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'{{short description|Soviet politician}} {{Infobox officeholder | name = Lev Mekhlis<br>Лев Ме́хлис | native_name_lang = Russian | image = Лев Захарович Мехлис.jpg | alt = Photo of Lev Zakharovich Mekhlis | office = [[Minister of State Control]] | term_start = 19 March 1946 | term_end = 27 October 1950 | predecessor = Vasily Popov | successor = [[Vsevolod Merkulov]] | term_start1 = 6 September 1940 | term_end1 = 21 June 1941 | predecessor1 = [[Rosalia Zemlyachka]] | successor1 = Vasily Popov | office2 = [[Deputy Premier of the Soviet Union|Deputy Chairman]] of the [[Council of People's Commissars]] | term_start2 = 6 September 1940 | term_end2 = 15 May 1944 | premier2 = [[Vyacheslav Molotov]] <br />Joseph Stalin | office3 = Editor-in-chief of [[Pravda]] | term_start3 = 1930 | term_end3 = 1937 | predecessor3 = [[Maximilian Saveliev|Maximilian A. Saveliev]] | successor3 = Ivan E. Nikitin | office4 = Full member of the [[Central Committee elected by the 17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)|17th]], [[Central Committee elected by the 18th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)|18th]] [[Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Central Committee]] | term_start4 = 12 October 1937 | term_end4 = 16 October 1952 | office5 = Candidate member of the 17th Central Committee | term_start5 = 10 February 1934 | term_end5 = 12 October 1937 | office6 = Full member of the [[17th Orgburo of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)|17th]], [[18th Orgburo of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)|18th]] [[Orgburo]] | term_start6 = 14 January 1938 | term_end6 = 16 October 1952 | birthname = Lev Zakharovich Mekhlis | birth_date = {{Birth date|1889|01|13|df=yes}} | birth_place = [[Odessa]], [[Russian Empire]] | death_date = {{Death date and age|1953|02|13|1889|01|13|df=yes}} | death_place = [[Moscow]], [[Russian SFSR]], [[Soviet Union]] | restingplace = [[Kremlin Wall Necropolis]] | restingplacecoordinates = | citizenship = Russian Empire, Soviet Union | party = [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|CPSU]] (1918–53) | spouse = | partner = <!--For those with a domestic partner and not married--> | relations = | children = | residence = | alma_mater = [[Institute of Red Professors]] | occupation = Politician<br>[[Political commissar]]<br>[[Chief editor]] | profession = | cabinet = | committees = | portfolio = | religion = | signature = Lev Mehlis Signature 1937.png | signature_alt = Lev Mekhlis's signature | website = | footnotes = | blank1 = | data1 = | blank2 = | data2 = | blank3 = | data3 = | blank4 = | data4 = | blank5 = | data5 = <!--Military service--> | allegiance = {{flag|Russian Empire}} (1911–1917) <br />{{flag|Soviet Russia|1919}} (1918–1920) <br />{{flag|Soviet Union|1936}} (1941–1945) | branch = | serviceyears = 1911–20, 1941–45 | rank = | unit = | commands = | battles = [[World War I]] <br />[[Russian Civil War]] <br />[[World War II]] | awards = [[Order of Lenin]] (4) <br />[[Order of the Red Banner]] (2) <br />[[Order of Suvorov]] <br />[[Order of Kutuzov]] <br />Order of Military Valour (grade 4) | nickname = The Shark<br>Gloomy Demon | premier = [[Joseph Stalin]] }} '''Lev Zakharovich Mekhlis''' ({{lang-ru|Лев Заха́рович Ме́хлис}}; January 13, 1889 – February 13, 1953) was a [[Soviet Union| Soviet]] politician and a prominent officer in the [[Red Army]] from 1937 to 1940. As a senior [[political commissar]], he became one of the main [[Stavka]] representatives on the [[Eastern Front (World War II) | Eastern Front]] (1941-1945) during [[World War II]], being involved successively with five to seven Soviet [[Front (military formation) | front]]s. Despite his fervent political engagement and loyalty to the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Communist Party]], various Soviet leaders, including [[Joseph Stalin]], criticized and reprimanded Mekhlis for incompetent military leadership during World War II.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|title= Lev Mekhlis: Stalin's Grand Inquisitor {{!}} CODOH|url= https://codoh.com/library/document/1824/en/|website=codoh.com|access-date= 2020-05-16}} </ref>{{qn|date=August 2021}}<ref name=":1"> {{Cite book |last= Sebag Montefiore |first = Simon |author-link1 = Simon Sebag Montefiore |title= Stalin : the court of the Red Tsar |year= 2005|isbn= 1-4000-7678-1 |edition= First Vintage books |location= New York|oclc= 61699298 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=7kZNnKlKNp4C }} </ref>{{pn|date=August 2021}} ==Early Career== Mekhlis, born in [[Odessa]], completed six classes of Jewish commercial school. He worked as a schoolteacher from 1904 to 1911. In 1907–1910 he was a member of the Zionist workers' movement [[Poale Zion]]. In 1911 he joined the [[Imperial Russian Army]], where he served in the second grenadier artillery brigade. In 1912 he obtained the rank of bombardier. He served in the artillery in the [[First World War]]. In 1918, he joined the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Communist Party]] and until 1920, he did political work in the Red Army (commissioner of brigade, then 46th division, group of forces). In 1921–1922 he managed administrative inspection in the [[Rabkrin | People's Commissariat of Worker-Peasant Inspection]] (''Narkom'')), which was headed by Stalin. In 1922–1926 he served as the assistant to the secretary and the manager of the bureau of the [[Secretariat of the Central Committee]] - in effect Stalin's personal secretary. In 1926–1930 he took courses at the [[Communist Academy]] and in the [[Institute of Red Professors]]. When Stalin ordered the forced collectivisation of Soviet farms in 1929, Mekhlis helped purge the Institute of Stalin's opponents. He was also the instigator of a letter published in ''[[Pravda]]'' on 30 May 1930, denouncing the influence of the right wing opposition in the Industrial Academy in Moscow. The resulting purge saw the future Soviet leader [[Nikita Khrushchev]] appointed head of the party organisation at the Academy.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Khrushchev |first1=Nikita |title=Khrushchev Remembers |date=1971 |publisher=Sphere |location=London |pages=35-36}}</ref> From 1930 he was the head of the press corps Central Committee, and in 1930, he succeeded [[Nikolai Bukharin]], who had led the opposition to collectivisation, as editor in chief of ''Pravda'' . He was elected a candidate member of the [[Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union]] in 1934, and promoted to full membership in October 1937. == Military Career == In December 1937, during the [[Great Purge]], Mekhlis was confirmed as Head of the Political Administration of the Red Army, which had been vacant since the previous holder, [[Yan Gamarnik]] had committed suicide. Nicknamed "the Shark" and the "Gloomy Demon",<ref name=":0" />, he supervised a drastic purge of the 30,000 political commissars attached to the army, during which at least 20,000 were removed.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Conquest |first1=Robert |title=The Great Terror, Stalin's Purge of the Thirties |date=1971 |publisher=Penguin |location=Harmondsworth, Middlesex |page=313}}</ref> In May 1938, he travelled to [[Khabarovsk]], with the Deputy head of the [[NKVD]], [[Mikhail Frinovsky]] to supervise the purge of the Far Eastern Army, commanded by [[Vasily Blyukher]], who was arrested and beaten to death. In a telegram to Stalin, Mekhlis boasted: "I dismissed all 215 political workers, most of them arrested. But the purge is not finished."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Montefiore |first1=Simon Sebag |title=Stalin, The Court of the Red Tsar |date=2004 |publisher=Phoenix |location=London |isbn=0 75381 766 7 |page=285}}</ref> In January 1938, Mekhlis was promoted to the [[Orgburo]]. By November 1938, he was officially listed as second in seniority in the military establishment, behind the People's Commissar [[Kliment Voroshilov]], and ahead of the professional soldiers.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Conquest |title=The Great Terror |page=621}}</ref> According to Khrushchev: {{quote|He had a particularly strong influence over Stalin ... I had once been on very good terms with him ... But by the time he took over as chief of the Political Directorate I considered him a nitwit, and I was appalled that someone like him could enjoy Stalin's unbounded confidence. Mekhlis's influence did the army and the country no good."<ref>{{cite book |title=Khrushchev Remembers |page=146}}</ref>|}} From 6 September 1940-June 1941, he was [[People's Commissar of State Control]] (Goskontrolya). During the [[Winter War|war with Finland]] in 1939-40, Mekhlis was sent to the front to report personally to Stalin on why the Red Army was being beaten back by the Finns. He attributed the setbacks to treachery, and had the Soviet commander [[Alexei Vinogradov]], his chief of staff, and the chief of the political department tried and shot in front of the troops.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Montefiore |title=Stalin |page=336}}</ref> In June 1941 he was reassigned tp his former position as head of the chief of main political administration and the deputy of the Peoples Commissar of Defense. He was with Stalin on the day the Germans invaded the USSR, at the start of [[Operation Barbarossa]]. Mekhlis was named army commissar of the 1st rank, which corresponded to the title of General of the Red Army. In 1942 he was the representative of the [[Stavka]] (headquarters) of supreme commander-in-chief. Needing to find someone to blame for the disastrous setbacks the Red Army suffered during 1941, Meklhlis ordered that an artillery commander on the North Western front, Vasily Sofronovich Goncharov, was to be shot in front headquarters, on 11 September 1941. Goncharov was posthumously exonerated in 2002. In March 1942, he was sent to organise the defence of the vital [[Battle of the Kerch Peninsula|Kerch peninsula]] at the Crimean Front, where he constantly disputed with General [[Dmitry Timofeyevich Kozlov]]. In May, the Red Army was driven out of the Crimea by a smaller German force. In his report to Stalin, Mekhlis sought to blame Kozlov, but received a scathing telegram in reply: <blockquote> Crimean front, t. Mekhlis: Your code message #254 (I) received. Your position of a detached observer who is not accountable for the events at the Crimean Front is puzzling. Your position may sound convenient, but it positively stinks. At the Crimean Front, you are not an outside observer, but the responsible representative of Stavka, who is accountable for every success and failure that takes place at the Front, and who is required to correct, right there and then, any mistake made by the commanding officers. You, along with the commanding officers, will answer for failing to reinforce the left flank of the Front. If, as you say, "everything seemed to indicate that the opponent would begin an advance first thing in the morning", and you still hadn't done everything needed to repel their attack instead limiting your involvement merely to passive criticism, then you are squarely to blame. It seems that you still have not figured out that we sent you to the Crimean Front not as a government auditor but as a responsible representative of Stavka. You demand that Kozlov be replaced, that even [[Paul von Hindenburg|Hindenburg]] would be an improvement. Yet you know full well that Soviet reserves do not have anyone named Hindenburg. The situation in Crimea is not difficult to grasp, and you should be able to take care of it on your own. Had you committed your front line aviation and used it against the opponent's tanks and infantry, the opponent would not have been able to break through our defenses and their tanks would not have rolled through it. You do not need to be a 'Hindenburg' to grasp such a simple thing after two months at the Crimean Front. Stalin.<ref name="stalinletter2015">{{cite book|author1=Николай Викторович Стариков|author2=Дмитрий Беляев|title=Россия, Крым, история|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l84eBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA109|year=2015|publisher="Издательский дом ""Питер"""|isbn=978-5-496-01363-5|pages=109–}}</ref> ZK VKP(6)9.V.42r>>. </blockquote> The war correspondent, [[Konstantin Simonov]], who witnessed the Kerch debacle, later wrote: {{quote|The reason for the shameful defeat is quite clear to me: the complete mistrust of the army and front commanders that emanated from Mekhlis, the stupid tyranny and wildly arbitrary ways of this military illiterate ... He forbade the digging of trenches so that the offensive spirit of the soldiers would not be undermined. He moved up heavy artillery and army staffs to the very front lines, and so on ... Incidentally, he was of irreproachable personal courage and did nothing for his own glory. He was deeply convinced that he was doing right ... (Kozlov) was afraid to pit a reasonable argument against a stupid onslaught, afraid ... of Mekhlis.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Medvedev |first1=Roy |title=Let History Judge, The Origins and Consequences of Stalinism |date=1976 |publisher=Spokesman |location=Nottingham |pages=462-63}}</ref>|}} On his return to Moscow, Mekhlis was removed from the post of the deputy people's commissar of defense and the chief of the main political administration of the Red Army. Witnesses claim that when Mekhlis came to Stalin shortly after the defeat, Stalin shouted at him and slammed a door in his face.<ref name=":1" /> He was demoted in rank two levels down to a corps commissar. Mekhlis soon recovered from his demotion, as from December 6, 1942, he was a lieutenant general, and on July 29, 1944 he became a colonel general.<ref name=":1" /> On 23 June 1942 he was made head of the army's Main Political [[wikt:Special:Search/directorate|Directorate]], in this position his influence was contained by resistance from leading military officers like [[Georgy Zhukov|Zhukov]] and [[Kliment Voroshilov|Voroshilov]] however.<ref>{{Cite book|title=When Titans clashed : how the Red Army stopped Hitler|last=Glantz, David M.|date=1995|publisher=University Press of Kansas|others=House, Jonathan M. (Jonathan Mallory), 1950-|isbn=070060717X|location=Lawrence, Kan.|oclc=32859811}}</ref> In 1946 he was made minister of government control of the USSR, a position he held until 1950. On October 27, 1950 he was discharged due to his health. He died in February 1953. His ashes were interred at the [[Kremlin Wall Necropolis]] in [[Red Square]]. Lev Mekhlis was awarded four [[Orders of Lenin]], five other orders and numerous medals. ==Awards== * Four [[Orders of Lenin]] * [[Order of the Red Banner]] (twice) * [[Order of Suvorov]] * [[Order of Kutuzov]] * campaign and jubilee medals ==Publications== *''The Red Army Today / Speeches Delivered [by K Voroshilov, L Mekhlis, S Budyonny, and G Stern] at the Eighteenth Congress of the CPSU(B), March 10–21, 1939'', by [[Kliment Voroshilov]], Lev Mekhlis, [[Semyon Budyonny]], [[Grigory Shtern]], pub Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1939 *'' The U.S.S.R. and the Capitalist Countries'', edited by Lev Mekhlis, [[Eugen Varga|Y Varga]], and [[Vyacheslav Karpinsky]], pub Moscow, 1938, reprinted University Press of the Pacific, 2005, {{ISBN|978-1410224194}} ==References== {{Reflist}} * {{cite book|title=Alter ego Сталина|year=1999|location=Moscow|publisher=Zvonnitsa-MG|isbn=978-5880930562|last=Rubtsov|first=Yuri}} * {{cite book|last=Rubtsov|first=Yuri|year=2011|publisher=Veche|location=Moscow|title=Мехлис: Тень вождя|trans-title=Mekhlis: Shadow Leader|isbn=978-5-9533-5781-4}} {{Authority control}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Mekhlis, Lev}} [[Category:1889 births]] [[Category:1953 deaths]] [[Category:Odessa Jews]] [[Category:People from Odessky Uyezd]] [[Category:Military personnel from Odessa]] [[Category:Russian Jews in the military]] [[Category:Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union members]] [[Category:Second convocation members of the Soviet of the Union]] [[Category:Soviet Jews in the military]] [[Category:Russian military personnel of World War I]] [[Category:Soviet military personnel of the Russian Civil War]] [[Category:Soviet military personnel of World War II]] [[Category:Recipients of the Order of Lenin]] [[Category:Recipients of the Virtuti Militari (1943–1989)]] [[Category:Burials at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis]] [[Category:Politicians from Odessa]] [[Category:Institute of Red Professors alumni]]'