All language subtitles for Forgotten Leaders. Episode 2. Kliment Voroshilov. Documentary. English Subtitles. StarMediaEN

Sponsored by the Ministry of
Culture of the Russian Federation

Channel 1

Star Media

Babich Design

Ukrainian Soviet Republic,
Kharkov Governorate.

Dubovyazovka, 15km east of Konotop

1918, the height of the Civil War.

Foreign states have started their
intervention into Soviet Russia.

On the night of March 28, German
forces attacked Dubovyazovka.

Red Army soldiers could
barely contain their offensive.

And when the train car with ammo
caught fire from an enemy hit,

the troops simply ran. The squad
commander tried to stop them,

but it was no use.

Suddenly, a commissary came
out to meet the deserters

with a carbine and shouted: Turn
back! I’ll shoot anyone who runs!

The soldiers stopped, then began
to return to their positions.

The commissary was Kliment Voroshilov,
and it was his first battle.

Songs about the First Red
Officer and First Marshal,

as they called Voroshilov,
sounded all over the country.

He never sought serious political
influence, and that granted him

one of the longest and most
successful careers in Soviet history.

Some thought of him as an
obedient enforcer of Stalin’s will,

others admired his fearlessness
in battle and his talent to lead.

He is an iconic figure of the
Soviet era, and his name has become

synonymous with heroism, but it
seems that with time, people have

simply forgotten
Voroshilov ever existed.

FORGOTTEN LEADERS

Kliment Voroshilov

In Soviet times, hi name
was synonymous with heroism.

Songs and books were written
about the First Red Officer

and First Marshal. Cities, collective
farms and factories were named

after him. He never sought
serious political influence,

and that granted him one of
the longest and most successful

careers in Soviet history.
Some thought of him as a dropout

and Stalin’s puppet, while
others admired his fearlessness

in battle and his talent to
lead. What was he like, this man

who became one of the
symbols of the Soviet era?

Klim Voroshilov was born in
the Yekaterinoslav Governorate

of the Russian Empire, now
Luhansk Oblast of Ukraine.

His father was a simple railroad
worker, and his mother did odd jobs,

not shying away from
hard physical labor.

The Voroshilovs had 5
children. One time, when playing

with his sisters, Klim hit his
forehead on the corner of the stove.

It left a noticeable scar on his
face forever. Years later, when

Voroshilov became an underground
revolutionary, that scar

was mentioned in police papers
as a distinguishing mark.

Little Klim was forced to grow
up early. The father of the family

never held down a job for long
because of his unsociable nature.

Whenever he would get fired
again, the responsibility of

supporting the family
would go to the mother.

The Voroshilovs lived in
hunger, and Klim was sent to work

when he was just 6 years old.
At first, he shepherded cows,

and then he was given a job at
a mine: sorting through the coal

delivered to the surface. This
hard labor paid 8 to 10 kopek a day.

Soon, a mechanic noticed the boy’s
diligence, and little Klim became

the greaser of the coal machines.

That act of kindness led the
boy into misery: a few older boys

afraid of competition beat him savagely.

Klim only woke up several
days later in a hospital, with

terrible headaches that would
torture him for the rest of his life.

Years later, those closest to
People’s Commissary Voroshilov

knew that if he was massaging
his temples with his thumbs,

he would soon have a fit of pain.

Klim set foot inside a school
for the first time when he was 12,

and he spent two years at his desk.
His mother’s dream had come true:

he learned to read and write. He
never received any more education.

But thanks to his teacher Semyon
Ryzhkov, he developed a passion

for reading. Voroshilov put
together a giant library in his life:

12,000 volumes, many rare editions
among them. Today, this library

is preserved at the Luhansk
Museum of History and Culture.

Memoirs of Colonel General S.
Shtemenko, Chief of the General Staff:

Even as soon as when I first met
Voroshilov on the way to Crimea,

I could see that he was a well-read
man who loved and understood

literature and art. In the evenings,
Kliment would normally ask that

I read something from Chekhov
or Gogol out loud. It would go on

for an hour and a half, and there
was bliss in Voroshilov’s face.

One of the books that found
its way to the 17 year old Klim

and completely rocked his world was
a copy of the Communist Manifesto

from an illegal typography.

The young worker’s political
views formed in just a few days,

and they never changed afterwards.
In the early 20th century

Voroshilov joined the Bolshevist
wing of RSDRP, and soon became

a member of its city committee.

February 17, 1905. Lugansk. The
Russian Empire has been engulfed

in a revolution, and Lugansk
workers are protesting as well.

The 24 year old Klim Voroshilov
walked into the central office of the

Hartmann Locomotive Works
as head of the delegation.

He was holding a list of 29
demands that had just been approved

at a meeting. After a long discussion,
director Chrzanowski summed up

Your conditions are excessive,
we have nothing else to discuss.

I propose you go back
to your work station.

Voroshilov replied firmly:
We are not going back

until our demands are met. He
was sure that the protests would

soon take hold of the entire
city, and he knew perfectly well

how much every idle day cost
the management. In the end,

the scared management of the
locomotive works made concessions,

and all of the demands of
the protestors were met.

But his first arrest followed
his first political victory.

Volodya, which was Voroshilov’s
Party pseudonym, spent several months

in prison and his case never reached
the court. A thousand-strong mob

of workers demanded his release,
and the city administration

let the prisoner go out of
unwillingness to escalate the situation.

Voroshilov was so popular
among the Lugansk workers that

in the spring of 1906, he went
to the Party Congress as delegate

from the local Social Democrat
organization. The Congress took place

in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden.

Voroshilov wasn’t yet an expert
on Marxist theory and couldn’t

always grasp the point of Party
discussions. In the evenings,

he would discuss what he had heard
with his roommate, losif Dzhugashvili.

From Voroshilov’s memoirs:

It was a short stocky man,
about my age, with a dark face

with barely visible pocks on
it: probably traces of being sick

with smallpox in childhood.
He had incredibly bright eyes,

and he was all a ball of
fire, cheerful and happy.

Stalin and Voroshilov became
friends quickly, and just as quickly

parted ways when the Congress was
over. No one could imagine then

that in the future their fates
would be intermixed, and their names

would become history. Meanwhile
in Russia, the revolution

that started in 1905 continued.
In the cities, battle brigades

were formed in secret from
workers, students, and sometimes,

just simple criminals. Bolsheviks
were getting ready to new

armed protests and smuggled
illegal arms into Russia actively.

A brigade like that formed in
Lugansk, as well. To supply it with

arms, Kliment Voroshilov made contact
with middlemen from the capital

who introduced him to Finnish suppliers.

They agreed on the price quickly.
The main question remaned:

how to transport 60 Braunings,
20 Mausers and a great ammount

of ammo from Finland to St Petersburg?

They decided against the
risk of using suitcases.

And that was when Voroshilov
proposed to smuggle the weapons

on his person over several trips.

Using a custom-made belt, he fixed
several pistols under his shirt

along with small ammunition pouches.
At first it seemed comfortable,

but by the time he had reached the
capital, Voroshilov could barely

move from the weight of his cargo.
His back ached, his head hurt.

Even worse, it turned out that
the safehouse he was supposed to

"deliver the weapons to was
being watched by the police;"

a member of the underground
Voroshilov knew managed to

whisper to him about it. He also
asked him to wait until morning

when new safehouse would be
ready. Voroshilov was tortured by

hunger and exhaustion, but he had
to spend the night in the street.

The next day he went to Finland
for another batch of weapons.

In the end, there was no armed
protest that time. But it was in those

days that Kliment Voroshilov
chose the fate of a professional

revolutionary for good:
there was no going back.

The first Russian revolution over,
the workers’ political activity

was in decline.

Voroshilov was arrested again, but
this time, no one came to his aid.

Kliment spent several months
behind bars, and then, an order came

from St Petersburg: Send Voroshilov
to the Arkhangelsk Governorate

to live under overt
surveillance from the police.

This exile was unexpectedly happy
for him. Voroshilov met his future

wife here. Golda Gorbman was
an exiled revolutionary, too,

the young people fell in
love and were going to marry.

But there were some
problems with the wedding.

Jewish Golda and Orthodox
Klim were given a condition:

they could marry by Orthodox
rites. Without converting,

it was impossible. So in 1910
Golda was baptized, taking the name

Ekaterina. Since the girl’s family
disowned her after the baptism,

Ekaterina Voroshilova
only had her husband left.

From that moment, she followed him
everywhere: into exile, into safehouses,

from one city to another. They
spent decades in love and concord.

The Voroshilovs were in
Petrograd at the time of the

1917 February revolution, but Klim
didn’t stay long in the capial.

The Party decided to send him to
Lugansk with the task of spreading

Bolshevist influence in
the local elective bodies.

He would always do great at propaganda.

A letter from Voroshilov to the
Central Committee of the Party, 1917:

In Lugansk, not only did we
take all the factory committees,

trade unions, the Workers’
Council and peasant deputies,

but even the City Duma… Our
workers are more than uplifted…

Socialist Revolutionaries
and Mensheviks here

are becoming rarer
than flies in the fall.

In October of 1917, Voroshilov was
elected t the Constituent Assembly

and returned t the capital. He never
got to take part in the meetings:

the Assembly was dispersed. The
Bolshevik Party became the ruling one

in one moment. People who were
loyal to the new government

were assigned key posts.
Thus, Voroshilov became

Chairman of Petrograd Military
Committee. Yesterday’s worker turned

into the de facto ruler of the capital.

The city was in chaos. Locals
and soldiers returning from the

front lines were looting
liquor stores, gangs of robbers

ran wild in the streets, apartments
and government institutions

were constantly getting raided.
Despite the dire situation,

Voroshilov proposed to do away
with criminal investigation.

In an era of supposed triumph
of revolutionary legality,

police seemed a useless
structure to him.

Like many at the time, Voroshilov
believed that there would be

no criminals in the new Russia. He
also believed that wars would end

and there would be peace on Earth
forever. Reality turned out to be

different. A civil war
started in the country.

It was this war that brought
Voroshilov international fame and

gave him the reputation
of a fearless leader.

By March of 1918, Germany
began a military intervention

against Soviet Russia. German
forces entered the territory of

the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog
Soviet Republic. Voroshilov,

having returned from Petrograd
to his lesser motherland,

formed the 1st Lugansk Socialist
Brigade out of volunteers.

Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Socialist
Republic. Declared in January o 1918

with the capital in Kharkov. In
February of 1918, German and Austrian

forces entered the territory of
Ukraine upon invitation from the

Ukrainian People’s Republic to
defend it from Soviet Russia and

started an intense offensive
eastward. By early May of that year,

the territory of Donetsk-Krivoy
Rog Republic was fully occupied,

and as such de facto ceased to exist.

In the battles with the Germans,
Voroshilov proved to be a brave man

capable of organizing the actions
of big numbers of people in

critical situations.

The leadership of the Bolshevist
Republic appointed him commander

of the 5th Army.

However, that army lacked weaponry
and combat experience to hold back

the German offensive.

On April 27, 1918, Voroshilov
ordered his forces to abandon Lugansk

and move towards RSFSR territory,
where Germans weren’t allowed to

invade according to the Treaty
of Brest-Litovsk. A giant train of

several hundred cars took off
towards Millerovo station, which was

220km to the Northeast of Rostov.

Intermingling with the military
forces, workers and their families

were leaving their hometowns.
They were bringing all of their

possessions with them: feather
beds, pillows, samovars,

domestic birds, even calves.
There was a German plane cruising

above the train. The passengers
got used to it quickly, and

the soldiers would only sometimes
shoot their rifles at it.

Having arrived to Millerovo
station, Voroshilov realized that

the situation of the 5th Army
was catastrophic: his trains

were moving through Don Host territory.

The Almighty Don Host: a state
that appeared in the Don region

after an anti-Bolshevik Cossack
rebellion in March of 1918.

Cossack forces fought against
the Soviet government and

attacked its regiments in
the Don and Volga regions.

Voroshilov was to ship
carriages full of exhausted

and dispirited people through the
territory, which in fact was hostile.

The distance of mere 400km
between Millerovo and Tsaritsyn

took Voroshilov's army
three months to cross.

They had to beat back White
Army Cossack regiments' attacks

and restore dozens of kilometers'
worth of destroyed railroads,

rebuild bridges, elevated
approaches and dams.

It was only thanks to his
dedication and strength of conviction

that Voroshilov managed to maintain
order and discipline in the Army

and reach Tsaritsyn with it.

Tsaritsyn, Stalingrad from 1925,
Volgograd from 1961. In the times

of the Civil War it was a major
industrial center and a transport hub

of the highest importance. In the
summer and fall of 1918, the city

was attacked by Chieftain Krasnov,
and Bolsheviks gave its defense

special importance.

Stalin assumed overall authority
over Tsaritsyn, being the one

responsible for food supplies
in the South of Russia.

Old friends met, Voroshilov agreed
to head the defense of the city.

But the success of those defensive
battles should mostly be attributed

to former Tsarist officers,
professional soldiers with whom

both Voroshilov and Stalin
had constant conflicts.

Because of that, the two
leaders-to-be quarreled with the

Chairman of Revvoyensoviet
of RSFSR Leon Trotsky.

They refused to carry out his
orders, accusing Trotsky of

bureaucracy and having no
understanding of the situation.

He, in turn, rightly accused
Stalin and Voroshilov of breaking

military and Party discipline.

At the 7th Congress of the Party
in 1919, Lenin criticized Voroshilov

for guerrilla warfare, being
unprofessional, unjustified casualties.

The Central Committee of RKP
even passed a special resolution

forbidding Voroshilov
from assuming any sort of

command capacity in the military.

And still, in July of 1919, he
became Commander of the 14th Army.

In just a month, for surrendering
the city to Anton Denikin's forces,

he was brought up before
the Revvoyensoviet tribunal.

While investigating the case,
tribunal members reached the conclusion

that Voroshilov's military
knowledge wasn't enough to command

even a battalion. The Army
Commanders ignorance was so profound

that, strange as it may be, it
served to alleviate his guilt,

and the tribunal restricted
itself to only firing Voroshilov.

Voroshilov himself knew he was
no military man, he simply lacked

education. But had courage, bravery
and the talent to lead in spades.

It is possible that it was due
to these qualities that already in

November of 1919, he was made
Chairman of the Revvoyensoviet

of the famous 1st Cavalry
Army led by Semyon Budyonny.

Revvoyensoviet, Revolutionary
Military Council: top collegiate body

of management and political leadership
of the Army from 1918 to 1934.

Apart from handling military
action in a general manner,

the Revvoyensoviet headed the
work of the political department,

the tribunal and counterintelligence
organs. Any Commander's order

had to be signed by a Revvoyensoviet
member. It could veto the order

and even fire a Commander from his job.

Voroshilov was tasked with handling
all logistics and administration:

supplying the army, recruiting
regiments, creating the

Command infrastructure from scratch.
He also handled morale building

with the cavalry and its leadership.

In the 1st Cavalry Army, guerrilla
warfare and looting were ubiquitous

as well as robbing the civilians
and violence. The soldiers were not

particularly politically savvy
either: many were sure they were

fighting for the Bolsheviks
and against the Communists.

To teach some discipline to the
soldiers, Voroshilov had to resort to

drastic measures, sometimes even
going as far as firing squads.

The soldiers were a little afraid
of Voroshilov, but respected him

at the same time, not only for his
severity, but also for his bravery.

He would never sit it out at the
HQ, he always came to the battlefield

personally atop his
battle horse called Mauser.

In one of the battles, when the 1st
Cavalry was liberating Crimea from

Wrangel's forces, Voroshilov was
riding at the front of a squadron,

and there was a rider galloping at
him. He was holding a pike pointed

right at Voroshilov's chest.

He shot at his adversary
with his revolver… miss.

At the next moment, he felt a thud…

The pike got stuck in the thick
cloak he had on his shoulders.

The White Army man threw away
his pike and took out his saber.

It was only because of a shot by
Voroshilov's orderly that saved

the life of the future marshal.

June of 1920, Voroshilov was decorated
with the Order of the Red Flag,

by December of the same
year, he was awarded

personal revolutionary weapons.
By the spring of 1921, he became

Commander of the North Caucasus
Military District, but he was

uncomfortable with his new position,
and in a few months, he wrote

a letter to Stalin:

Dear losif Vissarionovich! I
already told you in Moscow about my

intention to change up my line
of work, and now, this is my

final decision. I'm sick of
working at the Defense Department,

and it's not where the
center of influence is anymore.

I suppose that I will be more
useful in the civil sector.

Stalin didn't help him, and
Voroshilov will only be able to leave

to the civil sector in a
quarter of a century. So far,

his military career was taking
off. After Lenin's death, Stalin

managed to push his old rival
Trotsky from commanding the Red Army.

Frunze became People’s Comissary
for the Military, and Voroshilov,

his
second-in-command.

Mikhail Frunze, one of the most
prominent Red Army personalities

during the times of the Civil
War and the first half of 1920.

Forces under Frunze's command
defeated the armies of Kolchak,

Wranger, regiments of Ural Cossacks,
Petlura and Makhno supporters.

He wasn't part of Stalin's inner
circle, and upon replacing Trotsky

in the military brass, he remained
an independent player in the Party.

Several months after his promotion,
Frunze died at the operating table

during a stomach ulcer surgery.
The third People's Commissary

for Army and Navy was Voroshilov.

Frunze's widow Sofia Alekseevna
never got over her loss

and killed herself several
months later. Frunzes' children

Tatiana and Timur were brought
up by their grandmother,

and in 1931, after she died,
Voroshilov requested the Politburo

to allow him to adopt
his friend's children.

RSFSR, 1932

The Voroshilovs did not
have children of their own.

Back in 1918, they adopted the
four year old Pyotr and raised him

as if he was their own. Now,
they had three adopted children.

Tatiana and Timur Frunze quickly
came to terms with their new family.

The Voroshilovs surrounded their
foster children with love and care,

and their foster father would
lovingly call them Frunzelings.

Timur Frunze, Hero of the
Soviet Union, military pilot.

Died heroically in 1942.

Voroshilov's other adopted son
Pyotr became a draftsman and

a lieutenant general.

Voroshilov's kindheartedness
and openness appealed to Stalin:

he knew betrayal wouldn't ever
come from that loyal eager beaver.

All the way until the late 1930s,
Stalin and Voroshilov close friends:

they hunted together, took their
vacations in the South, spent time

at Stalin's dacha and
at his Kremlin apartment.

Voroshilov admitted Stalin's
intellectual superiority and,

whenever he had a problem, he
would turn to him for advice.

And they were plenty of problems.
By late 1920, an ambitious

countrywide war reform was announced,
and Voroshilov would regularly

report to Stalin about setbacks
and failures in its implementation.

Planes get produced with a plethora
of defects, the tank program

suffers from failures, military
construction plans get disrupted.

Voroshilov also complained about
lack of discipline in the Red Army,

military equipment losses and high
casualty rates among the troops.

However, handling the situation
would have been hard for anyone.

The USSR still hadn't recovered
from the aftermath of the revolutions

and the Civil War. Industry
suffered from a lack of equipment,

engineers and qualified staff.
Refitting the army was going slowly.

Skilled commanders were in short supply.

The 30s were an era of testing new
weaponry types in the whole world.

Designers in various countries
proposed more and more new kinds

of tanks and airplanes.
But what should those

tanks and airplanes be like?
Back then, no one knew the answer.

Multi-turret tanks, wheel-mounted
tanks, tanks that could be attached

to airplane wings to be airdropped…
Aviation was going through

a boom, too. New materials and
engines appeared. With every day,

planes flew higher, farther,
faster. To test the reliability and

effectiveness of new
machines, time was needed.

Out of a staggering number
of new military designs,

the Red Army Command had to
choose the most promising ones,

fix their flaws and implement
their mass production.

They had to set up ways for the
maintenance of those machines,

familiarize themselves with using
new tech together with armed forces,

and also to develop the
strategy and tactics of using it.

But the more military technology
progressed, leaving WWI and Civil War

ways behind, the more obvious Klim's
lack of military schooling was.

He was saved by the fact that
there were many professionals in

the army brass who knew the art of
war: Yegorov, Svechin, Uborevich,

Shaposhnikov, Kuznetsov.

From Marshal Zhukov's memoirs:

It has to be said that Voroshilov,
People's Commissary at the time,

was not particularly competent in
that role. He stayed a dilettante

in questions of war until
the end, and he never knew them

seriously or deeply. But he had a
high standing, he was popular, and

he professed being an actual military
man and knowing the art of war.

And in practice, most of the
work done at the Commissariat

was done by Tukhachevsky, who
really was a military expert.

He and Voroshilov would
have clashes, and generally,

they disliked each other.

To compensate for his incompetence
when it came to the military,

Voroshilov had diligence, personal
involvement with the task at hand,

and, as they used to say back then,
the talent to organize masses.

He took part in General Committees,
Congresses and plena of the Party.

Several cities were named after
him: Lugansk became Voroshilovgrad,

Stavropol became Voroshilovsk,
and Ussuriysk, Voroshilov.

A heavy tank received the
People's Commissary's name: KV,

which stood for Klim Voroshilov.

And the loudspeakers would play
the Song of the Soviet Tankmen:

When Stalin sends us into battle,
And the First Marshal leads us.

Voroshilov showed off his marksmanship
to the troops, and his quote

There are no bad guns, there
are only bad marksmen became

a well-known adage.

Thousands of Soviet citizens
proudly bore the title

Voroshilov's Marksman, which
would be awarded to trainees

during marksmanship training.

But being a good shot couldn't
replace the lack of military schooling.

A group of military leaders had
gathered around another marshal:

Mikhail Tukhachevsky. They were
trying to convince Stalin that

Voroshilov was unfit for the position
he held. Voroshilov had his own

supporters, as well. But it was the
events of 1937 that resolved this

conflict once and for all.

On May 27, 1937, Tukhachevsky
was arrested in Kuybyshev and

charged with espionage, plotting
a coup and trying to install a

military dictatorship in the USSR.

The court verdict found
Tukhachevsky guilty, and he was

put before a firing squad in
June of 1937. But disputes about

his innocence happen to this day.
In 1957, Supreme Court of the USSR

overturned his sentence as
manufactured, and the Central Committee

cleared Tukhachevsky's name
posthumously. But many historians

still publish new proof of
Tukhachevsky actually plotting

to stage a military coup.

Moscow, USSR. 1932

A group of high-ranking Soviet
officers was arrested along with him,

on the same charges. All arrests
were made with Voroshilov's blessing.

Many lists of suspects that
the secret police handed to

the People's Commissariat
bore notes from the Marshal:

To Comrade Yezhov. Pick up
all of the scum... Arrest him. ”

Often Voroshilov would write:
Leave him alone for now, or

Call him in for a talk.

It was those resolutions like
those that saved the lives of future

WWll heroes Marshal Malinovsky,
General Petrov and General Lukin.

The number of officers
arrested in 1937 through 1938

cannot be counted exactly and,
according to different estimates,

ranges from 7 to 11 thousand.
An even bigger number was fired.

Over 400 high-ranking commanders
were shot by firing squads,

many were sentence to
time in the penal colonies.

By the summer of 1941, about
1\3 of the fired commanders

returned to the Army.

The first real test for People's
Commissary Voroshilov was

the Soviet-Finnish War that
started in November of 1939.

The Red Army, enjoying a massive
superiority in numbers and tech,

suffered several defeats,
many regiments got surrounded

and suffered heavy casualties.

Those failures are often attributed
to the witch hunts of 1937

and arrests of the army brass. There
were other reasons besides that:

weak morale among the troops and
lack of schooling among the command.

The army was just learning to use
the new machines in the conditions

of contemporary warfare, the quality
of soldiers' training stayed low.

It was only in February, after
regrouping and fortifying,

a successful Soviet offensive
began. In March of 1940 Finland

was forced to sign a peace treaty.

Despite victory in that war,
Voroshilov was let go from the post

of People's Commissar for Defense.
On March 28, 1940, there was a

Supreme Military Council session
and a Central Committee plenum,

where the People Commissary
presented his report and received

devastating criticism.

But his political career was
practically intact afterwards.

Voroshilov became Assistant
to the Sovnarkom and

head of Defense Committee. Just
one year remained before the start

of the Great Patriotic War…

Just how unprepared the Red Army
was to a war with the Third Reich

became obvious in the first hours
after the German forces crossed

the Soviet border.

In July 1941, Voroshilov was
appointed Commander of the entire

Northwest Strategic theater
forces. After that, he headed

the Leningrad defense force.
But an attempt to halt the German

offensive on Leningrad led to
a siege starting in September.

September 11, 1941. The Germans
had been attacking Krasnoye Selo

foor three days in order to
break through to Leningrad.

The 60 year old Kliment
Voroshilov went to the front lines,

where a brigade of marines was
attacking the German positions.

The fascists were counterattacking.

Voroshilov watched the battle as
shells and landmines exploded nearby.

When the guard captain suggested
that he retreat to shelter,

the Marshal just waved him away…

He still had no shortage of courage.
But courage alone was not enough

to defend Leningrad. On
September 13, 1941, the Stavka,

unhappy with Voroshilov's actions
on Leningrad front, recalled him.

When saying his goodbyes
to the HQ workers, he said:

The High Command is recalling
me… Serves this old man right.

Voroshilov didn't command any troops
since then. In October of 1941,

he was entrusted with assembling
reserve regiments behind front lines.

On September 6, 1942, the post of
Chief of the Central Headquarters

of the Partisan Movement was
introduced. Soviet Marshal Voroshilov

received that post.

From May of 1943 he was
head of the Trophy Committee.

Retreating, Hitler's forces would
leave behind tens of thousands of

cars, tractors, artillery guns,
tanks, rifles and machine guns.

Among the responsibilities of the
Trophy Committee was collection

and inventory of abandoned
enemy vehicles and provand.

It was Voroshilov who was Chairman
of the committee in charge of

creating a new anthem of the USSR
in wartime. On January 1, 1944,

Soviet citizens heard these
famous lines for the first time:

United forever in friendship and labor,

Our mighty republics will ever endure.

On the day of the victory,
the Marshal was at his post of

Chairman of the Supervisory
Commission that was in charge of

liberated Hungary. The war
was over, peacetime began.

Retaining his job as Assistant
to Chairman of the Government,

Voroshilov became Chairman
of the Bureau of Culture. Now,

you could encounter people other
than generals in Voroshilov's office:

film directors, actors,
musicians and painters.

From as back as 1930s the Marshal
was considered an unofficial patron

of painters: he would help them get
workshops, provide them with work.

Among them were Mitrofan Grekov,
Aleksandr Gerasimov, Isaak Brodsky.

Voroshilov had his own art collection.
Most of it burned at his dacha

in a fire that the Marshal's 10 year
old grandson accidentally started.

Besides art, Voroshilov took
interest in sports. He would state:

Those who do not have regular
exercise can be likened to a person

who consciously decided to
get old by the age of 45.

Kliment himself would ice
skate, ski, swim, play gorodki

even after turning 50. Knowing of
Voroshilov's enthusiasm about sports,

Stalin put him in charge of that
sphere as well after the war.

On February 17, 1946, Kliment
Voroshilov came to the Dinamo Stadium

on invitation from the head of the
Sports Committee Nikolai Romanov.

For the first time in his life, the
Marshal watched a game of a sport

yet unknown in the Soviet
Union: Canadian hockey.

Voroshilov watched the game with
passion, laughed, shook his head.

What he liked the most was
that you could have a fight,

and then only be penalized
with a two-minute suspension.

After the match, Marshal declared:
Canadian hockey is a Russian game.

We'll train and then we'll
beat the Canadians, too!

In 10 months, the first games of
the Soviet ice hockey cup took place.

After the war, Voroshilov would
often appear together with Stalin.

He would stand next to him at
official parades and receptions,

they would walk arm-in-arm on
the blue screen and in paintings.

Aleksandr Gerasimov's painting
Stalin and Voroshilov in the Kremlin...

the original of which is kept
at the Tretyakov Art Gallery,

is one of the symbols of the Soviet era.

From Gerasimov's notes:

I was thinking about Stalin
and Voroshilov, and I had an idea

that I should paint them as
personifications, one symbolizing

the Red Army, and the
other, all peoples.

But the leader's opinion of
Voroshilov changed over time,

and Stalin would trust
him with less and less.

And the Marshal would call his
secretary and ask in humiliation:

Could you please find out if I'm
allowed to the Politburo session?

With time his role became fully
symbolic. A week after Stalin's death

Voroshilov was made Chairman of
the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet.

Technically he became the Soviet
head of state. In practice, all power

belonged to 1st Secretary of the
Central Committee Nikita Khrushchev,

Voroshilov only handled representative
functions and foreign visits.

Meanwhile, a conflict was brewing
in the higher echelons of the USSR.

In June 1957, the so-called Anti-Party
Group led by Molotov, Malenkov

and Kaganovich tried to replace
Khrushchev, who proved to be stronger.

The members of the group were
expelled from the Central Committee,

and then, from the Party. Voroshilov
was part of the Anti-Party Group,

but his punishment was more lenient:
Khrushchev scolded the Marshal,

and Voroshilovgrad its old name back.

This city has a strange history.
In 1970, after Voroshilov's death,

it was renamed to Voroshilovgrad
again, and 20 years later still, it

it became Lugansk once more. Just
as strange is Voroshilov's own tale:

he is practically the only leader
of USSR who managed to avoid being

punished, deservedly or not, for
the crimes he possibly committed.

Voroshilov never had any
high-reaching ambitions, he never

took interest in Party intrigue,
and he always came out unscathed

out of any trouble. Maybe he was
always saved by his loyalty and

the dedication he would
approach his orders with even if

he was not up to the job, or maybe
he was simply saved by his bravery:

he was never afraid of
the firing squads of 1937

nor of party penalties
in the Khrushchev years.

The only thing to really become
a heavy blow to Kliment Voroshilov

was the death of his wife in
1959. The Voroshilovs never got to

celebrate the golden anniversary
of their wedding, which was only

a few months away. He didn't know
his wife had had cancer for years.

When Ekaterina became ill,
Kliment would spend days on end

at her bedside and sing her favorite
songs of the time of their youth.

And then she was no more.

One year after his wife's
death, Voroshilov resigned as

Chairman of the
Presidium Supreme Soviet,

and later he quit Politburo as well.

The winter of 1969 was
near. The Marshal was 88.

One night, he started to feel
unwell, and his family proposed

to call an ambulance immediately.
But Voroshilov adamantly refused.

In the morning, he put on his parade
uniform and, after calling a car,

he went to the hospital
himself, fully decorated.

In a few days, on December 2, 1969,
Kliment Voroshilov passed away.

He was buried next to the Kremlin
wall, and the first person to lay

a wreath on his tomb was the
new leader of the country,

General Secretary of the Central
Committee of KPSS Leonid Brezhnev.

8 years before Kliment Voroshilov's
death, at the 22nd Congress,

the question of Voroshilov's
responsibility for Stalin era purges

was raised. The former People's
Commissary didn't want to

root around in the past,
but he admitted his guilt.

In his memoirs written towards
the end of his days, Voroshilov

mentions his friend and
patron Joseph Stalin warmly.

He continued to consider Stalin
a great historical figure.

And great people, Voroshilov
supposed, made great mistakes.

Kliment Voroshilov himself never
became a prominent politician.

He got to demonstrate his natural
courage in the battlefield,

not the halls and corridors of
big politics. Just like his friend

and comrade-in-arms Semyon Budyonny,
who only survived him by 4 years.

For the longest time, radios and
TV sets in the Soviet Union would

play the Budyonny March, his
march together with Voroshilov.

Budyonny is our buddy,
everyone's with us,

Our orders are too keep our
dukes up and to keep looking ahead.

After all, Voroshilov's with
us, the First Red Officer,

We'll manage to shed
blood for the USSR.