Soviet tank army commander who wrote to Stalin warning Operation Uranus would fail
On 17 November, two days before the offensive, Volsky went over his commanders' heads and wrote to Stalin 'as an honest Communist' that Operation Uranus was doomed to fail.
A former tsarist private who became a political commissar during the Civil War, Volsky emerged in the early 1930s as one of the Red Army's first mechanized-brigade commanders. At Stalingrad, commanding the 4th Mechanized Corps, he wrote to Stalin 'as an honest Communist' on the eve of Operation Uranus warning that the offensive would fail; after Stalin telephoned him, Volsky withdrew the letter and led his corps into the attack, becoming one of the first units to close the encirclement ring. He later commanded the 5th Guards Tank Army through the Baltic liberation and East Prussian operations, but worsening tuberculosis forced him from the front in March 1945, and he died in Moscow less than a year later.
Career Timeline
- 1916–1917Private, First World War
- 1918–1921Commissar, Civil War (regiment, division, and corps level)
- 1930–1935Commander, 6th Mechanized Brigade and other mechanized units
- 1939–1941Deputy head, Academy of Mechanisation and Motorisation
- 1942–1943Commander, 4th (3rd Guards) Mechanized Corps, Stalingrad
- 1943–1944Deputy commander, Red Army Armoured and Mechanized Forces
- 1944–1945Commander, 5th Guards Tank Army