page_title: Semyon Budyonny
section_title: Later military career
hierarchical_section_title: Semyon Budyonny / Later military career
caption_attribution_description: English: Semyon Budyonny celebrates International Women's Day at the House of Unions Mar 8, 1924
context_page_description: Semyon Mikhailovich Budyonny 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.
  Budyonny was the founder of the Red Cavalry, which played an important role in the Bolshevik victory in the Russian Civil War. As a political ally of Joseph Stalin, he was one of the two most senior army commanders still alive and in post at the time of German invasion of the USSR in 1941, but had to be removed from active service because of his unfitness to command a modern army. 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!"
context_section_description: From 1921–1923, Budyonny was deputy commander of the North Caucasian Military District. In 1923, Budyonny arrived in Chechnya with a proclamation from the Central Executive Committee announcing the formation of the Chechen Autonomous Region. The same year, he was also appointed assistant commander of the Red Army's cavalry. In 1924-37, he was Inspector of Cavalry in the Red Army. He spent a great amount of time and effort in the organization and management of equestrian facilities and developing new breeds of horses. 
  Budyonny was considered a courageous and colourful cavalry officer, but displayed disdain for the tools of modern warfare, particularly tanks, which he, along with Grigory Kulik, saw as "incapable of ever replacing cavalry". This brought him into direct conflict with Tukhachevsky, who was in charge of weapons developed, and foresaw the imminence of mechanized warfare. Even after Tukhachevsky's arrest, the Red Army never stopped developing large scale mechanized corps, and each front had numerous such corps attached as a second echelon force by 1940-41, but Budyonny was never criticised for being on the wrong side of the argument, being a faithful ally of Stalin and Voroshilov. 
  Budyonny graduated from the M. V. Frunze Military Academy in 1932. In 1934, he was made a candidate member of the Central Committee of the CPSU. 
  In 1935 Budyonny was made one of the first five Marshals of the Soviet Union. Three of these five were executed in the Great Purge of the late 1930s, leaving only Budyonny and Voroshilov.
caption: Semyon Budyonny celebrates International Women's Day at the House of Unions Mar 8, 1924
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