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Lev Zakharovich Mekhlis (January 13, 1889 – February 13, 1953) was a Soviet politician. ==Career== Born at Odessa, Mekhlis finished six classes of Jewish commercial school. In 1904–1911 he worked as a schoolteacher. In 1907–1910 he was a member of the Zionist workers movement Poale Zion. From 1911 he was in the Russian army. He served in the second grenadier artillery brigade. In 1912 he obtained the rank of bombardier. He served in the artillery in the 1914–17 war. In 1918 he joined the Communist Party and until 1920 he did political work in the Red Army (commissioner of brigade, then 46th division, group of forces). In 1921–1922, he was the manager of administrative inspection in the People's commissariat of worker-peasant inspection (Peoples Commissar (Narkom) Joseph Stalin). In 1922–1926, he was the assistant to the secretary and the manager of the bureau of the secretariat of the Central Committee, in effect Stalin's personal secretary. In 1926–1930 he took courses at the Communist Academy and in the Institute of Red Professors. From 1930 he was the head of the press corps Central Committee, and simultaneously a member of the editorial board, and then the editor in chief of the newspaper ''Pravda''. In 1937–1940, he was the deputy of the Peoples Commissar of Defense and the chief of the main political administration of the Red Army. From 1939 he was the member of Central Committee the CPSU (he had been a candidate since 1934), in 1938–1952 he was a member of the Orgburo of the Central Committee, in 1940–1941 Peoples Commissar of State Control (Goskontrolya). In June 1941 he was newly assigned by the chief of main political administration and the deputy of the Peoples Commissar of Defense. Mekhlis was named army commissar of the 1st rank, which corresponded to the title of General of the Army. In 1942 he was the representative of the Stavka (headquarters) of supreme commander-in-chief at the Crimean Front, where he constantly disputed with General Dmitry Timofeyevich Kozlov. The leaders of the staff of the Front did not know whose orders to carry out – the commander's or Mekhlis’s. The commander of the North-Caucasian Front, Marshal Semyon Budyonny, also could not control Mekhlis, who had no desire to be subordinated, only recognising orders which came directly from the Stavka. Mekhlis, during a stay at the post of the representative of Stavka, was occupied by the fact that he wrote sufficiently critical reports to senior officers. After one such report Major General Tolbukhin was taken off the post of chief of staff of the front, which had carelessness in contrast the instruction of Stalin to express opinion about the need for the front considering the need for being defended. So he attempted through the Stavka to replace the front commander, Kozlov, with Konstantin Rokossovsky or Klykov. At the same time in reports to Stalin he attempted to distance himself from the failures which the Crimean Front suffered, and to lay the entire responsibility on the front commander. In regard to this, Stalin sent a telegram to Mekhlis, in which he subjected to his rigid criticism for similar behavior:
After the crushing defeat in May 1942 on the Crimean Front (of 250,000 soldiers and officers on the Crimean Front in 12 days of fighting 162,282 people, 65%, were lost forever) he was taken from the post of the deputy people's commissar of defense and the chief of the main political administration of the Red Army. He was reduced in rank by two levels, to that of corps commissar. In 1942–1946, he was a member of the military council of a number of armies and fronts, from December 6, 1942, he was a lieutenant general, from July 29, 1944 he was a colonel general. In 1946–1950, he was the minister of government control of the USSR. On October 27, 1950 he was discharged due to his health. He died in February 1953. His ashes were interred at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis in Red Square. Lev Mekhlis was awarded four Orders of Lenin, five other orders and numerous medals. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Lev Mekhlis」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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