Kliment Voroshilov

Kliment Yefremovich Voroshilov (Климе́нт Ефре́мович Вороши́лов) (January 23 1881 - December 2, 1969) was a Soviet military commander and politician.

Voroshilov was born in Verkhneye, near Yekaterinoslav (now Dnipropetrovsk), Ukraine, under the Russian Empire. He joined the Bolshevik party in 1903. Following the Russian Revolution of 1917 he was a member of the Ukrainian provisional government and Commissar for Internal Affairs. In the Soviet defense of Tsaritsyn during the civil war, he became closely associated with Joseph Stalin. He was well known for aiding Stalin in the Military Council (led by Leon Trotsky). He was instrumental in the Southern Front of the Russian Civil War and the Russo-Polish War.

Voroshilov was elected to the Central Committee in 1921 and remained a member until 1961. In 1925, after the death of Mikhail Frunze, Voroshilov was appointed People's Commissar for Military and Navy Affairs and Chairman of the Military Revolutionary Council of the USSR, a post he held until 1934. Frunze's position was Troika compatible (Zinoviev, Kamenev, Stalin), but Stalin preferred to have a Stalinist in charge (as opposed to Frunze, a "Zinovievite"). He was urged to have surgery to treat an old stomach ulcer. He died on the operating table of an overdose of chloroform, an anesthetic. Stalin's critics charge that the surgery was used to disguise the assassination of Frunze. Voroshilov was made full member of the newly formed Politburo in 1926, remaining a member until 1960. He was heavily involved in Stalin's Great Purge of the late 1930s. His career benefited greatly from the downfall and execution of Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevski.

Voroshilov was appointed People's Commissar for Defence in 1934 and a Marshal of the Soviet Union in 1935. During World War II, Voroshilov was a member of the State Defense Committee. Voroshilov commanded Soviet troops during the Winter War from November 1939 to January 1940, but due to his poor planning the Red Army suffered tremendous casualties. He was later replaced by Semyon Timoshenko.

After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Voroshilov was made commander of the northwest armies, but despite considerable personal bravery - at one point he personally led a counter-attack against German tanks armed only with a pistol - he failed to prevent the Germans from surrounding Leningrad and was dismissed from that office. In 1945-47 he supervised the establishment of the communist regime in Hungary.

In 1952, Voroshilov was appointed a member of the Presidium of the Central Committee. Stalin's death prompted major changes in the Soviet leadership and in March 1953, Voroshilov was approved as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (ie President of the Soviet Union) with Nikita Khrushchev as First Secretary of the Communist Party and Malenkov as Premier of the Soviet Union. Voroshilov, Georgy Malenkov and Khrushchev brought about the arrest of Lavrenty Beria after Stalin's death in 1953. After Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin in 1956, Voroshilov temporarily joined the conservative faction of Malenkov, Lazar Kaganovich and Vyacheslav Molotov (the so-called "Anti-Party Group"), in an unsuccessful attempt to remove Khrushchev from power in June 1957, but he soon switched sides and supported Khrushchev.

On May 7, 1960, the Supreme Soviet granted Voroshilov's "request for retirement" and elected Leonid Brezhnev chairman of the Soviet Presidium (or state President). The Central Committee also relieved him of duties as a member of the Party Presidium (as the Politburo had been called since 1952) on July 16, 1960. In October 1961, his political defeat was complete at the 22nd party congress when he was excluded from election to the Central Committee. A curious story surrounds Voroshilov's last days as President. During one dinner meeting with the Central Committee, every one else present ignored Voroshilov and gave him the cold shoulder. Their snubs made Voroshilov realize that all his colleagues had already decided to fire him, so he decided to pre-empt them and just "retire".

After the downfall of Khrushchev, Brezhnev returned Voroshilov to politics, in a figurehead role. He was re-elected to the Central Committee in 1966 and was awarded a second medal of Hero of the Soviet Union 1968. He died in 1969 in Moscow. The KV series of tanks, used in World War II, was named after him. Two towns were named after him: Voroshilovgrad in Ukraine (now renamed Luhansk) and Voroshilov, in the Soviet Far East (now renamed Ussuriysk), as well as the Academy of Tank Troops of the Red Army in Moscow.

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