As a leader, the most important thing is to know people and be good at their duties, because everyone has advantages and disadvantages, and it is a good leader to tolerate the temporary character defects of subordinates and use the advantages of the other party. Stalin, on the other hand, is obviously such a figure, and during his time at the helm of the Soviet Union, in fact, many of his subordinates had more or less character defects; but Stalin generally managed to coordinate all sides and know people well, such as the one to be talked about next.
The one to be said here, perhaps many people do not know his name, and even say that there is no outstanding record, but his contribution to the Soviet Union during World War II is not inferior to the famous generals who fought on the front line, he is the "Tsar of the Far East" known as Apanaschenko; Apanashchenko's early experience is still relatively legendary, during the founding of the Soviet Union and civil strife, Apanashchenko made outstanding achievements, and his decisive and tough style left a deep impression on Stalin.
So he has always been very important, after the outbreak of World War II, before the outbreak of the Soviet-German war, the situation in the Soviet Union was very bad, dangerous, because the size of the Soviet Union is too large, his west is Germany, southeast is Japan, the possibility of being caught in the air. The focus of the Soviet Union's defense was naturally on the European battlefield, but the defense in the Far East could not be relaxed, after all, Japan had tried to attack the Soviet Union (the Battle of Zhanggufeng, the Battle of Nomonkan).
Although the two sides later signed the "Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Treaty", everyone knows that if there is no absolute strength to guarantee, the treaty is actually a piece of waste paper; if Germany launches a war to invade the Soviet Union, will Japan take the opportunity to march north and join forces with the German army? This is quite a possibility. Moreover, will the magistrates in the Far East have the possibility of self-reliance because they are too far away? In short, in order to deal with the coming battle of national fortunes, the Far East must send a strong and reassuring person to guard the town.
In the end, Stalin chose the person he had always valued, Apanashchenko, who was capable of nothing, but the way he behaved and his loyalty to the Soviet Union was something that Stalin greatly appreciated; and how did Apanashchenko repay Stalin? It turns out that Stalin's vision of people is still very accurate, this Aparnaschenko is a typical dictator (which is also the origin of the "Tsar of the Far East"), and often goes to Stalin to make small reports, but Stalin is always smiling.
After the outbreak of the Soviet-German war, the Far East became the most important supply base on which the Soviet Union depended, and although many people commented on him as arrogant, unscrupulous, and lawless, he really did not have to say anything; for example, he spent only 5 months to build nearly 1,000 kilometers of roads from Khabarovsk to Ostkibishevka.
The completion of this road provided great convenience for the Far East to support the Soviet-German battlefield. In the first two years of the Soviet-German war, the Far Eastern Front not only supplied a large number of rifles, artillery, mortars, mines, as well as artillery shells, bullets and radios to the front, but also delivered 17 infantry divisions, 3 tank divisions, 2 cavalry divisions, 2 airborne brigades and 4 infantry brigades, dozens of bombers and fighter regiments to the western front.
Not only that, Aparnaschenko also more than doubled the size of the Far Eastern Front from the original 703,700 to 1,446,000; although some troops were later transferred to the Soviet-German battlefield, the strength of the Far Eastern Front remained above 1.156 million; it was precisely because of such an extremely large army in the Far East that Japan not only did not dare to attack the Soviet Union, but also had to be careful about the Soviet Far Eastern Front moving southward, and had to maintain a large army (the Kwantung Army), which greatly weakened Japan's combat effectiveness.
But Aparnaschenko, who had been a warrior, was so eager to fight that he did not want to spend his life in the Far East, so after the most difficult first two years had passed, he offered Stalin a desire to go to the front; Stalin agreed, and said to him, "I have decided to give you a chance to command a front that is fighting, a front that is fighting." In this way, you can become a marshal after the war is over, because you once led a decisive front in the final stages of the war! ”
It can be seen that Stalin trusted and valued Apanashchenko, but for many reasons, Stalin did not let Apanashchenko directly serve as the commander of the front, but let him serve as the deputy commander of the Voronezh Front, accumulating experience around Vatutin so that he could command a front in the future. But Vatutin seemed to be a little repulsive to the veteran general, and a peculiar phenomenon arose in which the commander of the Front and the deputy commander were stationed very far apart and hardly paid any attention to each other.
Apanashchenko was very dedicated to this appointment, running back and forth between Zadov's Army Group and Rotmistrov's Tank Fifth Army, asking about all kinds of preparations for the Battle of Kursk. However, when it comes to his ending, it is very unfortunate, because Apanaschenko's command post at the very front of the position was discovered by German bombers, so the Luftwaffe bombed his command post, and Apanaschenko was unfortunately hit by fragments of an aerial bomb and died.
It is also the misfortune of Apanaschenko, who is Stalin's most trusted and important general, his power in the Far East is incompetent, his arbitrariness makes many subordinates give Stalin small reports, but Stalin trusts him infinitely; even his name is written on the list of future marshals, as long as he leads a front army to fight a victorious battle, he can become a marshal. Unfortunately, he did not wait for the day when he became a marshal, and he died in battle.