Why Marshal Tukhachevsky's mother was not rehabilitated for half a century

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Joseph Stalin, during his reign and the most severe repressions, declared the idea that children cannot be responsible for their parents. In fact, everything was exactly the opposite: families were sent to exile and camps in their entirety, while mercilessly separating their relatives. The entire family of the disgraced Marshal Tukhachevsky went through the crucible of the Stalinist camps, but all were rehabilitated back in the 1950s-1960s. And the question of the rehabilitation of Mavra Petrovna began to be resolved only in the late 1980s.

Peasant noblewoman

History has not even preserved the correct spelling of the surname of Mavra Petrovna. In some sources, she is listed as Milokhova, in others - Milekhova. In the documents for rehabilitation, the year of birth of Mavra Petrovna is listed in 1870, and the place of her birth is the village of Slednevo, Dorogobuzhsky district, Smolensk region. She was born in 1869.

The family was so poor that one of the five daughters of Pyotr Prokhorovich Milokhov was given into the service of the Tukhachevskys' house. All the sisters were beautiful, but Mavra was considered the most stately and graceful. In addition, despite the lack of even primary education at that time, she was smart and knew how to maintain a conversation. Yes, and behaved with the dignity inherent in noble ladies.

It was with her that Nikolai Nikolaevich, the son of Sofia Valentinovna, the widow of the Tula governor Nikolai Ivanovich Tukhachevsky, fell in love. Mavra Petrovna and Nikolai Nikolaevich were able to get married after the birth of four children, among whom was the future Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who in 1901, together with his brothers and sisters, was ranked as a noble family. In total, Mikhail Nikolaevich had 2 brothers and 5 sisters, and all of them, except for Natalia, who changed her last name, subsequently suffered from repression as relatives of an enemy of the people. Mavra Petrovna shared the fate of her children.

Mother's fate

Mikhail Tukhachevsky was arrested in May 1937 and shot on the night of June 11-12. But already on June 9, a decree was issued on the exile to Astrakhan of Mavra Petrovna, who at that time had already turned 68 years old.

There the mother of the executed marshal lived for four years, and in the fall of 1941 it was decided to change the place of exile. She was sent to Kazakhstan to her daughter Sophia due to the fact that the woman needed constant care. However, the mother of Marshal Tukhachevsky did not reach the destination. At some stage, she seemed to disappear, and no one knew about her fate.

Already in 1989, Tukhachevsky's sister Olga Nikolaevna turned to the prosecutor's office with a request for posthumous rehabilitation of her mother. However, it was impossible to do this due to the lack of any information about the circumstances of the death of Mavra Petrovna.

For almost a year, the prosecutor's office of the Aktobe region was looking for traces of the woman. Requests were sent to all official bodies that could shed light on the fate of a woman. But time after time, similar answers came: unknown, was not, does not appear … The papers constantly confused the name of the wanted woman, they called her Mavra or Martha, the year and place of birth were not always indicated correctly.

And then Khana Pelova was found, who was next to Mavra Petrovna in those terrible days. From Astrakhan, all the exiles were taken on a barge, without food or water, in the most severe cramped conditions. Some crumbs could be obtained during short stops. For two weeks they walked down the Volga to Krasnovodsk in Turkmenistan.

Already in Krasnovodsk, they were loaded into teplushki: now their path lay in the Aktobe region of Kazakhstan. They ended up in the regional center of Chelkar in December, but that was not the end of the journey. There were severe frosts, a blizzard was falling, and the exiles were driven on camels for nine hours across the snowy, inhospitable Kazakh steppe.

72-year-old Mavra Tukhachevskaya tried to hold on, but her aching heart increasingly made itself felt. Upon arrival at the place in the Chelkar district (Chelkary station, Daldykum collective farm) of the Aktobe region, Mavra Petrovna, along with Sofia Radek, Hana Pelova and several other exiles, were settled in Saten Ordabaev's dugout. The elderly woman hardly got up then.

Khana Pelova's brother made a bed for her from some kind of twigs, the women gave Mavra Petrovna hot tea, but they could not provide her with any medical help. Just a few days later, the mother of Marshal Tukhachevsky died. They buried her next to the dugout.

Official documents indicate that she died on December 23, 1941, but witnesses indicate different times, and therefore it is not possible to establish the true date of Mavra Petrovna Tukhachevskaya's death.

Found grave

The court ruled to establish the fact of the death of the woman in October 1990. And then a huge country collapsed and many documents in Kazakhstan were simply thrown into the trash. Among them was the supervisory case of Mavra Petrovna Tukhachevskaya, with various documents, newspaper clippings and interviews with witnesses.

It was found by enthusiasts: students of the Pedagogical Institute of Aktyubinsk. Gennady Makarevich, together with his comrades, studied archival files, communicated with the inhabitants of the village. Young people were able to restore the last days of Mavra Petrovna's life bit by bit, and then erected a modest monument on the found grave. It was in the footsteps of the students that the prosecutor's office then followed, recording all the testimonies.

Until the moment when the court ruled to establish the fact of death, Mavra Petrovna was not listed as dead or missing. It just wasn't there.

Marshal Tukhachevsky is considered one of the most controversial Soviet military leaders. Moreover, the fluctuations in the opinions of historians are very wide. The repressed marshal is called both a stupid retrograde and a brilliant seer, while the argumentation in each case is convincing. Tukhachevsky remained the youngest marshal of the USSR in history, having received such a high rank at only 42 years old.