Aleksandr Vasilevsky
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Aleksandr Mikhailovich Vasilevsky (also spelled Vasilievsky, Vasilyevsky, Vasilievskii etc, Russian: Александр Михайлович Василевский) (September 30 1895 - December 5 1977), Marshal of the Soviet Union, was the Soviet commander in the operations against Japan in 1945, and later Defence Minister.
Background and early career
Vasilevsky was born into a not very prosperous family of priest Mikhail Aleksandrovich Vasilevsky in Novaya Golchikha near Kostroma, east of Moscow. He was forth of eight children in the family. He studied for 4 months in the Alexander Military Law Academy in 1915. He served in the army of the Russian Empire as a junior staff captain in World War I. He left the army after the October revolution joining the Red Army in April 1919 and took part in the Russian Civil War. He fought against peasant rebels and bandits near Tula and against Poland in 1920, but his main talents were administrative, and in the 1920s he held a series of staff positions, followed by brigade and divisional commands. During this time he formed friendships with Joseph Stalin and Vyacheslav Molotov which greatly advanced his career.
In 1931 Vasilievsky graduated to command of the (Volga Region) Military District (Приволжский военный округ). His friendship with Stalin and his administrative talents seem to have been the factors which kept him safe during Stalin's Great Purge, which swept through the Red Army in 1937-38. In October 1937 he was appointed a member of the General Staff, and in October 1941, after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, he was promoted to a General lieutenant.
Chief of the General Staff
In April 1942 Vasilievsky succeeded Boris Shaposhnikov as Chief of the General Staff. In this position Vasilievsky's great organisational skills were shown at their best. In late 1942 he was the General Staff representative and overall supervisor of the Stalingrad Front, and together with Georgy Zhukov the main planner of the operations there, which led to Germany's greatest defeat on the Eastern Front. The historian David Glantz identifies Vasilievsky as the real architect of victory at the Battle of Stalingrad, arguing that Georgy Zhukov's role has been overstated. Stalin made Vasilievsky a General and 29 days later, on February, 16 1943, Vasilevsky was already a Marshal of the Soviet Union.
In 1943 and 1944 Vasilievsky continued to play leading organisational roles in the Soviet war effort, particularly in relation to the Battle of Kursk in July 1943. At the beginning of 1945 he was given command of the Northwestern Front as they advanced through Poland and into East Prussia. After the German surrender in May 1945, he was transferred to the Far East Front. When the Soviet Union declared war on Japan in August, he led the advance into China and Korea, Operation August Storm, defeating the Japanese Kwantung Army.
Defence Minister
In 1948 Vasilievsky returned to Moscow to become Deputy Minister for Defence, and in March 1949 he was appointed Minister for Defence. During this period he presided over the reorganisation of the Soviet armed forces from their wartime role to that of maintaining permanent forces in Central Europe and confronting the United States in the Cold War era.
In 1952 he was appointed a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Following Stalin's death in March 1953, however, he was replaced as Defence Minister by Nikolai Bulganin. Possibly his long association with Stalin was held against him: in any case he held no further senior posts until his death in 1977.
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de:Alexander Michailowitsch Wassilewski fr:Aleksandr Mikhaïlovitch Vassilievski ka:ვასილევსკი, ალეკსანდრ ru:Василевский, Александр Михайлович tr:Aleksandr Vasilevsky