Grigory Kulik

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Grigory Ivanovich Kulik
Kulik c. 1940s
Born	(1890-11-09)9 November 1890 Dudnikovo, Poltava Governorate, Russian Empire (now Ukraine)
Died	24 August 1950(1950-08-24) (aged 59) Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Buried	Donskoi Cemetery
Allegiance	Russian Empire (1912–1917)  Russian SFSR (1918–1922)  Soviet Union (1922–1946)
Years of service	1912–1946
Rank	Marshal of the Soviet Union (1940–1942)
Commands held	Main Artillery Directorate
Battles/wars	World War I Russian Civil War Polish–Soviet War Spanish Civil War Winter War World War II
Awards	Hero of the Soviet Union

Grigory Ivanovich Kulik (Russian: Григорий Иванович Кулик; Ukrainian: Григорій Іванович Кулик, romanized: Grygorii Ivanovych Kulyk; 9 November 1890 – 24 August 1950) was a Soviet military commander and Marshal of the Soviet Union who served as chief of the Red Army's Main Artillery Directorate from 1937 until June 1941.

Born into a Ukrainian peasant family near Poltava, Kulik served as an artillery officer in the Imperial Russian Army during the First World War. On the outbreak of the Russian Revolution, he joined the Bolsheviks and the Red Army. He fought alongside Joseph Stalin at the Battle of Tsaritsyn during the Russian Civil War and quickly became one of Stalin's most favoured generals. In 1937, he was named chief of the Main Artillery Directorate. Kulik had a highly conservative outlook in military technology and theory. He was a strong opponent to Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky's reforms and his deep operations theory, and dismissed innovations such as the T-34 and KV-1 tanks and the Katyusha rocket artillery system.

Kulik was named First Deputy People's Commissar for Defence in 1939, and later took part in the Soviet invasion of Poland. In 1940, he was named a Marshal of the Soviet Union. Kulik's poor leadership during the Winter War in Finland and the German invasion of the Soviet Union led to his fall from grace. He was dismissed from his Artillery Directorate in late 1941, and in early 1942 he was court-martialed and demoted Major-General, but escaped execution thanks to his good relations with Stalin.

After the war, Stalin and Lavrentiy Beria began a new round of purges. Kulik was arrested for treason in 1947 and remained in prison until 1950, when Stalin ordered his execution.