J. V. Stalin

Comrade Kotovsky


Source: Works, Vol. 8, January-November, 1926, p. 105
Publisher: Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1954
First Published: Kommunist (Kharkov), No. 43 (1828), February 23, 1926
Transcription/Markup: Brian Reid
Public Domain: Marxists Internet Archive (2008). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.


I knew Comrade Kotovsky as an exemplary Party member, an experienced military organiser and a skilful commander.

I have a particularly vivid memory of him on the Polish front in 1920, when Comrade Budyonny was dashing to Zhitomir in the rear of the Polish army, and Kotovsky was leading his cavalry brigade in dare-devil raids on the Poles’ Kiev army. He was a terror to the Polish Whites, for no one was as capable as he of “making mincemeat“ of them, as our Red Army men used to say.

It is as the bravest among our modest commanders, and as the most modest among the brave that I remember Comrade Kotovsky.

Eternal glory to his memory!

J. Stalin