Lev Mekhlis

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Lev Zakharovich Mekhlis (Russian: Лев Захарович Мехлис) (January 13, 1889, Odessa - February 13, 1953, Moscow) was a Soviet statesman and party figure.

He however served incompetently as a party commissar at the front during World War II, among his mistakes being failures, in conjunction with General Dmitri Kozlov, which meant the Crimean Front was defeated and had to be evacuated under fire in May 1942. Mekhlis was demoted to corps commissar. (John Erickson, Road to Stalingrad, 2003 edition, p.348-9)

Lev Mekhlis was awarded four Orders of Lenin, five other orders and numerous medals. He was interred at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis on the Red Square.