Even though he was dragged by the guards, Tukhachevsky still wanted to make a defense: "I am Marshal Tukhachevsky! I am the marshal of the Red Army! You can't detain me casually! I want to go to Moscow! I want to find Stalin! I have made a lot of sacrifices and contributions for the Soviet Union and the Red Army, and now you have shamefully arrested me, and one day I will be punished!"

The lieutenant colonel who led the way in front had a smug look on his face, smiled coldly, and said contemptuously: "It's just a traitor, we have never lacked people like you here, hmph, and I will be punished?

"I want pen and paper! I want to write a letter to Comrade Stalin! I want to send a message to my friends in Moscow! You cannot deprive a marshal of the right to write letters. Tukhachevsky knew that if he wanted to survive, he had to contact his old comrades-in-arms and old friends, or at least let the Moscow elders know what had happened.

"Do you still want to write letters? Now your friends are writing letters to Comrade Stalin! I can tell you the contents of the letters! They are all busy distancing themselves with you, a traitor!" the lieutenant colonel kicked Tukhachevsky into the cell, and the guards closed the door. The lieutenant colonel said unashamedly through the cell door: "Wait for you to die!"

As the men left, the footsteps faded away, and Tukhachevsky quieted down and began to look at his cell. The walls were full of mottled marks, and a marshal who had never lived here touched his body, and there was a pack of cigarettes, but unfortunately there were no matches.

Tukhachevsky sneered and found a place to sit down. My mind is full of things that have happened over the years. This is my motherland? This is the cause for which I have fought all my life? Framing the loyal and good, and eradicating dissidents! Ignoring justice and truth in their eyes, they have gone so far as to frame their comrades-in-arms for their own interests!

With a letter of informance, a piece of intelligence brought back from Germany, it is child's play and despicable to throw an old proletarian revolutionary with great military achievements and profound qualifications into prison, and even omit the process of identification and interrogation!

At a time when mass arrests are being carried out in the country and within the military. He could feel that Stalin was watching him with a gloomy gaze, and Tuchevsky could not help but be tormented by a premonition of danger in such a situation. When he learned of the arrest of Commander B.M. Feldman, with whom he had worked with him as early as Leningrad and had been appointed Chief of Staff of the Military District, he defended his comrades-in-arms, saying: "This is a large-scale campaign to sow discord. ”

It's a pity that now that he himself has been arrested, I don't know if anyone will defend himself like this.

However, what he called the sowing of discord continues. Just two days after he was arrested, the court went to trial. On the same day, the judges impatiently tried the "criminal Tukhachevsky criminal group": Tukhachevsky and seven other important military personnel - Commanders of the 1st Army Group - Yeronim Petrovich Uborevich and Jonah Emanuilovich Yaquir, Commander of the 2nd Army August Ivanovich Kolk, Commander of the 2nd Army Vitaly Markovich Primakov, Vitoft Kazimirovich Putna, Robert Drovich Edelman and Boris? Mironovic Feldman was executed.

During the interrogation, Tukhachevsky was not allowed to appear in court to defend himself, and one of his former comrades-in-arms appeared before him to accuse him of using the wrong methods to weaken the Red Army's combat effectiveness, declaring that he had "quickly built up a tank corps at the cost of reducing the number and expenditure of cavalry." ”

The court used this as incriminating evidence to support Tukhachevsky's attempt to collude with Germany to overthrow Stalin. This reminds one of the beautiful verses of Sergei Yesenin:

Have you ever seen,

The train with its iron palms,

How to gallop on the prairie,

Running in the hazy mist by the lake,

Whistling with a rustic nose?

And behind it,

In the deep grass,

Like a desperate race of festivals,

A red-maned pony is galloping,

Slender legs flung in front of the head.

What a lovely and ridiculous fool,

Where is it going, where is it going?

Don't it know, live horses?

Defeated by the steel horse?

The poem was written in 1920...... I have to say that this is a strange thing, for a sensitive lyric poet who is nostalgic for the departed Ross, for a famous peasant poet, for a poet who was born to look at "our little people", the outcome of the argument about the living horse and the iron horse was completely clear as early as 1920. However, some military strategists and politicians still hovered between cavalry and tanks.

In fact, the attempt of the German intelligence services to take out the thorny commander of the Soviet Red Army, Field Marshal Tukhachevsky, was finally realized. With the help of the knife arranged by Germany, Stalin eliminated the military forces of Tukhachevsky, who had been threatening him, and seized the command of the Red Army in one fell swoop.

However, the plan to use the Tukhachevsky case to crack down on Soviet industrial talent and weaken the Soviet government's talent reserve was lightly seen through, because there were too many fake texts to expand the Soviet purge movement, which lost a certain authenticity, so that Stalin did not expand the purge campaign to the technical department, although several designers were arrested because of Tukhachevsky's involvement, but it did not hurt the foundation of Soviet industrial talent.

In fact, it is not difficult to see that in 1926 Germany and the Soviet High Command signed a secret agreement, according to which the Junkels company would provide technical assistance to the Soviet Union in building up the air force. At that time, Tukhachevsky was the chief of staff of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, and he naturally had to have business contacts with the German officers.

The text of the 1926 agreement bears Tukhachevsky's signature. This makes it possible to create fake letters that imitate his signature. Judging by the letter, it seems that Tukhachevsky and his "accomplices" have reached an agreement in order to get rid of civilian jurisdiction and seize state power. On the fake letter there were various real seals of the German intelligence agency "Gestapo", such as "top secret" and "secret". However, the content of these articles does not have any substantive action planning.

Therefore, it is obviously impossible to rely on such an unwarranted document to deceive the Soviet Union. However, it is very sufficient to help a well-intentioned person like Stalin to complete the suppression and treatment of other forces.

On the very night Tukhachevsky was waiting to be shot, an unexpected thing happened, a prison guard knocked on his cell door.

"Hello, Marshal Tukhachevsky!" the prison guard had a faint smile on his face, and he looked harmless: "I am an operative sent by the German Gestapo, if you are willing to cooperate, leave here with us! We will send you back to Berlin, Germany, where you will be very safe." ”

Tukhachevsky raised his eyebrows, looked at the prison guard, and smiled self-deprecatingly: "Thank you! It seems that what the Führer said does not want to face me head-on is true." He's willing to help that little man Stalin beat me in this way!"

"The Führer also does not want to meet with you, Marshal. As a last resort, Stalin's prejudice against you as a marshal was exploited. However, the Führer admires your talent very much, marshal, and will certainly treat you better than Stalin. As he spoke, the guard found the key to the prison door and tried to insert it into the keyhole.

"You are so pervasive! I didn't expect there to be so many of you spies in our great Soviet land!" Tukhachevsky said with a wry smile.

"Not as much as you think!" the guard explained with a smile as he inserted the key into the keyhole, "I'm from the Operations Group, and I'm in charge of this kind of thing. Knocked out a prison guard and changed into his costume before blending in, it's not easy to come here, it is estimated that it will be discovered as soon as it is discovered, and the few people who picked us up outside will have to lose some. You think we all have spies in a prison, and that's too much to look up to us. Hehe. ”

"Don't bother! I won't go to Germany! I am a * person, I will never surrender to the bourgeoisie, and it is better to die a heroic death than to live a life!" Tukhachevsky shook his head and stopped the prison guards: "Say a word for me and your Führer, just say that I regret not being able to fight him on the battlefield." ”

"You, don't think about it anymore?" the prison guard asked again, very regretfully.

"I'm tired...... Let's go. With that, Tukhachevsky lay back on the single bed in his cell.

The German attempt to bring Tukhachevsky back to Berlin failed because the marshal himself did not cooperate - a stark irony of the conviction on which he was tried. Early the next morning, Yezhov's men were impatient to shoot the Marshal of the Red Army.

Only three days later, Tukhachevsky's wife and children were sentenced to death on charges of espionage and treason, and a prominent marshal family disappeared into the long scrolls of history.

After the murder of Khachevsky, his wife and children, Yezhov and his men began to arrest his relatives, friends and colleagues. When a staff member of the NKVD saw the portrait of the marshal on the wall of the residence of one of the arrested people, he asked in amazement: "Why haven't you taken it off yet?"

"......No," replied the arrestee, "you know, one day, people will erect a monument to him." ”

The daring marshal friend did not live to see the day Tukhachevsky was rehabilitated, because he and his family were stuffed the next day on a train bound for a Siberian concentration camp, and by the time the train reached its icy destination in Siberia, his family of 13 was left with only two scrawny children.