At the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War in the Soviet Union in June 1941, Vasilevsky was only a major general, but a year and a half later, he was promoted to marshal of the Soviet Union.
He rose through the ranks so fast that I am afraid that I could not find a second in the entire Second World War.
Soldiers who are promoted so quickly are generally "military wizards" that are rare in a century, but in the eyes of many Soviet soldiers, Vasilevsky is a military fool and can be called the stupidest marshal of the Soviet Union.
Vasilevsky had to speak every time Stalin convened a military meeting, and each time he spoke incoherently and full of loopholes, the participants were confused.
At that time, Vasilevsky was despised by many of his colleagues, and many of his colleagues could not understand how Stalin could promote such a person to chief of the General Staff and award him the rank of marshal?
Why, then, did Vasilevsky rise so quickly, and what did his promotion have to do with Stalin?
Vasilevsky
Perhaps, many people will think that the reason why Vasilevsky was promoted so quickly was because of his very powerful family background.
But this is not the case, Vasilevsky was born in a very ordinary Russian town, his family is neither rich nor poor, and his father is a clergyman, a priest in the town church.
It can be seen that Vasilevsky is just a child of a clergyman, and his family background is at most a little more powerful than that of ordinary people.
Influenced by his father's profession, Vasilevsky spent his primary and secondary schools in a church school, and when he was a child, Vasilevsky was far from having the ambition to become an officer, and his biggest dream at that time was to go to the agricultural college after graduating from theological school and become an agriculturist.
However, a war made him change his mind.
When the First World War broke out in 1914, Russia was still under the rule of the Tsars, and in order to cope with the Great War, the Tsarist army began to recruit a wide range of talents.
The outbreak of the war stimulated Vasilevsky's fighting spirit to defend his homeland, for which Vasilevsky graduated from the theological school ahead of schedule and went to the military school with his friends.
Due to the lack of officers in the Tsarist army, Vasilevsky attended military school for only four months before attaining the rank of warrant officer, after which he was sent to the battlefield to fight against the Austro-Hungarian army, and in the battle of blood and fire, he grew into a good soldier.
By the time the October Revolution of 1917 broke out, Vasilevsky had been mixed up in the tsarist army with the rank of captain battalion commander.
On November 7, 1917, the October Revolution broke out, and Vasilevsky, who did not want to get involved in political struggles, left the tsarist army and returned to his home town, ending his military career and living a peaceful life.
However, Vasilevsky's peaceful life was soon shattered.
After the establishment of Soviet power, Belarusian counter-revolutionary forces appeared in Soviet Russia, and the Belarusian counter-revolutionary forces wanted to overthrow the Soviet power and fought together with foreign armed interventionists, causing the outbreak of civil war in Soviet Russia.
In such a turbulent situation, Vasilevsky was conscripted into the Soviet Red Army to fight against the counter-revolutionary White Guards.
For a long time, the chief of the general staff of the brigade was ill and could not command the operation.
Promotions like open hanging
In 1935, the Soviet Red Army awarded the title for the first time, and Vasilevsky was awarded the rank of colonel.
After that, he was assigned to the Military Academy for further study, after which he was assigned to work in the General Staff of the Soviet Army, and in 1940 he was promoted to major general.
As the saying goes, "heroes come out of troubled times", the war changed the fate of Vasilevsky.
When the time came in 1941, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union completely tore their faces, tore up the "Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact", and launched a full-front attack on the border of the Soviet Union.
It can be seen that Vasilevsky during this period often met with Stalin.
So, could Vasilevsky's promotion be facilitated by Stalin?
In July 1941, the Battle of Kiev broke out.
At that time, Stalin had been a "personality cult" for a long time, and he was arrogant, and he felt that the decisions he made were very correct, and it was difficult to accept the confrontation and refutation of others, while Zhukov, who was the chief of the General Staff at the time, was a short-tempered and difficult person to get along with.
In this campaign, Zhukov and Stalin disagreed, and because Zhukov spoke poorly, Stalin found a reason to demote him again.
After that, the post of Chief of the General Staff was taken over by General Shaposhennikov, and as for Vasilevsky, he was also promoted by Stalin, who appointed him Deputy Chief of the General Staff and Head of the War Department.
After that, Vasilevsky entered the road of promotion.
In October 1941, after the Battle of Moscow, Stalin awarded the rank of lieutenant general to the generals who had made outstanding contributions to the war, among which Vasilevsky was awarded the rank of lieutenant general, and soon after became acting chief of the General Staff.
In May 1942, Vasilevsky was promoted to the rank of general, and in June of the same year, Stalin appointed him chief of the General Staff.
In less than a year, he has been promoted several levels in a row, and Vasilevsky's promotion speed can be called as fast as "riding a rocket".
The secret of the promotion of the Marshal of the Soviet Union
From the first deputy head of the operations department of the Major General's Staff to the post of chief of the General Staff, Vasilevsky reached such heights in just over a year, and the biggest impetus behind his promotion was Stalin.
In fact, in the early days of the Soviet-German war, Stalin had a strong self-confidence, he believed that it was more than enough for him to command a large army and formulate military plans, and he did not regard the General Staff as important at all.
But Vasilevsky made Stalin change his attitude towards the General Staff.
During the war, Vasilevsky often went to Stalin's office to discuss battle plans with Stalin.
Vasilevsky was tactful and emotionally intelligent, he would not directly contradict Stalin, and when he wanted Stalin to take his advice, he would always turn around and talk to guide Stalin to agree with him.
It was precisely because of this that Stalin admired him so much that he let him come and go as he pleased, and paved the way for his political career.
And he had a very good relationship with Stalin.
At a dinner after the battle, Stalin sat down with his generals to eat.
During the dinner, Vasilevsky talked about his family: "I have cut off contact with my relatives since 1926 for the sake of the revolution, hey......."
When Stalin heard this, he said: "You should immediately re-establish contact with your parents, and you can also help your parents financially, and I will allow you to do this, and you can report the order authorizing this to the party organization of the General Staff." ”
After speaking, Stalin also raised his glass and wished Vasilevsky good health.
From this little thing, it can be seen that Stalin took great care of Vasilevsky.
In 1941, Zhukov and Stalin disagreed on strategic decisions, and Zhukov, unlike Vasilevsky, was hot-tempered and often quarreled with Stalin when discussing strategic plans.
Therefore, Stalin demoted Zhukov from his post and removed him from the post of chief of the General Staff.
Zhukov's dismissal uneasy for Vasilevsky, who feared that he would be removed from office by Stalin, like his "predecessor" Zhukov.
Therefore, after becoming chief of the General Staff, in order to avoid disagreeing with Stalin, he changed his way of speaking, deliberately pretended to be stupid at military meetings, and put forward a military plan full of loopholes.
In this way, whenever he spoke at a military meeting, he spoke incoherently, invertedly, and verbosely, which tormented his colleagues, and his actions made him for a time the most mediocre and unsuccessful chief of the General Staff in the history of the Soviet army.
At first, his colleagues did regard Vasilevsky as a fool and thought that Vasilevsky was not worthy of being chief of the General Staff, but as time went by, some of his colleagues changed their views, and they found that Vasilevsky was pretending to speak incoherently and incoherently! Vasilevsky was not stupid at all, but was the smartest group of people.
Later, many experts who have studied this period of history also said that Vasilevsky's approach was the most intelligent.
Why, then, is Vasilevsky's pretending to be stupid clever?
In fact, Vasilevsky understood very well that Stalin wanted a general staff officer who listened to him, not a general staff who worked against him.
However, as a general staff officer, the general staff also had to consider the overall situation, and could not allow Stalin to make decisions at will.
So, Vasilevsky came up with the idea of pretending to be stupid and became a mediocre chief of the General Staff.
At every military meeting, his performance was a surprise to the eye, and when he explained military plans, he would deliberately be verbose and deliberately devise several loopholes.
When Stalin discovered the loopholes, he would criticize and supplement them.
After Stalin finished replenishing it, Vasilevsky would make a fool of himself and say things like Stalin's wisdom, so that the military plan would be revised and supplemented by Stalin himself, and the plan would be quickly adopted.
On the other hand, the military plan was proposed by Vasilevsky himself, but it was refined by Stalin's mouth, which means that it was he himself, not Stalin, who drew up the military plan.
Stalin admired Vasilevsky very much, his handling and speaking level was several levels higher than that of the previous Zhukov, which made him feel comfortable, and after Vasilevsky became chief of the General Staff, Stalin never quarreled with him, and when discussing military plans with Vasilevsky, he also felt very relaxed.
In this satisfied mood, Stalin cultivated Vasilevsky as a confidant, gave him the green light all the way, and made Vasilevsky the fastest rising Soviet marshal, and it took him less than a month to be promoted from general to marshal.
In November 1942, the Battle of Stalingrad broke out, and on January 18, 1943, the war ended, Vasilevsky coordinated the command of the campaign, was promoted again, was promoted to general, and on February 16 was awarded the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union.
At the beginning of the war, he was only a major general, and no one expected that a year and a half later he would be promoted to marshal, and at the moment when Vasilevsky was awarded the rank of marshal, the eyes cast at him were envious, insipid, jealous, and disdainful......
For the strange eyes cast by others, Vasilevsky laughed and ignored them, but he didn't pay attention to them at all.
I have to admit that Vasilevsky is indeed a politician with high emotional intelligence and high intelligence. For a long time after that, Vasilevsky maintained a strategy of pretending to be stupid, and cooperated with Stalin tacitly.
After Stalin's death in 1953, Vasilevsky was demoted to deputy defense minister and gradually pushed to the fringes of politics, leading a retirement life on the back line.
In 1977, Vasilevsky died at the age of 82.
Perhaps, he had long expected that he would be excluded to the edge of the political arena, but for him, being able to become Stalin's confidant and sit on the throne of the Chief of the General Staff can be regarded as not in vain, and he will die without regrets......