40 Facts About Semyon Budyonny

Semyon Budyonny served with distinction in a dragoon regiment during the First World War, earning all four classes of the Cross of St George.

Semyon Budyonny was one of the two most senior army commanders that survived the Great Purge and in post at the time of German invasion of the USSR in 1941.

Semyon Budyonny received the blame for many of Stalin's military strategic errors in the early part of World War II, but he was retained in the Soviet high command.

Semyon Budyonny was born into a poor peasant family on the Kozyurin farmstead near the town of Salsk in the Don Cossack region of the southern Russian Empire.

Semyon Budyonny worked as a farm labourer, shop errand boy, blacksmith's apprentice, and driver of a steam-driven threshing machine, until the autumn of 1903, when he was drafted into the Imperial Russian Army.

Semyon Budyonny graduated first in his class after a year, becoming an instructor with the rank of junior non-commissioned officer.

Semyon Budyonny returned to his regiment as a riding instructor with a rank of senior non-commissioned officer.

Semyon Budyonny became famous for his attack on a German supply column near Brzezina, and was awarded the St George Cross, 4th Class.

Semyon Budyonny was involved in a heated confrontation with the squadron sergeant major regarding the officers' poor treatment of the soldiers and the continual lack of food.

The sergeant major struck out at Semyon Budyonny, who retaliated by punching the ranking officer, knocking him down.

The soldiers backed Semyon Budyonny during questioning, claiming that the sergeant major was kicked by a horse.

Semyon Budyonny was stripped of his St George Cross, though he could have faced a court martial and death.

Semyon Budyonny would go on to be awarded the St George Cross, 4th class, a second time, during the Battle of Van.

Semyon Budyonny received the St George Cross, 3rd class, fighting the Turks near Mendelij, on the way to Baghdad.

Semyon Budyonny then received the St George Cross, 2nd class, for operating behind Turkish lines for 22 days.

Semyon Budyonny received the St George Cross, 1st class, for capturing a senior non-commissioned officer and six men.

Semyon Budyonny joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1919.

Semyon Budyonny is today's Stenka Razin, and where he leads his gang, there will they go: for the Reds today, tomorrow for the Whites.

However, in October 1919, Semyon Budyonny pulled off a spectacular victory when, in the greatest cavalry battle of the civil war, he attacked and defeated the White army corps commanded by Konstantin Mamontov.

Semyon Budyonny took part in the reconquest of Crimea, the final phase of the Russian Civil War.

Semyon Budyonny, the celebrated cavalry, an amateur dancer and admirer of the ballet joined us.

Thereupon Semyon Budyonny called over a harmonic player and went into a spin, cutting a Cossack caper with the ease and grace of a youngster.

In 1923, Semyon Budyonny arrived in Chechnya with a proclamation from the Central Executive Committee announcing the formation of the Chechen Autonomous Region.

Semyon Budyonny spent a great amount of time and effort in the organization and management of equestrian facilities and developing new breeds of horses.

Semyon Budyonny was considered a courageous and colourful cavalry officer, but displayed disdain for the tools of modern warfare, particularly tanks, which he, along with Grigory Kulik, saw as "incapable of ever replacing cavalry".

In 1935 Semyon Budyonny was made one of the first five Marshals of the Soviet Union.

Early in the Great Purge, Semyon Budyonny was appointed commander of the Moscow Military District, possibly because Stalin was nervous that there would be a military coup after he had decided to move against two of the most popular Bolsheviks, Nikolai Bukharin and Alexei Rykov.

When Bukharin was trying to defend himself, during a plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, on 26 February 1937, Semyon Budyonny barracked him, calling him a Jesuit.

On 24 May 1937, Semyon Budyonny was copied into a resolution proposing to arrest Marshal Tukhachevsky, and the high ranking party official Janis Rudzutaks.

Semyon Budyonny was never allowed to command troops in combat again.

Semyon Budyonny showed himself to be completely incompetent and permitted awful mistakes to be made.

Semyon Budyonny died of brain hemorrhage on 26 October 1973, at the age of 90.

Semyon Budyonny was buried with full military honours in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis, in one of the twelve individual tombs located between the Lenin Mausoleum and the Kremlin wall.

Semyon Budyonny wrote a five-volume memoir, in which he described the stormy years of civil war as well as the everyday life of the First Cavalry Army.

Semyon Budyonny was frequently named in the cavalry-oriented works of Isaac Babel.

Semyon Budyonny, who was a renowned horse breeder, created a new horse breed that is still kept in large numbers in Russia: the Semyon Budyonny horse, which is famous for its high performance in sports and endurance.

Semyon Budyonny was an amateur bayan player; a few instrumental vinyl records were issued in the USSR featuring a duo with his friend, cossack bayanist Grigory Zaytsev, titled as "Duo of bayanists".

Semyon Budyonny's first wife was an illiterate Cossack whose forename and patronymic were Nadezhda Ivanovna.

Mikhail Soloviev, a Soviet army officer who settled in the west after being captured early in the German-Soviet War, alleged that Semyon Budyonny killed his wife after she had confronted him over his infidelity.

Semyon Budyonny told his daughter by a subsequent marriage that she shot herself, possibly unintentionally, when their marriage was failing.