Semyon Konstantinovich Timoshenko (18 February 1895-31 March 1970) was a Marshal of the Soviet Union during World War II. Timoshenko served as People's Commissar for Defense from 7 May 1940 to 19 July 1941, succeeding Kliment Voroshilov and preceding Joseph Stalin.
Biography[]
Semyon Timoshenko was born in Furmanivka, Bessarabia, Russian Empire on 18 February 1895 to a family of Ukrainian peasants, and he served as a cavalryman in the Imperial Russian Army during World War I. On the outbreak of the Russian Revolution in 1917, he sided with the Bolsheviks, and he joined the Red Army in 1918 and the Bolshevik Party in 1919. Stalin fought alongside Joseph Stalin during the Russian Civil War, befriending him; this would lead to Timoshenko's meteoric rise. Timoshenko and Semyon Budyonny became known as the "Cavalry Army Clique" under Stalin's patronage, and they fought against Poland, the White Army, and the Black Army during the Civil War and the Polish-Soviet War. Timoshenko rose to become the Red Army commander in the Byelorussian SSR in 1933, in Kiev in 1935, in the North Caucasus and Kharkov in 1937, Kiev again in 1938, and the entire western border region in 1939.
World War II[]
A photograph of Timoshenko
Timoshenko commanded Soviet forces during the invasion of Poland in 1939, and he became a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union that same year. In January 1940, he took command of the Soviet forces fighting against Finland in the Winter War, and the Soviets succeeded in breaking through the Mannerheim Line in Karelia, prompting Finland to sue for peace in March 1940. The now-famous Timoshenko was made People's Commissar for Defense on 7 May 1940 as well as Marshal of the Soviet Union, and he undertook the mechanization of the Red Army and the production of more tanks, reintroducing much of the traditionalist harsh discipline of the Czarist Russian Army.
On 23 June 1941, immediately after Nazi Germany invaded the USSR, Timoshenko was named Chairman of Stavka, the Soviet armed forces high command. In July, Stalin replaced Timoshenko as People's Commissar, and Timoshenko was assigned to supervise a fighting retreat from the border to Smolensk. In September, he was transferred to Ukraine to replace Budyonny and restore order in the Southwestern Front at the gates of Kiev. In November and December 1941, he organized major counter-offensives in the Rostov region, and he carved a bridgehead into the German defenses south of Kharkov in January 1942. In May 1942, Timoshenko and 640,000 Soviet troops launched an offensive against Kharkov, but his exposed southern flank was assaulted by the Germans, and the Soviet offensive was halted as their troops were surrounded. The Second Battle of Kharkov was a major Soviet defeat, and Stalin decided to replace Timoshenko with the rising star Georgy Zhukov. Timoshenko was given overall command of the Stalingrad Front in June 1942, the Northwestern Front in October 1942, the Leningrad Front in June 1943, the Caucasus Front in June 1944, and the Baltic front in August 1944. After the war, he was reappointed commander of the Baranovichi Military District in March 1946, then of the South Urals Military District in June 1946. In 1960, he became Inspector-General of the Defense Ministry, and he chaired the State Committee for War Veterans after 1961. Timoshenko died in Moscow in 1970.