Kliment Efremovich Voroshilov also Klim Voroshilov (1881-1969) - Russian revolutionary, Soviet military, statesman and party leader, Marshal of the Soviet Union. Twice Hero of the Soviet Union.
The record holder for the length of stay in the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) and the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU - 34.5 years.
There are many interesting facts in the biography of Kliment Voroshilov, which we will tell about in this article.
So, before you is a short biography of Voroshilov.
Biography of Kliment Voroshilov
Kliment Voroshilov was born on January 23 (February 4), 1881 in the village of Verkhnee (now Luhansk region). He grew up and was raised in a poor family. His father, Efrem Andreevich, worked as a trackman, and his mother, Maria Vasilievna, did various dirty work.
The future politician was the third child of his parents. Since the family lived in extreme poverty, Clement began to work as a child. When he was about 7 years old he worked as a shepherd.
A few years later, Voroshilov went to the mine as a collector of pyrite. During the period of his biography 1893-1895, he studied at the zemstvo school, where he received his primary education.
At the age of 15, Clement found a job at a metallurgical plant. After 7 years, the young man became an employee of a steam locomotive enterprise in Lugansk. By that time, he was already a member of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, showing a keen interest in politics.
In 1904 Voroshilov joined the Bolsheviks, becoming a member of the Lugansk Bolshevik Committee. A few months later, he was entrusted with the post of chairman of the Luhansk Soviet. He directed the strikes of Russian workers and organized fighting squads.
Career
In subsequent years of his biography, Kliment Voroshilov was actively engaged in underground activities, as a result of which he repeatedly went to prison and served exile.
During one of the arrests, the man was severely beaten and received a severe head injury. As a result, he periodically heard extraneous sounds, and by the end of his life he was completely deaf. An interesting fact is that then he had an underground surname "Volodin".
In 1906 Clement met Lenin and Stalin, and the following year he was sent into exile in the Arkhangelsk province. In December 1907 he managed to escape, but a couple of years later he was arrested again and sent to the same province.
In 1912 Voroshilov was released, but he was still under secret surveillance. During the First World War (1914-1918), he was able to evade the army and continue to engage in the propaganda of Bolshevism.
During the October Revolution of 1917, Kliment was appointed commissar of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee. Together with Felix Dzerzhinsky, he founded the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (VChK). Later he was entrusted with the important post of a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the First Cavalry Army.
Since then, Voroshilov has been called one of the key figures in the cause of the Revolution. At the same time, according to a number of his biographers, he did not have the talents of a military leader. Moreover, many contemporaries argued that the man had lost all major battles.
Despite this, Kliment Efremovich managed to head the military department for almost 15 years, which none of his colleagues could boast of. Obviously, he was able to achieve such heights thanks to the ability to work in a team, which was rare for that time.
It is fair to note that throughout his life Voroshilov had a normal attitude to self-criticism and was not distinguished by ambition, which could not be said about his fellow party members. Perhaps that is why he attracted people and aroused their confidence.
In the early 1920s, the revolutionary led the army of the North Caucasian district, then the Moscow one, and after the death of Frunze, he headed the entire military department of the USSR. During the Great Terror, which flared up in 1937-1938, Kliment Voroshilov was among those who considered and signed the lists of repressed persons.
An interesting fact is that the military leader's signature is on 185 lists, according to which over 18,000 people were repressed. In addition, by his order, hundreds of Red Army commanders were sentenced to death.
By that time, Voroshilov's biography was awarded the title of Marshal of the Soviet Union. He was distinguished by his exceptional devotion to Stalin, fully supporting all his ideas.
It is curious that he even became the author of the book "Stalin and the Red Army", on the pages of which he extolled all the achievements of the Leader of the Nations.
At the same time, disagreements arose between Clement Efremovich and Joseph Vissarionovich. For example, regarding the policy in China and the personality of Leon Trotsky. And after the end of the war with Finland in 1940, in which the USSR won a victory at a high price, Stalin ordered to completely remove Voroshilov from the post of People's Commissar of Defense and instruct him to lead the defense industry.
During the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945) Clement showed himself to be a very brave and resolute warrior. He personally led the Marines into hand-to-hand combat. However, due to inexperience and lack of talent as a commander, he lost the trust of Stalin, who was in dire need of human resources.
Voroshilov was from time to time trusted to command various fronts, but all posts were removed and replaced by more successful commanders-in-chief, including Georgy Zhukov. In the fall of 1944, he was finally withdrawn from the State Defense Committee.
At the end of the war, Kliment Efremovich worked as chairman of the Allied Control Commission in Hungary, whose purpose was to regulate and monitor the implementation of the terms of the armistice.
Later, the man was for several years deputy chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, and then served as chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet.
Personal life
Voroshilov met his wife, Golda Gorbman, in 1909 during his exile in Nyrob. As a Jew, the girl converted to Orthodoxy before the wedding, changing her name to Catherine. This act angered her parents, who stopped communicating with their daughter.
This marriage turned out to be childless, since Golda could not have children. As a result, the couple adopted the boy Peter, and after the death of Mikhail Frunze they took his children - Timur and Tatiana.
By the way, Leonid Nesterenko, a professor at the Kharkov Polytechnic Institute, the son of an old friend of Kliment's, called himself the adopted son of the People's Commissar.
Together, the couple lived happily for almost half a century, until Golda's death from cancer in 1959. Voroshilov suffered the loss of his wife very hard. According to biographers, the man never had mistresses, because he loved his other half to unconsciousness.
The politician paid great attention to sports. He swam well, did gymnastics, and loved to skate. Interestingly, Voroshilov was the last tenant of the Kremlin.
Death
A year before his death, the military leader was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for the second time. Kliment Voroshilov died on December 2, 1969 at the age of 88.
Photo by Kliment Voroshilov
