THE SOVIET ARMY

Evening Star, Issue 22448, 19 September 1936, Page 19

THE SOVIET ARMY

ITS VARIED LEADERS A nobleman, a Cossack, and three former labourers head , the greatest peace-time army the world has ever known, writes John Lloyd from Moscow to the ‘ San Francisco Chronicle.’ They are the commanders of the Red Army, a- fighting force of between 1,300,000 and 1,500,000 men equipped with about 5,000 aerojflanes and undisclosed thousands of tanks. Just where the five' Red marshals have concentrated the maincorps of this gigantic force is conjectural. Soviet Russia guards its military secrets carefully. Generally, however, it is believed.tho Red Army in the Far East, along the borders of Mongolia and Manchukuo, contains between 250,000 and 400,000 men. Observers here have seen hundreds of tanks paraded through Red Square in the capital—and those tanks were merely equipment from local garrisons. Supreme commander of the Red Army in the event of hostilities either in Asia or Europe would be Marshal Klimenty Voroshiloff, 55-year-old Commissar of Defence. Voroshiloff is generally rated as one of the ablest of the military figures that emerged from the fighting wnich. followed the Bolshevik Revolution. Unlike Assistant Defence Commissar Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who was trained in a Tsarist military school, Voroshiloff had no military training whatsoever until he was plunged into a, situation of war. His first experience as a,soldier came in 1918, when he organised a detachment to fight against German forces of occupation. Successful in the campaigning that _ followed, he quickly stepped to higher commands. At Tsantzin, now Stalingrad, in the Volga area, Voroshiloff with his Tenth Red Army held out_ for a_ whole year against the white armies, giving the city a reputation as the “Red Verdun.” Eventually he became commander-in-chief of the armies of the North Caucasus, and was elected, to membership in the Central Committee of the Communist Party. BECAME A PARTY LEADER. In 1924 he was appointed head of the Moscow garrison, and a year later he succeeded to the post of War Commissar, after the death of Commissar Mikhail Frunze. Under Voroshiloff’s direction the Red Army has played a large part in ! cutting down illiteracy among the peasant masses. Voroshiloff himself learned to read only when he was 12 years old. The son of a railway watchman, he began working in a coal mine at the age of seven. He held various, positions of importance in underground revolutionary organisations, and his life up to the time of the successful Red revolt was a' series of arrests and exiles. Trim and well built', Voroshiloff is considered handsome by the Russians. He was raised to the rank of “ of the Soviet Union ” late in 1935, when military titles were re-estab-lished in the Russian army. The Soviet High Command includes one former nobleman—Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who fought as an officer of the Tsar in the World War. He is the youngest of the five Red marshals, being only 43, and, in addition to his duties as Vice-Commissar of Defence,, serves the-'Government as a spokesman and diplomatic agent. He represented l his Government at the funeral of King George of . England, and was sent to Paris early this year to consult with French army:commanders on the possibility of co-opera-tion between the, two armies under the terms of the Franco-Soviet mutual assistance pact. The pact was ratified by the French Senate following Hitler’s remilitarisation of the Rhineland. A; similar, accord has been ;signed*, with Czechoslovakia. It is likely that in event of a war Tukhachevsky would be given one of the most important field commands. Soviet Russia’s Far Eastern defence is "in the hands of a former ally of the Chinese Nationalists, Marshal Vasily Bluecher, long identified with Asiatic campaigning. Russians often refer to him as the “ Red Napoleon,” recalling particularly his strategic successes in the fighting along- the Manchurian border in 1929. That fighting tmk place in the same region where border clashes have given rise to fears that a new war may break out. It resulted in a complete,Russian victory over the Manchurian war lord, Chang Tso-lin. Bluecher had previously worked side by side with the Chinese Republican leader Sun Vat-Sen, organising , the Republican army and leading it to some of its early victories. He headed the triumphant march to Hankow, and his name loomed large in the chronicling of events of' that important period of Chinese history. Later the Chinese leaders decided to break with the Russians and he was compelled to leave the. country. Like most of the present high Soviet officials, Bluecher had a very humble origin. He became an agitator against the Tsarist regime while working at a day labourer. ' A COLOURFUL FIGURE. A little man with huge moustaches —Marshal Semeon Budyonny—stands out as the most colourful figure among the high Soviet army officers. He is Inspector-General of Cavalry, a veteran of several wars, and by origin a Cossack of the Don region. In case of new hostilities he probably would be on* of the first of the marshals to tak« the field. Like the other members of the high command, he proved his worth as a leader in the fighting immediately upon the establishment *of the Red Government, Despite his short stature he is of awe-inspiring appearance, due' largely to his “ handle-bar ” moustaches. As a' horseman he is declared to have few equals. He grew up in poverty, without schooling, and in 1903 was drafted in the Tsar’s army to see service as a common soldier in the Russo-Japanese War. He is now 53. During the fighting in the Far East he gained a non-commissioned .rank, and after the war he was sent to th* Cavalry School at St. Petersburg. In the World War he fought with the Tsar’s troops as an officer,. and when the revolution came he went over to the Reds. Marshal Alexander Vegoroff, Chief of Staff of the Red Army, rose from the workers’ class to be an officer in the services of the r Tsar before casting his lot with the Bolsheviks. He has been identified for the last 18 years with organisation and leadership of Soviet troops. Already in the_ confidence of the Bolsheviks at the time of the revolution, he was given one of the first commands in the Red fighting forces, and in 1918 and 1919 he took a prominent part in the campaigns against the Whites. He has served as commander of the Kiev and Leningrad garrisons and the Caucasian, Crimean, and Ukrainian armies. , ■ ■ *