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was captured and sent to Germany as a prisoner
of war. After several attempts, he finally suc-
ceeded in escaping to Switzerland in October
1917. Back in Russia, he joined the BOLSHEVIK
Party in April 1918 and volunteered for the Red
Army. As a Red Army officer, his career was
impressive. His first appointment was as military
commissar of the Moscow district. As army com-
mander in 1918-19, he fought successfully on
several fronts: with the First Army he captured
Simbirsk, in Siberia he routed KOLCHAK 's troops,
and in the south he captured Novorossiisk from
DENIKIN . In early 1920 he was appointed com-
mander of the Red Army in the Caucasus. Later
that year he was transferred to the western front,
where he led Soviet forces in the 1920 SOVIET -
POLISH WAR . Tukhachevsky had been one of the
leading advocates of using the Red Army to sup-
port the spread of socialist revolution, and the
Soviet-Polish War provided a concrete opportu-
nity to do so. Soviet forces came within striking
distance of Warsaw, but at the Battle of the Vis-
tula they were repelled by the Poles. Strained
lines of communication and poor coordination
with the First Cavalry, led by BUDENNY , con-
tributed to the defeat. Although he may have
gained the long-term enmity of Stalin, the defeat
in Warsaw did not hinder Tukhachevsky's career.
In 1921 he commanded the Soviet forces that
suppressed the sailors' uprising at the Kronstadt
naval base and the ANTONOV UPRISING in Tambov
province, two final chapters of the Russian civil
war. Then, in succession he became director of
the Military Academy (1921), commander of the
Western Front (1922), deputy chief of staff
(1924), and chief of staff of the Red Army and
member of the Revolutionary Military Council
(RMC; 1925). In 1931, he became deputy com-
missar for military and naval affairs and deputy
chairman of the RMC. Further proof of his pre-
eminent status in the Soviet military world came
in 1935, when he became one of the first mar-
shals of the Red Army. Two years later, however,
as part of a wide-ranging purge of the military
that eventually took the lives of 35,000 officers,
Tukhachevsky was charged with conspiracy,
secretly tried, and executed. Tukhachevsky was
officially rehabilitated in 1958.
Tupolev, Andrei Nikolaevich
(1888-1972)
aircraft designer
A brilliant aeronautical engineer of international
standing, Tupolev was born in the Tver region,
northwest of Moscow. He studied under Nikolai
Zhukovsky at the Moscow Higher Technical
School and went on to play a key role in the
development of Russian and Soviet aviation. In
1916 he established the Aerodynamic Aircraft
Design Bureau, renamed the Central Aerody-
namics and Hydrodynamics Institute after the
October Revolution. During the 1930s he helped
develop heavy bombers such as the Ant-25, but
he was arrested in 1937 on the fabricated charge
of selling designs to Nazi Germany. Like other
prominent arrested scientists, he was placed in a
special labor camp ( sharaga ), where he contin-
ued to design airplanes. The success of the Tu-2
bomber facilitated his release and rehabilitation
in 1943. After 1945 he contributed to the devel-
opment of over 100 other dual-purpose civilian
and military aircraft, including the passenger air-
craft Tu-104 and the Tu-144. The latter was the
Soviet version of the Franco-British Concorde
supersonic airplane, which was a commercial
failure. (According to Soviet practice the letters
in an aircraft's name indicate the main designer
and the number indicates the number of planes
the designer has produced up to that point.)
Tupolev attained the rank of lieutenant general
and was elected to the USSR ACADEMY OF SCI -
ENCES in 1953, but he never joined the COMMU -
NIST PARTY . His son Andrei continued in his
footsteps, designing civil and military aircraft.
Turgenev, Ivan Sergeevich
(1818-1883)
writer
Although one of the most prominent authors of
the Golden Age of Russian literature in the 19th
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