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Boris Shaposhnikov

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Soviet marshal (1882–1945) In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming customs, the patronymic is Mikhailovich and the family name is Shaposhnikov.
Boris Shaposhnikov
Shaposhnikov c. 1944
Native nameRussian: Бори́с Ша́пошников
Birth nameBoris Mikhailovitch Shaposhnikov
Born(1882-10-02)2 October 1882
Zlatoust, Ufa Governorate
Russian Empire
Died26 March 1945(1945-03-26) (aged 62)
Moscow, Soviet Union
BuriedKremlin Wall Necropolis
Allegiance Russian Empire (1901–1917)
 Soviet Russia (1917–1922)
 Soviet Union (1922–1945)
Years of service1901–1945
RankColonel (Imperial Army)
Marshal of the Soviet Union (Red Army)
CommandsLeningrad Military District
Moscow Military District
Chief of the General Staff
Volga Military District
Battles / warsRusso-Japanese War
World War I
Russian Civil War
World War II
Other workMozg Armii (The Brain of the Army), 1929

Boris Mikhaylovich Shaposhnikov (Russian: Бори́с Миха́йлович Ша́пошников) (2 October [O.S. 20 September] 1882 – 26 March 1945) was a Soviet military officer, theoretician and Marshal of the Soviet Union. He served as the Chief of the General Staff of the Soviet Armed Forces from 1928 to 1931 and at the start of the Second World War. Shaposhnikov was one of the foremost military theorists during the Stalin-era. His most important work, Mozg Armii ("The Brain of the Army"), is considered a landmark in Soviet military theory and doctrine on the organization of the Red Army's General Staff.

Born to a family of Orenburg Cossack origins in Zlatoust in the Urals, Shaposhnikov was a graduate of the Nicholas General Staff Academy and served in the Imperial Russian Army, reaching the rank of colonel during the First World War. He supported the Russian Revolution and later joined the Red Army, but did not become a member of the Communist Party until 1939. He was Chief of the Staff of the Red Army from 1928 to 1931, followed by a stint as commandant of the Frunze Military Academy. In 1937, he was appointed to the newly created title of Chief of the General Staff. In 1940, he was named a Marshal of the Soviet Union.

Shaposhnikov resigned as Chief of the General Staff following Soviet failures during the Winter War in Finland. He was reappointed to the position following the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, replacing Georgy Zhukov, but was again forced to resign a year later due to declining health. He then held the post of commandant of the Academy of the General Staff, and remained an influential and respected advisor to Stalin until his death in 1945.

Biography

Shaposhnikov, born at Zlatoust, near Chelyabinsk in the Ural Mountains, had Orenburg Cossack origins. He joined the army of the Russian Empire in 1901 as an officer cadet, and graduated from the Nicholas General Staff Academy in 1910, reaching the rank of colonel in the Caucasus Grenadiers division in September 1917 during World War I. Also in 1917, unusually for an officer of his rank, he supported the Russian Revolution, and in May 1918 joined the Red Army.

Shaposhnikov (top right) with other prominent Soviet military commanders, including three future Marshals of the Soviet Union, 1921

Shaposhnikov was one of the few Red Army commanders with formal pre-revolutionary military training, and in 1921 he became 1st Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army's General Staff, where he served until 1925. He was appointed commander of the Leningrad Military District in 1925 and then of the Moscow Military District in 1927. From 1928 to 1931 he served as Chief of the Staff of the Red Army, replacing Mikhail Tukhachevsky, with whom he had a strained relationship. He was then demoted to command of the Volga Military District from April 1931 to 1932 as a result of slanderous accusations (made by an arrested staff-officer) of belonging to a clandestine organization. In 1932 he was appointed commandant of the Red Army's Frunze Military Academy, then in 1935 he returned to the command of the Leningrad region. In 1937 he was appointed as Chief of the General Staff, in succession to Alexander Ilyich Yegorov, a defendant of the Case of Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization secret trial during Joseph Stalin's Great Purge of the Red Army. In May 1940 he was appointed a Marshal of the Soviet Union.

Despite his background as a Tsarist officer, Shaposhnikov won the respect and trust of Stalin. Due to his status as a professional officer, he did not join the Communist Party until 1939. This may have helped him avoid Stalin's suspicions. The price he paid for his survival during the purges was collaboration in the destruction of Tukhachevsky and of many other colleagues. Stalin showed his admiration for the officer by always keeping a copy of Shaposhnikov's most important work, Mozg Armii (Мозг армии, "The Brain of the Army") (1929), on his desk. Shaposhnikov was one of the few men whom Stalin addressed by his Christian name and patronymic. Mozg Armii has remained on the curriculum of the General Staff Academy since its publication in 1929.

Fortunately for the Soviet Union, Shaposhnikov had a fine military mind and high administrative skills. He combined these talents with his position in Stalin's confidence to rebuild the Red Army's leadership cadres after the purges. He obtained the release from the Gulag of 4,000 officers deemed necessary for this operation. In 1939 Stalin accepted Shaposhnikov's plan for a rapid buildup of the Red Army's strength. Although the planned changes remained incomplete at the time of the Axis invasion of June 1941, they had advanced sufficiently to save the Soviet Union from complete disaster.

Shaposhnikov with Stalin, Ribbentrop and Molotov at the signing of German–Soviet Frontier Treaty on 28 September 1939

Shaposhnikov planned the 1939 Soviet invasion of Finland, but was much less optimistic about its duration than Stalin and the campaign's commander Kliment Voroshilov. The resultant Winter War (1939–1940) did not deliver the immediate success the Soviet side had hoped for, and Shaposhnikov resigned as Chief of the General Staff in August 1940, due to ill-health and to disagreements with Stalin about the conduct of that campaign. Following the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, he was reinstated (29 July 1941) as Chief of the General Staff to succeed Georgy Zhukov, and also became Deputy People's Commissar for Defence, the post he held until his career was cut short by ill-health in 1943. He resigned again as Chief of the General Staff due to ill-health on 10 May 1942. He held the position of commandant of the Voroshilov Military Academy until his death in 1945 at the age of 62. Shaposhnikov had groomed his successor as Chief of Staff, Aleksandr Vasilevsky, and remained an influential and respected advisor to Stalin until his death. His ashes were buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis.

Honours and awards

 Russian Empire
 Soviet Union

See also

References

Citations

  1. A. Shishov. 100 Great Cossacks http://fisechko.ru/100vel/kazakov/91.html Archived 2022-12-06 at the Wayback Machine – "Происходил из потомственных оренбургских казаков."
  2. ^ Smele 2015, p. 1012.
  3. Samuelson & Shlykov 2009, p. 98.
  4. ^ Wells 2013, p. 287.
  5. ^ Glantz & House 2009, p. 38.
  6. Radzinsky 2011, p. 472.
  7. Aldis & McDermott 2004.
  8. Ringer 2006, p. 143.
  9. Kulkov, Rzheshevskii & Shukman 2014, p. xxv.

Bibliography

  • Aldis, Anne C.; McDermott, Roger N., eds. (2004). Russian Military Reform, 1992–2002. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-1357-5468-6.
  • Glantz, David M.; House, Jonathan (2009). To the Gates of Stalingrad: Soviet–German Combat Operations, April–August 1942. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-1630-5.
  • Kulkov, E. N.; Rzheshevskii, Oleg Aleksandrovich; Shukman, Harold (2014). Stalin and the Soviet-Finnish War, 1939–1940. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-1352-8294-3.
  • Radzinsky, Edvard (2011). Stalin: The First In-depth Biography Based on Explosive New Documents from Russia's Secret Archives. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-3077-5468-4.
  • Ringer, Ronald E. (2006). Excel HSC Modern History. Pascal Press. ISBN 978-1-7412-5246-0.
  • Samuelson, Lennart; Shlykov, Vitaly (2009). Plans For Stalin's War Machine: Tukhachevskii and Military-Economic Planning, 1925–1941. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-3122-2527-8.
  • Smele, Jonathan D. (2015). Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916–1926: Volume 2 of Historical Dictionaries of War, Revolution, and Civil Unrest. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-4422-5281-3.
  • Wells, Anne Sharp (2013). Historical Dictionary of World War II: The War against Germany and Italy: Historical Dictionaries of War, Revolution, and Civil Unrest. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-7944-7.

External links

Military offices
Preceded byMikhail Tukhachevsky Chief of the Staff of the Red Army
May 1928 – April 1931 		Succeeded byVladimir Triandafillov
Preceded byAlexander Yegorov Chief of the Staff of the Red Army
10 May 1937 – August 1940 		Succeeded byKirill Meretskov
Preceded byGeorgy Zhukov Chief of the Staff of the Red Army
29 July 1941 – 11 May 1942 		Succeeded byAleksandr Vasilevsky
Marshals of the Soviet Union
Chiefs of the Russian General Staff
Red Army
(1917–1946)
 Soviet Armed Forces
(1946–1992)
 Russian Armed Forces
(1992–present)
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