Vitovt Kazimirovich Putna (, ; 31 March 1893 – 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 ...

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 ...

officer of Lithuanian origin. A

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 ...

veteran of 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 ...

and

Bolshevik 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, ...

since 1917, Putna was a ''

komdiv () is the syllabic abbreviation to commanding officer of the division (; ), and was a military rank in the Soviet Armed Forces of the USSR in the period from 1935 to 1940. It was also the designation to military personnel appointed to command ...

'' during the

Polish–Soviet War The Polish–Soviet War (14 February 1919 – 18 March 1921) was fought primarily between the Second Polish Republic and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, following World War I and the Russian Revolution. After the collapse ...

and commanded a variety of divisions. During the retreat following the Battle of Warsaw, he gathered around him ad-hoc corps out of defeated units and enabled the remnants of the Red Army to escape from a large cauldron near

Białystok Białystok is the largest city in northeastern Poland and the capital of the Podlaskie Voivodeship. It is the List of cities and towns in Poland, tenth-largest city in Poland, second in terms of population density, and thirteenth in area. Biał ...

. In 1921, he took part in suppressing the

Kronstadt rebellion The Kronstadt rebellion () was a 1921 insurrection of Soviet sailors, Marines, naval infantry, and civilians against the Bolsheviks, Bolshevik government in the Russian port city of Kronstadt. Located on Kotlin Island in the Gulf of Finland, ...

and Peasant uprisings on the Lower Volga. In 1923, he was sent as a military advisor to China and between 1927 and 1931, he was

military attaché A military attaché or defence attaché (DA),Defence Attachés
''Geneva C ...

to Japan, Finland, and Germany. He was posted to the Far East Military district in 1931 and was made military attaché to Great Britain in 1934. He was promoted to ''

comcor () is the syllabic abbreviation for corps commander (; ). It was a military rank in the Red Army and Red Army Air Force of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in the period from 1935 to 1940. It was also the designation for officers appoi ...

'' in 1935. Putna was arrested 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 ...

on 20 August 1936, tried for alleged espionage and anti-Soviet activities together with

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 ...

in the so-called

Case of Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization The Case of the Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization, also known as the Military Case or the Tukhachevsky Case, was a 1937 secret trial of the high command of the Red Army, a part of the Great Purge. Defendants The Case was a secret ...

, sentenced to death on 11 June 1937, and executed the next day. Vitovt Putna NKVD

The Soviet government posthumously exonerated him after Joseph Stalin's death, when he was formally rehabilitated in 1957.

References

1893 births 1937 deaths People from Molėtai District Municipality People from Troksky Uyezd Old Bolsheviks Left Opposition Soviet komkors Lithuanian military personnel in the Imperial Russian Army of World War I People of the Polish–Soviet War Soviet military personnel of the Russian Civil War Soviet military attachés Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner Case of the Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization Great Purge victims from Lithuania Members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union executed by the Soviet Union Soviet rehabilitations Military history of Zhangjiakou {{Russia-mil-bio-stub