Principal architect of the Soviet Air Force and aviation industry
On 2 August 1930 at Voronezh airfield, Baranov ordered the first combat drop of armed paratroopers — "demonstrate the drop of a group of armed parachutists for sabotage actions on 'enemy' territory" — the day considered the birth of the Soviet Airborne Forces (VDV).
One of the main creators of the Soviet Air Force, Baranov commanded the VVS from 1924 to 1931, building its organizational and industrial foundations. From 1932, as Deputy People's Commissar for Heavy Industry and head of the aviation industry under Ordzhonikidze, he drove the expansion of aircraft and engine production that would sustain Soviet air power through World War II. On 2 August 1930 he initiated the first combat paratrooper drop near Voronezh, the founding event of the Soviet Airborne Forces (VDV). He also signed the agreement establishing the secret Lipetsk German aviation school and backed early rocket research through GIRD as well as stratospheric balloon flights. He and his wife died in a plane crash in 1933; his ashes are interred in the Kremlin Wall.
Career Timeline
- 1912Joined RSDLP(b); arrested and exiled from St. Petersburg 1913
- 1915–1917Mobilized into Imperial Army; arrested for revolutionary agitation, sentenced to 8 years hard labor; freed by February Revolution
- 1917–1918Chairman, front-line Soviet department, Romanian Front; commander, 4th Donetsk Army
- 1919–1921Member of RVS, 8th Army / Southern Group Eastern Front / Turkestan Front / 1st & 14th Armies; Kronstadt suppression (Order of the Red Banner)
- 1921–1922Member of RVS, Turkestan Front; led operations against the Basmachi (Khorezm Military Order)
- 1923–1924Chief & Commissar, Red Army Armored Forces; deputy chief then acting chief of Air Force
- 1924–1931Commander, Red Army Air Force (VVS); member of Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR from 1925
- 1932–1933Deputy People's Commissar for Heavy Industry; Head, Main Directorate of Aviation Industry