A member of the Communist Party from 1938, Alexander
Mikhailovich Vasilevsky was born in the village of Novo-Pokrovka, now Ivanovo
Oblast. He graduated from military school in 1914. He served as a junior
officer in the tsarist army during World War I. From 1918 to 1931 he commanded
a company, then a battalion, then an infantry regiment in the Red Army. From
1931 to 1936 Vasilevsky held executive posts in combat training organs within
the People's Commissariat of Defense and Volga Military District. From 1937 to
1941 he served on the General Staff, from 1941 to 1942 as deputy chief, and
from 1942 to 1945 (during World War II or the Great Patriotic War) as Chief of
the General Staff of the Soviet Armed Forces and concurrently, deputy people's
commissar of defense of the USSR.
Upon instructions from the Supreme Command Headquarters,
Vasilevsky helped to elaborate many major strategic plans. In particular,
Vasilevsky was among the architects (and participants) of the 1943 Stalingrad
offensive. He coordinated actions of several fronts in the Battle of Kursk and
the Belorussian and Eastern-Prussian offensive operations. Under Vasilevsky's
leadership, a strategic operation aimed at routing the Japanese Kwantung army
was successfully carried out between August and September of 1945.
Increasingly, after the German invasion of June 1941, officers
with world-class military skills, who either emerged unscathed by Stalin's
purges or were retrieved from Stalin's prisons and camps, came to the fore.
Vasilevsky was among these men. Although Stalin was loath to trust anyone
fully, this innate distrust did not prevent him from tapping the resources of
his most talented military strategists during World War II. In the first year
of the war, when the USSR was on the defensive, Stalin often made unilateral
decisions. However, by the second year, he depended increasingly on his
subordinates. As Marshal Vasilevsky has recalled,
He came to have a
different attitude toward the General Staff apparatus and front commanders. He
was forced to rely constantly on the collective experience of the military.
Before deciding on an operational question, Stalin listened to advice and
discussed it with his deputy [Zhukov], with leading officers of the General
Staff, with the main directorates of the People's Commissariat of Defense, with
the commanders of the fronts, and also with the executives in charge of defense
production.
His most astute generals, Vasilevsky and Georgy Zhukov
included, learned how to nudge Stalin toward a decision without talking back to
him.
While serving as a member of the Central Committee of the
Soviet Communist Party between 1952 and 1961, Vasilevsky also held the post of
first deputy minister of defense from 1953 to 1957. Twice named Hero of the
Soviet Union, he was also twice awarded the military honor, the Order of
Victory, and was presented with many other orders, medals, and ceremonial
weapons. He retired the following year and died fifteen years later.
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