Military officer.
A victorious Red war commander of the Russian Civil War. Frunze was one of the founders of the Red Army. His military theories have laid foundation to the Soviet Russian military science in general.
Background
Lived: 1885-1925.
Mikhail Frunze was born as the son of a Romanian peasant in Kirghizia. He studied at the St. Petersburg Polytechnic and became a revolutionary in 1904.
His revolutionary activity cost him two death sentences, but he was pardoned on both occasions and sent to Siberia.
Russian Civil War
Frunze’s military career began as a Bolshevik agitator in the army. He gained several victories on the Eastern front and commanded the Fourth Army as well as Southern Army Group. He was victorious in defeating Admiral Kolchak near Omsk. That decided the whole course of the war. Trotsky elevated him the commander of the whole Eastern front.
By September 1920, Frunze moved to the Southern front and drove Baron Wrangel’s forces permanently out of Crimea. The Civil War was over.
He thereafter put down the Rebellion of the anarchist Nestor Makhno in Ukraine.
Military theories
Frunze’s theoretical ideas about the Red Army had a profound impact on the basis of the Soviet military system. He introduced centralized commanding, peacetime compulsory military service, uniforms etc. His brochure “Unified Military Doctrine and the Red Army” (1921) was used until the 1980s.
Political career
Frunze was invited to the Central Committee in 1921 and he replaced Trotsky as Comissar of War in 1925. He was a supporter of Zinoviev and enjoyed huge popularity among fellow comrades.
Death
In 1925 Frunze was ordered by Stalin and the party to undertake an operation of his stomach ulcers. It was urged despite doctors’ repeated warnings of the threat of anesthetics to his weak heart. The result of the operation was accidental death by chloroform poisoning. There are theories that Stalin somehow initiated the accident to replace Frunze with Voroshilov.
Mikhail Frunze
Military officer.
A victorious Red war commander of the Russian Civil War. Frunze was one of the founders of the Red Army. His military theories have laid foundation to the Soviet Russian military science in general.
Background
Lived: 1885-1925.
Mikhail Frunze was born as the son of a Romanian peasant in Kirghizia. He studied at the St. Petersburg Polytechnic and became a revolutionary in 1904.
His revolutionary activity cost him two death sentences, but he was pardoned on both occasions and sent to Siberia.
Russian Civil War
Frunze’s military career began as a Bolshevik agitator in the army. He gained several victories on the Eastern front and commanded the Fourth Army as well as Southern Army Group. He was victorious in defeating Admiral Kolchak near Omsk. That decided the whole course of the war. Trotsky elevated him the commander of the whole Eastern front.
By September 1920, Frunze moved to the Southern front and drove Baron Wrangel’s forces permanently out of Crimea. The Civil War was over.
He thereafter put down the Rebellion of the anarchist Nestor Makhno in Ukraine.
Military theories
Frunze’s theoretical ideas about the Red Army had a profound impact on the basis of the Soviet military system. He introduced centralized commanding, peacetime compulsory military service, uniforms etc. His brochure “Unified Military Doctrine and the Red Army” (1921) was used until the 1980s.
Political career
Frunze was invited to the Central Committee in 1921 and he replaced Trotsky as Comissar of War in 1925. He was a supporter of Zinoviev and enjoyed huge popularity among fellow comrades.
Death
In 1925 Frunze was ordered by Stalin and the party to undertake an operation of his stomach ulcers. It was urged despite doctors’ repeated warnings of the threat of anesthetics to his weak heart. The result of the operation was accidental death by chloroform poisoning. There are theories that Stalin somehow initiated the accident to replace Frunze with Voroshilov.
Mikhail Tukhachevsky