General Krnynukov biography

In the capital of Soviet Ukraine, Kyiv, over the blue and free Dnieper, a majestic monument to the Army General P., dressed in a hiking overcoat, will rise, as if observing the Dnieper Kruch during the course of the battle. I forever remembered him as he was in life: a simple, modest, hardworking and selfless person who took care of himself and did not spare himself. People say that the eyes are a mirror of the human soul.

This stocky, shoulder general had a simple, truly Russian face and living, clear eyes. They always looked good and affably at friends, with sympathetic attention and sympathy - at those who came for help, strictly and demanding, and sometimes severely at the people of negligent, with great hatred and mercilessness - to the enemies of our homeland. Nikolai Fedorovich was serious, thoughtful and silent, in a war-acting and stingy for words.

He preferred real affairs to them. I did not know him close long, only six to seven months. But then there was a difficult and tense time, saturated with large combat events. But nothing brings people closer like the difficulties and combat trials. In fact, I knew Nikolai Fedorovich even before the Great Patriotic War. I met and listened to his speeches at the meetings of the leading staff in the year, when he was the chief of staff of the Kyiv Special Military District.

He met repeatedly in the Patriotic War, in the spring of the year, before the Battle of Kursk, when General N. Vatutin commanded the troops of the Voronezh Front. But those meetings were short -term. When in October of the year I was appointed a member of the Military Council of the First Ukrainian Front, the former Voronezhsky, I could say, [39] every day to see how he lives, works, dares, creates this wonderful Soviet military commander.

Together with the front commander, we have repeatedly traveled to the troops and on the road spent time in conversations. Although he was not very talkative, he sometimes indulged in memories, laconically and restrainedly talked about his life. Nikolai Fedorovich Vatutin was born on December 16 in the village of Chepukhino of the former Voronezh province in the family of a peasant.

This large family for a long time was an integral part of the even larger family of Grigory, which totaled a total of about thirty souls. Nikolai Fedorovich always spoke about his grandfather, who served eighteen soldiers' years, as well as about his father, with great respect and mental warmth. After the successful graduation of the elementary rural school, Nikolai Vatutin was destined for the fate of many of his peers - to go into podpaska, to harness for agricultural work.

However, the rural teacher began to persuade his grandfather Gregory and the parents of the future commander to persuade the further education of a capable student. The main obstacle was, of course, not parents, but a family need. The energetic teacher with incredible labor achieved a small scholarship from the zemstvo and attached Nikolai Vatutin to a commercial school in the city of Urazovo.

Four academic years flew quickly, after which the scholarships were discontinued. Nikolai was forced to interrupt the studies and return to his native village. The Great October, who marked the indigenous turn in the life of the peoples of Russia, transformed the life of the Vatutins. Like millions of workers, they received land, freedom, became the masters of their fate.

However, the beginning of the civil war brought severe trials with it. The German divisions of Kaiser were approaching the native land, it was tormented by Ukrainian Gaidamaki, Denikins and other evil spirits. Nicholas Vatutin was not yet nineteen when he joined the Red Army. In September, he took baptism, participating in battles with the Makhnovtsy and showing himself a brave, resourceful fighter, either Nikolai Fedorovich himself, nor his relatives, did not indulge his life.

I, a native of the Lower Volga region, are well aware of what a huge disaster brought the people the cruel drought of the year. People ate meakin, quinoa, acorns, grinded the bark from the trees and removed the lovely straw from the roofs. Many were dying of hunger, exhaustion, typhoid, cholera and other epidemic diseases. The drought, which was particularly rampant then in the Volga region, did not bypass the Voronezh province, the village of Chepukhino and the Vatutin family.

I learned about this disaster from Nikolai Fedorovich himself under the following circumstances. Once we went to the first -line troops, deciding to check the organization of the fighters. And near one of the camping kitchens, General Vatutin drew attention to scattered bread crusts and scraps. He immediately frowned, wosed, and, turning to the commander who accompanied us, ordered to assemble the personnel.

Then, when his order was fulfilled, commander of the front, the army general, who himself, in childhood, who knew the hard peasant labor and need, reminded the fighters of the enormous efforts that he had to make to grow the golden ear. And then you need to collect the crop, grind and grind the grain, bake our daily bread obtained in the sweat.And some young soldiers have not yet learned to appreciate and protect bread - our folk gold.

He reminded those present that in the collective farms, raised by the Nazis, women and children who replaced the men who had gone to the front, plowed on cows, and sometimes they harnessed themselves to the plows to get precious bread and feed them primarily warriors at the front. He recalled that the issuance of products was strictly normalized in the rear of the country, and said that the Leningraders received only a quarter of bread during the blockade days, and then he remembered how, in the distant year, he, along with his cadets, expelled his cadets to the Foundation for helping the starving.

And they all dreamed of at least a tiny bread of the commander’s words made an extraordinary impression on the fighters. It seems that everyone remembered them for life. And for the presented commanders, political workers, our agitators and propagandists, this was a visual example of the education of soldiers in the spirit of a careful, rags attitude to the national heritage. From the memoirs I heard from Nikolai Fedorovich, from the documents stored in his personal file, in my view there was a biography of the front commander, so characteristic of many of our military leaders who came out of the masses, brought up by the party and put forward to high posts.

In the fall of the year, the command sent Nikolai Fedorovich Vatutin to the Poltava infantry school. Cadets studied intensely and were constantly on the alert. More than once they were raised by alarm at night, and they went to suppress the armed gangs that declared nearby. It was a time about which the proletarian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky figuratively said: "Get up with a bullet, go to bed with a rifle." In this situation, future red commanders studied, always having a rifle, cartridges and grenades.

The young communist energetically engaged in public work, studied the Marxist-Leninist theory, trying to actually be an active party fighter. The Poltava infantry school, when N. Vatutin studied there, visited M. Frunze, who carefully monitored the system of training and upbringing of future red commanders. He visited the classes, in the shooting range and in the fields of tactical exercises, spoke to the personnel of the school with reports, repeatedly talked with cadets about life, studies and future command activities.

Mikhail Vasilievich convincingly and intelligibly explained to us how, after the victorious end of the civil war, the state of workers and peasants would be built, emphasizing that a strong and powerful Red Army is necessary to protect the young [42] of the Soviet Republic and peaceful socialist construction. Cadets warmly loved the fearless revolutionary-Lenin, a prominent figure of a party, a glorified military leader.

Nikolai Fedorovich proudly recalled that M. Frunze on October 1, on the historical field of the Battle of Poltava, handed him and other pets of the first output of the Red Commander. In the order read by M. Frunze, the Red Commander N. Vatutin was appointed commander of a platoon of the sixty -seventh rifle regiment of the twenty -third rifle division. By parting the graduates of the school, Mikhail Vasilievich urged each of them to be a really red commander, to be interested in political issues, since the matter of raising the Red Army and its training is difficult to divide into sharply delimited areas - political and military.

The proletarian commander demanded to protect the revolution and be on guard. He taught young red commanders to be not only masters of driving for troops, but also by masters of education of people, the formation of their moral and combat qualities and the high spirit of troops. The parting words of M. Frunze were not in vain. They gave good fruits. The front commander, Army General N.

Vatutin, as I was convinced, perfectly combined these most important qualities.

The closer I recognized Nikolai Fedorovich, the more and more the spiritual world of this modest, working man who did not turn his head was revealed before me, did not shake his spiritual simplicity. It was a deeply party, morally integral and demanding military leader. He found time at the front, sometimes stinging him from sleep, to improve military and political knowledge and demanded the same from the commanders and commanders of all the degrees.

Once, Army General N. Vatutin and I gathered on a long trip around the troops. Nikolai Fedorovich put a workbook, the necessary documents in the portfolio, and then opened a suitcase with a camp library where the books of Marx, Engels, Lenin were stored. In this suitcase, he also found a volume with the works of M., owning the Marxist-Leninist method, he clearly, with exhaustive completeness, determined the essence of the Soviet military doctrine.

And how highly he assessed the role of a political studio and how figuratively, convexly and vividly characterized the activities of the political agencies in the civil war! And Nikolai Fedorovich from memory almost literally cited the famous statement of M.Frunze about the political bodies of the army, which introduced elements of order and discipline into the ranks of young red regiments born under the thunder of the cannon shots and, during the hours of failures and defeats, supported the courage and vigor of the fighters, pouring new energy into their ranks.

Polorgans established the rear of the army, planted Soviet power there and created the Soviet order, ensuring this the rapid and successful advance of our armies forward. Now political agencies can and should work even better, because a mighty party force capable of doing miracles is concentrated in the troops. The closer I recognized Vatutin, the more I was convinced that it was on party force that could work miracles that he always relied in his commander -in -law, he himself - a pupil of the party and Soviet power, a new -type military leader.

Nearly a quarter of a century, Vatutin went through all the steps of military service from an ordinary fighter to the front commander. He consistently commanded a platoon, company, raised junior commanders in the educational unit, was an assistant to the chief of the division headquarters department, then worked at the headquarters of the North Caucasus Military District and, as an experienced and capable officer, was appointed chief of staff of the Mountain Rifle Division.

Nikolai Fedorovich tirelessly improved his knowledge, acquired skills, but at the same time they helped him consistently and carefully. He graduated from the Kyiv Higher United Military School, then improvement courses, [44] he was given the opportunity to study at M. Frunze Military Academy and, finally, at the Academy of the General Staff. Enriched with academic knowledge and many years of experience in drill and staff work in the troops, N.

Vatutin took office as deputy, and at the end of the year the chief of staff of the Kyiv special military district.