The Great Terror

With the oppositionists, even Bukharin and Rykov, the Party elite may to some degree have felt that this was a sort of very rough justice after all—and justice had been rough in the Soviet Union for a long time. Or they may have been influenced to some extent by the notion that at least a potential alternative leadership was being dealt with. But if undoubtedly loyal followers of Stalin, men who had taken no part in opposition movements, were now to be destroyed, then no one was safe. And no principle was involved. In such circumstances, it was quite reasonable for Stalin to have thought that the Army leadership, whose representatives may have opposed even the Bukharin purge, or at any rate had only assented with obvious reluctance, might finally be driven into resistance. Stalin himself, in destroying the principle of political loyalty, would be undermining the restraints which had so held them. Thus it is natural enough that he should have planned his blow at the Army leadership to coincide exactly with the period when he was turning on his own insufficiently subservient followers.

Meanwhile, Stalin proceeded gradually. On Yagoda’s arrest on 3 April 1937, his post as Commissar of Communications was taken by Army Commander Khalepsky, Tukhachevsky’s tank expert—an absurd as well as a sinister transfer.

Corps Commander Gekker, Head of Red Army Foreign Liaison and thus a particularly sensitive figure in espionage charges, disappeared in April. During the same month, Corps Commander Garkavi, commanding the Urals Military District, was taken in. He was one of Yakir’s closest associates; in fact, they were married to sisters. Again, Yakir showed undesirable boldness, by going to see Voroshilov and eventually Stalin. Stalin soothed him, saying that serious charges against Garkavi had been made by those already under arrest, but that if he was innocent he would be released.⁴⁶

On 28 April 1937 Pravda

published a pointed call to the Red Army to master politics and to fight the internal, as well as the external, foe. This powerful, if oblique, blow was understood by the already shaken High Command.

At the May Day Parade, Tukhachevsky was the first to arrive on the tribune reserved for the Army leaders. He walked alone, with his thumbs in his belt, to the reviewing stand. Yegorov then took his position, but did not look at or salute his colleague. Gamarnik also joined the silent rank. A gloomy and icy atmosphere surrounded the soldiers. At the end of the Army parade, Tukhachevsky did not wait for the civilian march-past, but walked out of the Red Square.⁴⁷

He had been nominated to attend the coronation of King George VI. On 21 April, Yezhov reported that the NKVD had learned of a plot by German and Polish agencies to commit a terrorist act against Tukhachevsky if he went to the coronation in London, and next day the Politburo decided to avoid this “serious danger” by not sending him.⁴⁸

On 4 May, the British were told that for reasons of health Tukhachevsky would not now be able to go. Admiral Orlov took his place.

An officer who saw Tukhachevsky several times in May describes him as looking unusually gloomy after an interview with Voroshilov. A few days later, he went to see Voroshilov again. Voroshilov was cold and formal, and simply announced to him his removal from his post as Deputy Commissar of Defense and transfer to the Volga Military District, a backwoods command with three infantry divisions and assorted troops.

Tukhachevsky commented to a friend, “It is not so much a matter of Voroshilov as of Stalin.”⁴⁹

This posting, and others, were made official on 10 and 11 May, in a series of shifts among the higher officers which gave the clearest evidence yet of Stalin’s animus. Gamarnik, as well as Tukhachevsky, was relieved of the position of Deputy Commissar of Defense. More deviously, Yakir was transferred from Kiev to Leningrad; unlike Tukhachevsky’s posting, this was not an obvious demotion. Nor were either of the two ignominiously rushed to their posts, remaining in Moscow and Kiev, respectively, until almost the end of the month.

At the same time, a decree (dated 8 May)⁵⁰ restored the old system of “dual command,” with the powers of the political commissars being greatly increased relative to those of the fighting officers. The original powers of political commissars had been given them because the military specialists of the Civil War were mainly ex-Tsarist officers who were not regarded as trustworthy. The reimposition of the system on a Communist officer corps was an extraordinary demonstration of lack of trust in the new cadres. On 9 May, an “instruction” was put out calling for greater vigilance .⁵¹