From Stalin's personal secretary to the Red Army's fanatical purger, 'a terrible man' who could only destroy
Stalin, responding to a minister's suggestion: 'Put Mekhlis in charge of something constructive? For destroying, smashing, wrecking — that's what he's suited for.' And he began to laugh, holding his stomach.
A Jewish Bolshevik from Odessa who rose from Stalin's personal secretary to become his most fanatical enforcer. As editor-in-chief of Pravda (1930–1937) he directed the propaganda campaign of the Great Purge, and as head of the Red Army's Main Political Directorate he was a chief organiser of the mass repression of the officer corps. In 1942 his catastrophic interference as Stavka representative on the Kerch front caused the collapse of the Crimean Front; Stalin personally ordered him demoted two ranks. Rehabilitated by war's end, he served as Minister of State Control (1946–1950). Stalin himself judged him 'fit only for destruction, never for building.'
Career Timeline
- 1911–1917Tsarist artillery service, senior NCO on the Romanian Front
- 1918–1920Red Army political commissar at brigade, division and group levels
- 1922–1926Assistant secretary and bureau chief in the CC secretariat — Stalin's de facto personal secretary
- 1930–1937CC Press Department head and Pravda editor-in-chief, directing the purge propaganda campaign
- 1937–1940Deputy Commissar of Defence and head of the Red Army Political Directorate, chief organiser of the military purge
- 1942Stavka representative on the Crimean Front; Kerch disaster leads to front collapse — demoted two ranks by Stalin's order
- 1942–1945Military Council member on multiple fronts, rehabilitated by war's end
- 1946–1950USSR Minister of State Control, member of the Council of Ministers Presidium
Related historical events
- 1918–1922The Civil War and Foreign InterventionPolitical commissar in the Red Army
- 1937–1938The Great Purgeled army purges as head of the Red Army Political Directorate
- 1938–1941The Soviet-Japanese Border Wars and the Neutrality PactDeputy Commissar of Defence, head of the Red Army Political Directorate, dispatched to KhasanDispatched to the Far East alongside Frinovsky to monitor Blyukher. On 3 August he reported to Moscow that Blyukher was incapable of command, triggering Blyukher's removal.
- 1939.11–1940.03The Winter WarHead of the army political directorate, hunting for blame at the frontAs head of the political directorate he went to the front to fix blame for defeat; the execution of the encircled 44th Division's commanders shows the method.
- 1941–1945The Great Patriotic WarArmy political chiefStalin’s deputy who led the political directorate of the Red Army.
The Kerch Disaster (1942)
On 20 January 1942, Mekhlis arrived at Kerch as the Stavka (Supreme High Command) representative. Within two days he cabled Stalin denouncing Crimean Front commander General Kozlov as 'a bewildered and unconfident leader,' and proceeded to flood Moscow with hostile reports on nearly every senior officer. He reshuffled the command at will, replacing chief of staff Tolbukhin (a future Marshal) with his own man, Major-General Vechny.
Yet Mekhlis himself contributed nothing tangible to reorganising the front. For two months he fixated on offensive preparations while refusing to transition to a defensive posture, and squandered air power on secondary targets instead of interdicting enemy armour and troop concentrations. On 9 May, Stalin cabled: 'You are not a bystander on the Crimean Front. You are the responsible Stavka representative, answerable for all successes and failures. If "the whole situation indicated the enemy would attack in the morning," why did you confine yourself to passive criticism instead of organising resistance?'
When Manstein's 11th Army struck on 8 May, the Crimean Front collapsed within days. The Red Army lost over a third of its roughly 170,000 troops and was driven from the Kerch Peninsula entirely. On 4 June 1942, Stalin demoted Mekhlis two ranks to Corps Commissar and dismissed him as Deputy Defence Commissar and head of the Political Directorate. The cipher telegrams Mekhlis wrote in his own distinctive hand recorded everyone else's failures. But never once his own.