Lev Zakharovich Mekhlis (Russian: Лев Заха́рович Ме́хлис; January 13, 1889 – February 13, 1953) was a Soviet politician and a prominent officer in the Red Army from 1937 to 1942.

Despite his fervent political engagement and loyalty to the Communist Party, various Soviet leaders, including Joseph Stalin, criticized and reprimanded Mekhlis for incompetent military leadership during World War II.

In 1918, he joined the Communist Party and until 1920, he did political work in the Red Army (commissioner of brigade, then 46th division, group of forces).

[3] From 1930 he was the head of the press corps Central Committee, and in 1930, he succeeded Nikolai Bukharin, who had led the opposition to collectivisation, as editor in chief of Pravda.

He was elected a candidate member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1934, and promoted to full membership in October 1937.

In December 1937, during the Great Purge, Mekhlis was confirmed as Head of the Political Administration of the Red Army, which had been vacant since the previous holder, Yan Gamarnik, had committed suicide.

Nicknamed "the Shark" and the "Gloomy Demon",[1] Mekhlis supervised a drastic purge of at least 20,000 of the 30,000 political commissars attached to the army.

By November 1938, he was officially listed as second in seniority in the military establishment, behind People's Commissar Kliment Voroshilov and ahead of the professional soldiers.

[8] In June 1941, Mekhlis was reassigned to his former position as head of the chief of main political administration and the deputy of the Peoples Commissar of Defense.

[9] In March 1942, Mekhlis was sent to organise the defence of the vital Kerch peninsula on the Crimean Front, where he fell into disputes with General Dmitry Timofeyevich Kozlov.

If, as you say, "everything seemed to indicate that the opponent would begin an advance first thing in the morning", and you still hadn't done everything needed to repel their attack instead limiting your involvement merely to passive criticism, then you are squarely to blame.

[11] The war correspondent, Konstantin Simonov, who witnessed the Kerch debacle, later wrote: The reason for the shameful defeat is quite clear to me: the complete mistrust of the army and front commanders that emanated from Mekhlis, the stupid tyranny and wildly arbitrary ways of this military illiterate...He forbade the digging of trenches so that the offensive spirit of the soldiers would not be undermined.

[12]On his return to Moscow, Mekhlis was removed from the post of the deputy people's commissar of defense and the chief of the main political administration of the Red Army.

[2] On 23 June 1942 he was made head of the army's Main Political Directorate, in this position his influence was contained by resistance from leading military officers like Zhukov and Voroshilov however.