Tukhachevsky or Toukhachevski, Mikhail Nikolayevich

Tukhachevsky or Toukhachevski, Mikhail Nikolayevich (both: mēkhuyēl' nyikulī'uvich tOOkhuchef'skē) [key], 1893–1937, Soviet marshal. An officer in the czarist army from 1914, he joined (1918) the Bolshevik party after the Russian Revolution and held important commands in the civil war of 1918–20 and the Russo-Polish war of 1920. Tukhachevsky was instrumental in suppressing the Kronstadt rebellion (1921) against Bolshevik rule, and he led the modernization and mechanization of the Red Army (1935–36). In the purges instituted by Stalin in the 1930s he and seven other generals were charged with treason, tried in secret, and executed. His reputation was restored by Premier Khrushchev in 1958.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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