Supreme Command, Stavka, directly under Kliment Voroshilov (chairman), Nikolai Kuznetsov, Joseph Stalin and Boris Shaposhnikov. Meretskov was appointed to command of the 7th Army. In January 1940, the Leningrad Military District was reformed and renamed "North-Western Front." Semyon Timoshenko was chosen Army Commander to break the Mannerheim Line. This Soviet offensive was checked by the Finnish Army in the Battle of Taipale. For the next offensive, the Stavka significantly reinforced the 7th Army, deployed the 13th Army on its flank and assigned substantial heavy artillery to both armies, including B-4 howitzers and Br-5 mortars. The next Soviet offensive began in February 1940. The heavy artillery support allowed the Soviet forces to breach the Mannerheim Line. Meretskov's 7th Army proceeded to take Viborg which so far had resisted attempts of Soviet conquest. Less than two weeks after the signing of the Moscow Peace Treaty, on March 21, 1940, Meretskov was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Afterwards, Meretskov was promoted to rank of army general and made Deputy Commissar of Defense. From August 1940 to January 1941, he was Chief of the General Staff. He was dismissed on 14 January 1941, and on 24 January, Stalin spotted him at the Bolshoi and, in front of witnesses: "You are courageous, capable, but without principles, spineless. You want to be nice, but you should have a plan instead and adhere to it strictly, despite the fact that someone or other is going to be resentful." Operation Barbarossa On June 22, 1941, when Operation Barbarossa started, Meretskov was appointed permanent adviser to Stavka. However, on July 23 he was arrested by the NKVD as a member of an alleged anti-Soviet military conspiracy. The exact reasons are unknown, and the case file was destroyed in 1955. Meretskov's close friendship with General Dmitry Pavlov, the Soviet Commander of the Western Front who had been executed, is often considered a factor, although Pavlov, at the time, was yet to even be relieved of duty, much less arrested. Mark Solonin, in his book June the 25th: Stupidity or Aggression, proposes a theory that the actual reason might have been Meretskov's skepticism about the need to start bombardments of Finland, and his later release was due to him turning out to have been right, although he admits that direct evidence is unlikely to be found. After being subjected to two months of torture, including being beaten