Kliment Voroshilov : biography

Kliment Yefremovich Voroshilov ( , Klyment Okhrimovych Voroshylov), popularly known as Klim Voroshilov () (4 February 1881Old Style date23 January 1881 – 2 December 1969) was a Soviet military officer, politician, and statesman.

Retirement

After Khruschev removed most of the old Stalinists, like Molotov and Malenkov from the party, Voroshilov’s career began to fade. On 7 May 1960, the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union granted Voroshilov’s request for retirement and elected Leonid Brezhnev chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Council (the head of state). The Central Committee also relieved him of duties as a member of the Party Presidium (as the Politburo had been called since 1952) on 16 July 1960. In October 1961, his political defeat was complete at the 22nd party congress when he was excluded from election to the Central Committee.

Following Khrushchev’s fall from power, Soviet leader Brezhnev brought Voroshilov out of retirement into a figurehead political post. Voroshilov was again re-elected to the Central Committee in 1966. Voroshilov was awarded a second medal of Hero of the Soviet Union 1968. He died in 1969 in Moscow and was buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis. The KV series of tanks, used in World War II, was named after Voroshilov. Two towns were also named after him: Voroshilovgrad in Ukraine (now changed back to the historical Luhansk) and Voroshilov in the Soviet Far East (now renamed Ussuriysk after the Ussuri river), as well as the General Staff Academy in Moscow. Stavropol was called Voroshilovsk from 1935 to 1943. Voroshilov was nominated honorary citizen of the Turkish town of Izmir in November 1933;http://dergiler.ankara.edu.tr/dergiler/45/794/10169.pdf in Izmir also a street was named after himhttp://www.as-add.de/Dosya/tarih/cumhuriyet/469-InonuC2.html (1951 renamed "Plevne Bulvarı").

Personal life

Voroshilov was married to Ekaterina Davidovna, born Golda Gorbman, who came from a Jewish Ukrainian family from Mardarovka. She changed her name when she converted to Orthodox Christianity in order to be allowed to marry Voroshilov. They met while both exiled in Arkhangelsk, where Ekaterina was sent in 1906. While both serving on the Tsaritsyn Front in 1918, where Ekaterina was helping orphans, they adopted a four year old orphan boy who they named Petya. Retrieved 23 October 2009 They also adopted the children of Mikhail Frunze following his death in 1925. During Stalin’s rule they lived in the Kremlin at the Horse Guards.Sebag Montefiore, Simon 2004 Stalin The Court of the Red Tsar, Phoenix London ISBN 0-7538-1766-7 pp9-10

His personality as it was described by Molotov in 1974: "Voroshilov was nice, but only in certain times. He always stood for the political line of the party, because he was from a working class, a common man, very good orator. He was clean, yes. And he was personally devoted to Stalin. But his devotion was not very strong. However in this period he advocated Stalin very actively, supported him in everything, though not entirely sure in everything. It also affected their relationship. This is a very complex issue. This must be taken into account to understand why Stalin treated him critically and not invited him at all our conversations. At last at private one. But he came himself. Stalin frowned. Under Khrushchev, Voroshilov behaved badly".Chuev, Felix 1993 Molotov Remembers: Inside Kremlin Politics , van R Dee Inc ISBN 978-15666302760

Early life and Russian Revolution

Voroshilov was born in the settlement of Verkhnye, Bakhmut district(uyezd), Yekaterinoslav Governorate (now part of Lysychansk city in Luhansk Oblast, Ukraine), in the Russian Empire, into a railway worker’s family of Russian ethnicity. http://www.warheroes.ru/hero/hero.asp?Hero_id=1089 However, according to the Soviet Major General Pyotr Grigorenko Voroshilov himself alluded to his Ukrainian heritage and the previous family name of Voroshilo.Pyotr Grigorenko. "В ПОДПОЛЬЕ МОЖНО ВСТРЕТИТЬ ТОЛЬКО КРЫС…" (In the underground one may find only rats…). Institute "Open society" – Cooperation and Association Fund "Liberty Road". 1981 () Voroshilov joined the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1905. Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, Voroshilov became a member of the Ukrainian Council of People’s Commissars and Commissar for Internal Affairs along with Vasili Averin. He was well known for aiding Joseph Stalin in the Military Council (led by Leon Trotsky), having become closely associated with Stalin during the Red Army’s 1918 defense of Tsaritsyn. Voroshilov was active as a commander of the Southern Front during the Russian Civil War and the Polish-Soviet War while with the 1st Cavalry Army. As Political Commissar serving co-equally with Stalin, Voroshilov was responsible for the morale of the 1st Cavalry Army, which was composed chiefly of peasants from southern Russia.Brown, Stephen. "Communists and the Red Cavalry: The Political Education of the Konarmiia in the Russian Civil War, 1918–20" The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 73, No. 1 (Jan. 1995), p. 88 Voroshilov’s efforts as Commissar did not prevent a resounding defeat at the Battle of Komarów or regular outbreaks of murderous anti-Semitic violence within the Cavalry army’s ranks.Barmine, Alexander, One Who Survived, New York: G.P. Putnam (1945), footnote, p. 21