Lev Mekhlis
| Lev Mekhlis Лев Ме́хлис |
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| Minister of State Control | |
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In office 19 March 1946 – 27 October 1950 |
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| Preceded by | Vasily Popov |
| Succeeded by | Vsevolod Merkulov |
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In office 6 September 1940 – 21 June 1941 |
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| Preceded by | Rosalia Zemlyachka |
| Succeeded by | Vasily Popov |
| Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars | |
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In office 6 September 1940 – 15 May 1944 |
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| Premier | Joseph Stalin |
| Full member of the 17th, 18th Orgburo | |
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In office 14 January 1938 – 16 October 1952 |
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| Personal details | |
| Born |
Lev Zakharovich Mekhlis 13 January 1889 Odessa Russian Empire |
| Died | 13 February 1953 (aged 64) Moscow |
| Resting place | Kremlin Wall Necropolis |
| Citizenship | Soviet Union |
| Nationality | USSR/Ukrainian |
| Political party | The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1918–53) Poale Zion (1907–11) |
| Alma mater | Institute of Red Professors |
| Awards | Order of Military Valour grade 4 |
| Signature |  |
| Military service | |
| Years of service | 1911–20, 1941–45 |
Lev Zakharovich Mekhlis (January 13, 1889 – February 13, 1953) was a Soviet politician.
Born in Odessa, Mekhlis finished six classes of Jewish commercial school. He worked as a schoolteacher in 1904-1911. In 1907–1910 he was a member of the Zionist workers movement Poale Zion.
In 1911, he joined the Russian Army, where he served in the second grenadier artillery brigade. In 1912, he obtained the rank of bombardier. He served in the artillery in the First World 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.
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