At five o'clock in the morning of June 22, 1941, J. V. Stalin, awakened by the son-in-law of the Chief of the General Staff G. K. Zhukov, arrived in the Kremlin. "Isn't this a provocation of the German generals?" - he asked the People's Commissar of Defense S. K. Timoshenko and G. K. Zhukov, when they reported to him about the beginning of hostilities on the part of Germany against the USSR.

Tymoshenko and Zhukov were perplexed: how can we talk about provocation when the Germans were bombing our cities with all their might? The leader's fear of giving the Germans the slightest excuse to start military operations disoriented commanders of all degrees at that time. Just before leaving for the Kremlin, the People's Commissar received a phone call from the deputy commander of the Western Front, General I. V. Boldin. He reported that the Germans were conducting heavy artillery fire, shooting troops from the air, and their land units had also crossed the border. As Boldin later recalled, Tymoshenko, after listening to him, warned:

- Please note that no action against the Germans should be initiated without our knowledge.

"Why," Boldin shouted into the phone, " our troops are forced to retreat, cities are burning, people are dying...

"I insist," Boldin writes further, " on the immediate use of mechanized, rifle units and artillery, especially anti - aircraft. Otherwise, things will turn out badly. But the People's Commissar, after listening to me, repeated the previous order."

...Historians, describing the first hours of the war, very often mention the nervous reaction of Stalin at that time. It was no easier for the People's Commissar of Defense Tymoshenko. Unlike the leader, he was a professional soldier and, for this reason, had a good idea of what was happening in the army right now, but he was very worried about his subordinates, realizing the perniciousness of many of Stalin's instructions, which were divorced from the real situation and therefore caused numerous unnecessary sacrifices.

Timoshenko became People's Commissar of Defense before the war, in May 1940. Even then, he realized the weakness of the Red Army, which was clearly manifested in the Finnish war. Urgent measures were required to bring the troops to a qualitatively new level. The volume and complexity of tasks caused heavy loads."...The closer the threat of war came, the harder the leadership of the People's Commissariat of Defense worked, " Zhukov recalled. - The leadership of the People's Commissariat and the General Staff, especially Marshal Timoshenko S. K., at that time worked 18-19 hours a day. Often the People's Commissar stayed in his office until morning."

On June 23, the Headquarters of the Main Command was established under the chairmanship of Tymoshenko. But "under the existing order," as Marshal Zhukov rightly wrote,"one way or another, without Stalin, the People's Commissar S. K. Timoshenko could not independently make fundamental decisions." Therefore, when Stalin became People's Commissar of Defense on July 19 and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces on August 8, Semyon Konstantinovich correctly understood this event. He was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Western Direction (while simultaneously commanding the Western Front). It was in this sector of the Soviet-German front that the most difficult situation developed.

With the support of the mechanized corps, Timoshenko organized several powerful counterattacks against enemy troops, stopping them in the Smolensk region in July. The battle that unfolded became fierce, given that the enemy twice outnumbered the troops of the Western Front in manpower, artillery, aviation and four times in tanks. Despite the fact that during the counterattacks it was not possible to defeat the Smolensk group of the enemy, a major strategic success was achieved - the offensive of Army Group Center on Moscow was thwarted.

However, Stalin remained dissatisfied. He still harbored the hope of quickly turning the enemy around and fighting on their territory. The Marshal was summoned to the Headquarters, where, in the presence of members of the Politburo, the Supreme said:: "Tymoshenko, as commander of the Western Front, failed to cope with the task in the Smolensk region. We decided to release him from his duties."

When Stalin asked Zhukov how the fate of Tymoshenko should be decided, he replied that the marshal had done everything that could be done in his place, and therefore it would be unfair and inappropriate to remove him from the post of commander. Zhukov's opinion swayed the Supreme. Tymoshenko remained in the ranks, although in September he was forced to change his place of service, becoming commander - in-chief of the troops of the South-Western strategic direction. Under his leadership, in November 1941, the first large-scale counteroffensive of the Soviet troops near Rostov-on-Don was carried out in the history of the Great Patriotic War. "We will drink to your health today," Stalin said, pleased when he learned by phone from Tymoshenko about the capture of the "gates of the North Caucasus" on November 29.

Unfortunately, in the future, the marshal overestimated his commanding abilities and during the offensive operation of the South - Western troops in the spring of 1942, he could not calculate the likely retaliatory actions of the enemy. Relying on Stalin's instructions, on April 10, 1942, Timoshenko approved the plan of action of the troops, which set the task in April-May to capture Kharkov and then strike in the direction of Dnepropetrovsk, Sinelnikovo to deprive the enemy of the most important crossings on the Dnieper. The plan was bold, but, as it turned out, its authors did not fully take into account the unfavorable overall balance of forces for the Soviet side. With equal tanks, the enemy had a 1.1 - fold superiority in manpower, 1.3 - fold superiority in guns and mortars, and 1.6-fold superiority in aircraft.

On May 12, the troops of the Southwestern Front moved forward. On the first day, they advanced to a depth of 14 kilometers. But three days later the situation changed dramatically: from the direction of Kramatorsk the enemy struck under the base occupied by Soviet troops

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The Barvenkovo salient is a bridgehead on the right bank of the Seversky Donets River near the town of Barvenkovo. Tymoshenko was mistaken, considering this danger exaggerated, and therefore he did not see any grounds for stopping the offensive of the front troops. Only on May 18, when the front troops were already partially surrounded, Semyon Konstantinovich began to take measures to withdraw them, but it was too late.

On July 20, he was summoned to the Headquarters. For six hours, he reported on his actions. It is a good thing that the organizational conclusions were limited to his removal from office, because the defeat at Kharkov caused distrust of him on the part of the NKVD, who suspected "the possibility of treason to Tymoshenko..." But, fortunately, Stalin spared the commander, perhaps remembering that he personally authorized that unsuccessful operation.

After this fiasco, Tymoshenko only once acted as the commander of the front troops. Conducted by him on the North-Western Front in the winter of 1943. The Demyansk offensive operation successfully completed a long struggle to eliminate the enemy's bridgehead in the area of the city of Demyansk, captured by the Germans at the end of 1941. But in the eyes of Stalin, this operation did not restore the prestige of the commander. Until the end of the war, he did not have a chance to command the fronts. Why? Marshal Zhukov tried to answer this question.

"In some of his writings, Tymoshenko is completely misjudged," he told the writer K. Simonov, " portraying him almost as a weak - willed person who ingratiates himself with Stalin. It is not true. Tymoshenko is an old and experienced military man, persistent, strong-willed and educated both tactically and operationally. In any case, he was a much better commissar than Voroshilov, and during the short period that he was (from May 1940 to July 1941 - Yu.R.), something managed to turn for the better in the army... In the role of front commander, he could be much stronger than some other commanders, such as, for example, Eremenko. But Stalin was angry with him after Kharkov and in general, and this affected his fate throughout the war. He was a firm man, and just as he never engaged in fawning over Stalin, if he did, it is quite possible that he would have received the front."

Since March 1943, a new stage of Marshal Timoshenko's activity begins - as a representative of the Supreme High Command Headquarters. Almost 500 of the 1,418 days during which the Great Patriotic War lasted, he performed these duties and performed them with dignity. Thus, largely due to the clearness of the marshal's interaction between the North Caucasus Front and the Black Sea Fleet, our troops managed to defeat the Nazis in the Kuban and Taman Peninsula. The undoubted merit of Semyon Konstantinovich in the defeat of the Wehrmacht troops on the so-called Blue Line in the Kuban, and then on the Taman Peninsula, and when crossing the Kerch Strait and seizing the bridgehead in the Crimea.

In the spring of 1944, Timoshenko, as a representative of the Stavka, coordinated the actions of the troops of the 2nd and 3rd Baltic fronts. Marshal I. H. Baghramyan recalled: "Then we met as old friends... He was, as usual, full of optimism and confidence in the imminent brilliant victory over the enemy. I remember that Semyon Konstantinovich gave a lot of valuable advice to both of his" sponsored " commanders, Generals M. M. Popov and I. I. Maslennikov. I remember how he greeted me with a fatherly embrace and said::

"I'm glad, I'm heartily glad for you, Ivan Khristoforovich... Young people should replace us, the elderly.

When I told this 'old man' who wasn't even 50 yet that I was only two years younger than him, he was genuinely surprised."

Nevertheless, Tymoshenko's rich combat experience was fully revealed during the Great Patriotic War. From June 1944, he successfully coordinated the actions of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Ukrainian Fronts during operations on the southern wing of the Soviet-German front. It was here that the brilliant Iasi-Kishinev operation was carried out. It became a true example of the rapid encirclement of the enemy and its equally rapid defeat in the conditions of the mountain-wooded theater of military operations.

His generalship talent was also recognized by Stalin, who after Kharkov was very reserved about Tymoshenko. In October 1944, the commander was one of the first in our country to be awarded the Order of Victory.

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