Once Tukhachevsky and I went to the Hermitage to look at the paintings. Actually, it was his idea. He was in mufti, of course. First we wandered around the museum on our own, then we tagged along with a group. The group had a guide. A young fellow and obviously not very educated. Tukhachevsky began correcting the guide. He said two words to the guide's one, and, I must admit, to the point. The people stopped listening to _the guide, and listened only to Tukhachevsky.
Finally the guide grew angry. He wouldn't even talk to Tukhachevsky. He approached me and said, "Who is that?" Meaning, why is he sticking his nose in my business?
Without blinking, I replied, "Tukhachevsky." It was like a lightning bolt. At first the guide didn't believe me. But then he looked 101
closely, and of course recognized him. Tukhachevsky had an extremely distinctive face. Naturally, this not very educated worker at the Hermitage got scared. He feared for his job, that his children would starve.
And they would have fired him if Tukhachevsky had ordered it, or if he had merely complained. As commander of the military district, Tukhachevsky had great power iri Leningrad.
The guide's feistiness was replaced by terrible fear. He , began thanking Tukhachevsky for his priceless information. Tukhachevsky replied benignly, "Study, young man, study. It's never too late." And we headed for the exit. Tukhachevsky was very pleased with the adventure.
Once Tukhachevsky's security men discovered a man sitting in his car completely drunk, soused. He was trying to unscrew the door handles, for some reason. They were nickel-plated, very shiny, and apparently they had caught the citizen's eye. Well, the security men planned to take this citizen "where he should be." There is such a marvelous place, with very bad consequences, I might add.
Tukhachevsky interfered. He ordered them to let the drunkard go.
Let him sleep it off. He turned out to be the composer Arseny Gladkovsky, a rather famous composer in his time, one of his operas was quite successful. The opera was just then being revived, after a long hiatus, and since it dealt with a military theme (the defense of Petrograd in 1919), Gladkovsky thought Tukhachevsky might be interested in hearing it. In his invitation he thanked Tukhachevsky for not sending him "where he should be."
Tukhachevsky saw the opera but didn't like it very much. Later he said to me thoughtfully, "Maybe I was mistaken in letting him go?"
He was joking, of course.
They called Tukhachevsky the "greatest Soviet military theoretician." Stalin couldn't stand that. Stalin was also very suspicious of Tukhachevsky's friendship with Ordzhonikidze. When People's Military Commissar Frunze died suddenly-as they now suspect, Stalin had a hand in that death too-Tukhachevsky recommended Ordzhonikidze for the vacant post. Stalin didn't like that at all. That, too, played a part in future events.
On Stalin's personal orders Tukhachevsky was sent to Leningrad.
This was a sort of exile for Tukhachevsky, but I got to see him much 1 02
more. Tukhachevsky flew into a frenzy of activity in Leningrad, the results of which were apparent later, during the war-after Tukhachevsky had been shot.
During the war I thought of Tukhachevsky often. Naturally, we sorely lacked his clear mind. Now we know that Hitler didn't sign the Barbarossa plan* right away. He hesitated, and signed only because he thought that without Tukhachevsky the Red Army was powerless.
I thought of Tukhachevsky when I dug trenches outside Leningrad in July '41. They sent us beyond the Forelli Hospital, divided us into groups, and handed each of us a shovel. We were the Conservatory group. The musicians looked pathetic and worked, I might add, very badly. It was a hot July. One pianist came in a new suit. He delicately rolled up his trousers to his knees, revealing his spindly legs, which were soon covered with mud to the thigh. Another one-a highly respected music historian-kept setting aside his shovel every minute.
He had arrived with a briefcase stuffed with books. Heading for a shady bush, he would pull out a thick volume from his briefcase.
Of course, everyone tried hard. So did I. But what kind of ditchdiggers were we? All this should have been done before. Much earlier and more professionally. It would have had more effect. The little that had been done earlier in terms of defense had been done under Tukhachevsky.
When Tukhachevsky insisted on increasing the number of planes and tanks, Stalin called him a harebrained schemer. But during the war, after the first crushing defeats, Stalin caught on. It was the same with rockets. Tukhachevsky began rocketry while in Leningrad. Stalin later had all the Leningrad rocketry experts shot, and then they had to start from scratch.
The war became a terrible tragedy for everyone. I saw and lived through a great deal, but the war was probably the hardest trial. Not for me personally, but for the people. For composers and, say, poets, perhaps, it wasn't so hard. But the people suffered. Think how many perished. Millions.
War was inevitable, of course. It's a terrible, dirty, and bloody business. It would be better if there were no war and no soldiers. But if
*Hitler's plan of attack on the Soviet Union, named after Frederick I "Barbarossa" (Red Beard), the Holy Roman Emperor who had marched east in t t 90.
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there is war, then . the professionals should take care of it. Tukhachevsky was a war professional and naturally he would have done his work better than the inexperienced or incompetent military leaders who led our troops after all the purges.
Tukhachevsky told me how he had fought in the First World War.
He was more than skeptical of the tsar and yet he fought, and fought passionately, bravely. Tukhachevsky, fighting the Germans, felt that he was defending the people and not the tsar. It would have been worse for the people under the Germans than under the tsar.
I often remembered those words of Tukhachevsky's. They became real for me during the war. I hate war. But you have to defend your country from invasion by the enemy. You have only one motherland.
Tukhachevsky had spent time as a German prisoner of war. By present-day standards, the camp was like a sanatorium. The prisoners were allowed to walk around the camp without guards; a written agreement not to run away was enough. An officer's word, so to speak.
Tukhachevsky asked another officer to sign in his place, and escaped.
He told me about it with a smile. But Tukhachevsky didn't manage to get away from Stalin.
When Tukhachevsky was introduced to Lenin, his first question was how did Tukhachevsky manage to get away from the German prison camp? Apparently he thought that the Germans had "helped"
Tukhachevsky escape, just as they had "helped" Lenin appear in Russia right after the Revolution.
Lenin sensed that Tukhachevsky was a kindred spirit. He delegated the most responsible jobs to the obscure lieutenant. As you know, Tukhachevsky's army reached Warsaw, but it failed and had to retreat.
Lenin forgave Tukhachevsky his failure. Tukhachevsky reminded me of that before my trip to Warsaw for a competition. Tukhachevsky had attacked Warsaw in 1920. We were leaving for Warsaw in January 1927, just some six years later. There were three of us. We played our competition programs for Tukhachevsky. Tukhachevsky put up with it and said something to the eff ecfthat we should be brave. Nothing terrible would happen even if we lost. After all, he hadn't been beheaded for his failure, and neither would we.