Grigory Kulik

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Grigory Ivanovich Kulik
Main Artillery Directorate
Battles/warsWorld War I
Russian Civil War
Polish–Soviet War
Spanish Civil War
Winter War
World War II
AwardsHero of the Soviet Union

Grigory Ivanovich Kulik (

Main Artillery Directorate
from 1937 until June 1941.

Born into a Ukrainian peasant family near

deep operations theory, and dismissed innovations such as the T-34 and KV-1 tanks and the Katyusha
rocket artillery system.

Kulik was named First Deputy People's Commissar for Defence in 1939, and later took part in the Soviet invasion of Poland. In 1940, he was named a Marshal of the Soviet Union. Kulik's poor leadership during the Winter War in Finland and the German invasion of the Soviet Union led to his fall from grace. He was dismissed from his Artillery Directorate in late 1941, and in early 1942 he was court-martialed and demoted Major-General, but escaped execution thanks to his good relations with Stalin.

After the war, Stalin and Lavrentiy Beria began a new round of purges. Kulik was arrested for treason in 1947 and remained in prison until 1950, when Stalin ordered his execution.

Early life

Kulik was born into a peasant family of Ukrainian origin near Poltava.[1][2][3][4] A soldier of the army of the Russian Empire in World War I, he served as a non-commissioned officer in the artillery. In 1917 he joined the Bolshevik Party and the Red Army during 1918.

Civil war

At the beginning of the Russian Civil War, his friendship with the Bolshevik Kliment Voroshilov caused him to join the Red Army, resulting in an introduction to Stalin and the command of the artillery of the 1st Cavalry Army (co-led by Stalin and Voroshilov) at the Battle of Tsaritsyn during 1918.[dubious – discuss]

The position was almost entirely political in nature, a reward for Kulik joining the Reds and his loyalty to Voroshilov; Kulik himself did not have any experience with gun laying or commanding artillery crews, and the whole Bolshevik artillery force in Tsaritsyn consisted of 3 obsolete artillery pieces. Despite having little to no perceivable effect on the outcome of the battle, Kulik's performance greatly impressed Stalin.

After the Civil War, Kulik continued as one of Stalin's favored and most politically reliable generals during

Poland's 1919 invasion of the Soviet Union, which he commanded personally. His poor performance resulted in him being replaced by the former cavalry NCO Semyon Budyonny. Unfazed, Stalin promoted Kulik to the post of First Deputy People's Commissar for Defense
directed by Voroshilov.

Artillery Directorate Chief

In 1937, Kulik was appointed chief of the Main Artillery Directorate, making him responsible for overseeing the development and production of new tanks, tank guns and artillery pieces.

Kulik retained his opinions of the Red Army as it was during 1918, the last time he had had a field command. He denounced Marshal

Deep Battle-style maneuver warfare
, rapidly exploiting breakthroughs rather than simply assisting the infantry. Correctly sensing that Stalin considered these new ideas as potential threats to his authority, Kulik successfully argued against the change.

In an anonymous section of a report on the

Georgi Zhukov's use of deep operations techniques to great effect in Manchuria against the Japanese would eventually convince Stalin of their value, after which they were used effectively during Operation Bagration.[6]

Grigory Kulik 1936

Kulik criticized Marshal Voroshilov's endorsement of the production of the

high explosive shells, and a shocking number had to rely solely on their coaxial machine guns, having no 76.2mm rounds at all.[7]
Many T-34 and KV-1 tanks were sent into battle underarmed and eventually had to be abandoned by their crews when they ran out of ammunition.

Prior to and during the early period of the war with Germany, Kulik interfered with the armament of the T-34 and KV-1 tanks. Though it was both more effective and cheaper than the

Leningrad Kirov Plant, which manufactured the L-11. Due to his status, the relevant armament bureaucrats failed to approve the newer gun for fear of retaliation. This eventually necessitated a rushed retrofit of the KV-1 and T-34's gun in the midst of the German invasion when it became apparent that the L-11 could not reliably penetrate even the lightly armored Panzer III
, which was arriving in large numbers. This was facilitated by Grabin's disobedience; with the endorsement of Kulik's political enemies, he had secretly ordered the manufacture of a reserve stock of F-34 guns, predicting that they would soon be needed and that his decision would be lauded by Stalin once the gun had proven itself in battle. Grabin was correct; Kulik's objections were outweighed by the many letters from Soviet tank crewmen to Stalin endorsing the new gun.

Kulik also disparaged the use of

minefields as a defensive measure, considering this to be at odds with a properly aggressive strategy and terming minefields "a weapon of the weak." This decision allowed for the essentially free movement of German forces across Russian defensive lines during Operation Barbarossa, with static defensive strongpoints being bypassed easily by Panzer spearheads and surrounded by infantry, forcing the defenders to surrender. He also zealously endorsed Stalin's exhortations against retreat, allowing whole divisions to be encircled and annihilated or starved into surrendering en masse. Eventually, after Kulik's demotion, the laying of multiple layers of anti-tank mines proved instrumental for both the successful defense of Leningrad during the German siege and the successful defensive actions against much stronger German armored forces at the Battle of Kursk
.

Kulik similarly scorned the German issue of the

MP-40 submachine gun to their shock troops, stating that it encouraged inaccuracy and excessive ammunition consumption among the rank and file. He forbade the issue of the submachine gun PPD-40 to his units, stating that it was only suitable as a police weapon. It was not until 1941, after widespread demand for a weapon to match the MP-40 again overruled Kulik's restrictions, that a simple modification of the manufacturing process for the PPD-40 produced the PPSh-41, which proved to be amongst the most widely produced, inexpensive and effective small arms of the war, considered by many German infantrymen to be superior to the MP-40, with whole companies of Russian infantrymen eventually being issued the weapon for house-to-house fighting
.

Kulik refused to endorse the production of the innovative Katyusha rocket artillery system, stating "What the hell do we need rocket artillery for? The main thing is the horse-drawn gun."[8] Although it could have been produced much earlier in the war without his meddling, the Katyusha rocket artillery system eventually proved to be one of the most effective Soviet inventions of the war and a major advance in artillery technology.

In 1939 he became Deputy People's Commissar of Defense, also participating with the Soviet occupation of Eastern Poland in September. He commanded the Soviet's artillery attack on Finland at the start of the Winter War, which quickly foundered.

On 5 May 1940, Kulik's wife Kira Kulik-Simonich was kidnapped on Stalin's orders, unknown to Kulik and for an uncertain reason. Kira, a mother to an eight-year old girl, was subsequently executed by

Vasili Blokhin in June 1940.[9] It appears that Stalin then ordered the modern equivalent of a damnatio memoriae against the hapless woman; although she was described as very pretty, no photographs or other images of her survive.[10] Two days later, on 7 May 1940, Kulik was promoted to Marshal of the Soviet Union. Although the public search for Kira continued for 12 years he soon married again.[11]

Years after his appointment as Chief of Artillery (and his poor performance in two separate wars), Nikita Khrushchev questioned his competence, causing Stalin to rebuke him angrily: "You don't even know Kulik! I know him from the civil war when he commanded the artillery in Tsaritsyn. He knows artillery!"[8]

World War II

After the

Katyn Massacre.[13]

When

Zhukov
being rushed to the front in order to stabilize the defenses and take over Kulik's command.

4th Guards Army. From 1944 to 1945 he was Deputy Head of the Directory of Mobilization, and deputy commander of the Volga Military District
.

Downfall and death

After a respite during and immediately after the war, Stalin and his police chief Lavrentiy Beria began a new round of military purges due to Stalin's jealousy and suspicion of the generals' public standing. Kulik was dismissed from his posts during 1946 after NKVD telephone eavesdroppers overheard him grumbling that politicians were stealing the credit from the generals. Arrested during 1947, he remained in prison until 1950, when he was condemned to death and executed for treason.

References

  1. ^ "Кулик Григорий Иванович". Encyclopedia of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (in Russian). Retrieved October 2, 2022.
  2. ^ "Кулик Григорий Иванович".
  3. ^ "Кулик Григорий Иванович ::: Мартиролог: Жертвы политических репрессий, расстрелянные и захороненные в Москве и Московской области в период с 1918 по 1953 год".
  4. ISBN 9781538133613
    .
  5. ^
    OCLC 944957747.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link
    )
  6. ^ Conner, William (March 1987). "ANALYSIS OF DEEP OPERATIONS ATTACK OPERATIONS OPERATION BAGRATION BELORUSSIA 22 JUNE – 29 AUGUST 1944" (PDF). Army University Press.
  7. ^ "T-34/76 Medium Tank 1941–45". Steven J. Zaloga, Peter Sarson. 10.
  8. ^ a b Montefiore 2003, p. 332.
  9. ^ Montefiore 2003, pp. 293–4, 332.
  10. ISBN 9780578680590
    .
  11. ^ Montefiore 2003, pp. 332–333.
  12. ^ Sanford 2005, p. 42.
  13. ^ a b Montefiore 2003, pp. 340–341.
  14. ^ Montefiore 2003, p. 333.
  15. ^ John Erickson, Road to Stalingrad, 2003 Cassel Military Paperbacks edition, p.254
  16. ISBN 9781781592915
    .

Bibliography
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