1 Dec 1890
Born Vasily Blucher. The first recipient of the Order of the Red Banner, Marshal of the Soviet Union, died during interrogation in 1938 in the dungeons of the NKVD. According to unofficial sources, he was beaten to death.
Blucher, who went through all the stages of the Civil War, was honored and enjoyed the people's popularity.
(Stalin, January 1938)
Was born in Yaroslavl province, into a peasant family. According to legend, the surname came from a nickname bestowed upon the great-grandfather by a landowner who, after assessing the number of awards the retired military man had received, joked: "The True Field Marshal Blucher" (winner of the Battle of Waterloo).
The future Marshal Blucher spent a year at a parochial school. Then his father took him to St. Petersburg to work. He worked as a "boy" in a store and as a laborer at a machine-building plant, where he was fired for participating in protests.
In 1909, he got a job at a wagon factory in Mytishchi. A year later, he was arrested for calling for a strike.
This version of his biography was amended by relatives during the investigation in 1938. During interrogations, his brother's wife claimed that Blucher had never worked at any factory and had no revolutionary intentions—he was a clerk and the lover of a merchant's wife. Whether this was said under duress is anyone's guess. Both his brother and his wife were executed in 1939.
He was mobilized during World War I. He was seriously wounded—doctors removed eight pieces of shrapnel, and twice sent him to the morgue, thinking he was dead.
After demobilization, he joined the RSDLP. At the time of the Bolshevik coup, he was a member Samara Military Revolutionary Committee.
During the Civil War, he fought against the Whites with his Combined Detachment. Southern Urals. Successfully - in the autumn of 1918 he became the first Knight of the Order of the Red Banner.
Having united several disparate Red Army and partisan detachments under his command, he led them on a legendary march of 1,500 miles across the Urals, engaging in fierce battles with the White Guards. For this unprecedented campaign, Comrade Blucher was awarded the highest award of the RSFSR.
(from the award sheet)
In 1920, in Crimea, Blucher's division took part in the capture Perekop, Sevastopol, Yalta.
The 51st Division covered itself with unfading glory in the final battles against Wrangel <> having lost 75% of its strength, it stormed and captured all the enemy's lines of defense, breaking through the road to Crimea with its chest.
(Frunze)
In 1921, Blucher was sent to fight the White Guards Far East — to the post of Minister of War of the Far Eastern Republic. He became, arguably, the leading expert on the Far East.
In 1924 he was seconded to China. Under the pseudonym "General Galin" he was a military adviser Sun Yat-sen, founder of the Kuomintang party. He helped modernize the National Revolutionary Army. In 1938 Chiang Kai-shek again asked the USSR leadership to send Blucher as an adviser, saying that this would be tantamount "sending 100 Red Army troops to help China."
In 1935, together with Voroshilov, Tukhachevsky, Egorov и Budyonny became Marshal of the Soviet Union.
In 1937, he joined the Special Judicial Presence, which sentenced eight Red Army commanders to death in the Tukhachevsky Case.
The dark streak began in 1938. In the summer, fighting broke out near the lake. Hasan Japan laid claim to part of Soviet territory. Blücher's forces won, but at a very high price—1000 men were killed or missing. Konev accused Blucher of lacking modern military knowledge.
Blucher was recalled to Moscow. In the fall of 1938, while vacationing with his wife and brother at Voroshilov's dacha, he was arrested. During his 18 days in the NKVD internal prison, he was interrogated 21 times. One of the prisoners testified:
Kolchugina-Blyukher [second wife] said that Blukher was beaten beyond recognition and was almost in a state of insanity. He was saying monstrous things about himself.
In testimony from November 6th to 9th, he confessed to a military conspiracy, anti-Soviet activities, and moral depravity. His wife and other relatives testified against him. On November 9th, at 10:50 PM, he died in the prison hospital—officially from a blood clot. His body was cremated that morning.
In 1939, he was retroactively stripped of his rank of marshal and sentenced to death for “espionage for Japan.”
Rehabilitated in 1956.
