Lev Mekhlis

Common card · No. 450380

Lev Zakharovich Mekhlis (Russian: Лев Заха́рович Ме́хлис; 13 January 1889 – 13 February 1953) was a Soviet politician and a prominent officer in the Red Army from 1937 to 1942. As a senior political commissar, he became one of the main Stavka representatives on the Eastern Front (1941–1945) during World War II, being involved successively with five to seven Soviet fronts. Despite his fervent political engagement and loyalty to the Communist Party, various Soviet leaders, including Joseph Stalin, criticized and reprimanded Mekhlis for incompetent military leadership during World War II.

Read on Wikipedia · Image Grigory Vayl (1905 – 1975), Public domain