February 16 [O.S. February 4] 1893 – June 12, 1937
Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky (February 16 [O.S. February 4] 1893 – June 12, 1937) was a Soviet military commander, chief of the Red Army (1925–1928), and one of the most prominent victims of Stalin's Great Purge of the late 1930s. In 1935 Tukhachevsky was made a Marshal of the Soviet Union, aged only 42. It was subsequently alleged that during these visits he contacted anti-Stalin Russian exiles and began plotting against Stalin. Tukhachevsky was arrested on May 22, 1937, and charged with organization of "military-Trotskyist conspiracy" and espionage for Nazi Germany. After a secret trial, Tukhachevsky and eight other higher military commanders were convicted, and executed on June 12, 1937.