Why did Stalin need the death of the Frunze? Mikhail Vasilievich Frunze. A series of "random" disasters
Epidemic of accidents
1925: “Why did Stalin organize the murder of Frunze?”
In the early morning of October 31, 1925, Stalin suddenly rushed hastily to the Botkin hospital, accompanied by a pack of comrades: 10 minutes before their arrival, Mikhail Frunze, a candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR, People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs, died there . The official version says: Frunze has an ulcer and it was impossible to do without surgery. But the operation ended with the leader of the Red Army dying “with symptoms of cardiac paralysis.”
On November 3, 1925, Frunze was seen off on his last journey, and Stalin delivered a brief funeral speech, as if in passing, noting: “Maybe this is exactly what is needed, for old comrades to go down to their graves so easily and so simply.” Then they did not pay attention to this remark. Like another: “This year has been a curse for us. He tore a number of leading comrades from our midst..."
Unhunched man
They tried to forget about the deceased, but in May 1926 the writer Boris Pilnyak recalled him, publishing his “The Tale of the Unextinguished Moon” in the magazine “New World”. Once upon a time, wrote Pilnyak, there was a heroic army commander Gavrilov, “who commanded victories and death.” And this army commander, “who had the right and the will to send people to kill their own kind and die,” took and sent him to die on the operating table “the non-hunched man in house number one,” “from the three who were in charge.” Drawing casually from secret reports from the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs and the OGPU, the “non-hunching man” harshly reprimanded the legendary army commander about the millstones of the revolution and ordered him to “perform an operation,” because “the revolution demands this.” It didn’t take a rocket scientist to guess: Army Commander Gavrilov was Frunze, the “troika” was the then ruling triumvirate consisting of Kamenev, Zinoviev and Stalin, and the “low-hunched man” who sent the hero to the slaughter was Stalin.
Scandal! The security officers immediately confiscated the circulation, but did not touch the author of the seditious version. Gorky then, with the envy of an informer, venomously remarked: “Pilnyak is forgiven the story about the death of Comrade Frunze - a story claiming that the operation was not necessary and was performed at the insistence of the Central Committee.” But the “unbroken man” never forgave anyone for anything; the time came—October 28, 1937—and they came for the author of “The Tale of the Unextinguished Moon.” Then Pilnyak was shot - as a Japanese spy, of course.
The picture of Frunze's death was brilliantly studied by the historian of Kremlin deaths Viktor Topolyansky, who described in detail how Stalin literally forced Frunze to go under the knife and how doctors “overdid it” with anesthesia, during which the People’s Commissar’s heart could not withstand the excess amount of chloroform. “However, what written evidence should be sought in this situation?” – the researcher asked rhetorically. At no time have any leaders left or will leave evidence of this kind. Otherwise they would not be leaders, and their retinue would not be retinue.
"The Three That Made It"
Outside the context of the events of those years, it is difficult to understand why Comrade. Stalin needed to eliminate Comrade. Frunze - just then and so Jesuitically? It’s easier to answer the last question: Stalin’s capabilities in 1925 were much weaker than ten years later. He still had to gradually grow into the omnipotent “leader of the peoples,” wresting power from the hands of his comrades in the very “troika that was in charge.” And in this progressive movement of the “not hunched over man” to the pinnacle of power, the liquidation of Frunze was only one of many steps. But it is extremely important: he not only eliminated his deadly opponent, but also replaced him with his own man - Voroshilov. Thus, gaining the most powerful lever in the struggle for power - control over the armed forces.
While Leon Trotsky held on to the chair of People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs (and Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Union), the positions of Kamenev, Zinoviev and Stalin opposing him were so-so. In January 1925, Trotsky was “left.” Stalin has his own creature for this place, but his accomplices in the triumvirate put forward another - Frunze. “Stalin was not very happy with Frunze, but Zinoviev and Kamenev were for him,” Stalin’s ex-assistant Boris Bazhanov wrote in his memoirs, “and as a result of lengthy preliminary bargaining in the troika, Stalin agreed to appoint Frunze in Trotsky’s place.”
Anastas Mikoyan carefully noted in his memoirs that Stalin, preparing for great upheavals during his struggle for power, “wanted to have the Red Army under the reliable command of a man loyal to him, and not such an independent and authoritative political figure as Frunze was.” Zinoviev really contributed to the appointment of Frunze, but he was not his pawn at all: by moving Frunze, Zinoviev tried to shield him from Stalin. And he was a figure of equal stature: Stalin’s merits could not be compared with the brilliant (by party standards) pre-revolutionary and Civil War merits of Frunze. Not to mention Frunze’s very high rating abroad after his successful participation in a number of diplomatic actions.
And then there is a huge mass of Red Army soldiers, former and current, including military experts - former officers and generals of the old army, who enthusiastically treated Frunze as their leader during the Civil War. Since the only alternative to the party apparatus could be the military apparatus, the question of physical survival became extremely acute for Stalin: either he or Frunze.
Another Stalinist assistant, Mehlis, commenting on new appointments in the Red Army, once told Bazhanov the “master’s” opinion: “Nothing good. Look at the list: all these Tukhachevskys, Korki, Uborevichs, Avksentyevskys - what kind of communists are these? All this is good for the 18th Brumaire (the date of Napoleon Bonaparte’s coup. - V.V.), and not for the Red Army.”
Frunze was included in the anti-Stalin intrigue long before his appointment as People's Commissar: at the end of July 1923, he took part in the so-called cave meeting in Kislovodsk - confidential meetings between Zinoviev and a number of prominent party leaders who were dissatisfied with Stalin's excessive concentration of power. And, as Zinoviev wrote in a letter to Kamenev, Frunze agreed that “there is no troika, but there is the dictatorship of Stalin”!
...And came October 1925, when Stalin, having brilliantly outplayed Frunze on the field of an apparatus-bureaucratic game alien to him, initiated the decision of the Central Committee, forcing the People's Commissar to go under the knife. Mikoyan, describing how Stalin staged the performance “in his own spirit,” noted in passing: “... it was enough for the GPU to “treat” the anesthesiologist.” And the highly experienced Mikoyan, who at one time was even expected to become the leader of the NKVD, knew well what it meant to “process”!
Grisha's Bureau
Bazhanov realized that the matter was dirty “when he learned that the operation was being organized by Kanner with the Central Committee doctor Pogosyants. My vague suspicions turned out to be quite correct. During the operation, precisely the anesthesia that Frunze could not bear was cunningly applied.”
Grigory Kanner was called “assistant in dark affairs” in Stalin’s circle. In particular, it was he who organized for Stalin the opportunity to listen to the phones of the then Kremlin celestials - Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, etc. The Czechoslovakian technician who installed this system was shot on Kanner’s orders.
Grisha's Office dealt with more than just telephones. There was such a comrade, Efraim Sklyansky: deputy chairman of the Revolutionary Military Union, Trotsky’s right hand, who really ruled the military apparatus since March 1918. In March 1924, the troika managed to remove Sklyansky from the RVS. In the spring of 1925, Stalin, who hated Sklyansky since the Civil War, to the surprise of many, proposed appointing him chairman of Amtorg and sending him to America. “Amtorg” at that time combined the functions of a plenipotentiary mission, a trade mission, and most importantly, a residency primarily for military intelligence, and at the same time also the OGPU and the illegal apparatus of the Comintern. But the comrade did not have time to really work in the States in the field of military-technical espionage. On August 27, 1925, Sklyansky, together with Khurgin (the creator and head of Amtorg before Sklyansky) and an unknown comrade, presumably from the OGPU station, went for a caique ride on Lake Longlake (New York State). The boat was later found overturned, and later two bodies were found - Sklyansky and Khurgin. The three of us left, but there were two corpses... The workers of Stalin’s secretariat immediately realized who was the true author of this “accident”: “Mehlis and I,” Bazhanov recalled, “immediately went to Kanner and unanimously declared: “Grisha, it was you who drowned Sklyansky?!” ...To which Kanner replied: “Well, there are things that it is better for the secretary of the Politburo not to know.” ...Mehlis and I were firmly convinced that Sklyansky was drowned on Stalin’s orders and that the “accident” was organized by Kanner and Yagoda.”
“This year has been a curse for us”
The year 1925 turned out to be rich in death: high-ranking comrades died in batches, fell under cars and locomotives, drowned, burned in airplanes. On March 19, 1925, Narimanov, one of the co-chairs of the USSR Central Executive Committee, suffered from an angina attack. And, although the Kremlin hospital was a stone's throw away, they took him home in a cab in a roundabout way - they drove him until they brought his body. Kalinin remarked melancholy on this matter: “We are accustomed to sacrificing our comrades.” On March 22, to meet with Trotsky, a group of high-ranking apparatchiks flew from Tiflis to Sukhum on a Junkers plane: 1st Secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee of the RCP (b) Myasnikov, OGPU Plenipotentiary Representative in Transcaucasia Mogilevsky and Deputy People's Commissar of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate of Transcaucasia Atarbekov. By the way, Mogilevsky and Atarbekov were on good terms with Frunze. After takeoff, something suddenly flared up in the passenger cabin of the plane, the Junkers crashed and exploded. Frunze himself, as it turns out, was involved in car accidents twice in July 1925, surviving only by a miracle.
On August 6, 1925, the commander of the 2nd Cavalry Corps, Grigory Kotovsky, received a well-aimed bullet in the aorta - shortly before that, Frunze offered him the position of his deputy. Then there was the boat of Sklyansky and Khurgin, and on August 28, 1925, under the wheels of a steam locomotive, Frunze’s old comrade, the chairman of the board of Aviatrest V.N., died. Pavlov (Aviatrest was created in January 1925 for the production of combat aircraft, its director was approved by the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR). “Evening Moscow” then even sarcastically asked: “Aren’t there too many accidents for our old guard? Some kind of epidemic of accidents.”
In general, nothing out of the ordinary happened; it was just that, as part of the battle of the Kremlin giants for power, there was a pragmatic elimination of obvious and potential supporters, in this case, Frunze. And those who left were immediately replaced by personnel from the Stalinist clip. “Why did Stalin organize the murder of Frunze? – Bazhanov was perplexed. – Is it only in order to replace him with his own man – Voroshilov? ...After all, a year or two later, having come to sole power, Stalin could easily carry out this replacement.” But without removing Frunze, Stalin would not have been able to take this very power.
In the late autumn of 1925, Moscow was agitated by a rumor that Trotsky’s people had killed Frunze. However, very soon they started saying that this was the work of Stalin! Moreover, “The Tale of the Unextinguished Moon” appeared, which gave this version almost an official sound, because, as the son of the author of “The Tale” Boris Andronikashvili-Pilnyak recalls, it was confiscated and destroyed! What really happened 85 years ago? What do the archives show? The investigation was conducted by Nikolai Nad (Dobryukha).
The well-known personal conflict between Stalin and Trotsky was a reflection of the political clash in the party of the two main trends of which they were leaders. The fire of this conflict, which had been smoldering within the party core even under Lenin, after his death in January 1924, flared up by the fall so that it threatened to “burn” the party itself.
On the side of Stalin (Dzhugashvili) were: Zinoviev (Radomyslsky), Kamenev (Rosenfeld), Kaganovich, etc. On the side of Trotsky (Bronstein) are Preobrazhensky, Sklyansky, Rakovsky and others. The situation was aggravated by the fact that military power was in the hands of Trotsky. He was then the Chairman of the RVS, i.e. the main person in the Red Army for military and naval affairs. On January 26, 1925, Stalin managed to replace him with his comrade-in-arms in the Civil War, Mikhail Frunze. This weakened the position of Trotsky’s group in the party and state. And she began to prepare a political battle with Stalin.
This is what it all looked like in Trotsky’s notes: “... a delegation of the Central Committee came to me... to coordinate with me changes in the personnel of the military department. In essence, it was already a pure comedy. Renewal of personnel... has long been carried out in full swing over my back, and it was only a matter of observing the decorum. The first blow inside the military department fell on Sklyansky. "..." To undermine Sklyansky, in the long term and against me, Stalin installed Unshlikht in the military department... Sklyansky was removed. Frunze was appointed in his place... Frunze discovered during the war his undoubted abilities as a commander..."
Trotsky describes the further course of events as follows: “In January 1925, I was relieved of my duties as People's Commissar for Military Affairs. Most of all they were afraid... of my connection with the army. I gave up my post without a fight... in order to wrest from my opponents the weapon of insinuations about my military plans."
Based on these explanations, Frunze’s unexpected death as a result
The “unsuccessful operation” turned out to be to Trotsky’s advantage in that it gave rise to a lot of talk. At first there was a rumor that Trotsky’s people did this in retaliation for the fact that the “troika” Stalin-Zinoviev-Kamenev replaced Trotsky with their Frunze. However, having gained their bearings, Trotsky’s supporters blamed Stalin’s “troika” for this. And to make it look more convincing and memorable, they organized the creation by the then famous writer Boris Pilnyak of “The Tale of the Unextinguished Moon,” which left a heavy aftertaste in our souls.
Frunze with his wife, 1920s (photo: Izvestia archive)
The “Tale” indicated the deliberateness of eliminating yet another Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Union, disliked by Stalin’s “troika,” who had not worked for even 10 months. The “Tale” described in detail how a completely healthy commander of the Civil War tried to convince everyone that he was healthy, and how he was finally forced to undergo surgery by man No. 1. And although Pilnyak addressed Voronsky “sorrowfully and friendly” on January 28, 1926, in publicly stated: “The purpose (photo: Izvestia archive) of the story was in no way a report on the death of the People’s Commissar of Military Affairs,” readers came to the conclusion that it was not by chance that Trotsky saw his own in Pilnyak, calling him a “realist”... The “Tale” clearly pointed to Stalin and his role in this “case”: “The not hunched man remained in the office... Without hunching, he sat over the papers, with a red thick pencil in his hands... People from that “troika” entered the office - one and the other. , which accomplished..."
Best of the day
Trotsky was the first to speak about the existence of this “troika” that decided all affairs: “The opponents whispered among themselves and groped for ways and methods of struggle. At this time, the idea of a “troika” (Stalin-Zinoviev-Kamenev) had already arisen, which was supposed to be opposed to me... "
There is evidence in the archives of how the idea for “The Tale” came about. It began, apparently, with the fact that Voronsky, as a member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, was included in the “Commission for organizing the funeral of Comrade M.V. Frunze.” Of course, at the Commission meeting, in addition to ritual issues, all the circumstances of the “unsuccessful operation” were discussed. The fact that Pilnyak dedicated “The Tale of the Unextinguished Moon” to Voronsky suggests that Pilnyak received the main information about the reasons for the “unsuccessful operation” from him. And clearly from Trotsky’s “angle of view”. It is not for nothing that already in 1927 Voronsky, as an active participant
Trotskyist opposition, was expelled from the party. Later, Pilnyak 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.
Cut or stabbed?
Despite the mutual accusations of politicians, public opinion still laid the blame for the death of Frunze most of all on the doctors. What happened in the operating room was quite reliable and was widely discussed in the newspapers. One of these openly expressed opinions (it, like many other materials cited here, is stored in the RGVA) was sent on November 10, 1925 to Moscow from Ukraine: “... doctors are to blame - and only doctors, but not a weak heart. According newspaper information... Comrade Frunze's operation was performed for a round duodenal ulcer, which, by the way, had healed, as can be seen from the autopsy report. The patient had difficulty falling asleep... did not tolerate anesthesia well and remained under the last 1 hour 5 minutes, receiving during this time, 60 grams of chloroform and 140 grams of ether (this is seven times more than the norm. - NAD) From the same sources we know that, having opened the abdominal cavity and not finding in it the work that consultants and surgeons expected out of zeal or for other reasons, they undertook an excursion to the area where the abdominal organs were located: the stomach, liver, gall bladder, duodenum and area of the cecum were examined. The result was “weakness of cardiac activity" and after 1.5 days, after a terrible struggle between life and death - the patient died from “heart paralysis.” Questions arise naturally: why was the operation not performed under local anesthesia - as is known, general anesthesia is less harmful..? On what grounds do surgeons justify the examination of all abdominal organs, which caused a certain injury and required time and unnecessary anesthesia at a time when the patient, with a weak heart, was already terribly overloaded with it? "And, finally, why did the consultants not take into account that in the heart of Comrade Frunze there is a pathological process - namely, parenchymal degeneration of the heart muscle, which was recorded by the autopsy? “These are the main points that, with all the ingenious subtlety and multi-layered diagnosis, post factum make the issue the property of a criminal chronicle...”
But there were representatives of another group, which no less passionately defended “the necessity of surgical intervention,” referring to the fact “that the patient had a duodenal ulcer with a pronounced scar seal around the intestine. Such seals often lead to disruption of the evacuation of food from the stomach , and in the future - to obstruction, which can only be treated surgically."
As it turned out, Frunze’s internal organs were thoroughly worn out, which doctors warned him about back in the summer of 1922. But Frunze delayed until the last minute, until the bleeding began, which frightened even him. As a result, “the operation became his last resort to somehow improve his condition.”
I managed to find a telegram confirming this fact: "V. (instruct) Urgently. Tiflis People's Commissariat of Military Affairs of Georgia Comrade Eliava Copy to OKA Commander Comrade Egorov. According to the resolution of the council of doctors at the Central Committee of the RCP, Comrade Frunze back in May had to go abroad for treatment despite To this end, under all sorts of pretexts, he has been postponing his departure until now, continuing to work yesterday, after receiving all the documents, he completely abandoned the trip abroad and on June twenty-ninth he is leaving to visit you in Borjomi. The health situation is more serious than he apparently thinks, if the course of treatment in Borjomi is unsuccessful, he will have to resort to for surgery, it is extremely necessary to create conditions in Borjomi that are somewhat replacing Carlsbad, do not refuse the appropriate orders, three dashes, four rooms are needed, possibly isolated “June 23, 1922...”
By the way, the telegram was given when Frunze was not yet a member of the Pre-Revolutionary Military Council and a candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b). In other words, three years before the tragic death of Mikhail Frunze. Naturally, with such a critical state of the body, colleagues from Frunze’s entourage turned to Stalin to convince their illustrious commander to take their health seriously. And, apparently, already at that time Stalin made some suggestions. When Frunze was appointed People's Commissar of Military Affairs, that is, one of the main leaders of the country, the entire Stalinist part of the leadership became concerned about his well-being. Not only Stalin and Mikoyan, but also Zinoviev, almost as an order (you belong not only to yourself, but also to the party, and above all to the party!) began to insist that Frunze take care of his health. And Frunze “gave up”: he himself began to seriously fear the pain and bleeding that tormented him more and more often. Moreover, the story of advanced appendicitis, which almost killed Stalin, was fresh. Dr. Rozanov recalled: “It was difficult to vouch for the outcome. Lenin called me in the hospital morning and evening. And not only inquired about Stalin’s health, but also demanded the most thorough report.” And Stalin survived.
Therefore, regarding the treatment of the People's Commissar of Military Affairs, Stalin and Zinoviev also had a detailed conversation with the same surgeon Rozanov, who, by the way, successfully removed the bullet from the seriously wounded Lenin. It turns out that the practice of taking care of one’s comrades has been around for a long time.
Last days
In the summer of 1925, Frunze's health again deteriorated sharply. And then the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR decided: "Allow Comrade Frunze's leave from September 7th of this year." Frunze leaves for Crimea. But Crimea does not save. Famous doctors Rozanov and Kasatkin are sent to Frunze and prescribed bed rest
But alas... On September 29, I have to urgently go to the Kremlin hospital for examination. On October 8, the council concluded: an operation is needed to establish whether the ulcer is the only cause of the suspicious bleeding? However, doubts about the advisability of surgical intervention remain. Frunze himself writes about this to his wife in Yalta like this: “I’m still in the hospital. There will be a new one on Saturday.
consultation I'm afraid that the operation will be denied..."
Fellow members of the Politburo, of course, continue to monitor the situation, but mainly by encouraging the doctors to be more diligent in order to resolve the issue once and for all. However, because of this, doctors could overdo it. Finally, a “new consultation” took place. And again, the majority decided that it was impossible to do without surgery. The same Rozanov was appointed as the surgeon...
Frunze is announced to be moving to the Soldatenkovsky (now Botkin) hospital, which was then considered the best (Lenin himself underwent surgery there). Nevertheless, Frunze is agitated by the doctors’ hesitation and writes a very personal letter to his wife, which turns out to be the last in his life...
By the way, when Rozanov operated on Stalin, he was also “overdosed” on chloroform: at first they tried to cut under local anesthesia, but the pain forced him to switch to general anesthesia. As for the question - why did the surgeons, without finding an open ulcer, examine all (!) organs of the abdominal cavity? - then this, as follows from the letter, was the desire of Frunze himself: since they have cut it up, everything should be examined.
Frunze was buried near the Kremlin wall. Stalin made a short speech. Trotsky was not seen at the funeral. Frunze's widow, according to rumors, was convinced until her last day that he was “stabbed to death by doctors.” She survived her husband by only a year.
P.S. These and other unknown materials about Stalin’s time will soon see the light of day in the book “Stalin and Christ,” which will be an unexpected continuation of the book “How Stalin was Killed.”
The commander to his wife Sophia: “Our family is tragic... everyone is sick”
"Moscow, 26.10.
Hello dear!
Well, my ordeal has finally come to an end! Tomorrow (actually the move took place on October 28, 1925 - NAD) in the morning I will move to the Soldatenkovskaya hospital, and the day after tomorrow (Thursday) there will be an operation. When you receive this letter, you will probably already have a telegram in your hands announcing its results. I now feel absolutely healthy and it’s even somehow funny not only to go, but even to think about surgery. Nevertheless, both councils decided to do it. Personally, I am satisfied with this decision. Let them once and for all take a good look at what is there and try to outline a real treatment. Personally, more and more often the thought flashes through my mind that there is nothing serious, because, otherwise, it is somehow difficult to explain the fact of my rapid improvement after rest and treatment. Well, now I need to do... After the operation, I still think about coming to you for two weeks. I received your letters. I read them, especially the second one - a big one, right with flour. Is it really all the illnesses that have come upon you? There are so many of them that it’s hard to believe in the possibility of recovery. Especially if, before you even start breathing, you are already busy organizing all sorts of other things. You need to try to take treatment seriously. To do this, you must first pull yourself together. Otherwise, everything is somehow going from bad to worse. It turns out that your worries about your children are worse for you, and ultimately for them. I once heard the following phrase about us: “The Frunze family is kind of tragic... Everyone is sick, and all the misfortunes are falling on everyone!..”. Indeed, we imagine some kind of continuous, continuous infirmary. We must try to change all this decisively. I took up this matter. You need to do it too.
I consider the doctors’ advice regarding Yalta to be correct. Try spending the winter there. I’ll somehow manage the money, provided, of course, that you don’t pay for all the doctors’ visits from your own funds. There won't be enough income for this. On Friday I am sending Schmidt with instructions to arrange everything for living in Yalta. The last time I took money from the Central Committee. I think we will survive the winter. If only you could stand firmly on your feet. Then everything will be fine. And after all, all this depends solely on you. All doctors assure you that you can certainly get better if you take your treatment seriously.
I had Tasya. She offered to go to Crimea. I refused. This was shortly after my return to Moscow. The other day Schmidt repeated this proposal on her behalf. I said that he should talk about this with you in Crimea.
Today I received an invitation from the Turkish ambassador to come with you to their embassy for the celebration of the anniversary of their revolution. I wrote a response from you and myself.
Yes, you ask for winter things, and don’t write what exactly you need. I don’t know how Comrade Schmidt will resolve this issue. He, poor fellow, doesn’t have a home either, thank God. Everyone is barely able to cope. I’m already telling him: “Why is this burden placed on you and me to have sick wives? Otherwise, I say, we’ll have to make new ones. Start with you, you’re older...” And he fingered himself and grinned: “He says he’s walking...” Well, you’re not even walking. It's just a shame! No good, signora cara. Therefore, if you please, get better, otherwise, as soon as I get up, I will definitely have a “lady of my heart”...
Why is T.G. furious? Here you are, woman... It seems that you are “disappointed” once again. Apparently, you are only afraid, remembering my numerous past ridicules, of bursting out with praises (just not of a flattering nature
) at her address. I'll think about Tasya, though. She, it seems, wants to go to Yalta herself. However, as you know. If you get on your own feet, of course, there will be no need for this.
Well, all the best. I kiss you warmly, get well soon. I am in a good mood and completely calm. If only it was safe for you. I hug and kiss you again.
On October 31, 1925, Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze, Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council and People's Commissar of the USSR for Military and Naval Affairs, died from the consequences of a surgical operation. Since then and to this day, statements have not ceased that Frunze was deliberately killed under the guise of an operation.
From worker to commander in chief
Mikhail Frunze was born in 1885 in the family of a paramedic (Moldavian by nationality) on the distant colonial outskirts of the Russian Empire - in Bishkek (this city, the capital of Soviet Kyrgyzstan, was later named after him for a long time). Unlike most Red military leaders who had experience in the army before the revolution, Frunze was promoted to military posts directly from the revolutionary struggle. Nevertheless, he showed that even a civilian without military education can be a first-class strategist and organizer. Of course, Frunze used the advice and help of military experts, of whom the closest to him was the former tsarist general Fyodor Novitsky.
Having immediately become the commander of the army, without intermediate steps, Frunze in the spring of 1919 stopped the advance of Kolchak’s armies on Samara. Subsequently, Frunze, as commander of the army group and the front, did not know defeat. After the Civil War, Frunze wrote and published several military theoretical works. He also showed himself in the diplomatic field, going to Ankara at the end of 1921 to see Mustafa Kemal Pasha with the aim of concluding a military alliance between the Soviet and Turkish republics.
In the internal party struggle
Frunze's latest rise was preceded by participation in the struggle for power between two groups within the top of the CPSU (b). With Lenin's incapacity, which began in 1922, Trotsky, who was revered by everyone as the organizer and leader of the Red Army, seemed to automatically become his successor. It was this circumstance that aroused fear and hatred towards him on the part of his comrades. They were afraid that Trotsky would use his position and his popularity to seize all power. In 1923, the triumvirate of Zinoviev, Kamenev and Stalin began the fight against Trotsky. Frunze became their battering ram
At the end of October 1923, at the plenum of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), Frunze made a report that criticized Trotsky’s activities at the head of the Red Army. It is noteworthy that this plenum took place against the background of reports (as it turned out, greatly exaggerated) about the beginning of a revolution in Germany. The decision about this revolution was made by the executive committee of the Comintern under the leadership of Zinoviev in September 1923. At the decisive moment, Trotsky, who always advocated a speedy world revolution, was unable or unwilling to move the Red Army to the aid of the German workers. This weakened Trotsky's position in the internal party struggle.
The Central Committee at that moment left Trotsky in the posts he held, but in March 1924 made Frunze, as it were, the “chief overseer” of him, appointing him Trotsky’s deputy in the positions of chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council and People’s Commissar of Military Affairs. Frunze himself, according to general evidence, did not have great power ambitions. His performance on the side of the “first triumvirate” in the Bolshevik leadership was dictated, in many ways, by his good personal attitude towards Kliment Voroshilov.
Voroshilov, like Frunze, also came to military leadership posts directly from the ranks of the revolutionary workers. The conflict between Voroshilov and Trotsky occurred at the end of 1918, during the defense of Tsaritsyn, and was caused by Trotsky’s excessive, in the opinion of Voroshilov (as well as Stalin), preference for the use of tsarist military experts. Frunze was close to this position. Perhaps this prompted him to criticize Trotsky at the plenum. The fact that Frunze in this case acted more in the interests of others than in his own can probably be evidenced by Trotsky’s remark that Frunze “had little understanding of people.”
Be that as it may, having become Trotsky’s successor in both important posts in January 1925 and virtually single-handedly leading the Red Army, Frunze largely continued his line of building the Red Army.
Not necessary surgery
Since 1922, Frunze often had attacks of abdominal pain, and in 1924, intestinal bleeding began. Doctors diagnosed him with a duodenal ulcer. In keeping with the tradition of intrusive concern for the health of his comrades, which Lenin introduced into the party, the leadership persistently encouraged Frunze to go under the surgeon’s knife, although not all doctors recognized the need for the operation. The last, specially selected council decided to kill the People's Commissar.
At the same time, the People's Commissar himself felt good, which he wrote about in his last letter to his wife on October 26, 1925. But he completely trusted the doctors’ conclusions and wanted him to be operated on as quickly as possible and to eliminate the source of constant anxiety. On October 29, the operation took place in the current Botkin Hospital. Two days later, Frunze’s heart stopped. Official conclusion: general blood poisoning during the operation.
Even the government version pointed to the incompetence and carelessness of surgeons when performing a basic operation. But it’s suspicious that it didn’t correspond much to reality either. There is evidence that the surgeons, having easily operated on the ulcer (it turned out to be harmless), for some reason began to rummage through Frunze’s entire abdominal cavity, looking for other possible sources of his ailments. According to the doctor and historian Viktor Topolyansky, the cause of death was intoxication from an overdose of painkillers. When ether general anesthesia did not work, doctors added chloroform to Frunze through a mask. It is possible that both of these reasons were combined.
Who could benefit?
The incompetence of the doctors who operated on Frunze, according to any version, looks so monstrous that doubt inevitably creeps in that the cause of death was an unintentional mistake. And ever since then, there have been two main versions of the murder of Frunze on the operating table.
The first, which arose immediately, connected the mysterious death of Frunze with his speech against Trotsky and his subsequent replacement in leadership positions. Immediately in response, a version appeared accusing Stalin of the murder of Frunze. It gained a long life thanks to Boris Pilnyak’s book “The Tale of the Unextinguished Moon” (1927) and later campaigns to expose Stalin’s crimes.
However, if Trotsky had a motive to take revenge on Frunze, then Stalin’s motives do not look convincing. The modified version, which, of course, has no evidence, looks like this. Replacing Trotsky with Frunze did not provide Stalin with control over the Red Army; he wanted to appoint his longtime friend Voroshilov to these posts, which he managed to do after Frunze’s death.
Whether Frunze’s death was organized on someone’s orders, and by whom exactly, we are unlikely to ever find out.
Frunze Mikhail Vasilyevich (party pseudonym - Arseny, Trifonych; born January 21 (February 2), 1885 - death October 31, 1925) - party, state and military figure, military theorist. Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR and People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs. From 1904 to 1915, he was repeatedly arrested and exiled, twice sentenced to death, which was later replaced by lifelong exile for revolutionary activities.
During the Civil War he was commander of the army and a number of fronts. Since 1920 - commanded the troops of Ukraine and Crimea. Since 1924, he was Deputy Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR, People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs; at the same time he was the chief of staff of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army and the Military Academy. Candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks).
Origin. early years
Mikhail Frunze, from the bourgeoisie, was born in the city of Pishpek (Kyrgyzstan) into the family of a military paramedic (father - Moldavian, mother - Russian). At the age of 12, the boy lost his father. His mother, left with five children, put all her efforts into their education. Mikhail graduated from high school with a gold medal. Entered the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute. Since 1904 - member of the RSDLP.
Military and political activities
1916 - sent by the Bolsheviks to the Western Front, where he worked under the name Mikhailov in the institutions of the Zemstvo Union and headed the Bolshevik underground in Minsk. After the February Revolution, he was elected head of the people's militia of Minsk. 1917, August - appointed chief of staff of the revolutionary troops of the Minsk region and led the fight against the army on the Western Front.
In October, with a 2,000-strong detachment of Shuya workers and soldiers, he took part in the October armed coup in Moscow. 1918, August - appointed military commissar of the Yaroslavl military district. He did a lot of work in forming Red Army units and training them. He was the organizer of the suppression of a number of revolts.
1919, February - commander of the 4th Army, 1919, in May - June - commands the Turkestan Army, and since March 1919, at the same time commander of the Southern Army Group of the Eastern Front. During the counter-offensive of the Eastern Front, he carried out a number of successful offensive operations against the main forces, for which he received the Order of the Red Banner. 1919, July - commander of the troops of the Eastern Front that liberated the Northern and Middle Urals. 1919, August 15 - commands the Turkestan Front, whose troops completed the defeat of the southern group of Kolchak’s army, took the Southern Urals and opened the way to Turkestan.
1920, September 21 - appointed commander of the newly created Southern Front and leads the operation to defeat troops in Northern Tavria and Crimea, for which he is awarded the Honorary Revolutionary Weapon.
From December 1920 to March 1924, Mikhail Frunze was the authorized representative of the RVSR in Ukraine, commander of the troops of Ukraine and Crimea, at the same time a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine and deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR (since February 1922). For the defeat of the army of Wrangel and Petliura and the elimination of banditry in Ukraine, he was awarded the second Order of the Red Banner.
1924, March - Deputy Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR and People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs, and from April 1924 - simultaneously Chief of Staff of the Red Army and Head of the Military Academy of the Red Army (later named after M.V. Frunze). 1925, January - Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR and People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs.
Personal life
Mikhail Frunze's wife's name was Sofya Alekseevna Popova (12/12/1890 - 09/04/1926, daughter of a Narodnaya Volya member). The marriage produced two children - daughter Tatyana and son Timur. After the death of their father in 1925 and mother in 1926, the children lived with their grandmother Mavra Efimovna Frunze (1861 - 1933). In 1931, after the grandmother’s serious illness, the children were adopted by a friend of their father, Voroshilov, who received permission to adopt a special by resolution of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.
The mystery of Frunze's death
Frunze loved driving fast: at times he himself got behind the wheel or told the driver to drive. In 1925, he had two accidents, and rumors began to spread that it was no coincidence. The last of them happened in September: Mikhail Vasilyevich flew out of the car and hit a lamppost hard.
After the accident, the People's Commissar for Military Affairs once again suffered from a gastric ulcer - he fell ill while he was in the Vladimir Central Prison. Mikhail Frunze could not stand the subsequent operation. According to the official version, the cause of death is a combination of difficult to diagnose diseases that led to cardiac paralysis.
Few believed that this death was accidental. Some were sure that Frunze had a hand in the death - only a few months had passed since the former replaced the latter as People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs of the Soviet Union. Others explicitly hinted at Stalin's involvement.
A year later, the writer Boris Pilnyak puts forward a version that J.V. Stalin got rid of a potential competitor in this manner. By the way, shortly before Frunze’s death, an article was published in the English “Airplane” where he was called the “Russian Napoleon”.
The party leadership found out about the article. According to the testimony of B.G. Bazhanov (Former secretary of Stalin), the leader of the people saw in Frunze the future Bonaparte and expressed sharp dissatisfaction about this. Then he suddenly showed touching concern for Mikhail Vasilyevich, saying: “We absolutely do not monitor the precious health of our best workers,” after which the Politburo a little or forcefully forced the commander to agree to the operation.
Bazhanov (and he was not alone) believed that Stalin killed Mikhail Frunze in order to put his own man, Voroshilov, in his place. They claim that during the operation, exactly the kind of anesthesia that Frunze could not endure due to the characteristics of his body was used.
Meanwhile, Frunze’s wife could not bear the death of her husband: in despair, the woman committed suicide. He took their children, Tanya and Timur, into his care.
Heritage
He carried out military reforms (reducing the size of the Red Army and building it on the basis of a mixed personnel-territorial principle). Author of military theoretical works.
In Soviet times, the name Frunze was borne by the capital of Kyrgyzstan (the former city of Pishpek, where Mikhail was born), one of the mountain peaks of the Pamirs, naval ships, and a military academy. Many streets and settlements in cities and villages of the former Soviet Union were named after him.
or Murder in the operating room of the Kremlin
Few of the old Bolsheviks - professional revolutionaries - managed to prove themselves in the art of war. Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze became famous on the fronts of the civil war according to his merits, unlike, say, Budyonny or Voroshilov, whom propaganda made heroes.
January 26, 1925 M.V. Frunze was replaced by L.B. Trotsky in the posts of Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR and People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs of the USSR, and from February 1925 he became a member of the Council of Labor and Defense of the USSR.
As soon as he became the head of the People's Commissariat of Military Affairs and the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR, the English weekly "The Aeroplane" published an editorial "The New Russian Leader."
Highly appreciating Mikhail Vasilyevich’s military history, the nameless author found the origins of the commander’s gift in his pedigree, since Frunze is a descendant of soldiers of the Roman Empire and Don Cossacks. “...Frunze’s career attracts attention,” the author wrote. - First of all, let us note his Romanian blood... Romanians are proud of their origins from that colony, which in ancient times was the forward post of the Roman Empire against the Scythian hordes. Therefore, it is likely that the Romanians are still able to produce a great military genius... On the other hand, Frunze’s mother was a peasant girl from Voronezh. Today Voronezh is the center of a region bordering the territory of the Don Cossacks in Southern Russia, and it can be assumed that the girl had Cossack blood flowing in her, and therefore, she inherited fighting qualities. The combination of Roman ancestors with Cossack blood can very easily create a genius.” “In this man,” the author concluded, “all the constituent elements of the Russian Napoleon were united.”
The article was read by the Central Committee. According to B. Bazhanov, the article aroused Stalin’s anger; he angrily criticized it “within the troika” (Stalin-Kamenev-Zinoviev).
However, it quickly became clear that the new People's Commissar did not want to be an unquestioning executor of Stalin's orders, but had an independent opinion about what the Red Army should be.
By September 1925, the emphasis of reforms in the Red Army had shifted towards the introduction of strict unity of command. “The previous system of dual power, caused by political considerations,” makes it difficult to place “at the head of our units people with sufficient independence, firmness, initiative and responsibility,” stated Mikhail Frunze. - It is necessary “to have a single, completely equal command staff, without dividing it in official terms into party members and non-party members.”
Everyone knew that Frunze had been complaining of abdominal pain for several years.
Stalin suddenly became interested in this.
On October 8, 1925, participants in a consultation convened by order of the Politburo, chaired by the People's Commissar of Health of the RSFSR N.A. Semashko, having examined the commander, recommended surgical intervention. A letter from Frunze to his wife, then being treated in Yalta, has been preserved: “Well, the end of my ordeal has finally come. Tomorrow morning I am moving to the Soldatenkovskaya hospital, and the day after tomorrow (Thursday) there will be an operation. When you receive this letter, it will probably be in your I will already have a telegram in my hands informing about its results. I now feel absolutely healthy and it’s even somehow funny not only to go, but even to think about the operation..."
Old friend and long-time colleague of Frunze I.K. Hamburg recalled: “I convinced Mikhail Vasilyevich to refuse the operation, since the thought of it depresses him. But he shook his head negatively: “Stalin demands an operation; he says that we must get rid of the stomach ulcer once and for all. I decided to go under the knife.” this matter is over.
Hamburg writes: “I left the hospital that day with a heavy feeling, with some kind of anxiety. This was my last meeting with Frunze. On October 28, he was transferred from the Kremlin to the Soldatenkovsky hospital (now Botkin), where two days later Professor Rozanov performed an operation on him. The anesthesia had a bad effect on him, he did not fall asleep for a long time. I had to increase the dose. The heart could not withstand the large dose of anesthesia, and after a day and a half it stopped beating. On October 31 at 5:40 a.m., M.V. Frunze died." (Hamburg I. So it was... - M., 1965, p. 182).
Newspapers of the Soviet Union mournfully reported:
“On the night of October 31, the Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR, Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze, died of cardiac paralysis after an operation. The USSR lost in the person of the deceased an experienced leader of the revolutionary people, seasoned in the revolutionary struggle, lost a fighter who throughout his life, from the underground circle to the fierce battles in the civil war, was in the most dangerous and advanced positions.
The army and navy lost one of the best experts in military affairs, the organizer of the armed forces of the Republic, the direct leader of the victory over Wrangel and the organizer of the first victorious strike against Kolchak.
In the person of the deceased, the most prominent member of the government, one of the best organizers and leaders of the Soviet state, went to his grave."
On November 3, 1925, Frunze was taken on his final journey. Stalin delivered a brief funeral speech, casually noting: “Perhaps this is exactly what is needed, for old comrades to go to their graves so easily and so simply.”
In just three years, he will begin to send old comrades into exile, prisons and mass graves, first in hundreds, then in thousands and tens of thousands.
At the time, they didn’t even pay attention to this slip of the tongue - that’s exactly what was needed.
But the shock of the death of one of the most famous figures of the party and state caused bewilderment among many who remembered Arseny’s comrade in the underground and revolution, who fought under his command in the civil war.
ON THE. Semashko, at a meeting of the board of the Society of Old Bolsheviks in mid-November 1925, answering questions about the death of Frunze, said that the composition of the council was determined by the medical commission of the Central Committee of the RCP (b). Doctor V.N. Rozanov considered the operation completely unnecessary, but after a call to the Politburo, where Secretary General I.V. Stalin explained to him the need for radical treatment of the People's Commissar of Military Affairs and stopped resistance.
As V.D. writes Topolyansky in the essay “The Death of Frunze”:
“V.N. Rozanov was assisted by Professor I.I. Grekov and A.V. Martynov, anesthesia was performed by A.D. Ochkin. The operation was attended by employees of the Kremlin medical and sanitary department P.N. Obrosov, A.M. Kasatkin, A.Yu. Kanel and L.G. Levin. Anesthesia was given for 65 minutes. Before the operation, the patient had difficulty falling asleep and did not tolerate anesthesia well. Ether was initially used for general anesthesia, but then, due to sudden and prolonged agitation, they switched to chloroform anesthesia. They were able to begin the operation only after half an hour. The operation lasted 35 minutes. Surgical intervention, judging by the surviving documents, was limited to revision of Frunze’s abdominal organs and dissection of part of the adhesions. No ulcers were found. There is no need to talk about an ineptly and negligently performed operation. Due to the drop in heart rate, they resorted to injections that stimulate cardiac activity; after the operation they fought against heart failure, in which the surgeon from the department B.I. Rozanov participated. Neumann and Professor D.D. Pletnev. But the therapeutic interventions were unsuccessful. Frunze died 39 hours later. 10 minutes after his death, in the early morning of October 31, I.V. arrived at the hospital. Stalin, A.I. Rykov, A.S. Bubnov, I.S. Unshlikht, A.S. Enukidze and A.I. Mikoyan. Soon they gathered again near the body of the deceased in the anatomical theater of the Botkin Hospital. The prosector wrote down: the underdevelopment of the aorta and arteries discovered during the autopsy, as well as the preserved thymus gland, are the basis for the assumption that the body is unstable in relation to anesthesia.” (Questions of History, 1993, No. 6).
How competent was the anesthesiologist Ochkin? After graduating from the medical faculty of Moscow University in 1911 and 3 years of internship in the department of V.N. Rozanova worked as a surgeon at the Soldatenkovskaya Hospital, and by 1916 he had risen to senior resident. In 1919-1921 served in the 1st Cavalry Army as the chief physician of the hospital. In 1922, he was invited to the Kremlin’s medical and sanitary department.
All the surgeons who operated on Frunze and were present during the operation died suddenly during 1934. Martynov was the first to die “from sepsis” in January. Before his death, he chaired a regional conference of doctors of Moscow and the Moscow region. Grekov died on February 11 “due to weakened cardiac activity” right at a meeting at the Leningrad Institute for Advanced Medical Studies. In May 1934, Rozanov suffered pulmonary edema; in October he died due to “heart failure” in 1935. Gramsci’s widow Yu. Kanel, dismissed from the post of chief physician of the Kremlin hospital, died in February 1936. Her daughters and son-in-law were repressed in 1939 In August 1937, Obrosov was arrested. Levin and Pletnev were also arrested in 1937 and executed in March 1938 in connection with the “anti-Soviet right-wing Trotskyist bloc.”
According to the author of one of the biographies of M.V. Frunze, during an operation with surgeon V.N. Rozanov was assisted by Professor B.L. Ospovat. Recalling her, he categorically stated: “As for the double dose of chloroform administered to Frunze for pain relief, these are rumors and nothing more. It was I, and no one else, who administered the chloroform. And not double the norm, but the minimum required by the patient for pain relief. Mikhail Vasilyevich died not from the administration of chloroform, but from the general blood poisoning that followed the operation. This happened not on the operating table, but in the ward, in the absence of Rozanov. This discouraged him. After all, when he went on vacation after the operation, nothing foreshadowed trouble. Operation was successfully completed. Everything indicated that Frunze was saved. He will live and work. And when Rozanov was informed that Frunze was ill, he immediately went to the ward. But it was already too late.”...
Information about Stalin’s involvement in the death of the People’s Commissar prompted B.A. Pilnyak to the creation of "The Tale of the Unextinguished Moon". According to Pilnyak, the doctors knew for sure that his heart would not withstand chloroform - it was an almost undisguised murder. But on May 13, 1926, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks called his story “a malicious, counter-revolutionary and slanderous attack against the Central Committee and the party” and banned it.
According to historians R.A. Medvedev and V.D. Topolyansky, Frunze became one of the first Stalinist victims, opening a long string of strange suicides, ridiculous poisonings, and stupid deaths. Soon, under mysterious circumstances, a friend of the People's Commissar, revolutionary and hero of the civil war, Grigory Kotovsky, was also killed. Frunze wanted to take him as his deputy.
Before the operation, Mikhail Frunze asked the friends who visited him to tell the Central Committee to bury him in Shuya.
They didn’t care about his last will. The commander’s grave, as you know, is located near the Kremlin wall on Red Square in Moscow.
Photos from a photo album published in 1990:
Review of “Death in the operating room of the Central Committee” (Sergey Shramko)
Very important (necessary!) memories - reminders for contemporaries and descendants... “Near the king - near death,” people say.
