“Order of the Red Banner No. 1”: Civil War hero and one of the first five marshals, extinguished in Lefortovo
Uniting scattered Red detachments, he fought his way across 1,500 km of the Urals in 54 days. For this immortal campaign Comrade Blyukher is awarded the Order of the Red Banner No. 1. — VTsIK decree, 28 September 1918
A peasant's son from Yaroslavl, he earned the Red Army's first Order of the Red Banner for his epic 1,500-kilometre Ural raid in 1918. Under Frunze he broke through the Perekop defences to expel Wrangel from Crimea, then as C-in-C of the Far Eastern Republic crushed the last White offensive at Volochayevka. As Sun Yat-sen's chief military advisor 'General Galin' he designed the Northern Expedition; he later commanded the Special Far Eastern Army, routing Manchu forces in the 1929 CER conflict. One of the first five Marshals in 1935, he defended the Soviet Far East against Japanese expansion, but was arrested after the costly Lake Khasan battle and died in Lubyanka. Rehabilitated 1956.
Career Timeline
- 1914–1915WWI service, two St. George Crosses, severely wounded and discharged
- 1916Joined the Bolshevik Party
- 19181,500-km Ural raid — first Order of the Red Banner
- 1919–1920Commander, 51st Rifle Division: Siberian campaign, Perekop breakthrough, capture of Crimea
- 1921–1922War Minister of the Far Eastern Republic and C-in-C, NRA; victory at Volochayevka
- 1924–1927Chief military advisor to Sun Yat-sen as 'General Galin' — architect of the Northern Expedition
- 1929CER conflict: routed Manchu forces; first Order of the Red Star
- 1929–1938Commander, Special Far Eastern Army — overall defence of the Soviet Far East
- 1935One of the first five Marshals of the Soviet Union
- 1937Sat on the Special Judicial Presence that condemned Tukhachevsky
- 1938Removed after Lake Khasan, arrested, died in Lubyanka
- 1956Posthumously rehabilitated
Related historical events
- 1918–1922The Civil War and Foreign InterventionRed commanderA hero of the civil war who fought the Whites and interventionists in the Far East.
- 1937–1938The Great PurgeTarget of the military purgeA civil-war hero and one of the first five marshals, he died under interrogation in 1938.
- 1938–1941The Soviet-Japanese Border Wars and the Neutrality PactCommander, Far Eastern FrontCommanded Soviet forces at Khasan. His investigation into Frinovsky's provocation was branded 'defeatism.' Dismissed 31 Aug 1938, arrested 22 Oct, died under torture 9 Nov after 18 days of interrogation.
Architect of China's Northern Expedition — 'General Galin' (1924–1927)
In the autumn of 1924, Blyukher arrived in Guangzhou aboard the Soviet warship Vorovsky. Under the alias 'General Z.V. Galin', he became Sun Yat-sen's chief military advisor, sketching a blueprint for revolutionary army modernisation during a multi-hour shipboard conference with the Chinese leader. Under his direction the USSR rapidly supplied the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) with 40,000 rifles, some 42 million cartridges, 48 field guns, 12 mountain guns, over 10,000 hand grenades, 230 machine guns, and 3 aircraft, while Blyukher created a Military Council under the KMT Central Executive Committee to professionalise the command structure.
In February 1925, Blyukher designed the Eastern Campaign against the anti-revolutionary warlord Chen Jiongming. The NRA's first major offensive ended in a decisive victory, capturing over 7,000 enemy troops by late March. Returning for a second tour in mid-1926, Blyukher presented the KMT generals, including Chiang Kai-shek, with a revised Northern Expedition plan: Stage One would concentrate force against Wu Peifu's Zhili clique to seize the Wuhan cities; Stage Two would pivot eastward to destroy Sun Chuanfang's forces and advance on Nanjing and Shanghai. The NRA, roughly 100,000 strong, faced warlord armies totalling some 270,000 men.
The campaign unfolded as he had designed. By late August 1926 the NRA captured the Wuhan tricity of Hanyang, Hankou, and Wuchang. In late October the second stage opened with the Jiangxi campaign, culminating in the capture of Nanchang and the destruction of Sun Chuanfang's army. In March 1927 the NRA entered Nanjing and Shanghai, shattering warlord power in eastern China and opening the path to unified KMT rule. The architect of a campaign that swept across eastern China in two years with forces one-third the size of the enemy's was General Galin, Vasily Blyukher.