Timoshenko Semyon Konstantinovich(02/18/1895, the village of Furmanka, Suvorovsky district, now - the village of Furmanovka, Kilisky district, Odessa region, Ukraine, - 03/31/1970, Moscow), Soviet statesman and military leader, commander. Marshal of the Soviet Union (1940). Twice Hero of the Soviet Union (03/21/1940 and 02/18/1965).
Born into a peasant family. In the Russian army since 1915, private. In World War I he fought on the Western Front. Awarded three St. George Crosses. In the Red Guard from November 1917, he participated in the liquidation of the rebellion of General L.G. Kornilov, then in suppressing the speech of Ataman A.M. Kaledina. In the Red Army from June 1918: he commanded a platoon and a squadron, fought against the German occupiers and White Guards in the Crimea and Kuban. From August 1918, the commander of the 1st Crimean Revolutionary Regiment, which took part in the defense of the city of Tsaritsyn, then the commander of the 2nd separate cavalry brigade and the 6th cavalry division, which, as part of the 1st Cavalry Army, distinguished itself in the battles near Voronezh, Kastornaya, Rostov-on-Don, Bataysky, Egorlykskaya and Maykop. In August 1920, Timoshenko was appointed commander of the 4th Cavalry Division, which successfully acted in the defeat of Wrangel's troops.
In 1922 and 1927 Timoshenko graduated from the Higher Academic Courses, and in 1930, the courses for single-commanders at the Military-Political Academy. In 1925, he was appointed commander of the 3rd Cavalry Corps, and in August 1933, deputy commander of the Belarusian Military District. Subsequently, he successively commanded the troops of the North Caucasus, Kharkov and Kyiv special military districts. In September 1939, under the command of Timoshenko, troops of the Ukrainian Front carried out a liberation campaign in Western Ukraine. During the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939-1940. Since January 1940, Timoshenko has been commander of the troops of the North-Western Front. Under his leadership, front troops broke through the Mannerheim Line. May 7, 1940 Marshal of the Soviet Union Timoshenko S.K. was appointed People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR.
With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the Headquarters of the Main Command was formed for the strategic leadership of the Armed Forces of the USSR in the war. People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR S.K. Timoshenko, until July 10, 1941, was simultaneously the Chairman of the Headquarters and the Commander-in-Chief. During this period of time, Tymoshenko exercised direct control over all military operations. He then became a member of the Supreme Command Headquarters, and then was a member of the Supreme High Command Headquarters (until February 17, 1944) and a representative of the Supreme High Command Headquarters (until July 9, 1945). Since July 10, 1941, Timoshenko has been Commander-in-Chief of the Western Direction. From September 1941 to June 1942 - Commander-in-Chief of the Southwestern direction and at the same time commander of the Western (July - September 1941) and Southwestern (September - December 1941 and from April 8 to July 12, 1942) troops. ) fronts. In 1941, under his leadership, a counteroffensive of Soviet troops near Rostov-on-Don was planned and carried out.
According to the wishes of I.V. Stalin and at the insistence of the Military Council of the Southwestern Front, headed by S.M. Timoshenko and N.S. Khrushchev, from May 12 to May 29, 1942, an attempt was made to conduct the Barvenkovo-Kharkov offensive operation in the southwestern direction. However, mistakes by the Soviet senior military leadership in planning led to disaster. The Kharkov battle (May 12-29, 1942) ended for the troops of the South-Western direction with the loss of over 270 thousand people, 775 tanks and more than 5 thousand guns and mortars, which greatly contributed to the enemy’s successful conduct of the operation in 1942. Blau." In the period from July 12 to July 23, 1942, he was the commander of the Stalingrad Front. From October 5, 1942 to March 14, 1943, Timoshenko led the troops of the North-Western Front. Since March 1943, Marshal of the Soviet Union S.K. Timoshenko, as a representative of the Supreme Command Headquarters, coordinated the actions of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts, whose troops in the summer battles of 1943 thwarted the enemy’s attempts to restore the complete blockade of Leningrad.
From June to November 1943, Marshal Timoshenko, as a representative of the Supreme Command Headquarters, coordinated the North Caucasus Front, the Black Sea Fleet and the Azov Military Flotilla during the Novorossiysk-Taman operation. As a result of the operation, the port and city of Novorossiysk, Taman were liberated and the Taman Peninsula was completely cleared of the enemy. In February - June 1944, Timoshenko coordinated the actions of the 2nd and 3rd Baltic fronts, and from August 1944 until the end of the war - the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Ukrainian fronts. With his participation, a number of major operations of the Great Patriotic War were developed and carried out, incl. Iasi-Kishinev offensive operation.
After the war S.K. Timoshenko successively commanded the troops of the Baranovichi (1945-1946), South Ural (1946-1949) and Belarusian (1949-1960) military districts. Since April 1960, Semyon Konstantinovich has been in the Group of Inspectors General of the USSR Ministry of Defense. In 1937-1970 S.K. Tymoshenko was repeatedly elected as a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in 1938-1940. Since 1961, simultaneously chairman of the Soviet War Veterans Committee. In this post, he did a lot to study the experience of the past war. Urn with the ashes of S.K. Tymoshenko is buried in the Kremlin wall on Red Square in Moscow.
Awarded the highest military order "Victory". Awarded: 5 Orders of Lenin, Order of the October Revolution, 5 Orders of the Red Banner, 3 Orders of Suvorov 1st class; foreign orders: SRR - Tudor Vladimerescu 1st class, SFRY - Partisan Star 1st class, Czechoslovakia - White Lion "For Victory"; An honorary revolutionary and personalized weapon with a gold image of the State Emblem of the USSR, as well as many Soviet and foreign medals.
2. Natalia Timoshenko - daughter-in-law of Marshal S.K. Tymoshenko. In November 1918, S.K. Timoshenko took over the 2nd separate cavalry brigade. In 1933, S.K. Timoshenko was appointed to the post of deputy commander of the troops of the Belarusian Military District. In July 1941, Marshal of the Soviet Union S.K. Timoshenko was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Western Direction.
In the Red Army since 1918. Commanded a platoon or squadron. In 1940-1941 Timoshenko is the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR (replacing K.E. Voroshilov in this post). On July 19, 1941, instead of the Headquarters of the High Command headed by Timoshenko, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command was created under the leadership of I.V. Stalin.
On September 30, 1941, Timoshenko himself led the recreated Southwestern Front, defending on the southern flank of the Soviet-German front. At the end of November 1941, Timoshenko commanded the counter-offensive of Soviet troops near Rostov-on-Don. Timoshenko himself survived and escaped capture. On March 13, Marshal Timoshenko was removed from his post as commander of the Northwestern Front.
Marshal of the Soviet Union Timoshenko was awarded the second Gold Star medal on February 18, 1965 for services to the Motherland and the Armed Forces of the USSR, on his 70th birthday.
Until June 26, 1945, it was the highest, then preceding the title of Generalissimo of the Soviet Union (and after the death of the only Generalissimo I.V. Stalin in 1953 - again the highest de facto). During the war, there was a tendency to award particularly distinguished commanders the rank of marshal. The awarding of the title of Marshal of the Soviet Union to L. I. Brezhnev is actually honorary, since his activities were never associated with commanding troops.
Difficult daughter of Marshal Tymoshenko
M. N. Tukhachevsky and G. I. Kulik, during the process of rehabilitation, were posthumously restored to the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union. It caused very serious damage to Wrangel’s troops and Makhno’s gang. For courage and heroism in the battles of the Civil War, S. K. Timoshenko was awarded two Orders of the Red Banner. The two heroes of the Civil War together successfully conducted exercises in the area of Slutsk and other garrisons in order to increase the combat readiness of the troops. In those years, S.K. Timoshenko became close to G.K. Zhukov.
Family[edit edit wiki text]
S.K. Timoshenko ordered to use the full power of the front and naval artillery and launch massive air strikes. Many of them were personally attended by People's Commissar of Defense S.K. Timoshenko. The most important and difficult time has come for S.K. Timoshenko. He becomes chairman of the High Command Headquarters.
S.K. Timoshenko was appointed Deputy People's Commissar of Defense and became part of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command. In February–June 1944, S.K. Timoshenko ensured the coordination of the actions of the 2nd and 3rd Baltic, and from August 1944 until the end of the war - the 2nd, 3rd, 4th Ukrainian fronts.
How is Wikipedia trying to steal Ukrainian history?
Semyon Konstantinovich Timoshenko is one of those commanders who during the war communicated not only with generals and officers, but also with ordinary soldiers. Marshal of the Soviet Union I. Kh. Bagramyan in his memoirs “This is how the war began” recalls how he was summoned near Poltava by the Commander-in-Chief of the South-Western direction, Marshal Timoshenko.
Marshals do not resign. A memorial plaque was installed on the headquarters building of the Belarusian Military District. There is a museum of S.K. Timoshenko at the Military Academy of Chemical Defense. In 1945, Catherine married Stalin's son, Vasily. Ekaterina Timoshenko was born in 1923 on the same day as Stalin and later attached special, mystical meaning to this fact. She was the daughter from Semyon Timoshenko's first marriage.
Vasily Stalin part 28 Women in his life
And her daughter Katya ended up in an orphanage. She was 14 years old at the time; during a search, they found a certificate on her, which indicated the name of her real father - Semyon Konstantinovich Timoshenko. She stopped answering phone calls and knocks on the door. The only outlet was trips to his father - in 1960, Marshal Timoshenko moved from Minsk to Moscow and settled in a dacha in Arkhangelskoye.
When they finally managed to get through to the wounded man, it was already too late - the grandson of Stalin and Timoshenko died on the way to the hospital in an ambulance. Marshal's daughter. V. Stalin married her in Sochi, without divorcing his first wife, Galina Burdonskaya (according to other sources, E.S. Timoshenko is V. Stalin’s common-law wife).
In August 1918, at the head of a cavalry regiment, he took part in the defense of Tsaritsyn, where he met Stalin. From June 1937 - commander of the troops of the North Caucasus, from September 1937 - of the Kharkov military districts. On February 8, 1938, he was appointed commander of the Kyiv Military District with the military rank of Army Commander of the 1st Rank. During the Polish campaign of 1939, he commanded the Ukrainian Front.
With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War on June 23, 1941, he was appointed chairman of the Headquarters of the High Command. N. G. Kuznetsov. As a result, the mechanized corps were lost in an unsuccessful counterattack on Senno and Lepel.
About the celebrity: military leader, Marshal of the Soviet Union, twice Hero of the Soviet Union, participant in the Civil, Soviet-Finnish and Great Patriotic Wars
On November 28, the city was taken, which became one of the first victories of the Red Army in 1941. In December 1941 - January 1942, he led the Kursk-Oboyan offensive operation. In May 1942, Timoshenko led the Kharkov operation, as a result of which a large group of the Red Army suffered a crushing defeat.
I.V. Stalin was awarded this title in 1943 “according to his position” as People’s Commissar of Defense and Supreme Commander-in-Chief. The name of Marshal of the Soviet Union S.K. Timoshenko was given to the Military Academy of Chemical Defense and the anti-submarine ship. In the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940, from January 7, 1940, he commanded the North-Western Front, whose troops broke through the Mannerheim Line.
Semyon Konstantinovich Timoshenko remains one of the most mysterious and little-studied characters of the Soviet era. He went through the First World War, the Civil War, the Great Patriotic War, fought with the Poles, Finns, headed the People's Commissariat of Defense, was Stalin's matchmaker, and after the war he was the only military leader who did not leave memoirs.
The future marshal was born in the village of Furmanovka, Akkerman district, Bessarabia province. “My father came from a family of Zaporozhye Cossacks, who, according to legend, went into battle naked to the waist, which symbolized fearlessness,” Semyon Konstantinovich said about his father in his autobiography. “They mastered the art of cutting the air with a saber so that it seemed like a bullet was whistling. This skill was passed on from father to son.”
After graduating from a rural parochial school in 1915, Timoshenko was drafted into the army. In the army, he continued his studies, in particular, he graduated from the Oranienbaum machine gun school, graduating from there, according to some sources, as an instructor, according to others, as a sergeant.
Semyon Timoshenko spent the First World War as a machine gunner on the Western Front. The future marshal served in the 4th Cavalry Division and managed to distinguish himself during the Brusilov breakthrough. For the courage shown during the battles, Semyon Konstantinovich was awarded three St. George Crosses at once and was presented with the full St. George Cross. However, Tymoshenko did not manage to receive the coveted award. Instead, he ended up in prison. Got caught for hitting an officer. He was brought before a military court and was supposed to be tried, but the October Revolution broke out. Tymoshenko was released and continued his further service. He fought a lot on the side of the Red Army. Tymoshenko himself in his autobiography spoke about his revolutionary period as follows:
“On November 7, 1917, as part of the 4th Cavalry Division, which went over to the side of Soviet power, he began to actively participate in the fight against counter-revolution. In the first days of the October Socialist Revolution, the 4th Cavalry Division, headed by an elected command staff, by order of V.I. Lenin, was transferred from the Western Front to the Don to eliminate the counter-revolutionary rebellion of Ataman Kaledin. Having dealt with Kaledin in January-February 1918, the division was transferred from Rostov to Moscow for the disbandment and demobilization of personnel.”
In March of the same 1918, Timoshenko was demobilized from the army. Although, having been demobilized, the future marshal decides to connect his future life with the army and joins the first Black Sea detachment. There he slowly moves up the career ladder - from private to commander of the 1st Crimean Horse Guards Regiment.
Having briefly served as commander of a cavalry brigade under Kliment Voroshilov, Semyon Konstantinovich came under command Semyon Budyonny, becoming part of his cavalry division. However, this happened only in October 1919. Even earlier, in February, Timoshenko joined the party, and in January he took part in the Voronezh-Kastornensky operation. Timoshenko participated in the liberation of Voronezh, Kastorny, and the capture of the city of Stary Oskol. As later near Rostov and Donbass, he had to fight here with units of generals Konstantin Mamontov And Andrey Shkuro who fought as part of Denikin’s troops. In December 1919 - January 1920, in a new capacity, Timoshenko participated in the Kharkov, Donbass and Rostov-Novocherkassk operations, fighting with units of Mamontov and Udegey. Without much resistance, his division managed to capture Rostov-on-Don.
S.K. Tymoshenko (wearing glasses) with a group of senior officers after being awarded in the Kremlin, February 1968
Having entered the captured city, Timoshenko came to a restaurant where unsuspecting White Guard officers were having dinner. Opening the door of the banquet hall, Semyon Konstantinovich announced the capture of Rostov by the Reds, ordered them to surrender their weapons and declared the officers prisoners. Soon his division was transferred to the south, as part of the Caucasian Front, where the largest battle of the Civil War took place - Yegorlyk, which lasted from February 25 to 27, in which tens of thousands of cavalry confronted each other for the first time.
The Yegorlyk battle ended with the defeat of the last white reserves, and soon Semyon Konstantinovich was summoned to army headquarters for a meeting, where the commander of the Caucasian Front Mikhail Tukhachevsky announced to the audience the beginning of war with Poland. The Poles will long remember the capable and desperate divisional commander who fought them near Zhitomir and Uman, Novograd-Volynsk and Rivne.
In August of the same 1920, Timoshenko left his native 6th Division and was appointed commander of the 4th Cavalry Division. In his new capacity, he fought with gangs Nestor Makhno and the general's troops Peter Wrangel, took part in the Perekop-Chongar operation, during which his division managed to defeat the Kornilov and Markov divisions.
The civil war ended, and Timoshenko was sent to the capital in December 1920 as a delegate to the 8th All-Russian Congress of Soviets. According to some researchers, it was after the congress that Timoshenko decided to stay in the army for life and the following year he became a student at the Higher Courses of the Military Academy of the Red Army, which he graduated the same year. He was immediately appointed deputy commander, and soon commander-commissar of the 3rd Cavalry Corps.
Ekaterina Timoshenko
Meanwhile, significant events also took place in Tymoshenko’s personal life. In 1923, in Minsk, at one of the evenings dedicated to the fifth anniversary of the Red Army, Timoshenko met a Turkish woman named Nurgail. Love broke out between them. Soon Timoshenko took his beloved to his division, and the young people got married. Semyon Konstantinovich was 26 years old, Nurgail 16. Soon, on December 21, on Stalin’s birthday, their daughter Katya was born. And then the future marshal found out that Nurgail was cheating on him. Losing control of himself, he hit his wife with the butt of his gun, so hard that he broke it. As a result, on New Year’s Eve 1924, Tymoshenko’s wife disappeared, escaping with her new lover to Poland. It turned out that Nurgail preferred the military commissar of Belarus Leonov to the brave horseman. Timoshenko crossed out his unfaithful wife from his life and three years later regained family happiness, marrying in 1927 Anastasia Zhukovskaya, a teacher at one of the Minsk schools. His new wife gave him a daughter, Olya, and a son, Kostya.
Meanwhile, Tymoshenko continued his studies. In 1927, he graduated from the Higher Academic Courses, and in 1930, from the courses of single commanders at the Military-Political Academy. Soon he was already an assistant commander of the troops of the Belarusian Military District, and three years later - deputy commander of the troops. In 1935, Semyon Konstantinovich was transferred to the Kiev Military District, and since September 1937 he has been commander. True, Tymoshenko headed another military district - the North Caucasus.
Then he learned that his ex-wife had been arrested, his rival Commissar Leonov too, and Katya was in an orphanage near Rostov. It turned out that while conducting a search in the commissar’s house, NKVD officers found Katya’s birth certificate and realized who her real father was. Katya was 14 years old when her mother and stepfather were arrested. Having learned that she was the daughter of a famous commander, Budyonny’s comrade-in-arms, Katya perked up. In the film “The Difficult Daughter of Marshal Timoshenko” there is a legend that during interrogation the NKVD officers asked:
“Katya, do you have any requests or wishes?” Katya answered them: “Give me back the watch - it’s mine, personal.” The investigator immediately wrote a statement in his own hand, and Katya signed it. For the first time I signed with the surname Tymoshenko.
Semyon Konstantinovich took Katya to a new family, but Katya’s relationship with her stepmother did not work out, although Timoshenko’s new wife accepted Katya and raised her as her own daughter. In fact, Anastasia Mikhailovna took care of the children alone, since Tymoshenko was in the service all the time. In 1939, the Soviet-Finnish War began. When the fighting began, Stalin gathered all the commanders of the military districts and asked them one single question: “Who is ready to take command?” Tymoshenko immediately stood up and, amid general silence, said: “I hope I will not let you down.”
Timoshenko really did not let Stalin down and after the end of the war he became People's Commissar of Defense. At the same time, Semyon Konstantinovich was awarded the rank of marshal. In a new capacity and in a new rank, now Marshal Timoshenko met June 22, 1941 - the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. Shortly before the German invasion, changes occurred in Katya's life. She graduated from school and entered the Moscow Institute of Foreign Languages.
From left to right: S.K. Timoshenko, K.N. Leselidze, I.E. Petrov. 1943
On June 23, Tymoshenko heads the Supreme Command Headquarters, temporarily concentrating broad powers in her hands. On June 30, after the creation of the State Defense Committee (abbreviated as GKO) under the chairmanship of Stalin, the Headquarters of the Supreme Command turned into the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. Tymoshenko became its ordinary member and was demoted to a simple deputy people's commissar of defense.
From September 1941 to June 1942, Timoshenko was commander of the southwestern direction. In November-December 1941, Semyon Konstantinovich distinguished himself in the battles near Rostov, planning and carrying out a successful counter-offensive against the 1st German Tank Army, although in general he turned out to be not a very successful marshal. Accustomed to commanding cavalry during the Civil War, the marshal could not fit into the new military realities. He made the decision to withdraw troops in the Kiev direction, which ultimately led to the greatest defeat and death of the commander of the Kyiv district troops Mikhail Kirponos and the encirclement of part of the front troops. Tymoshenko is partly to blame for the defeat of our army near Kharkov. Knowing from the marshal Ivan Bagramyan about the impending attack of the Nazis precisely on the Kharkov line, he led his troops in a frontal attack, instead of strengthening the defense. As a result, the second crushing defeat after Kyiv occurred near Kharkov.
While her father commanded the front, Katya completed radio operator courses and cared for the wounded in the hospital. And then she met at the skating rink with Vasily Stalin. Tymoshenko's other children also tried to keep up with their father. Olga and Kostya worked in a team to combat incendiary bombs.
Soon, in July 1942, the marshal was transferred to command the Stalingrad, and then in October - to the North-Western Front. The following year, Tymoshenko was awaiting a new appointment. This time already a representative of Headquarters. In his new capacity, Semyon Konstantinovich coordinated the actions of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts, and later the North Caucasus and Black Sea fronts. Novorossiysk-Taman, Kerch-Eltigen, Baltic, Yassko-Kishenevskaya, East Carpathian, Balaton, Budapest, Vienna and Prague - all these operations were developed and carried out with the direct participation of the marshal.
At the same time, Katya received several letters from her mother. The former marshal's wife spent about a year in ALZHIR, a camp for wives of traitors to the Motherland, located in Kazakhstan. From there she was transferred to Solikamsk. Katya decided to write a response letter to her mother:
“Mommy, my dear, if you have forgotten me and don’t want to know me, this is very cruel of you. All my life I have been an orphan: at first there was a mother, but there was no father, but now it’s the other way around. Mommy, answer me as soon as possible - now you and I can be happy, since we have again found a connection with each other. I kiss you, my dear, dear and only. Your Katerina."
However, this letter turned out to be Katya's first and last letter to her mother. Soon she got married and never thought about her again.
Throughout 1944, Semyon Konstantinovich coordinated the actions of the new fronts. From February to June - the 2nd and 3rd Baltic Fronts, from August until the end of the war - the 3rd, 4th Ukrainian Fronts. After the war, the marshal briefly headed the military commission of deputies of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR to prepare the Law on demobilization of older people from the Armed Forces, and soon headed the troops of the Baranovichi Military District.
The end of the war brought considerable problems to the marshal in his family life. Semyon Konstantinovich was beside himself with rage when Katya told him that she loved Vasily Stalin and was going to marry him. He put his daughter under house arrest and ordered him to forget Stalin's son. However, Katya violated her father's will and ran away from home. On August 20, she got married and returned home with her new husband. She returned to confront her father with a fait accompli. “Dad, we signed,” Katya said. They were signed in the registry office, even despite the fact that Vasily Stalin remained a married man and did not dissolve his previous marriage with Galina Burdonskaya. Katya left with her new husband for Germany, where Vasily commanded the aviation of a group of Soviet troops. In the same 1945, Katya gave birth to her husband’s daughter, Svetlana. Together with Vasily, his children from Galina Burdonskaya lived in the family. Catherine was very angry about this fact. She did not accept her husband’s first children and, according to their stories, not only did not raise them, but also humiliated and beat them in every possible way. In 1947, Vasily Stalin received a new position. He became commander of the Air Force of the Moscow Military District, and the young family returned to Moscow.
In the meantime, Semyon Konstantinovich managed to move to command of the South Ural District, and then in 1949 - the Belorussian District. The marshal stayed in the Belarusian Military District for 11 years. In Minsk, Semyon Konstantinovich was found by his ex-wife. She complained to Tymoshenko that she had recently been released and that she had nowhere to live. The marshal responded to his ex-wife’s request and helped her buy a house near Rostov.
After seeing her ex-husband, Nurgail decided to definitely see Katya, whom she had not seen since her arrest in 1937. Soon Vasily Stalin received a letter from his mother-in-law and immediately sent a plane for her. We do not know whether the meeting between mother and daughter took place. Regarding this, there are two opposing versions. According to the first version, they saw each other and talked all night. The second version says that Nurgail waited for her daughter at the gates of her mansion all day, but Katya did not want to meet her mother. Family life did not bring happiness to Katya. Vasily Stalin drank a lot and was constantly surrounded by women. She decided to break off the relationship and one day left her husband. Her second son, whom she named Vasily, was born in 1949, when Katya was already living separately from Stalin Jr.
Three years later Joseph Stalin removed his son from the post of aviation commander and ordered him not only to make peace with his wife, but also to improve relations with her relatives. Vasily could not disobey his father and soon managed to return Katya to the family. It is known that in 1952 Vasily and Katya came to Semyon Konstantinovich in Belarus. We do not know whether the marshal forgave his unlucky daughter, but, in any case, the meeting took place.
On March 5, 1953, Joseph Stalin died. Standing next to her husband at the leader’s coffin, Katya understood that soon any kind of family life would end, and she turned out to be right. Vasily Stalin was arrested a month and a half later, and Katya was summoned Nikolay Bulganin. He left Stalin’s daughter-in-law no choice: she had to either dissolve her marriage with Vasily or share his fate. Katya chose freedom, and the divorce was filed quickly. The children of Stalin Jr. from his first wife returned to their mother, and Katya and the children remained in Moscow, receiving an apartment on Gorky Street.
In 1960, Timoshenko returned to Moscow and two years later headed the Soviet War Veterans Committee. Semyon Konstantinovich had to deal with the problems of those war veterans whose exploits the country had forgotten. He was the only military leader who did not write memoirs, perhaps because he did not want to talk about his defeats. He spent 8 years in an inconspicuous position and died on March 31, 1970. It is unlikely that Katya, visiting her father’s grave on Red Square near the Kremlin wall, thought that a dark streak would soon come in her life.
In 1972, her son Vasily died in Moscow, and soon Katya learned that her daughter Svetlana was suffering from a mental disorder. Svetlana was declared incompetent and placed under the guardianship of distant relatives, while Katya was left to live alone in a large apartment. For ten years nothing was heard about her. She led a quiet life and did not appear in public. In 1988, concerned that there had been no news from her sister for a month and a half, her half-brother and sister came to visit her. It turned out that Katya was killed and the apartment was looted.
Philip MARTYNOV
Among the commanders of the Great Patriotic War it is difficult to find a more controversial figure than Marshal Timoshenko. Some believe that this military leader, who held the post of People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR at the time of Hitler's invasion, made every effort to repel the Wehrmacht's attack and thwart the plans of the German blitzkrieg. Others are convinced that Tymoshenko’s gross mistakes led to huge casualties and the largest military disasters that brought the Soviet Union to the brink of defeat.
Even Tymoshenko’s awards contain this contradiction. He, unlike the same Zhukova And Rokossovsky, there is no “Gold Star” of the Hero of the Soviet Union for the battles of the Great Patriotic War. At the same time, Tymoshenko received the highest military order “Victory”, but not for a specific operation, but “for planning military operations and coordinating the actions of the fronts.”
The difficult and contradictory life path of Semyon Konstantinovich Timoshenko began on February 18, 1895 in the village of Furmanka, Akkerman district, Bessarabia province. In this area, not far from Izmail, retired grenadier soldiers settled, moving from military exploits to peasant labor. In a large Ukrainian family, Semyon was the youngest, seventeenth child.
He graduated from a rural school, but he couldn’t dream of anything more. Semyon began to earn his bread by working as a farm laborer for wealthy landowners.
Either physical labor contributed, or genes took their toll, but by the age of 20, Semyon had turned into a stately young handsome man, whom all the local girls looked at.
Divisional Commander of the First Cavalry
But the First World War was already raging, and Timoshenko was drafted into the army. After graduating from the Oranienbaum machine gun school, he found himself at the front as part of the 4th Cavalry Division.
Participation in the Brusilov breakthrough, three wounds and three St. George's Crosses - this is the track record of machine gunner Timoshenko in the First World War. His courage and personal bravery cannot be doubted.
The fact that the seventeenth son of a poor Ukrainian peasant, who worked as a farm laborer since childhood, ended up in the ranks of the revolutionaries, is, of course, not surprising. In 1918, a new Civil War began for Semyon Timoshenko.
In the ranks of the Red Army, he began as a private. And then in just a few months - a dizzying career, incredible for peacetime, but quite typical for a revolutionary one - platoon commander, squadron commander, and already in August 1918, commander of a cavalry regiment. And in November of the same, endless 1918, Timoshenko was already a brigade commander.
At the age of 24, in 1919, Semyon Timoshenko became the commander of a cavalry division as part of the First Cavalry Army.
He compensated for the lack of military education through combat experience and personal courage. Timoshenko, who morally suppressed the enemy with his heroic height and physique, himself led his fighters into attacks, instilling in them confidence in success.
During the Civil War, he was wounded five times, but he stubbornly refused to leave his fighters. For his exploits in this war, Semyon Timoshenko was awarded three Orders of the Red Banner and Honorary Revolutionary Arms.
The young division commander from the First Cavalry was looked upon as one of the most promising military leaders.
One of the "lucky ones"
After the Civil War, Timoshenko graduated from the Higher Military Academic Courses in 1922 and 1927, and the courses for single commanders at the N. G. Tolmachev Military-Political Academy in 1930.
During perestroika, historians tended to explain the successful career growth of Semyon Timoshenko in the period between the Civil and Great Patriotic Wars. Semyon Budyonny, who helped people from the First Cavalry.
However, Tymoshenko also called the best cavalryman of the Red Army a man who is called the direct opposite of Budyonny - Mikhail Tukhachevsky.
Moreover, Tymoshenko, who became deputy commander of the Kyiv Military District in 1935, ended up on the military “black lists” compiled by head of the NKVD Nikolai Yezhov. They tried to accuse Tymoshenko, who was traveling as an observer to military exercises in Italy, of espionage activities.
He personally took the trouble away from Tymoshenko Stalin, who crossed him out of the lists of “conspirators” presented to him.
In February 1938, Semyon Timoshenko became commander of the Kyiv Military District with the rank of Army Commander of the 1st Rank.
In the history of the Red Army, only 9 military men held this rank, of whom one died a natural death, five were shot, and three subsequently became marshals. Tymoshenko was one of the three lucky ones.
Mannerheim winner
In September 1939, during the liberation of Western Belarus and Western Ukraine, Timoshenko commanded the Ukrainian Front, coping with the tasks assigned to him.
Just a few months later, when Soviet troops had failed to gain a decisive advantage on the battlefields of the Soviet-Finnish War by January 1940, Timoshenko was sent to command the newly created Northwestern Front.
Tymoshenko managed to arrange supplies of normal winter uniforms to the troops and organize accelerated training for soldiers to operate in winter conditions.
He is accused of the fact that the notorious Finnish “Mannerheim Line” was actually broken by a frontal attack, without regard to losses. But, be that as it may, the task set by the country's top leadership was completed.
Tymoshenko's merits were appreciated - in March 1940 he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. In May 1940, Stalin changed the post of People's Commissar of Defense Klima Voroshilova on Semyon Timoshenko. Along with this appointment, Tymoshenko also receives the rank of marshal.
The year remaining before the start of the Great Patriotic War, the new People's Commissar of Defense spent working on the reorganization of the army and its technical re-equipment. The Second World War was raging beyond the threshold, and the involvement of the USSR in the conflict was a matter of time. Tymoshenko understood that there was a catastrophic lack of time to prepare in the current situation, but he did everything he could. Last but not least, thanks to him, several hundred military personnel who had previously fallen into the millstone of the “Great Terror” were released from prison and returned to duty.
Budyonny turned out to be more far-sighted
So, by the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, Marshal Timoshenko approached the status of one of the best Soviet military leaders. It was he who was the head of the High Command Headquarters, formed on June 23. However, he failed to take effective measures to repel Hitler’s aggression. Information about the situation at the fronts arrived late, and as a result, the most important decisions were made late. The country's leadership put pressure on Tymoshenko, demanding full reports on what was happening and effective measures to combat the aggressors, but the People's Commissar of Defense could not provide either of these. It is not a fact that anyone could cope with this task in the first weeks of the war.
On July 19, 1941, instead of the Headquarters of the Main Command, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command was created, headed by Stalin. The head of state also took the post of People's Commissar of Defense, transferring Tymoshenko to the post of his deputy.
From the beginning of July 1941, Timoshenko simultaneously commanded units of the Western Front, trying to stop the enemy’s lightning advance to the East. The Battle of Smolensk in July - September 1941 ended in the defeat of the Red Army and heavy losses, but made it possible to delay the Nazis on the way to Moscow.
Three days after the end of the Battle of Smolensk, Timoshenko was appointed commander-in-chief of the troops of the South-Western direction with the task of holding Kyiv at any cost.
Tymoshenko's predecessor in this post was his former commander in the First Cavalry, Semyon Mikhailovich Budyonny. Like Zhukov, Budyonny believed that Kyiv must be abandoned immediately in order to avoid complete encirclement and defeat of Soviet troops in this direction.
Tymoshenko, however, arrived with the intention of carrying out the order and holding Kyiv. It took the marshal three days to understand the unrealistic nature of this task. This time turned out to be fatal - the troops did not have time to retreat. As a result, the losses of Soviet troops who were surrounded, killed, missing and captured amounted to more than 600 thousand people. Among the dead was Commander of the Southwestern Front, Colonel General Mikhail Kirponos.
Tymoshenko bears only part of the blame for this defeat, but he undoubtedly has some share of the blame for the Kyiv disaster.
Attack on Kharkov
The new Southwestern Front, designed to close the gap at the front, was headed personally by Marshal Timoshenko. In this position, Timoshenko led one of the first successful operations of the Red Army in the Great Patriotic War - the liberation of Rostov-on-Don at the end of November 1941.
The victory of Soviet troops near Moscow in December 1941, as well as local successes on other sectors of the front, forced the country's top leadership, led by Stalin, to set an ambitious task for the military - in 1942, defeat the Wehrmacht and completely knock out the Nazis from the territory of the USSR.
This was to begin with the Kharkov operation, the main role in which was assigned to the Southwestern Front of Marshal Timoshenko. The offensive near Kharkov, if successful, was supposed to cut off the German Army Group South, after which it was to be pressed to the Sea of Azov and destroyed.
The offensive was supposed to begin from the so-called Barvenkovsky bridgehead, captured by units of the Southwestern Front on the western bank of the Seversky Donets River in January 1942.
The operation began on May 12, 1942 and initially developed successfully. During the five days of the offensive, Soviet units reached the outskirts of Kharkov, and mounted reconnaissance even reached the suburbs.
However, the offensive in different areas developed extremely unevenly, as a result of which the threat of encirclement loomed over the advancing Soviet units. Interaction with the Southern Front was very poorly established, defense in directions that posed a danger to Hitler’s counterattacks was not echeloned, and engineering work was carried out at a minimal level.
While the advanced units of the Red Army were still observing the outskirts of Kharkov, the German 1st Tank Army struck in the rear of the attackers on May 17, breaking through the Soviet defenses.
New Chief of the General Staff Alexander Vasilevsky proposed to stop the offensive and begin the immediate withdrawal of troops in order to avoid encirclement, which threatened with catastrophic consequences.
Tymoshenko disaster
And again, as in the case of Kiev, Marshal Timoshenko delayed with this decision. Moreover, both he himself and Member of the Military Council of the Southwestern Front Nikita Khrushchev insisted that the threat of encirclement was exaggerated. As a result, Stalin preferred to hear Tymoshenko rather than Vasilevsky.
The payback turned out to be terrible. By May 23, most of the Soviet strike force was surrounded. Attempts to escape did not lead to anything. By May 26, the surrounded units were sandwiched by the Germans in a small area in the Barvenkovo area.
Marshal Timoshenko signed the order to stop the offensive only on May 28, when the catastrophe became almost inevitable.
Only a tenth of the Soviet troops managed to escape from the trap. The irretrievable losses of the Red Army near Kharkov amounted to more than 170 thousand people, the total - over 270 thousand. The German units rushed towards the Don, and it seemed that no one could stop them.
The Kharkov disaster lies entirely on the conscience of Semyon Timoshenko. Many of the commanders of units and units of the Southwestern Front died or were captured. Tymoshenko's deputy also died, Lieutenant General Fedor Kostenko, who committed suicide so as not to be captured.
As for Marshal Timoshenko himself, everyone lost him for a while. The Germans tried to locate the front commander, trying to get their hands on a valuable “trophy”. Moscow no longer expected a successful outcome.
But still, the marshal got out of the cauldron alive, reaching his own. However, the Soviet leadership no longer placed its main bet on him.
Marshal Semyon Timoshenko, Army General Georgy Zhukov and Army General Kirill Meretskov (center from left to right) during exercises in the 99th Infantry Division of the Kyiv Special Military District in the Lviv region. Photo: RIA Novosti / P. Bernstein
Messenger from Headquarters
In October 1942, when the battle of Stalingrad was in full swing, Timoshenko was appointed commander of the Northwestern Front. He was entrusted with the implementation of the Polar Star plan, within the framework of which two offensive operations were carried out - Demyanskaya in February 1943 and Starorusskaya in March 1943. The result was unsatisfactory - the troops were unable to reach the planned lines, suffering heavy losses.
One can argue for a long time about Tymoshenko’s personal guilt in these two failures, but in the eyes of Stalin, the marshal developed a reputation as a “loser.” In the same March 1943, Semyon Timoshenko was removed from the post of commander of the North-Western Front, transferring this post to a much more successful military leader - Ivan Konev.
From that moment until the end of the war, Semyon Timoshenko was a representative of the Headquarters, coordinating the actions of the fronts, and also took part in the development of strategic plans for operations.
Freed from the burden of personal responsibility, Tymoshenko turned out to be much more useful for the army. During a collegial discussion of offensive operations, the marshal's ideas turned out to be very useful, as well as adjusting the actions of individual units during the practical implementation of plans.
Don't shoot the pianist...
After the end of the war, Semyon Timoshenko commanded various military districts for another 15 years, and in April 1960 he joined the Group of Inspectors General of the USSR Ministry of Defense.
Timoshenko received his second star of Hero of the Soviet Union in 1965 with the not very heroic wording “For services to the Motherland and the Armed Forces of the USSR” on his 70th birthday.
This award only added a new reason for discussion about the place of the military leader in the history of our country.
Having started the war as People's Commissar of Defense, Timoshenko found himself in a secondary role by its end. He was responsible for the most severe Kharkov defeat, which almost became fatal for the Red Army. But, returning to duty in the positions that were entrusted to him, he tried to be useful to the Motherland - as much as he could.
Semyon Konstantinovich Timoshenko passed away on March 31, 1970 and was buried in the necropolis near the Kremlin wall.
Marshal of the Soviet Union, twice Hero of the Soviet Union, holder of the Order of Victory Semyon Konstantinovich Timoshenko was born on February 6 (February 18, new style) 1895 in the village of Furmanka, Akkerman district, Bessarabia province (now Furmanovka, Kiliya district, Odessa region of Ukraine), in the family of a Ukrainian peasant .
He graduated from a rural school. In December 1914 he was drafted into the army. In 1915, after a training team and an exemplary machine gun school, he became a sergeant. He took part in the First World War, was a machine gunner in the 4th Cavalry Division on the Southwestern and Western fronts. For bravery he was awarded the St. George Cross of three degrees.
In the Red Army since 1918. Commanded a platoon or squadron. In August 1918, at the head of a cavalry regiment, he participated in the defense of Tsaritsyn; from November 1918, he was the commander of a cavalry brigade (from June 1919 - in the corps of S. M. Budyonny). Member of the RCP(b) since 1919. In November 1919 - August 1920 commander of the 6th, from August 1920 to October 1921 - 4th Cavalry Division of the 1st Cavalry Army. He was wounded five times, but did not leave the line. For military exploits during the Civil War, he was awarded three Orders of the Red Banner and an Honorary Revolutionary Weapon.
After the Civil War, he studied at the Higher Military Academic Courses, then at the courses for single-commanders. Commanded the 3rd and 6th Cavalry Corps. From August 1933 - deputy commander of the Belorussian troops, from September 1935 of the Kyiv military districts. From June 1937 - commander of the troops of the North Caucasus, from September 1937 - of the Kharkov military districts. On February 8, 1938, he was awarded the rank of army commander of the 1st rank and appointed to the post of commander of the Kyiv Special Military District. During the Liberation Campaign in Western Ukraine and Western Belarus in 1939, he commanded the Ukrainian Front. In the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940, from January 7, 1940, he commanded the Northwestern Front, whose troops broke through the Mannerheim Line.
The title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the presentation of the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal to Army Commander 1st Rank S.K. Timoshenko was awarded on March 21, 1940 for “exemplary fulfillment of command assignments and the courage and heroism shown,” and on May 7, 1940, he was awarded the title of Marshal of the Soviet Union and appointed to the post of People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR.
In 1940-1941, Timoshenko was the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR (replacing K. E. Voroshilov in this post). According to G.K. Zhukov, as People's Commissar of Defense, Timoshenko carried out a lot of work to improve the combat training of troops, their reorganization, technical re-equipment, training of new personnel (required due to a significant increase in the size of the army), which was not fully completed due to the beginning of the Great Patriotic War.
S.K. Timoshenko was revered in the USSR as a talented commander. Meanwhile, professionally, he represented the worst part of the Soviet command staff - semi-literate non-commissioned officers who joined the Bolsheviks, who remained afloat after the Stalinist massacre of “military experts” from former officers and fell to the top, in World War II, ruining millions of lives, until they were replaced younger cadres who emerged during it.
Most of the notable figures of this type came from the 1st Cavalry Army and belonged to the circle of associates and promoters of Voroshilov and Budyonny, which is why they escaped repression in the 1930s. This was Tymoshenko’s life path. A Ukrainian peasant with a parochial school education, who served as a sergeant during the World War, he joined the Red Guard detachment in Crimea in 1918, and at the end of the same year he joined Budyonny (even before that he had taken part in the repressions against the Kuban Cossacks) . During the defense of Tsaritsyn, Timoshenko commanded the 1st Crimean Revolutionary Regiment; at this time he became close friends with Voroshilov, Budyonny and Stalin. This friendship helped his further rapid advancement: Timoshenko began to command a cavalry brigade, and since 1919, having joined the party, a division. It was his division that, having captured Rostov-on-Don in January 1920, took part in mass robberies and executions of the local population.
After the civil war, Timoshenko held senior positions in the military leadership (commanded troops in a number of military districts). After the repressions of the late 1930s, Timoshenko rose to the top of the military hierarchy, and in addition became a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the Central Executive Committee of the USSR and the Central Committee of the Party. In September-October 1939, implementing the secret protocols to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, he commanded troops in Western Ukraine during the Soviet invasion of Poland on September 17, 1939.
Timoshenko was one of the main military leaders during the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939-1940, commanding the Northwestern Front. At this time, he became famous for his unsuccessful attempts to break through the fortified Mannerheim line on the Karelian Isthmus, which was overcome with enormous human losses. But Stalin approved of Timoshenko’s actions and made him a marshal and Hero of the Soviet Union.
Between 1940 and July 1941. Timoshenko is the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR. In the first month of the war with Germany - Chairman of the Supreme Commander's Headquarters; Due to military failures, he was demoted, but remained a member of the Headquarters, and in September 1941 became Deputy People's Commissar of Defense. In the fall of 1941, commanding the Western Front, he carried out a counteroffensive to capture Rostov-on-Don with heavy losses. In January-July 1942 - commander of the troops of the Southwestern, and from July 1942 - of the Stalingrad fronts. One of the main culprits of defeats in these months. Thus, during the Barvenkovo-Lozovsky offensive operation alone, more than 220 thousand Soviet soldiers were captured. Since October 1942, Timoshenko has been the commander of the North-Western Front. Since 1943 - representative of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Headquarters at the fronts. At the beginning of 1943, Timoshenko unsuccessfully carried out the Demyansk offensive operation: despite the favorable location of Soviet troops and overwhelming superiority in strength, he allowed the Germans to safely escape from encirclement and even take out all their equipment.
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