim Voroshilov
• Newspaper clippings about Kliment Voroshilov in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW