Konstantin Rokossovsky
Konstantin Konstantinovich Rokossovskiy (Russian: Константин Константинович Рокоссовский, Polish: Konstanty Rokossowski) (December 21, 1896 – August 3, 1968) was a Soviet military commander and Polish Defence Minister.
Biography
The place of Rokossovsky's birth is unclear, with many sources claiming that he was born in Warsaw, while others, with equal confidence, state that he was born in the town of Velikiye Luki near Pskov in northwestern Russia, and that his family relocated to Warsaw shortly thereafter. The Rokossovsky family was a member of the Polish nobility, and had produced many cavalry men. However, Konstantin's father, Ksawery Wojciech Rokossowski, was a railway worker in Russia and his mother was herself Russian. Orphaned at 14, Rokossovsky earned a living by working in a stocking factory, and some time later he became an apprentice stonemason. Much later in his life, the government of People's Republic of Poland used this fact for propaganda, claiming that Rokossovsky had help build Warsaw's Poniatowski Bridge. At some point Rokossovsy decided to Russify his name by changing the patronymic Ksaverovich to Konstantinovich, because pronouncing Ksaverovich was too hard for Russian speakers and it led to confusion.
Early military career
When World War I broke out in 1914 Rokossovsky joined the Russian Army, serving as a non-commissioned officer in a dragoon regiment. In 1917, he joined the Bolshevik Party and soon thereafter, entered the ranks of the Red Army. During the Russian Civil War he advanced to the rank of commander. In the campaigns against the White Guard armies of Aleksandr Kolchak Rokossovsky received Soviet Russia's highest military decoration, the Order of the Red Banner.
After the Civil War Rokossovsky studied at the Frunze Military Academy and became a senior cavalry commander in the Red Army. During the 1920s his division was stationed in Mongolia. In 1929 — by agreement with the Chinese government — he took part in defending the Chinese Eastern Railway against warlords.
In the early 1930s, Rokossovsky was among the first to realize the potential of armored assault. He advocated the creation of a strong armored core for the Red Army. His wide promotion of the idea brought him into conflict with many of the Old Guard commanders, especially Semyon Budenny, who still favored cavalry tactics. It was because of this, it would seem, that he was targeted during the purges.
Great Purge
Rokossovsky held senior commands until 1937, when he became caught up in Joseph Stalin's Great Purge and accused of "connections with foreign intelligence". After interrogations that included torture resulting in nine missing teeth, three cracked ribs, the removal of his fingernails, and three mock shooting ceremonies, he was sent to a prison "Kresty" in Leningrad, where he remained until March 1940, when he was released without explanation, apparently due to preparation for World War II.[1] Rokossovsky first revived in the so-called "Villa of ecstasy" in the spa of Sochi on the coast of the Black Sea.[citation needed] After a brief talk with Stalin he was restored to the rank of a Corps Commander in the Kiev Military Region.
World War II
When Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941 Rokossovsky became commander of the 16th Army stationed near Smolensk. During the bitter fighting in the winter of 1941 - 42 Rokossovsky played a key role in the defence of Moscow under Georgy Zhukov.
In early 1942 Rokossovsky was transferred to the Bryansk Front. He commanded the right flank of the Soviet forces as they fell back before the Germans towards the Don and Stalingrad in the summer of 1942. During the Battle of Stalingrad Rokossovsky, commanding the Don Front, led the northern wing of the Soviet counter-attack that encircled Paulus's Sixth Army and won the decisive victory of the Soviet-German war.
In 1943, after becoming commander of the Central Front, Rokossovsky successfully conducted defensive operations in the Kursk salient, and then led the counterattack west of Kursk which defeated the last major German offensive on the eastern front and allowed the Soviet armies to advance to Kiev. The Central Front was then renamed 1st Belorussian Front, which he commanded during the Soviet advance through Byelorussia (Belarus) and into Poland.
In a famous incident during the planning in 1944 of Operation Bagration, Rokossovsky conflicted with Stalin who demanded in accordance with Soviet war practice a single break-through of the German frontline. Rokossovsky held firm in his argument for two break-throughs. Stalin ordered Rokossovsky to "go and think it over" three times, but every time he returned and gave the same answer "Two break-throughs, Comrade Stalin, two break-throughs." After the third time Stalin remained silent, but walked over to Rokossovsky and put a hand on his shoulder. A tense moment followed as the whole room waited for Stalin to rip the epaulette from Rokossovsky's shoulder; instead, Stalin said "Your confidence speaks for your sound judgement," and ordered the attack to go forward according to Rokossovsky's plan.[citation needed] The battle was successful, and Rokossovsky's reputation was assured. After crushing German Army Group Centre in Belarus, Rokossovsky's armies reached the east bank of the Vistula opposite Warsaw by mid-1944. For these victories he gained the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union.
While Rokossovsky's forces stood stalled on the Vistula, the Warsaw Uprising (August - October, 1944) broke out in the city, led by the Polish Home Army (AK) on the orders of the Polish government in exile in London. Since the AK had the objectives of liberating the city from the Germans before the arrival of the Soviet forces and of preventing the establishment of a Communist government, Stalin ordered Rokossovsky to give the rising no assistance, orders which he obeyed. There has been much speculation about Rokossovsky's personal views on this decision.
In November 1944, Rokossovsky was transferred to the 2nd Belorussian Front, which advanced into East Prussia and then across northern Poland to the mouth of the Oder at Stettin (now Szczecin). At the end of April he linked up with British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's forces in northern Germany while the forces of Zhukov and Ivan Koniev captured Berlin.
Dates of rank
- General Leytenant (equivalent to Major General, US Army) Sep. 1941
- General Polkovnik (Lieutenant General, US Army) 15 Jan. 1943
- General Armiyi (General, US Army) 28 April 1943
- Marshal Sovietskovo Soyuza (General of the Army, US Army) 29 June 1944
Postwar
With the end of the war Rokossovsky remained in command of Soviet forces in Poland (Northern Group of Forces). In October 1949, with the establishment of a fully Communist government under Bolesław Bierut in Poland, Rokossovsky, on Stalin's orders, became the Polish Minister of National Defence, with the additional title of Marshal of Poland. Together with Rokossovsky, several thousands of Soviet officers were put in charge of almost all Polish military units, either as commanding officers or as their advisors[2].
In 1952 he became Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the People's Republic of Poland. Although Rokossovsky was nominally Polish, he had not lived in Poland for 35 years, and most Poles regarded him as a Soviet emissary in the country,[3] As Rokossovsky himself bitterly put it: "In Russia, they say I'm a Pole, in Poland they call me Russian".[3]
Rokossovsky was partly responsible for the suppression of the Polish resistance movement and stalinization and sovietization of Poland in general and the Polish Army in particular.[4] As the superior commander of the Polish Army, he didn't resist to introducing various ways of suppression of anti-Soviet activity. Among the most notorious were the labour battalions of the army, to which all able-bodied men found socially or politically insecure, or guilty of having their families abroad[citation needed] were drafted. It is estimated that roughly 200,000 men were forced to work in labour camps in hazardous conditions, often in quarries, coal and uranium mines, and 1,000 died in their first days of labour, while tens of thousands would become crippled.[5]. Other groups targeted by the repressions were former soldiers of the pre-war Polish Army and wartime Home Army.
After Gomułka managed to negotiate with the Soviets, Rokossovsky left Poland. He returned to the Soviet Union, which restored his Soviet ranks and honours; and in July 1957, following the removal from office of Defence Minister Zhukov, Nikita Khrushchev appointed him Deputy Minister of Defence and Commander of the Transcaucasian Military District. In 1958 he became chief inspector of the Ministry of Defence, a post he held until his retirement in April 1962.
He died in August 1968, aged 74, and lies buried in Red Square near the Kremlin.
Notes and references
- In-line:
- ^ K.A.Zalessky, Stalin's Empire (biographical dictionnary), Moscow, Veche, 2000.
- ^ Template:En icon Norman Davies (1982). God's Playground. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-05353-3.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters:|chapterurl=and|coauthors=(help) (also ISBN 0-231-05351-7) - ^ a b Template:Pl icon Wiesław Białkowski (1994). Rokossowski - na ile Polak? (Rokossowski - How Much of a Pole?). Warsaw: Alfa. p. 326. ISBN 83-7001-755-X.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters:|chapterurl=and|coauthors=(help) - ^ Template:Pl icon Paweł Piotrowski, Barbara Polak (2001). "Żołnierze, oficerowie, generałowie (Soldiers, Officers, Generals)". Biuletyn IPN. 6 (7/2001). ISSN 1641-9561. Retrieved 2006-04-17.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ Template:Pl icon Anna Witalis Zdrzenicka (2005). "Polski gułag. Zapomniana krzywda powraca (Polish Gulag: the Forgotten Lesion Returns)". Gazeta Ogólnopolska. 1 (1). Retrieved 2006-04-17.
{{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|month=(help)
- General:
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