Semyon Budyonny - Later Military Career

Later Military Career

From 1921-1923, Budyonny was deputy commander of the North Caucasian Military District. He spent a great amount of time and effort in the organization and management of equestrian facilities and developing new breeds of horses. In 1923, Budyonny arrived in Chechnya with a proclamation from the Central Executive Committee announcing the formation of the Chechen Autonomous Region. The same year, he was also appointed assistant commander of the Red Army's cavalry. In 1924, he became Inspector of Cavalry in the Red Army. Budyonny graduated from the Frunze Military Academy in 1932.

In 1935 Budyonny was made one of the first five Marshals of the Soviet Union. Three of these five were executed in the Great Purge of the late 1930s, leaving only Budyonny and Voroshilov.

Budyonny was considered a courageous and colorful cavalry officer, but displayed disdain for innovation and a profound ignorance of modern warfare, particularly the impact of tanks, which he saw as "incapable of ever replacing cavalry". During Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky's Great Purge trial he stated that Tukhachevsky's efforts to create an independent tank corps (which the Germans had already done and the USSR would hastily adopt in 1942) was so inferior to horse cavalry and so illogical that it amounted to deliberate "wrecking". To this denouncement, the doomed Tukhachevsky (now considered a pioneering innovator in tank warfare) blankly replied "I feel I'm dreaming". Tukhachevsky was subsequently sentenced to death. In 1937 Budyonny commanded the Moscow Military District.

In July–September 1941, Budyonny was Commander-in-Chief (главком, glavkom) of the Soviet armed forces of the Southwestern Direction (Southwestern and Southern Fronts) facing the German invasion of Ukraine. This invasion began as part of Germany's Operation Barbarossa which was launched on June 22. Operating under strict orders from Stalin (who attempted to micromanage the war in the early stages) to not retreat under any circumstances, Budyonny's forces were eventually surrounded during the Battle of Uman and the Battle of Kiev. The disasters which followed the encirclement cost the Soviet Union 1.5 million men killed or taken prisoner. This was one of the largest encirclements in military history.

In September, Stalin made Budyonny a scapegoat, dismissing him as Commander-in-Chief, Southwestern Direction, and replacing him with the far abler Semyon Timoshenko. Budyonny was then placed in charge of the Reserve Front (September–October 1941), Commander-in-Chief of the troops in the North Caucasus Direction (April–May, 1942), Commander of the North Caucasus Front (May–August, 1942) and Cavalry Inspector of the Red Army (since 1943), as well as various honorific posts. Despite being blamed by Stalin for some of the Soviet Union's most catastrophic World War II defeats (although acting on Stalin's specific orders), he continued to enjoy Stalin's patronage and suffered no real punishment. After the war he was allowed to retire as a Hero of the Soviet Union and he died of a brain hemorrhage in 1973.