Mikhail Frunze

This article is adapted from an original work. It may be also be translated from the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, EcuRed, or Baidu Baike.

Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze (1885-1925), an old Bolshevik, an outstanding party politician, commander and military theoretician of the Red Army. Born in Semirechye in Pishpek (now Frunze, Kyrgyz ASSR). Father is a paramedic, mother is a peasant woman from the settlers of Voronezh province. After graduating from high school Frunze entered the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute. In 1904 he joined the RSDLP, joined the Bolsheviks from the very beginning, got involved in underground work and became a professional revolutionary under the nickname “Comrade Arseny." From May 1905 Frunze worked in Ivanovo-Voznesensk, where he led the famous textile workers' strike; in the same year he participated in the III Congress of the Party in London; at the end of 1905 Frunze took part in the December uprising in Moscow. In 1907, together with SI Gusev, he organized a failed assassination attempt on a police officer, in March he fell into the hands of the police in the city of Shuya and was twice sentenced to death. Under pressure from tens of thousands of workers who quit their jobs and came to the walls of the prison, the tsarist government replaced the death penalty with long-term hard labor, which he served for 8 years in Vladimirsky, Nikolaevsky and Alexander central centers. At the beginning of 1915 Frunze was sent to settle in the Verkholensk district b. Irkutsk lips. In July 1915 he was arrested again and escaped from prison. Under the name of Vasilenko, he worked in Chita in the regional resettlement administration and at the same time was engaged in underground revolutionary work, editing the newspaper Vostochnoye Obozreniye. Taking cover from arrest, he goes to the zone of the Western Front, where he works in the All-Russian Zemstvo Union under the name of Mikhailov, conducts revolutionary work among the soldiers of the Western Front units. After the February coup, chairman of the Council of Peasants' Deputies in Minsk and Vilnius Gubernias, member of the executive committee of the Minsk City Council and member of the front committee of the armies of the Western Front; during the Kornilov revolt — chief of staff of the revolutionary troops of the Minsk region, participated in the liquidation of the Kornilov rebellion.

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In September 1917, F. returned to Shuya and Vladimir, from where on October 30 he headed for Moscow at the head of 2,000 armed workers. In Moscow, he takes part in street battles, which ended in the victory of the insurgent Moscow proletariat. Until mid-1918, Frunze held responsible party, Soviet, economic, and military posts in Ivanovo-Voznesensk Gubernia, showing himself to be an outstanding organizer of Soviet power. In September 1918, after the elimination of the Yaroslavl rebellion, he was appointed Yaroslavl district military commissar, formed and trained new Red Army units in extremely difficult conditions of economic disruption and the unfolding civil war. In this new field of military development, Frunze proved himself to be an outstanding party military-political figure. At the end of 1918, in view of the need to strengthen the Eastern Front, the Central Committee appointed Frunze as the commander of the IV Army, which operated on the southern flank of the Eastern Front and had the task of liberating Turkestan. The position of the IV Army was catastrophic due to internal disorganization: counter-revolutionary actions and attempts to fraternize with White Cossacks were noted; in some parts the cells worked underground. With a number of skillful measures of an organizational and political nature, Frunze quickly restored revolutionary discipline in the army, achieved a bond between the command staff and the Red Army masses, attracted large old military specialists to his headquarters and as a result of this organizational work very successfully directed military operations on the front of the civil war.

In the spring of 1919, Kolchak struck a powerful blow to the V Army of the Eastern Front and moved non-stop to the Volga, trying to break through to Moscow; it was necessary to stop him. The southern group of the Eastern Front, consisting of four armies, was created under Frunze's command. IV and I armies, according to Frunze's plan, were to strike the flank of the main forces of Kolchak from the Buzuluk region, advancing through Buguruslan to Samara. Parts of the front were removed from the Turkestan direction, and the defense of Orenburg and Uralsk was transferred to the hands of local workers' regiments. Frunze's Bolshevik instinct and his complete confidence in the revolutionary consciousness of the Orenburg and Ural workers justified themselves: the workers' regiments defended these cities from numerous attacks by the White Cossacks. A crushing flanking blow from the southern group of the Eastern Front forced Kolchak to roll back from the Volga and retreat back to the Urals. In the battles near Ufa, Frunze personally came to the attacking 25th Division front and was wounded in battle. After the capture of Ufa, Frunze transferred with his main forces against the Orenburg Cossacks and in September 1919 inflicted a decisive defeat on them, as a result of which he captured and 80,000 White Cossacks defected. The road to Turkestan has been cleared. Frunze finds in Turkestan a difficult political and military situation, but quickly understands it. Arriving there in February 1920, he inflicts crushing blows on the Cossack counter-revolution (especially in Semirechye, where the fierce "ataman" Annenkov ascended), vigorously destroys the Basmach gangs, and in time helps the Bukhara people to overthrow their feudal lords. Frunze pursues a Leninist national policy in Turkestan, participates in the work to restore Soviet power, and with all his political activities attracts the sympathies of those many nationalities who inhabit this distant country to the side of Soviet power. Throughout 1920 until late autumn Frunze worked in Turkestan.

The protracted struggle on the Wrangel Front in the fall of 1920 demanded that the final blow to Wrangel be delivered before winter. The country needed a respite. “It is not surprising, therefore, that at the moment when the last of the southern counter-revolution, Baron Wrangel, who had barricaded himself on the Crimean peninsula and dreamed of the “raspberry chime” of Moscow’s bells, got out of his trap and began to develop successful operations against the Red troops, the Central Committee of our party with Vladimir Ilyich remembered About MV Frunze. Our party and the Soviet government entrusted Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze with the most difficult and honorable task of the final defeat of the last counter-revolutionary army of Wrangel, linked by close ties with Western European imperialism. The working people of our country, and not only of our country, but also of the armed forces of the world those consciously related to the life around them know how brilliantly Frunze coped with a complex military operation, because the gifted and energetic white commander — the baron — was surrounded by the best strategists and military leaders of old tsarist Russia. Wrangel and his assistants applied all the achievements and means of military science and techniques to keep the Kry they captured m, but the red armed forces, led by the brilliant military genius Frunze, scattered the counter-revolutionary troops with crushing blows, like houses of cards, and from yesterday's loud military glory of Baron Wrangel and his generals, only miserable memories remained" (Voroshilov).

After the defeat of Wrangel Frunze worked in Ukraine. At the X Congress of the party, he was elected a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU(b). In Ukraine, Frunze liquidated the Makhnovshchina and until the beginning of 1924 participated in the party and Soviet construction of the Ukrainian SSR, was elected a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CP(b)U. Frunze is one of the initiators of the creation of the Soviet Union and takes part in drafting the Constitution of the USSR. In all his political speeches, he constantly raises questions related to the country's defense and proposes specific measures in the field of military development. During these years, Frunze was carefully studying the experience of the imperialist and civil wars. On behalf of the government, during the national liberation war of Turkey (1922), Frunze personally went to Angora to conclude a treaty of friendship between the Ukrainian SSR and Turkey, which at that time was waging a fierce struggle with the imperialists.

After the end of the civil war, the largest shortcomings in the state and organization of the Red Army were revealed. Trotsky, who was at the head of the army, oriented the command staff on trifles, opportunistically passing by the most important tasks of military development. On this basis, a lively discussion arose between Trotsky and Frunze. Frunze at a meeting of military delegates to the XI Party Congress made a report on the main tasks of the country's defense, in which he substantiated the need to establish a unified military doctrine in the Red Army, i.e., unity of views on the main issues of military affairs, indicating ways of solving them from the point of view of the interests of the proletarian state. Frunze's proposals revealed: poor preparedness of the army, led by Trotsky, to resolve urgent military tasks, a significant gap between the leadership and the army's lower ranks, the lack of a common language between the upper and lower ranks of the army, a discrepancy between operational assumptions and material resources, and inconsistency between the work of the military department and civilian bodies. The need for military reform was imminent, but Trotsky, who during these years waged a particularly fierce struggle with the party and especially persistently defended opportunist positions in the military field, poorly led the army, which could lead to its weakening. The party could no longer tolerate such a situation. By a decision of the Central Committee, Trotsky was deposed, being replaced by Frunze in the beginning of 1924.

In 1924 and 1925, Frunze carried out a military reform, reorganized military administration, organized the territorial-militia system, increased the rate of formation of national units, established a clear order of service for command personnel, laid solid foundations for the transition to one-man command, and gave the army new regulations on all types of weapons and sought to introduce modern technology into the army. These years of military reform were associated with the recovery period of our national economy, and, of course, Frunze’s ideas in the field of introducing new military equipment into the army could not be fully satisfied then, but he prepared a lot for this task in the future. "The war of the future, to a large extent, if not entirely, will be a war of machines" is the main leitmotif of Frunze's speeches on this issue. K.E. Voroshilov wrote about this period of Frunze's activity, which preceded the period of technical reconstruction of the Red Army: “It is only necessary to say that the enormous tasks that this outstanding man set for the solution opened a new phase in military organizational development. His behests for us, his comrades, remain to this day unshakable and will be carried out for the benefit of the workers 'and peasants' Red Army and our "Soviet state.”

While developing an enormous amount of practical work on military reform, Frunze simultaneously continued to develop the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of war, dwelling especially carefully on questions of a future war. Proceeding from the fact that the future war for us will be a revolutionary class war, that large masses will take part in it, Frunze established that the clash with our class opponents will be sharp, deep and protracted. The future war will be a maneuverable war, and the army should be trained in this spirit. Along with areas of major war, there will be areas of minor war where partisan actions will find the widest application. The powerful development of the air force, the powerful development of chemistry and other means of warfare leads to the fact that a continuous mobile front line is hardly conceivable over any significant length and for any length of time. Frunze repeatedly pointed out that the political upheavals of the capitalist world will play an important role in the development of the next strategic and tactical measures in the war of the future. Strategy and tactics in the purely military field are inextricably linked with the purely political field. However, we should base our plans not on the hopes for the political disintegration of the enemy attacking us or on his "neutralization", but on the actual possibility of destroying him physically. Frunze worked a lot to raise the cultural level of the Red Army, pointing out that the growth of technical means requires the greatest consciousness and the greatest culture. That country, which will not be able to lay all the necessary cultural foundations in peacetime, is inevitably doomed to failures in time of war.

Frunze was an outstanding organizer of the Soviet public. The military society, organized in 1920, constantly received active assistance from Frunze. In 1923 Frunze supported the creation of the ODVF and in 1924 the organization of Dobrokhim. Since 1924, Frunze had been pursuing the idea of uniting all these three societies into one; in May 1925, he spoke at the All-Union meeting in NO, transforming it into OSS, a cut then, under the direct leadership of K. E. Voroshilov, merged with Aviakhim into the now existing Osoaviakhim (see). Frunze has repeatedly pointed out that “the slogan of the country's militarization is our most urgent immediate task, and only to the extent that it is accepted by our party, the Soviet apparatus and the entire mass of the working people, will we no danger is terrible."

At the end of October 1925, a serious illness and an unsuccessful operation completely unexpectedly carried Frunze away from us. Mourning banners covered the whole country, which had lost one of the best Bolsheviks. This loss is described by Frunze's closest friend and colleague - K. E. Voroshilov, who replaced him as the leader of the Red Army: "All the working people of the Soviet state, all the advanced workers and peasants abroad of our country will honor the memory of Mikhail Vasilyevich as an outstanding fighter and revolutionary, fully devoted to the cause of the liberation of the working class." Above Frunze's grave, the leader of our party and the world proletariat, Stalin, said that in the person of Frunze we had lost one of the purest, most honest and fearless revolutionaries of our time. The Party, the Soviet government and the Red Army have lost one of the most beloved and respected organizers-leaders.

In addition to the city where Frunze roamed, the Military Academy of the Red Army, b. Khamovnichesky district of Moscow, etc.

Frunze's works are collected in a three-volume edition, ed. A. S. Bubnova, Moscow-Leningrad, 1926-29; in volume I, a bibliography of works about Frunze is given: Selected works of Frunze in one volume (Moscow, 1934).

Lit.: Bubnov A.S., Mikhail Vasilievich Frunze, 2nd ed., M.-L., 1931; Bel and c to and y S. M., M. V. Frunze, M., 1930; Vol pe AM, Defense of the country and M. V. Frunze, M. - L., 1928: A. V. Golubev, M. V. Frunze on the nature of the future war, M., 1931. S. Belitsky.