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

Kommunist (Kharkov),

No. 43 (1928), February 23, 1926