Gaik Bshishkjan

Gaik Bshishkjan

Hayk Bzhishkyan ( Armenian Հայկ Բժիշկյան ; Russian Гайк Бжишкян * 6 ^{. Jul} / 18th February  1887 ^greg. In Tabriz , Iran ; † 11. December 1937 in Moscow ), and Gai Gai Dmitrievich (Russian Гай Дмитриевич Гай ) was a Commander of the Red Army in the Russian Civil War and the Polish-Soviet War .

Life

Bschischkjan was of Armenian origin and was born into the family of a Persian-Armenian teacher. In 1901 he moved with his family to Tbilisi , was a student in an Armenian seminary and in 1903 joined the Armenian Social Democratic Party. Bschischkjan worked actively in the social democratic press and was arrested several times. He spent a total of five years in prison. During the First World War he was drafted into the Russian army . He graduated from the officers school in Tbilisi and made it to the battalion commander on the front against the Turks . In 1917 he was classified as an invalid after returning from Turkish captivity.

After the February Revolution of 1917, he held the post of commander in the revolutionary forces in Moscow. After the October Revolution in the same year, he joined the Bolsheviks in 1918 and became a member of the Russian Communist Party . As a commander he fought in the Russian Civil War in 1918 against the Czechoslovak legions and the Orenburg Cossacks of Ataman Alexander Dutow .

In the following time he led some regiments, divisions and larger troop formations. From July to November 1918 he led the 1st  Samarar Infantry Division, which was converted into the 24th Rifle Division and conquered Simbirsk , the birthplace of Lenin . This division later became known as the "Iron Samara Ulyanovsk Division". Georgi Zhukov served there under his command and later expressed himself in his memoirs with great respect for Bschishkjan. Bschischkjan promoted Zhukov's career and made sure that Zhukov attended the cavalry college in Moscow in 1924.

Bschischkjan also held positions in command of the 1st Army (January to May 1919); they fought against Kolchak's troops and captured Orenburg and Ufa for the Soviets , among others . Then he commanded the 42nd Rifle Division (August to September 1919) and the 1st Caucasian Cavalry Division (September 1919 to March 1920) fighting against Denikin's troops .

During the Polish-Soviet War he initially commanded the 2nd Cavalry Corps and (since July 1920) the 3rd Cavalry Corps on the right flank of the western front. In August 1920 he covered the withdrawal of the 4th Army at the Battle of Warsaw and was interned in East Prussia .

Since 1922 he was the People's Commissar for the Army and Navy of the Armenian SSR . He studied at the Moscow Frunze Military Academy and completed his habilitation in 1929. In 1932 he was appointed head of the chair for martial arts at the Zhukovsky Academy of the Air Force , since 1934 he was a professor there.

Arrest, convictions and execution

On July 3, 1935, he was arrested and charged with an "assassination attempt on Stalin ". The background was a conversation, apparently in a state of drunkenness, in which he declared that Stalin had to go. On October 22, 1935, he was sentenced to five years in prison. This was one of the first cases in the Stalinist purges in which a red commander of proletarian origin was arrested and tried. He managed to escape during a transfer by train from Moscow to Yaroslavl , after a large-scale search staged by Genrich Jagoda he was caught a day later.

On December 11, 1937, he was found guilty by the Military Tribunal at the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union and shot on the same day . His books were classified as politically harmful and banned.

Honors and rehabilitation

During his service in the tsar's army, Bschischkjan was awarded the Georgian Cross 4th and 3rd class and the Order of St. Anne . He was awarded the Order of the Red Banner twice: in 1919 for fighting in the Volga region from 1918, in 1920 he received the award for the Polish-Soviet War .

After Stalin's death, he was rehabilitated on January 21, 1956. In 1963, a river passenger ship was named “ Divisionskommandeur Gaik” in his honor . In Ulyanovsk , a monument in his honor was unveiled on September 12, 1986 on a street named after him.

Works

• Первый удар по Колчаку ( The first blow against Kolchak ). Leningrad, 1926.
• На Варшаву! Действия 3 конного корпуса на Западном фронте ( Off to Warsaw! The actions of the 3rd Cavalry Corps on the Western Front ). Moscow, Leningrad, 1928.
• В боях за Симбирск ( The fighting for Simbirsk ). Ulyanovsk, 1928.

Web links

• Article about the arrest and conviction of Gaik Bschischkjan in the Russian weekly Argumenty i fakty (with photo)
• Biography on the Russian website of the regional parliament in Ulyanovsk Oblast
• Biography on a website about the history of Orenburg
• Biography on the website of the Institute of History and Archeology of the Urals

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The Polish sources use Gaj Dimitriewicz Gaj or Gajk Bżiszkian, Gaj Brzyszkian or Gaj-Chan as spelling, especially in Polish sources on the Polish-Soviet war.