Mikhail Tukhachevsky

I am convinced that all that is needed in order to achieve what I want is bravery and self-confidence. I certainly have enough self-confidence...I told myself that I shall either be a general at thirty, or that I shall not be alive by then.

Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky (February 16 [O.S. February 4] 1893 – June 12, 1937) was a Soviet military commander, chief of the Red Army (1925–1928), and one of the most prominent victims of Stalin's Great Purge of the late 1930s. In 1935 Tukhachevsky was made a Marshal of the Soviet Union, aged only 42. It was subsequently alleged that during these visits he contacted anti-Stalin Russian exiles and began plotting against Stalin. Tukhachevsky was arrested on May 22, 1937, and charged with organization of "military-Trotskyist conspiracy" and espionage for Nazi Germany. After a secret trial, Tukhachevsky and eight other higher military commanders were convicted, and executed on June 12, 1937.

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• I am convinced that all that is needed in order to achieve what I want is bravery and self-confidence. I certainly have enough self-confidence...I told myself that I shall either be a general at thirty, or that I shall not be alive by then.
  • 1914. Quoted in "The Red Army" - Page 111 - by Michel Berchin, Eliahu Ben-Horin - 1942

• Many desire it. We are a slack people but deeply destructive. Should there be a revolution, only God knows where it will end. I think that a constitutional regime would mean the end of Russia. We need a despot!
  • Speaking about revolution in Russia. Quoted in "The Red Army" - Page 112 - by Michel Berchin, Eliahu Ben-Horin - 1942

• There can be no doubt that if we had been victorious on the Vistula, the revolutionary fires would have reached the entire continent.
  • Quoted in "A century's journey: how the great powers shape the world" - Page 175 - by Robert A. Pastor, Stanley Hoffmann - Political Science - 1999

Lenin sensed that Tukhachevsky was a kindred spirit.

About Tukhachevsky

• Tukhachevsky was an especially damaging loss for the army and the state.
  • Andrei Gromyko

• Lenin sensed that Tukhachevsky was a kindred spirit. He delegated the most responsible jobs to the obscure lieutenant.
  • Dmitri Shostakovich

• Tukhachevsky hid Napoleon's baton in his rucksack.
  • Lazar Kaganovich -- Quoted in "Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar," - page 222 - by Simon Sebag Montefiore.