World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseKliment Yefremovich Voroshilov was born in the settlement of Verkhnye in the Bakhmut district of Yekaterinoslav Governorate of the Russian Empire (now part of Lysychansk, Ukraine) to an ethnically Russian railway worker father. He joined the Bolshevik of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party in 1905. In 1906, he married Ekaterina Davidovna, who was born Golda Gorbman, a Jewish Ukrainian who converted to Orthodox Christianity and adopted a new name. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Vproshilov became a member of the Ukrainian Council of People's Commissars and Commissar for Internal Affairs, and began to work alongside of Joseph Stalin. During the Russian Civil War, he was an officer of the Southern Front, and again served as a military officer during the Polish-Soviet War between 1919 and 1921. In 1921, he was elected to the Central Committee and would remain a committee member until 1961. In 1925, he was made the People's Commissar for Military and Navy Affairs and Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Soviet Union. In the following year, he was made a full member of the powerful Soviet governing council Politburo; he would remain there until 1960. In 1934, he was appointed People's Commissar for Defense and was given the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union in the following year. In 1935, the city of Stavropol in the Caucasus region of southern Russian was renamed Voroshilovsk in his honor. During the great purges conducted by Joseph Stalin to rid any potential political enemies, Voroshilov was a willing accomplice, signing 185 execution lists.

ww2dbaseIn WW2, Voroshilov oversaw the invasion of Finland in the winter of 1939 to 1940, which ended in victory but at an extremely high cost; he became a scapegoat for the failures and saw his military positions replaced by Semyon Timoshenko, although he would remain influential in Soviet politics. He returned to military leadership when Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, overseeing several fronts as they fell back toward Russia. For the failure to prevent the siege of Leningrad in northern Russia, he was replaced by Georgy Zhukov on 8 Sep 1941. Although having been relieved of all military leadership roles, he remained a powerful political figure in Stalin's inner circle.

ww2dbaseImmediately after WW2, Voroshilov provided direction in the establishment of a Communist government in Hungary. In 1952, he was made a member of the Presidium of the Central Committee. In Mar 1953, he became the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, which was the ceremonial Head of State of the Soviet Union, shortly after Stalin's death. In this position, he purged the Soviet Union of Stalin's supporters such as Lavrentiy Beria and Vyacheslav Molotov. Feeling his support waning among the new Soviet leaders, he retired from the Supreme Soviet on 7 May 1960 and the Party Presidium (formerly the Politburo) on 16 Jul 1960. He failed to be elected to the Central Committee during the 22nd Party Congress in Oct 1961. He would remain outside of Soviet politics between 1961 and 1966. In 1966, with the support of General Secretary of the Central Committee Leonid Brezhnev, Voroshilov was once again elected into the Central Committee. He passed away in Moscow in 1969 and was buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis.

Kliment Voroshilov Interactive Map

Photographs

Kliment Voroshilov Timeline

Visitor Submitted Comments

Show older comments

1.  Alan Chanter says:
5 Oct 2014 07:49:04 AM

A former metalworker, Kliment Voroshilov joined the Communist party in 1903 and became part of Stalin's circle after fighting in the Civil War to save the city of Tsaritsyn (later renamed Stalingrad) under Stalin's political direction. In 1925 he was appointed Commissar for Defence, a post he held until his evident lack of military or administrative competence brought about his demise in 1940. He was universally regarded as irredeemably stupid. Stalin ridiculed him without mercy, exploiting him as a court jester. Voroshilov drank heavily. His mediocre personality and unsophisticated intellect, nevertheless, did not prevent him becoming a heroic military figure in the public eye. He was too little a threat for Stalin ever to get rid of, and after the dictator's death he became President of the Soviet Union.