Mikhail
Frunze, the son of a peasant, was born in Turkestan in 1885. After
studying at his local school he continued his education at the Gymnasium
at Verny and the Polytechnical Institute in St. Petersburg.
As a student
Frunze joined the Social Democratic Party
where he supported the Bolshevik faction.
In November, 1904, he was arrested during a political demonstration
and expelled from St. Petersburg.
At the
Second Congress of the Social Democratic Party in London
in 1903, there was a dispute between Vladimir
Lenin and Julius Martov, two of the
party's main leaders. Lenin argued for a small party of professional
revolutionaries with alarge fringe of non-party sympathisers and supporters.
Martov disagreed believing it was better to have a large party of
activists. Martov won the vote 28-23 but Lenin was unwilling to accept
the result and formed a faction known as the Bolsheviks.
Those who remained loyal to Martov became known as Mensheviks.
Frunze
joined the Bolsheviks. So also did
Gregory Zinoviev, Anatoli
Lunacharsky, Joseph Stalin, Mikhail
Lashevich, Nadezhda Krupskaya,
Alexei Rykov, Yakov
Sverdlov, Lev Kamenev, Maxim
Litvinov, Vladimir Antonov, Felix
Dzerzhinsky, Gregory Ordzhonikidze,
and Alexander Bogdanov. Whereas George
Plekhanov, Pavel Axelrod, Leon
Trotsky, Lev Deich, Vladimir
Antonov-Ovseenko,
Irakli Tsereteli, Moisei
Uritsky, Noi Zhordania and Fedor
Dan supported Julius Martov.
After the
meeting in London Frunze went to Inanovo-Voznesensk
where he was one of the leaders of the 1905
Textile Workers Strike. Later that year he was arrested during
the Moscow Uprising. Sentenced death, he was reprieved and it was
changed to ten years hard labour. He served his sentence in Vladimir,
Nikolaev and Alexandrov in Siberia.
In 1915
Frunze managed to escape from Siberia and reached Chita where he edited
the Bolshevik weekly, Vostochnoe
Obozrenie. During the February
Revolution Frunze led the Bolsheviks in Minsk and became chief
of the city's civilian militia before being elected President of the
Byelorussian Soviet.
Frunze
went to Moscow during the October Revolution
and led a 2,000 strong force of workers and soldiers in the Bolshevik
struggle for the city.
In 1918
Frunze became Military Commissar for the Voznesensk Province. During
the early days of the Civil War, Frunze
was appointed as head of the Southern Army Group. After defeating
Alexander Kolchak and the White
Army in Omsk, Leon Trotsky gave him
command of the whole of the Eastern Front. Frunze went on to clear
Turkestan of anti-Bolshevik forces.
In November,
1920, Frunze led troops that captured the Crimea and managed to force
General Peter Wrangel and his troops
from Russia. He also crushed the rebellion led by Nestor
Makhno in the Ukraine.
In 1921
Frunze was elected to the Central Committee and in January, 1925,
became the Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council. As a close
supporter of Gregory Zinoviev, this
brought him into conflict with Joseph Stalin.
Mikhail Frunze died during an operation for stomach ulcers on 31st
October, 1925. Some historians have argued that Stalin was involved
in arranging Frunze's death.
(1)
Leon Trotsky
described Mikhail Frunze's achievements during the Russian
Civil War.
Frunze was a man of serious disposition; as a result
of his prison years, he had more authority in the Party than the fresh
young Sklyansky. Moreover, during the war Frunze demonstrated undeniable
qualities as a war captain.
(2) The
Granat Encyclopaedia of the Russian Revolution was published by
the Soviet government in 1924. The encyclopaedia included a collection
of autobiographies and biographies of over two hundred people involved
in the Russian Revolution.
After the Yaroslav rebellion, Frunze was appointed Commissar
for the Yaroslav Military District. From there he was transferred
to the Urals Front and under his command the Southern Army Group of
the Eastern Front inflicted a decisive defeat on Kolchak's troops.
Following this, he was put in charge of the whole Eastern Front and
directed the operations to sweep the Whites out of Turkestan.
During
the revolution in Bukhara in August which overthrew the Emir's forces
out of the Bukharan Republic with detachments of the Red Army. In
September 1920 he ordered an offensive against Wrangel on the Southern
Front. After the seizure of the Crimea and the elimination of Wrangel's
forces, he became commander of all troops in the Crimea and the Ukraine,
and the representative of the Revolutionary Military Council there.
Under his leadership the Petlyura and Makhno rebellions were crushed.
(3) Jean-Jacques
Marie, Makers of the Russian Revolution: Mikhail Vasilievich Frunze
(1974)
At the tenth Congress in 1921, Frunze was elected to the
Central Committee. It was no doubt then that he allied himself with
Zinoviev imposed him in Skylyansky's place, and then in Trotsky's
in January 1925, as Commissar for War. The collapse of the Troika
made Frunze's presence in this position extremely awkward for Stalin.
Frunze
had formerly suffered from stomach ulcers. The Central Committee doctors,
on orders from Stalin, insisted that he should be operated on; Frunze's
doctors were opposed to it, for they were certain that his heart would
not stand up to the chloroform. The Central Committee doctors had
their way, and Frunze died on the operating table on 31st October
1925.
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