1. Grigory Ivanovich Kulik was a Soviet military commander and Marshal of the Soviet Union who served as chief of the Red Army's Main Artillery Directorate from 1937 until June 1941.
23 Facts About Grigory Kulik
1. 2.
Grigory Kulik fought alongside Joseph Stalin at the Battle of Tsaritsyn during the Russian Civil War and quickly became one of Stalin's most favoured generals.
3.
Grigory Kulik had a highly conservative outlook in military technology and theory.
4.
Grigory Kulik was a strong opponent to Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky's reforms and his deep operations theory, and dismissed innovations such as the T-34 and KV-1 tanks and the Katyusha rocket artillery system.
5.
Grigory Kulik was named First Deputy People's Commissar for Defence in 1939, and later took part in the Soviet invasion of Poland.
6.
Grigory Kulik was dismissed from his Artillery Directorate in late 1941, and in early 1942 he was court-martialed and demoted Major-General, but escaped execution thanks to his good relations with Stalin.
7.
Grigory Kulik was arrested for treason in 1947 and remained in prison until 1950, when Stalin ordered his execution.
8.
Grigory Kulik was born into a peasant family of Ukrainian origin near Poltava.
9.
In 1937, Grigory Kulik was appointed chief of the Main Artillery Directorate, making him responsible for overseeing the development and production of new tanks, tank guns and artillery pieces.
10.
Grigory Kulik retained his opinions of the Red Army as it was during 1918, the last time he had had a field command.
11.
Grigory Kulik denounced Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky's campaign to redevelop the Red Army's mechanized forces into independent units like the Wehrmacht's Panzerkorps; the creation of separate divisions allowed them to use their greater maneuverability for Deep Battle-style maneuver warfare, rapidly exploiting breakthroughs rather than simply assisting the infantry.
12.
Correctly sensing that Stalin considered these new ideas as potential threats to his authority, Grigory Kulik successfully argued against the change.
13.
Grigory Kulik criticized Marshal Voroshilov's endorsement of the production of the T-34 tank and his namesake KV-1 tanks, both of which would prove instrumental to the survival of the USSR.
14.
Grabin was correct; Grigory Kulik's objections were outweighed by the many letters from Soviet tank crewmen to Stalin endorsing the new gun.
15.
Grigory Kulik zealously endorsed Stalin's exhortations against retreat, allowing whole divisions to be encircled and annihilated or starved into surrendering en masse.
16.
Grigory Kulik forbade the issue of the submachine gun PPD-40 to his units, stating that it was only suitable as a police weapon.
17.
Grigory Kulik commanded the Soviet's artillery attack on Finland at the start of the Winter War, which quickly foundered.
18.
Two days later, on 7 May 1940, Grigory Kulik was promoted to Marshal of the Soviet Union.
19.
Grigory Kulik proposed freeing them all, a sentiment which Marshal Kliment Voroshilov shared.
20.
Senior political commissar Lev Mekhlis insisted that there were enemies among them but Grigory Kulik persisted and Stalin compromised.
21.
When Germany invaded the USSR during June 1941, Grigory Kulik was given command of the 54th Army on the Leningrad front.
22.
Zhukov states Grigory Kulik "was relieved of his command, and the Stavka placed the 54th Army under the Leningrad Front" on 29 September 1941.
23.
Grigory Kulik was dismissed from his posts during 1946 after NKVD telephone eavesdroppers overheard him grumbling that politicians were stealing the credit from the generals.