Four-time Red Banner hero of the Civil War, rose to First Deputy Defence Commissar: purged by the machine he served
The investigator told me: I don't know whether you are an enemy or not, but you will give evidence.
Born into a Ukrainian peasant family, he joined the Bolsheviks in 1917 and emerged as one of the most decorated Red commanders of the Civil War. He led troops on every major front (the North Caucasus, Crimea, Kronstadt, and Tambov) earning the Order of the Red Banner four times, a distinction few could claim. In the interwar period he rose through corps and district commands, taking charge of the Kiev Military District in 1937 and becoming First Deputy People's Commissar of Defence with the rank of Komandarm 1st rank in 1938. During the Great Purge he oversaw a sweeping purge of the Kiev District's command staff. Yet within months he himself was arrested, tortured, and made to confess to a 'military-fascist conspiracy.' He was sentenced to death and shot on 26 February 1939, and was posthumously rehabilitated in 1956.
Activities and affiliations
- 1918–1920 Military command · Soviet Union · Military and defence
Career Timeline
- 1917–1918Joined Bolsheviks, organized Red Guard in Feodosia, commanded 1st Black Sea Revolutionary Regiment
- 1918–1920Acting C-in-C North Caucasus, deputy commander 11th Army, chief 58th and 46th Rifle Divisions
- 1921Suppressed Kronstadt (187th Brigade) and Tambov uprisings (1st Combat Sector)
- 1922–193118th Division, 13th/2nd Corps, staff chief/assistant commander North Caucasus and Leningrad MDs
- 1931–1937Commander Caucasus Army, Volga MD; deputy OKDVA, commander Primorsky Group
- 1937–1938Commander Kiev Military District
- 1938First Deputy People's Commissar of Defence, Komandarm 1st rank
Related historical events
- 1918–1922The Civil War and Foreign Interventionacting commander-in-chief of the North Caucasus Revolutionary Army
- 1921.03The Kronstadt RebellionBrigade commander suppressing the revoltIn 1921, he suppressed the Kronstadt uprising as commander of the 187th Brigade.
- 1937–1938The Great PurgeMilitary command targetA senior commander who rose to first deputy defence commissar, he was arrested in 1938 and executed in 1939.
Denials, an Appeal to Stalin, and the Confession
For a year before his arrest, investigators of the NKVD's special department had been collecting testimony against Fedko. In April 1938, in Stalin's presence, he was confronted with the already arrested I. A. Khalepsky, S. P. Uritsky and I. P. Belov, who repeated their statements that he had joined a military-fascist conspiracy in the Red Army. Fedko categorically denied every accusation. On 1 May 1938 he wrote to Stalin insisting on his innocence; receiving no reply, he sent a second letter to the same effect on 30 June.
Arrested on 7 July, he was immediately subjected to physical methods, and on 10 July he already confessed to having been drawn into a military-fascist conspiracy by Belov in 1932. Reporting his own "success" to the higher authority, the investigator N. N. Fedorov confirmed that Fedko had refused to testify both at interrogations and at confrontations until Fedorov "punched him in the face and put him in the cell," after which he confessed to everything. In his post-arrest statement Fedko recalled the interrogator's words: "The investigator told me: I don't know whether you are an enemy or not, but you will give evidence."