Vasily Blyukher

Vasily Blyukher
Marshal of the Soviet Union Vasily Blyukher .
Birth name	Vasily Konstantinovich Gurov
Born	(1889-12-01)December 1, 1889 Barschinka, Russian Empire
Died	November 9, 1938(1938-11-09) (aged 48) Moscow, Soviet Union
Buried at	Donskoi Cemetery
Allegiance	Russian Empire (1914 — 1915)  Soviet Union (1917—1938)
Service/branch	Russian Imperial Army Red Army
Years of service	1914—15; 1917—38
Rank	Marshal of the Soviet Union
Commands held	Red Army
Battles/wars	World War I Russian Civil War Sino-Soviet conflict Battle of Lake Khasan Soviet–Japanese border conflicts
Awards	Order of Lenin (2) Order of the Red Banner (4) Order of the Red Star

Vasily Konstantinovich Blyukher (also spelled Bliukher, Blücher, etc., (Russian: Васи́лий Константи́нович Блю́хер; December 1 [O.S. November 19] 1889 – November 9, 1938) was a Soviet military commander.

Blyukher was born into a Russian peasant family called Gurov in village of Barschinka, in Yaroslavl Governorate. In the 19th-century, a landlord gave the nickname Blyukher to the Gurov family in commemoration of the famous Prussian Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher (1742-1819). A factory worker before World War I, Vasily Gurov – who later formally assumed Blyukher as his surname – joined the army of the Russian Empire in 1914 and served as a corporal until discharged in 1915 after being seriously wounded in the Great Retreat of that year. In 1916 he joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. He took part in the Russian Revolution of 1917 in Samara.

In late November 1917 he was sent into Chelyabinsk to suppress Alexander Dutov's revolt as Red Guard commissar. Blyukher joined the Red Army in 1918 and was soon a commander. During the Russian Civil War he was one of the outstanding figures on the Bolshevik side. After the Czech Legion Revolt started, in August–September 1918 the 10,000-strong South Urals Partisan Army under Blyukher's command marched 1,500 km in 40 days of continuous fighting to attack the White forces from the rear, then join with regular Red Army units. For this achievement, in September 1918 he became the first recipient of the Order of the Red Banner (later he was awarded it four more times: twice in 1921 and twice in 1928), his citation saying: "The raid made by Comrade Blyukher forces under impossible conditions can only be equated with Suvorov's crossings in Switzerland." After the force rejoined the Red Army lines in the 3rd Red Army area, Blyukher's force was reorganised as the 51st Rifle Division, which he later led to further triumphs against Baron Wrangel in November 1920.