Semyon Budyonny, Marshal of the Soviet Union (b. 1883)
Semyon Mikhailovich Budyonny (Russian: Семён Миха́йлович Будённый, tr. Semyon Mikháylovich Budyonnyy, IPA: [sʲɪˈmʲɵn mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪdʑ bʊˈdʲɵnːɨj] (listen); 25 April [O.S. 13 April] 1883 – 26 October 1973) was a Russian cavalryman, military commander during the Russian Civil War, Polish-Soviet War and World War II, and a close political ally of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.
Born to a poor peasant family from the Don Cossack region in southern Russia, Budyonny was drafted into the Imperial Russian Army in 1903. He served with distinction in a dragoon regiment during the First World War, earning all four classes of the Cross of St. George. When the Russian Civil War broke out Budyonny founded the Red Cavalry, which played an important role in the Bolshevik victory. As a political ally of Joseph Stalin, he was one of the two most senior army commanders that survived the Great Purge and in post at the time of German invasion of the USSR in 1941. After the Soviet forces under Budyonny's command suffered unprecedented defeats in the battles of Kiev and Uman, he had to be removed from frontline command because of his unfitness to command a modern army.
Budyonny was a staunch proponent of horse cavalry. During the Great Purge, he testified against Mikhail Tukhachevsky's efforts to create an independent tank corps, claiming that it was so inferior to cavalry and illogical that it amounted to "wrecking" (sabotage). After being told of the importance of the tank in the coming war in 1939, he remarked, "You won't convince me. As soon as war is declared, everyone will shout, "Send for the Cavalry!"