Alexander Andreyevich Svechin (; 17 August 1878 – 28 July 1938) was a Russian and Soviet military leader, military writer, educator, and theorist, and author of the military classic work ''

Strategy Strategy (from Greek στρατηγία ''stratēgia'', "troop leadership; office of general, command, generalship") is a general plan to achieve one or more long-term or overall goals under conditions of uncertainty. In the sense of the " a ...

''.

Early life

He was born in

Odessa ODESSA is an American codename (from the German language, German: ''Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen'', meaning: Organization of Former SS Members) coined in 1946 to cover Ratlines (World War II aftermath), Nazi underground escape-pl ...

, where his father was a general in the

Imperial Russian Army The Imperial Russian Army () was the army of the Russian Empire, active from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was organized into a standing army and a state militia. The standing army consisted of Regular army, regular troops and ...

. He was of Russian ethnicity. His elder brother Mikhail Svechin (1876–1969) was a cavalry officer in the '' cuirassiers'' who fought in the

Russo-Japanese War The Russo-Japanese War (8 February 1904 – 5 September 1905) was fought between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria and the Korean Empire. The major land battles of the war were fought on the ...

and

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, joined the

White movement The White movement,. The old spelling was retained by the Whites to differentiate from the Reds. also known as the Whites, was one of the main factions of the Russian Civil War of 1917–1922. It was led mainly by the Right-wing politics, right- ...

in the

Russian Civil War The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...

and died in

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

in 1969. He studied at St. Petersburg Cadet Corps, then in the Mikhailovsky Artillery School. He graduated from the General Staff Academy in 1903.

Career

He participated in the

of 1904-1905 as a Company Commander in the 22nd Eastern Siberian Regiment, and subsequently as a

staff officer A military staff or general staff (also referred to as army staff, navy staff, or air staff within the individual services) is a group of officers, enlisted, and civilian staff who serve the commander of a division or other large milita ...

at the headquarters of the 16th Army Corps, and a staff officer at the headquarters of the 3rd Manchurian Army. In 1915, he was assigned the command of the 6th Finnish Regiment, and was later named Chief of Staff of the 7th Infantry Division, commander of the Black Sea Marine Division, major general in 1916 and finally chief of staff of the Russian 5th Army. Following the

October Revolution The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Historiography in the Soviet Union, Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of Russian Revolution, two r ...

, he joined the

Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

in March 1918 and was immediately appointed military commander of the

Smolensk Smolensk is a city and the administrative center of Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located on the Dnieper River, west-southwest of Moscow. First mentioned in 863, it is one of the oldest cities in Russia. It has been a regional capital for most of ...

region. He rose to become the head of the All-Russian General Staff. In October 1918, disagreements with the Soviet commander-in-chief

Jukums Vācietis Jukums Vācietis (; – 28 July 1938) was a Latvian and Soviet military commander. He was a rare example of a notable Soviet leader who was not a member of the Communist Party (or of any other political party), until his demise during the Great ...

caused Svechin to be removed from his position and to be appointed professor at the Academy of General Staff of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army. The new position enabled Svechin to combine his talent as a writer with his knowledge of military strategy. His work ''Strategy'' became required reading at Soviet military schools. In February 1931, in a

purge In history, religion and political science, a purge is a position removal or execution of people who are considered undesirable by those in power from a government, another, their team leaders, or society as a whole. A group undertaking such an ...

of former tsarist officers in the Red Army, Svechin was arrested and sentenced to five years imprisonment in the

gulag The Gulag was a system of Labor camp, forced labor camps in the Soviet Union. The word ''Gulag'' originally referred only to the division of the Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies, Soviet secret police that was in charge of runnin ...

s. However, in February 1932, he was released and returned to active duty as a divisional commander in the Red Army. He was posted first at the intelligence agency of the General Staff and then at the Academy of General Staff of the Red Army.

Death

Svechin was arrested on 30 December 1937 during the

Great Purge The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (), also known as the Year of '37 () and the Yezhovshchina ( , ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. After the Assassination of Sergei Kirov, assassination of ...

. His name was included in death list No. 107, dated 26 July 1938 and signed by

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

and

Vyacheslav Molotov Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov (; – 8 November 1986) was a Soviet politician, diplomat, and revolutionary who was a leading figure in the government of the Soviet Union from the 1920s to the 1950s, as one of Joseph Stalin's closest allies. ...

. On 29 July 1938, he was sentenced to death by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union on charges of "participating in a counter-revolutionary organization" and "training terrorists". According to historian Alexander Hill, Svechin was executed on 29 August 1938, and his body buried in the Moscow region of Kommunarka. He was rehabilitated within the framework of

Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet and Russian politician who served as the last leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...

's policy of ''

glasnost ''Glasnost'' ( ; , ) is a concept relating to openness and transparency. It has several general and specific meanings, including a policy of maximum openness in the activities of state institutions and freedom of information and the inadmissi ...

''. In 2013, Svechin's contribution to military theory was praised by Russian General Staff Chief Army General

Valery Gerasimov Valery Vasilyevich Gerasimov (born 8 September 1955) is a Russian Army general (Russia), army general serving as the Chief of the General Staff (Russia), Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces and First Deputy Ministry of Defen ...

. His name appears in

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn. (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Soviet and Russian author and Soviet dissidents, dissident who helped to raise global awareness of political repression in the Soviet Union, especially the Gulag pris ...

's cycle of novels '' The Red Wheel''. Also, Solzhenitsyn's ''

The Gulag Archipelago ''The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation'' () is a three-volume nonfiction series written between 1958 and 1968 by Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a Soviet dissident. It was first published in 1973 by the Parisian ...

'', in its French edition,''L'Archipel du Goulag'', Alexandre Soljénitsyne, Éditions du Seuil, Paris, 1974, première partie, p. 316 gives

1935 Events January * January 7 – Italian premier Benito Mussolini and French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval conclude an agreement, in which each power agrees not to oppose the other's colonial claims. * January 12 – Amelia Earhart ...

as the year of Svechin's execution.

Works

* *
The Art of Regiment Leadership
, Moscow, 1930 (in Russian)

References

Sources

"Misreading Svechin: Attrition, Annihilation, and Historicism"
by David R. Stone, ''

The Journal of Military History ''The Journal of Military History'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering the military history of all times and places. It is the official journal of the Society for Military History. The journal was established in 1937 and the e ...

'' No. 76, July 2012, pp. 673–693 {{DEFAULTSORT:Svechin, Alexander Andreyevich 1878 births 1938 deaths Military personnel from Odesa Imperial Russian Army generals Military theorists Historians from the Russian Empire Russian military personnel of the Russo-Japanese War Russian military personnel of World War I Military writers from the Russian Empire Soviet military personnel of the Russian Civil War Recipients of the Order of St. George of the Third Degree Great Purge victims from Russia