General Staff Captain I. N. Zakharov: Forgotten General Staff Employee or the “Good Shadow” of M. N. Tukhachevskiy

Abstract

In the official Soviet historiography developing during the 10 anniversaries the opinion was established that Civil war of the beginning of past century was won by “national heroes”, former all, as a rule, members of the Communist Party. Different impartial analysis of materials shows that in “shadow” of “military Party members” in this case there were, as a rule, former imperial officers and first of all — graduates of the Nikolas Academy of the General Staff. The Soviet “military Party members” have been in no small measure obliged to them by the glory of winners of armies of Kolchak and Denikin, Wrangel and Yudenich. The present article is devoted to the office biography Captain of the General Staff Ivan Nikolaevich Zakharov who during the entire period of Civil war of 1918-1920 was, in fact, the permanent closest assistant to famous “hero” of the same war, future marshal of the USSR — M. N. Tukhachevsky. On East, Caucasian and Western fronts I. N. Zakharov, along with other “genshtabist” ensured that victory which has been attributed to one M. N. Tukhachevsky subsequently, mainly because the last was a member of RCP(b) since 1918. Meantime, of “genshtabist” I. Zakharov remained a non-party, and his name has been for many years buried in oblivion.