The history of such a totalitarian superpower as the Soviet Union contains many heroic and gloomy pages. This could not but leave an imprint on the biographies of those who performed it. Kliment Voroshilov is among such personalities. He lived a long life, which was not devoid of heroism, but at the same time he had a lot of human lives on his conscience, since it was his signature that is on many hit lists.
Kliment Voroshilov: biography
The future famous Soviet military leader was born in 1881 in the village of Verkhny, Yekaterinoslav province (now the city of Lisichansk). His father, Efrem Andreevich Voroshilov, was a railway worker, and his mother, Maria Vasilyevna, was a day laborer.
The family lived very poorly, and from the age of 7, Clement began working as a shepherd. In 1893-1895, he attended a zemstvo school in the village of Vasilyevka, which he left 2 years later to enter Yuryevskoyemetallurgical enterprise. In 1903, the young man went to Lugansk, where he got a job at the Hartmann steam locomotive plant.
Participation in the preparation of the revolution
Finding himself among professional workers, young Kliment Voroshilov was involved in anti-government activities. In particular, he was immediately offered to join the RSDLP, and the following year he became a member of the Lugansk Committee of the Bolsheviks. During the revolution of 1905, Voroshilov led the strike of the workers of local enterprises and organized fighting squads. He was elected a delegate to the 4th and 5th congresses of the RSDLP. In 1908 he was sent by the party to Baku, where he conducted underground party work. Upon his return to Petrograd, he continued his revolutionary activities. Repeatedly arrested and served exile. In particular, for several months he was sent under police supervision to the Cherdyn Territory of the Arkhangelsk Governorate.
1917-1918
After the February Revolution, Voroshilov Kliment Efremovich was elected a member of the Petrograd Council of the RSD and the Sixth Congress of the RSDLP. Then he was sent to his native Lugansk, where in March 1917 he headed the local committee of the Bolsheviks, from August - the City Council and the Duma.
During the days of the revolutionary events, he was appointed to the post of Commissar of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee for urban administration. At the same time, together with F. Dzerzhinsky, he was actively involved in organizing the Cheka.
The aggravation of the situation in Ukraine led to the fact that in March 1918 Kliment Voroshilov returned to his homeland, organized the FirstLugansk detachment, at the head of which defended Kharkov from the German-Austrian troops.
During the Civil War
Kliment Efremovich, who showed himself to be a brave military leader in Ukraine, was soon appointed commander of the Tsaritsyn group of troops. Then his career went on the rise, and during the years of the Civil War he held many important posts. In particular, Kliment Voroshilov was deputy commander and member of the Military Council of the Southern Front, led the 10th Army, the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, the Kharkov Military District and the internal Ukrainian Front. In addition, he is the organizer and member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the First Cavalry Army.
One of the darkest pages of Voroshilov's biography was his participation in 1921 in the suppression of the Kronstadt uprising. After these events, he was appointed a member of the South-Eastern Bureau of the Central Committee of the Party, as well as the commander of the North Caucasus Military District.
From 1924 to 1925 he was the commander of the Moscow Military District and a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR.
Few people know that during the same period Voroshilov patronized the Bolshoi Theater and was known as a great ballet lover.
At the post of People's Commissar of Defense
After the death of M. Frunze, Voroshilov became chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR and led the country's naval department, and in 1934-1940 - the People's Commissariat of Defense of the Soviet Union.
In total, he spent almost 15 years in this post, which is a kind of record for the Soviet period. Voroshilov Kliment Efremovich (1881-1969) had a reputation as the most devotedsupporter of Stalin and gave him effective support in the fight against Trotsky. In October 1933, he went with a government delegation to Turkey, where, together with Ataturk, he received a military parade in Ankara.
In November 1935, by decision of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, he was awarded the newly established rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union.
After 5 years, he was removed from the post of people's commissar, as he did not live up to Stalin's expectations during the Finnish war. However, Voroshilov was not dismissed, but appointed to the post of head of the Defense Committee under the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union.
Kliment Voroshilov's participation in the Stalinist repressions
In the period from 1937 to 1938, Voroshilov, among many other representatives of the political elite of the USSR, participated in the consideration of lists of persons who were supposed to be repressed with Stalin's personal sanction. All who fell into them were subsequently shot. So, Voroshilov's signature is found on 185 lists, which included the names of 18,000 people.
Being a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Kliment Voroshilov approved many so-called limits, i.e. quotas for the number of repressed. In particular, in April 1938, together with Stalin, Kaganovich, Molotov and Yezhov, he signed an affirmative resolution, according to which for the Irkutsk region the number of people who were to be shot was increased by 4,000 people.
As People's Commissar of Defense Kliment Efremovich Voroshilov took an active part in the repressions against the command staff of the Red Army, which in the first years of the war hadcatastrophic consequences. So, on one of the lists, consisting of the names of 26 commanders, he wrote: “To Comrade Yezhov. Take all the scoundrels…”
During the Great Patriotic War
From the beginning of the war, K. E. Voroshilov, being a member of the State Defense Committee, also held the following positions:
- Commander-in-Chief of the North-Western Direction (until 09/05/41);
- Commander of the Leningrad Front;
- representative of the Headquarters for the formation of troops;
- head of the Trophy Committee under the State Defense Committee;
- commander-in-chief of the partisan movement;
- Chairman of the Armistice Commission.
Post-war activities
In the first years after the end of the war, Marshal Voroshilov headed the Allied Control Commission in Hungary. In parallel with this, until 1953, he was deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. And then for 7 years he led the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.
Death and funeral
Kliment Voroshilov, whose career growth in the last decades of his life was suspended due to senile infirmities, died on December 2, 1969 at the age of 89. They buried the marshal in the capital, near the Kremlin wall, on Red Square. According to contemporaries, this was the first such large-scale funeral ceremony of farewell to a statesman of the USSR in the twenty years that have passed since Zhdanov's funeral.
Family and children
Voroshilov's wife Kliment Efremovich - Golda Davidovna Gorbman -was of the Jewish faith, but for the sake of the wedding with her beloved, she was baptized and took the name Catherine. Such an act aroused the anger of the girl's Jewish relatives, who even cursed her. In 1917, Ekaterina Davidovna joined the RSDLP and for many years worked as deputy director of the Lenin Museum.
It so happened that the friendly Voroshilov family did not have their own children. However, they took in the upbringing of the orphaned children of M. V. Frunze: Timur, who died at the front in 1942, and Tatyana. In addition, in 1918, the couple adopted a boy, Peter, who later became a famous designer and rose to the rank of lieutenant general. From him, the couple had 2 grandchildren - Vladimir and Klim.
Awards
Klim Voroshilov is a holder of almost all the highest awards of the USSR. Including he twice received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
He has 8 Orders of Lenin and 6 Orders of the Red Banner and many other awards, including foreign ones. In particular, the commander is a hero of the Mongolian People's Republic, a holder of the Grand Cross of Finland, and an honorary citizen of the Turkish city of Izmir.
Perpetuation of memory
Even during his lifetime, K. E. Voroshilov became the most celebrated military leader of the Civil War, in whose honor songs were composed, collective farms, ships, factories, etc. were named.
Several cities were named after him:
- Voroshilovgrad (Lugansk) was renamed twice and returned the historical name only in 1990.
- Voroshilovsk (Alchevsk). In this city marshalyouth began his labor and party activities.
- Voroshilov (Ussuriysk, Primorsky Territory).
- Voroshilovsk (Stavropol, from 1935 to 1943).
In addition, Khoroshevsky district of the capital and the central district of the city of Donetsk bore his name.
To this day, there are Voroshilov streets in dozens of cities of the former USSR. Among them are Goryachiy Klyuch, Tolyatti, Brest, Orenburg, Penza, Ershov, Serpukhov, Korosten, Angarsk, Voronezh, Khabarovsk, Klintsy, Kemerovo, Lipetsk, Rybinsk, St. Petersburg, Simferopol, Chelyabinsk and Izhevsk. In Rostov-on-Don there is also Voroshilovsky Prospekt.
The badge for rewarding the most accurate shooters, approved at the end of 1932 and called "Voroshilovsky shooter", deserves special mention. According to the recollections of people whose youth fell on the pre-war years, it was prestigious to wear it, and young people aspired to be awarded such a badge.
In honor of Klim Efremovich, a series of KV tanks produced at the Putilov plant was also named, and in 1941-1992 the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR bore his name.
The monument to Kliment Voroshilov is erected on his grave. And in Moscow, at house number 3 on Romanov Lane, there is a memorial plate notifying about this.
Now you know some facts of the biography of the famous Soviet military leader and party leader Klim Efremovich Voroshilov. A wonderful family man and a great patriot of his Motherland, nevertheless, during the years of Stalinist repressions, he sent several thousand to their deaths.people, most of whom were not guilty of what they were accused of and were told to be shot.
