Chapayev's successor and Civil War hero who outlived his usefulness to Stalin
When the Red Army high command traded slanderous letters, Kutyakov denounced Dybenko's drunkenness and incompetence. The reply came from the NKVD. He was arrested in Dybenko's office, with Dybenko's assistance.
Born into a poor peasant family in Samara, he labored as a farmhand from age seven. Joining the Bolsheviks in 1917, he entered Chapayev's brigade and rose from platoon commander to regimental commander in two months. After Chapayev's death he led the 25th Rifle Division to crush the Ural White Cossacks, then distinguished himself in the Soviet-Polish war and the Basmachi campaign, earning three Orders of the Red Banner. Rising to Komkor and member of the USSR Central Executive Committee, he was undone by a mutual slander war with his superior Pavel Dybenko, arrested in Dybenko's office, and executed on 28 July 1938. His name was posthumously erased from Furmanov's novel Chapayev and replaced with 'Yelan'.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1916–1917Conscripted into WWI, serves as a junior non-commissioned officer.
- 1917.5Joins the Bolshevik Party. Delegate to the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Peasant Deputies.
- 1918Joins the Red Army, enters Chapayev's brigade. Promoted to commander of the 73rd Brigade.
- 1919Takes command of the 25th Rifle Division after Chapayev's death. Destroys Ural Cossack army. Awarded Honorary Revolutionary Weapon.
- 1920Commands 25th Division in the Soviet-Polish War. Second Order of the Red Banner.
- 1923–1924Graduates Military Academy. Commands Khorezm Group against Basmachi. Third Order of the Red Banner.
- 1928–1930Commander of the 4th Rifle Corps.
- 1931–1935Commander of 2nd Rifle Corps. Member of USSR and All-Russian Central Executive Committees.
- 1935–1937Promoted to Komkor. Deputy commander of Volga Military District. Member of NKO Military Council.
- 1937.5.15Arrested.
- 1938.7.28Sentenced to death, shot the same day.
Related historical events
- 1914–1918First World WarSoldier serving as a junior non-commissioned officerHe was conscripted into the First World War and served as a junior non-commissioned officer in 1916–1917.
- 1918–1922The Civil War and Foreign Interventioncommander of 25th Rifle Division
- 1919–1921The Soviet-Polish WarCommander of the 25th DivisionHe commanded the 25th Division in the Soviet-Polish War in 1920.
- 1937–1938The Great PurgeMilitary command targetThe senior commander who had led the 25th Rifle Division in the civil war was arrested in 1937 and executed in 1938.
Military writings, the "Kiev Cannae" controversy, and posthumous rehabilitation
Kutyakov was a commander and also a writer on Civil War history. He published recollections of Chapayev, among them The Combat Path of Chapayev and With Chapayev Across the Ural Steppes, and in 1934 completed Kiev Cannae, 1920, on the Soviet-Polish war. He held that "studying facts without criticism is pointless," and in that book he criticized the leadership of the Southwestern Front and questioned the role of the 1st Cavalry Army. Stalin sat on the Southwestern Front's Revolutionary Military Council, and the book also collided with the interests of Budyonny and Voroshilov, who had led the 1st Cavalry Army.
In May 1935 Deputy Chief of Staff Mezheninov sent a negative review of the manuscript: the author highlighted his own role as commander of the 25th Division while depicting other units and commanders unfavorably, and exaggerated the Polish command's abilities. On 29 June 1936 Budyonny wrote to Stalin that the work seemed to him written by "our enemy" and was "a lie and a vile pasquinade" against the party and the front and army leadership. At the Military Council of the People's Commissariat of Defence on 1-4 June 1937 Stalin brought the book up himself, saying it glorified the Polish command and disparaged the Cavalry Army, and he questioned Sedyakin, who had written its preface. Sedyakin, Meretskov and others had to explain themselves and recant at the session.
The delay in publishing the book and the later repression of those who edited or prefaced it show that the writing was treated as a matter of political judgment, not scholarship alone. The assessments in the reviews and the speeches are each speaker's claim and must be read apart from what the sources establish as fact.
On 15 March 1956 the Military Collegium of the USSR Supreme Court rehabilitated him, and on 15 March 1957 his rights to state awards were restored; he had been stripped of his decorations on 7 July 1942. Streets named after him were later established in Pugachyov, Balakovo, Saratov and Samara, and a documentary film, Declared an Enemy of the People, was made.