Ieronim Petrovich Uborevich (; ; – 12 June 1937) was a

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

military commander of the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

during 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 ...

, reaching the rank of komandarm in 1935. He was executed 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 ...

in June 1937 and was posthumously rehabilitated in 1957.

Biography

Uborevich was born into a Lithuanian peasant family in the village of Antandraja in the Novoalexandrovsky Uyezd of the

Kovno Governorate Kovno Governorate was an administrative-territorial unit (''guberniya'') of the Russian Empire, with its capital in Kovno (Kaunas). It was formed on 18 December 1842 by Tsar Nicholas I of Russia, Nicholas I from the western part of Vilna Govern ...

of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

(present-day Utena District Municipality,

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

). After graduating from the Dvinsk (now

Daugavpils Daugavpils (see also other names) is a state city in southeastern Latvia, located on the banks of the Daugava River, from which the city derives its name. The parts of the city to the north of the river belong to the historical Latvian region ...

)

realschule Real school (, ) is a type of secondary school in Germany, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. It has also existed in Croatia (''realna gimnazija''), the Austrian Empire, the German Empire, Denmark and Norway (''realskole''), Sweden (''realskola''), F ...

, he attended the Saint Petersburg Polytechnical Institute before transferring in 1915 to the in

Petrograd Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601, ...

, from which he graduated in 1916, receiving command of a battery, and later of a company. He joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (b) in March 1917 and, after 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 ...

of that year, began recruiting

Red Guards The Red Guards () were a mass, student-led, paramilitary social movement mobilized by Chairman Mao Zedong in 1966 until their abolition in 1968, during the first phase of the Cultural Revolution, which he had instituted.Teiwes According to a ...

Bessarabia Bessarabia () is a historical region in Eastern Europe, bounded by the Dniester river on the east and the Prut river on the west. About two thirds of Bessarabia lies within modern-day Moldova, with the Budjak region covering the southern coa ...

. During

Operation Faustschlag The Operation Faustschlag or (), also known as the Eleven Days' War, was a Central Powers offensive in World War I. It was the last major offensive on the Eastern Front. Russian forces were unable to put up any serious resistance due to the ...

in February or March 1918 he was injured and taken captive by the

Imperial German Army The Imperial German Army (1871–1919), officially referred to as the German Army (), was the unified ground and air force of the German Empire. It was established in 1871 with the political unification of Germany under the leadership of Kingdom o ...

. He escaped in July or August, joined the

, and served as an artillery instructor and commander of the Dvinsk Brigade in the Red Army Northern Front. In December 1918 he received command of the 18th Rifle Division of the 6th Army. During the

, he held several significant commands, including: commander of the 14th Army of the Southern Front and the Southwestern Front (6 October 1919 – 24 February 1920, 17 April – 7 July 1920, and 15 November – 15 December 1920); commander of the 9th Kuban Army of the Southern Front (1 March – 5 April 1920); commander of the 13th Army in the Southern Front (10 July – 11 November 1920); and commander of the 5th Army in the Eastern Front (27 August 1921 – 14 August 1922). Besides combat against the

Whites White is a racial classification of people generally used for those of predominantly European ancestry. It is also a skin color specifier, although the definition can vary depending on context, nationality, ethnicity and point of view. De ...

and (in 1920) against the

Poles Pole or poles may refer to: People *Poles (people), another term for Polish people, from the country of Poland * Pole (surname), including a list of people with the name * Pole (musician) (Stefan Betke, born 1967), German electronic music artist ...

, he was also involved in the defeat of

Nestor Makhno Nestor Ivanovych Makhno (, ; 7 November 1888 – 25 July 1934), also known as Bat'ko Makhno ( , ), was a Ukrainians, Ukrainian anarchist revolutionary and the commander of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine during the Ukrainian War o ...

and Stanisław Bułak-Bałachowicz; he acted as assistant to

Mikhail Tukhachevsky Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky ( rus, Михаил Николаевич Тухачевский, Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevskiy, p=tʊxɐˈtɕefskʲɪj; – 12 June 1937), nicknamed the Red Napoleon, was a Soviet general who was prominen ...

during the Tambov Rebellion in 1921–1922. From August to November 1922 he served as

minister of war A ministry of defence or defense (see American and British English spelling differences#-ce.2C -se, spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is the part of a government responsible for matters of defence and Mi ...

of the Far Eastern Republic and commander-in-chief of its People's Revolutionary Army. In the latter position, Uborevich oversaw the storming of Spassk-Dalny (in the present-day

Primorsky Krai Primorsky Krai, informally known as Primorye, is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject (a krais of Russia, krai) of Russia, part of the Far Eastern Federal District in the Russian Far East. The types of inhabited localities in Russia, ...

) on 9 October 1922, the seizure of

Vladivostok Vladivostok ( ; , ) is the largest city and the administrative center of Primorsky Krai and the capital of the Far Eastern Federal District of Russia. It is located around the Zolotoy Rog, Golden Horn Bay on the Sea of Japan, covering an area o ...

from the White troops of Mikhail Diterikhs on 25 October 1922, and finally, the ouster from

of the last major White forces in Russian territory, the Zemskaya Rat of Mikhail Diterikhs. From August to November he served in the Far Eastern Bureau of the Comintern. Uborevich was a member of All-Russian Central Executive Committee from 1922 and consecutively, commander of a series of military districts: Ural (June 1924 – January 1925);

North Caucasus The North Caucasus, or Ciscaucasia, is a subregion in Eastern Europe governed by Russia. It constitutes the northern part of the wider Caucasus region, which separates Europe and Asia. The North Caucasus is bordered by the Sea of Azov and the B ...

(January 1925 – 1927);

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

(1928 – 18 November 1929); Belorussia (April 1931 – 20 May 1937); and

Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...

(20–29 May 1937). He also attended the military academy of the

German General Staff The German General Staff, originally the Prussian General Staff and officially the Great General Staff (), was a full-time body at the head of the Prussian Army and later, the Imperial German Army, German Army, responsible for the continuous stu ...

twice (1927–1928 and June 1933). He had a close relationship with his counterparts in the

Reichswehr ''Reichswehr'' (; ) was the official name of the German armed forces during the Weimar Republic and the first two years of Nazi Germany. After Germany was defeated in World War I, the Imperial German Army () was dissolved in order to be reshaped ...

, acquiring important information on developments in German weaponry. He was also a member of the Soviet

Revolutionary Military Council The Revolutionary Military Council (), sometimes called the Revolutionary War Council Brian PearceIntroductionto Fyodor Raskolnikov s "Tales of Sub-lieutenant Ilyin." or ''Revvoyensoviet'' (), was the supreme military authority of Soviet Rus ...

(June 1930 – June 1931) and chief of armaments for the Red Army (November 1929 – April 1931). He acted as a candidate member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) from 1931 to 1937 and from 1934 was a member of the military council of the

People's Commissariat of Defense of the Soviet Union The People's Commissariat of Defence of the Soviet Union () was the highest military department of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. History In the 1920–1930s, the highest military authority of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic ...

. Arrested on May 29, 1937, Uborevich – along with Tukhachevsky, August Kork, and others – was arraigned in the Case of the Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization on June 11, 1937. Judged guilty of espionage and sabotage by a clandestine military tribunal, he was sentenced to death and executed on the same day. During the

Khrushchev Thaw The Khrushchev Thaw (, or simply ''ottepel'')William Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, London: Free Press, 2004 is the period from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s when Political repression in the Soviet Union, repression and Censorship in ...

he was posthumously rehabilitated by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union on January 31, 1957. Uborevich was survived by his wife Nina (née Maximova) and daughter Vladimira (Mira). Nina Uborevich was arrested in late 1937 and executed in 1941. Mira Uborevich was sent to an orphanage and later (in 1944) arrested and convicted. Her memoirs were published in 2008; in 2013 she was interviewed in a multi-part documentary for the Russia-K television channel.

References

Sources

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Uborevich, Ieronim 1896 births 1937 deaths People from Utena District Municipality People from Novoalexandrovsky Uyezd Old Bolsheviks Candidates of the Central Committee of the 16th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) Candidates of the Central Committee of the 17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) Soviet komandarms of the first rank Lithuanian military personnel in the Imperial Russian Army of World War I Soviet military personnel of the Russian Civil War People of the Polish–Soviet War Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner Case of the Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization Executed military personnel Members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union executed by the Soviet Union Great Purge victims from Lithuania Soviet rehabilitations