Misplaced Pages

#984015

55-748: The Declaration of the Four Nations on General Security , or Four Power Declaration , was signed on 30 October 1943, at the Moscow Conference by the Big Four : the United States , the United Kingdom , the Soviet Union , and China . The declaration formally established the four-power framework that would later influence the international order of the postwar world. It was one of four declarations signed at

110-518: A figurehead political post. Voroshilov was again re-elected to the Central Committee in 1966. Voroshilov was awarded a second medal of Hero of the Soviet Union 1968. During a winter night in 1969, Voroshilov started to feel unwell. His family proposed to call an ambulance immediately, but he adamantly refused. In the morning he put on his military uniform , and after calling a car, he went to

165-422: A "Zinovievite"). Frunze was urged by a group of Stalin's hand-picked doctors to have surgery to treat an old stomach ulcer , despite previous doctors' recommendations to avoid surgery and Frunze's own unwillingness. He died on the operating table of a massive overdose of chloroform , an anaesthetic. Voroshilov became a full member of the newly formed Politburo in 1926, remaining a member until 1960. Voroshilov

220-793: A Russian worker's family in Ukraine, Voroshilov took part in the Russian Revolution of 1917 as an early member of the Bolsheviks . He served with distinction at the Battle of Tsaritsyn , during which he became a close friend of Stalin. Voroshilov was elected to the Central Committee of the Communist Party in 1921, and in 1925 Stalin appointed him People's Commissar for Military and Navy Affairs (later People's Commissar for Defence). In 1926, he became

275-561: A consensus that the declaration should be given high priority at the Moscow Conference, but Stalin wanted the conference to focus on the ongoing war against Germany. The Soviets also objected to the inclusion of the Republic of China as the fourth Great Power of the declaration, officially on the grounds that the Moscow Conference was planned as a meeting between three Great Powers (the US, UK and

330-578: A counter-attack against German tanks armed only with a pistol. However, the style of counterattack he launched had long since been abandoned by strategists and drew mostly contempt from his military colleagues; he failed to prevent the Germans from surrounding Leningrad and he was dismissed from his post and replaced by Georgy Zhukov on 8 September 1941. Stalin had a political need for popular wartime leaders, however, and Voroshilov remained as an important figurehead. Between 1945 and 1947, Voroshilov supervised

385-730: A full member of the Politburo . In 1935, Voroshilov was named a Marshal of the Soviet Union. At the outbreak of World War II , Voroshilov was held responsible for Soviet failures in Finland during the Winter War and was replaced as Defense Commissar by Semyon Timoshenko . Following the German invasion in June 1941, he was recalled and appointed to the State Defense Committee . Voroshilov failed to stop

440-479: A general, the Red Army suffered about 320,000 casualties compared to 70,000 Finnish casualties. When the leadership gathered at Stalin's dacha at Kuntsevo , Stalin shouted at Voroshilov for the losses; Voroshilov replied in kind, blaming the failure on Stalin for eliminating the Red Army's best generals in his purges. Voroshilov followed this retort by smashing a platter of food on the table. Nikita Khrushchev said it

495-507: A nearby village, at the age of 12, and received two years' schooling. During his school years, Voroshilov became a close friend and almost a member of the family of Semyon Ryzhkov . In 1896, he started work in a factory near his home village, where he led a strike in 1899. In 1903, he enrolled in a German owned factory in Luhansk (which was renamed Vorshilov during the Stalin era). There, he joined

550-616: The Bolsheviks , and acted as a strike leader during the 1905 revolution . In April 1906, he travelled to Stockholm for the Fourth Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), using the provocative pseudonym 'Volodya Antimekov' or Anti- Menshevik . In Stockholm, he shared a room with the delegate from Georgia, Josif Dzhugashvili, later known as Stalin. In spring 1907, he travelled to London for

605-544: The United States ( Cordell Hull ), and the Soviet Union ( Vyacheslav Molotov ), resulted in the Moscow Declarations and the creation of the European Advisory Commission . During the Moscow Conference of 1943, the Soviet Union finally came to agreement with the United States and its allies to create a world organization. The Ambassador of Republic of China in the Soviet Union, Foo Ping-sheung ,

SECTION 10

#1732844987985

660-427: The 1930s, denouncing many of his own military colleagues and subordinates when asked to do so by Stalin. He wrote personal letters to exiled former Soviet officers and diplomats such as commissar Mikhail Ostrovsky, asking them to return voluntarily to the Soviet Union and falsely reassuring them that they would not face retribution from authorities. Voroshilov personally signed 185 documented execution lists, fourth among

715-608: The 1950s with his well-documented participation in the deadly purges of the 1930s (as described above) was noted even at the time by Khrushchev, who asked him, "So when were you acting according to your conscience, then or now?" After Khrushchev removed most of the Stalinists like Molotov and Malenkov from the party, Voroshilov's career began to fade. On 7 May 1960, the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union granted Voroshilov's request for retirement and elected Leonid Brezhnev chairman of

770-465: The 26 June 1953 arrest of Lavrenty Beria after Stalin's death. One of Voroshilov's responsibilities as chairman of the Presidium was to oversee the appeal review of Soviet death row inmates. Analysis by Jeffrey S. Hardy and Yana Skorobogatov describe his role thus: "Chairman Voroshilov presided over the meetings and clearly had the most influential voice, but split votes were not uncommon and Voroshilov

825-462: The Central Committee, which ended with the arrests of Nikolai Bukharin and Alexei Rykov , whom Voroshilov denounced as "renegades". In the early stages, he seemed to have believed that the purge would not affect the armed forces, and was seemingly unprepared for the arrest of Marshal Tukhachevsky and others in April and May. Voroshilov did not personally share the paranoia towards upper-class elements of

880-701: The Fifth RSDLP Congress. On his return, he was arrested and deported to Arkhangelsk , but in December he escaped and moved to Baku, where Stalin was also active. Arrested again in 1908, he was released from exile in 1912, and for a time worked in an ordnance factory in Tsaritsyn (Stalingrad/Volgagrad). Voroshilov was in Petrograd (St Petersburg) during the February Revolution , but returned to Luhansk, where he

935-699: The German encirclement of Leningrad and was again relieved from his command in September 1941. After the war, Voroshilov oversaw the establishment of a socialist regime in Hungary . Following Stalin's death in 1953, Voroshilov was appointed Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet . His fortunes declined during the rise of Nikita Khrushchev and the Supreme Soviet turned against him. He peacefully resigned in 1960, although he came out of retirement in 1966 and re-joined

990-554: The Military Revolutionary Council, knowing that he would be arrested on the way. When the Council met on 1 June 1937, Voroshilov vacated the chair to deliver a report in which he said, apologetically: "I could not believe we would reveal so many and such scoundrels in the ranks fo the highest command of our glorious, our valiant Workers' and Peasants' Army." After that, he played a central role in Stalin's Great Purge of

1045-517: The Moscow Conference, agreements were made to establish a European Advisory Commission to make recommendations for the three joint governments and an Advisory Council regarding Italy – along with Greece and Yugoslavia. In the case of Italy, the declaration stated that Fascism must be utterly destroyed in Italy, that all fascists should be barred from participation in public life and that "democratic organs" of local government should be created within Italy by

1100-605: The People's Commissar for War, who considered him undisciplined and unfit to command an army, and in October 1918 threatened him with court martial. Voroshilov was transferred to Ukraine, as commander of the Kharkiv military district, and later People's Commissar for War in the Ukraine soviet republic. He sided with the ' Military Opposition ', who opposed the formation of a centralised army, preferring to rely on local mobile units, and objected to

1155-621: The Presidium of the Supreme Council (the head of state). The Central Committee also relieved him of duties as a member of the Party Presidium (as the Politburo had been called since 1952) on 16 July 1960. In October 1961, his political defeat was complete at the 22nd party congress when he was excluded from election to the Central Committee. Following Khrushchev's fall from power, Soviet leader Brezhnev brought Voroshilov out of retirement into

SECTION 20

#1732844987985

1210-457: The Red Army leadership a whole. They were hopelessly ineffective: territorial conscript Alexey Grigorovich Maslov noted that he never fired a shot during his training, while it was noted that these units only underwent real training in the one month a year when experienced veterans returned. Voroshilov commanded Soviet troops during the Winter War from November 1939 to January 1940 but, due to poor Soviet planning and Voroshilov's incompetence as

1265-557: The Soviet Union . Stalin's death on 5 March 1953 prompted major changes in the Soviet leadership . On 15 March 1953, Voroshilov was approved as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (i.e., the head of state) with Nikita Khrushchev as First Secretary of the Communist Party and Georgy Malenkov as Premier of the Soviet Union . Voroshilov, Malenkov, and Khrushchev brought about

1320-517: The Soviet Union). Roosevelt suspected that Stalin's true motivations were to avoid antagonizing the Japanese with whom they had signed a non-aggression pact in 1941. Churchill's view was that Stalin had a similar reluctance to recognize China as a Great Power. Moscow Conference (1943) A series of twelve meetings took place between the foreign ministers of the United Kingdom ( Anthony Eden ),

1375-580: The Soviet Union, the Marshal of the Soviet Union Joseph Stalin , K. E. Voroshilov , A. Y. Vyshinski , Deputy People's Commissars for Foreign Affairs M. M. Litvinov , Deputy People's Commissar for Foreign Trade V. A. Sergeyev, Major-General A. A. Gryslov of the General Staff, and Senior Official of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs G. F. Saksin. The Third Moscow Conference was one of

1430-516: The Soviet leadership after Molotov , Stalin and Kaganovich . He had no problem denouncing officers he disliked such as Tukhachevsky. Despite taking part in the purging of many "mechanisers" (supporters of wide usage of tanks rather than cavalry) from the Red Army, Voroshilov became convinced that reliance on cavalry should be decreased while more modern arms should receive higher priority. Marshal Budyonny tried to recruit him to his cause of protecting

1485-589: The conference; the others were the Declaration on Italy, the Declaration on Austria, and the Declaration on German Atrocities. At the Quebec Conference in August 1943, U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull and British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden agreed to draft a declaration that included a call for “a general international organization, based on the principle sovereign equality of all nations.” The declaration

1540-488: The establishment of the socialist republic in postwar Hungary . He attributed the poor showing of the Hungarian Communist Party in the October 1945 Budapest municipal elections to the number of minorities in leadership positions, arguing that it was "detrimental to the party that its leaders are not of Hungarian origin". In 1952, Voroshilov was appointed a member of the Presidium of the Communist Party of

1595-500: The first times in which foreign ministers of the United States , the United Kingdom , and the Soviet Union could meet and discuss important global matters. Here, they discussed what measures needed to be taken in order to shorten and end the war with Germany and the Axis Powers, as well as how to effectively collaborate and cooperate peacefully through this period marking the end of the war. The Moscow Declaration , officially issued by

1650-514: The foreign ministers of United States President Franklin Roosevelt , Prime Minister Winston Churchill of the United Kingdom, and Premier Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union, defined how these issues would be dealt with. It included four sections, Declaration of Four Nations on General Security , Declaration Regarding Italy , Declaration on Austria , and Statement on Atrocities . Also during

1705-407: The heritage of his birth-country (Ukraine) and to the previous family name of Voroshylo . In his published autobiography, Voroshilov described a childhood of extreme hardship, working from the age of six or seven, and receiving frequent beatings from wealthy peasants, which left him with a lifelong aversion to ' kulaks '. He grew up illiterate, until he was able to enroll in a newly opened school in

Declaration of the Four Nations - Misplaced Pages Continue

1760-742: The hospital himself, fully decorated. Voroshilov died on 2 December, at the age of 88, and was buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis , in one of the twelve individual tombs located between the Lenin Mausoleum and the Kremlin wall . Voroshilov was married to Ekaterina Voroshilova , born Golda Gorbman, a Ukrainian Jew from Mardarovka. She changed her name when she converted to Orthodox Christianity in order to be allowed to marry Voroshilov. They met while both were exiled in Arkhangelsk , where Ekaterina

1815-450: The influence of alcohol; he judged those convicted of political crimes or acts with financial motives more harshly. During his tenure, many individuals sentenced to death had their punishments commuted to prison terms of varying lengths. The authors of the study observe that his successor, Brezhnev, took a noticeably harder line in appeals cases. However, the contrast between Voroshilov's relatively magnanimous attitude toward pardon cases in

1870-441: The instigators of these reforms which positively impacted the Red Army. These commanders themselves turned out not to be able to carry out such operations in practice. Voroshilov and Kulik turned out to be unable to put these reforms into practice. One of these reforms was a reorganization of Red Army field units which accidentally moved Red Army organization to a far less advanced state than it had been in 1936. This reorganization

1925-868: The occupying powers. In the case of Austria, the German annexation of Austria in 1938 was declared null and void. But the people of Austria as a whole were held responsible in the declaration for participation in the war on the side of Germany. In the "Statement on Atrocities", it was declared that after any armistice with the present or a future German government, that those German individuals suspected of involvement in wartime atrocities in various countries would be sent to those countries for trial and punishment. Kliment Voroshilov Kliment Yefremovich Voroshilov ( Russian : Климент Ефремович Ворошилов pronounced ; Ukrainian : Климент Охрімович Ворошилов , romanized :  Klyment Okhrimovych Voroshylov ), popularly known as Klim Voroshilov (Russian: Клим Ворошилов ; 4 February 1881 – 2 December 1969),

1980-469: The officer corps. He openly declared that the saboteurs in the Red Army were few in number and tried to save the lives of officers like Lukin , who would serve with distinction during the Second World War, and Sokolov-Strakhov, and he was sometimes successful. But on 30 May, he telephoned the commander of the Ukraine military district, Iona Yakir ordering him to take a train to Moscow for a meeting of

2035-749: The order for their execution in the Katyn massacre of 1940. Between 1941 and 1944, Voroshilov was a member of the State Defense Committee . After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Voroshilov became commander of the short-lived Northwestern Direction (July to August 1941), controlling several fronts . In September 1941 he commanded the Leningrad Front . Working alongside military commander Andrei Zhdanov as German advances threatened to cut off Leningrad , he displayed considerable personal bravery in defiance of heavy shelling at Ivanovskoye; at one point he rallied retreating troops and personally led

2090-598: The party. Voroshilov died in 1969 at the age of 88. Voroshilov was born in the settlement of Verkhnyeye, Bakhmut uyezd , Yekaterinoslav Governorate , Russian Empire (now part of Lysychansk city in Luhansk Oblast , Ukraine ). His father, a former soldier, was employed at different times as a railway worker or miner, and went through periods of unemployment. According to the Soviet Major General Petro Grigorenko , Voroshilov himself alluded to

2145-759: The political line of the party, because he was from a working class, a common man, very good orator. He was clean, yes. And he was personally devoted to Stalin. But his devotion was not very strong. However in this period he advocated Stalin very actively, supported him in everything, though not entirely sure in everything. It also affected their relationship. This is a very complex issue. This must be taken into account to understand why Stalin treated him critically and not invited him at all our conversations. At least at private ones. But he came by himself. Stalin frowned. Under Khrushchev, Voroshilov behaved badly." The Kliment Voroshilov (KV) series of tanks , used in World War II,

2200-558: The recruitment into the Red Army of former officers from the Tsarist army. Voroshilov served as a member of the Central Committee from his election in 1921 until 1961. In April 1921, he was appointed commander of the North Caucasus military district. In March 1924, he was promoted to the post of commander of the Moscow military district. In 1925, after the death of Mikhail Frunze , Voroshilov

2255-555: The rudimentary nature of the command structure in tank units and other modern arms. When the Great Purge ended, some reforms were undertaken by the high command to reconcile Red Army doctrine (for example deep operations doctrine ) with the real state of the Red Army. The politically appointed commanders of the post-purge Red Army saw that the army, especially after the purge, was not suitable to carry out deep operations style warfare. Commanders such as Voroshilov and Kulik were among

Declaration of the Four Nations - Misplaced Pages Continue

2310-482: The status of cavalry in the Red Army but Voroshilov openly declared his intention to do the opposite. He praised the army's combined arms warfare capabilities as well as the high quality and ability to take initiative of the officers during the 1936 summer manoeuvers. However he also pointed out issues in the Red Army as a whole in his full report. Among the issues he pointed out were insufficient communication, ineffective staffs, insufficient cooperation between arms, and

2365-411: The war. Instead, its stated aim was simply the creation "at the earliest possible date of a general international organization." Roosevelt discussed the proposal with Churchill and Anthony Eden when they met at Quebec. Roosevelt stressed that the declaration would "in no way prejudice final decisions as to world order" and that the declaration was only an interim agreement. Churchill and Roosevelt reached

2420-547: Was a prominent Soviet military officer and politician during the Stalin-era (1924-1953). He was one of the original five Marshals of the Soviet Union , the second highest military rank of the Soviet Union (junior to the Generalissimo of the Soviet Union , which was a post only held by Joseph Stalin ), and served as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet , the nominal Soviet head of state , from 1953 to 1960. Born to

2475-497: Was appointed People's Commissar (Minister) for Defence in 1934 and a Marshal of the Soviet Union in 1935. During the first of the Moscow trials , in August 1936, Voroshilov was one of four Politburo members who signed the order that appeals for clemency were to be denied and that the defendants were to be executed without delay. He was also of the main speakers at the March 1937 plenum of

2530-632: Was appointed People's Commissar for Military and Navy Affairs and Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR , a post he held until 1934. Despite the high offices he held, Voroshilov appears not to have been part in the inner leadership. In November 1930, the chairman of the Russian government, Sergey Syrtsov alleged that a "tiny group", which excluded Voroshilov but included nominally much less senior figures such as Pavel Postyshev ,

2585-568: Was chairman of the town soviet, and was elected to the Constituent Assembly . His military career began early in 1918, when he was given command of the Fifth Ukrainian Army, which was made up of a few scattered units, who were driven out of Ukraine by the German army. After a long, hazardous retreat, his group reached Tsaritsyn, where Stalin was posted in summer 1918 as representative of the central party leadership, and where Voroshilov

2640-474: Was conceived by Kulik but put into practice by Voroshilov. When territorial units were abolished Voroshilov noted that among the reasons for disbanding them was inability to train conscripts in the use of modern technology. He had openly proclaimed that the system was inadequate in an era in which imperialist powers (such as Germany ) were expanding the capabilities of their armies. The territorial units had been very unpopular, not only with Voroshilov, but with

2695-420: Was drafted by US State Department advisers such Sumner Welles . Hull presented it to President Franklin D. Roosevelt on 10 August. Their proposal eschewed the regional councils, preferred by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill , in favour of establishing an international postwar organization. It omitted any discussion of the potentially-controversial establishment of a permanent peacekeeping force after

2750-581: Was given command of the Tenth Army. Stalin and Voroshilov led the Red Army 's 1918 defense of Tsaritsyn . They also sponsored the creation of the first Red Cavalry unit, commanded by Semyon Budyonny , which was composed chiefly of peasants from southern Russia. During the Polish–Soviet War , Voroshilov was political commissar with Budienny's First Cavalry. In Tsaritsyn, Voroshilov clashed with Leon Trotsky ,

2805-579: Was invited to sign the Declaration of the Four Nations . Among those who also attended for the United States were Ambassador of the United States W. Averell Harriman , Major General John R. Deane of the United States Army, Green H. Hackworth , and James C. Dunn ; for the United Kingdom, His Majesty's Ambassador Sir Archibald Clerk Kerr , William Strang , and Lt. General Sir Hastings Ismay ; for

SECTION 50

#1732844987985

2860-546: Was making decisions "behind the back of the Politburo". His main accomplishment in this period was to move key Soviet war industries east of the Urals, so that the Soviet Union could strategically retreat, while keeping its manufacturing capability intact. Frunze's political position adhered to that of the Troika ( Grigory Zinoviev , Lev Kamenev , Stalin), but Stalin preferred to have a close, personal ally in charge (as opposed to Frunze,

2915-449: Was sent in 1906. While both serving on the Tsaritsyn Front in 1918, where Ekaterina was helping orphans, they adopted a four-year-old orphan boy who they named Petya. They also adopted the children of Mikhail Frunze following his death in 1925. During Stalin's rule, they lived in the Kremlin at the Horse Guards. His personality as it was described by Molotov in 1974: "Voroshilov was nice, but only in certain times. He always stood for

2970-455: Was sometimes outvoted... Throughout his tenure as Presidium chair, he behaved like someone who believed that one should follow established procedure and not act too quickly in matters of life and death." Hardy and Skorobogatov indicate that Voroshilov frequently exerted his influence on the committee toward leniency, especially in the case of those who expressed repentance in their appeal documents and those convicted of crimes of passion or under

3025-415: Was the only time he ever witnessed such an outburst. Voroshilov was nonetheless made the scapegoat for the initial failures in Finland. He was later replaced as Defense Commissar by Semyon Timoshenko . Voroshilov was then made Deputy Premier responsible for cultural matters. Voroshilov initially argued that thousands of Polish army officers captured in September 1939 should be released, but he later signed

#984015