Ivan Grigoryevich Pavlovsky

Иван Григорьевич Павловский

1909–1999 ○ Natural causes

The ground forces commander who invaded Czechoslovakia and opposed Afghanistan

Returning from Afghanistan in 1979, Pavlovsky submitted a written report to Defence Minister Ustinov and Chief of General Staff Ogarkov categorically opposing the entry of Soviet troops — within months he was removed as Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces.

Born into a Ukrainian peasant family and trained as an agronomist before joining the Red Army, Pavlovsky rose through the ranks commanding a rifle division that fought from the Caucasus to Berlin. Appointed Commander-in-Chief of Soviet Ground Forces and Deputy Minister of Defence in 1967, he led the Warsaw Pact combined forces that invaded Czechoslovakia in Operation Danube (1968), the largest Soviet military operation in Europe since the war. In 1979, after a fact-finding mission to Afghanistan, he submitted a written report to Defence Minister Ustinov and Chief of General Staff Ogarkov categorically opposing the entry of Soviet troops, and was dismissed within months. The commander of the largest ground force in the world openly opposing a military intervention illuminates the fracture within the late-Brezhnev-era military elite.