Marshal who helped plan the liberation of the Balkans, then commanded the Strategic Rocket Forces
On 19 October 1964 an Il-18 of the Soviet Air Force carrying Biryuzov's delegation to the 20th anniversary of Belgrade's liberation strayed from its landing course and struck Mount Avala, killing 18 people, 11 crew and 7 delegation members; his ashes were placed in the Kremlin wall.
Biryuzov was born in Skopin, in Ryazan Governorate; the official Russian biography records a merchant's family, while other accounts describe a working-class family of Russian ethnicity. He enlisted in the Red Army on 15 September 1922, graduated from the VTsIK Combined Military School in 1926 and the Frunze Academy in 1937, then commanded the 132nd Rifle Division from 1939. Wounded five times in the first year of the German invasion, he was later chief of staff of the 2nd Guards Army and of the Southern, 4th Ukrainian, and 3rd Ukrainian fronts, helping plan the liberation of the Donbass and Crimea and the Jassy-Kishinev and Belgrade offensives. He commanded the Air Defence Forces and then the Strategic Rocket Forces and became Chief of the General Staff in March 1963, dying in a plane crash on Mount Avala on 19 October 1964.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1922Volunteered for the Red Army; infantry and machine-gun courses
- 1926Graduated VTsIK Combined Military School; platoon commander
- 1937Graduated Frunze Academy; chief of staff, 30th Rifle Division
- 1939–1942CO, 132nd Rifle Division — wounded 5 times in a year; Smolensk and Moscow
- 1942–1943Chief of Staff, 2nd Guards Army — Operation Saturn after Stalingrad
- 1943–1944Chief of Staff, Southern/4th Ukrainian Front — Donbass and Crimea liberation
- 1944Chief of Staff, 3rd Ukrainian Front — Jassy-Kishinev and Belgrade offensives
- 1944–1946CO, 37th Army; head of Soviet military mission to Bulgaria
- 1955–1962C-in-C, Soviet Air Defence Forces; Marshal of the Soviet Union (1955)
- 1962–1963C-in-C, Strategic Rocket Forces
- 1963–1964Chief of the General Staff and First Deputy Minister of Defence
Related historical events
- 1941–1945The Great Patriotic WarFront chief of staff · division commanderAs commander of the 132nd Rifle Division he was wounded five times in the first year of the war. As Tolbukhin's chief of staff on the Southern, 4th Ukrainian, and 3rd Ukrainian fronts, he planned the offensives that liberated the Donbass, Crimea, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia, including the Jassy-Kishinev and Belgrade operations.
- 1944–1949The People's Democracies of Eastern EuropeVice-chairman of the Allied Control Commission in BulgariaAs vice-chairman under Marshal Tolbukhin he ran the commission in Sofia from 1944 to 1947, exercising approval over the decisions of the Fatherland Front government.
- 1944–1949Bulgaria: From the Fatherland Front to the Kostov TrialVice-chairman of the Control CommissionAs vice-chairman under Tolbukhin he ran the commission in Sofia from 1944 to 1947, exercising approval over government decisions, and represented the Soviet side in the talks over the postponed election of 1945 and the election of 1946.
- 1957The Anti-Party GroupCentral Committee member
- 1962The Cuban Missile CrisisRocket Forces chief overseeing missile deploymentHe oversaw the dispatch of missile regiments to Cuba in Operation Anadyr.
Commanding the 132nd Rifle Division and the Bulgarian Occupation Post
Biryuzov commanded the 132nd Rifle Division from August 1939 to April 1942. About two years into that posting the German invasion began; the division fought within the 13th Army on the Western Front and took part in the Smolensk defensive battle and the battle for Moscow. In the first year of the German-Soviet war he was wounded five times, twice severely. In October 1941 he was wounded and spent several months in hospital, remaining only nominally the division's commander: during that absence actual command was exercised by others, and he was awarded the Order of Lenin for his leadership of the division.
The division's own 1941 record was one of defeat and retreat. In early August 1941 it conducted unsuccessful counter-attacks near Roslavl within the 45th Rifle Corps, was pushed back on Trubchevsk, and at the end of September, again encircled, tried to break out towards Sevsk; its remnants took part in the December 1941 counter-offensive in the Yelets area. He is remembered as a capable divisional commander who repeatedly led his division into battle personally.
As chief of staff of the 3rd Ukrainian Front from May 1944, he took part in preparing and conducting the Jassy-Kishinev and Belgrade offensive operations. From October 1944 to May 1946 he was commander of the 37th Army, chief Soviet military adviser to the Bulgarian Army and deputy chairman of the Allied Control Commission in Bulgaria. The 37th Army remained on Bulgarian territory to the end of the war and conducted no combat operations; his role there was occupation command and advising the local army rather than combat leadership. He then served as deputy commander of the Southern Group of Forces, commander of the Primorsky Military District (1947-1953) and commander-in-chief of the Central Group of Forces (1953-1954), before moving to the Air Defence Forces as commander-in-chief and deputy defence minister from 1955.
Strategic Rocket Forces and the Cuban Missile Crisis
In April 1962, Biryuzov was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces (RVSN). The appointment came as Khrushchev was dramatically reducing conventional forces and repositioning nuclear missiles as the centerpiece of Soviet military power. Biryuzov's most immediate challenge was Operation Anadyr: the secret deployment of intermediate-range ballistic missiles to Cuba. He oversaw the dispatch of R-12 (SS-4) and R-14 (SS-5) missile regiments, and during the summer and autumn of 1962, dozens of nuclear-armed missiles and over 40,000 Soviet personnel crossed the Atlantic under extraordinary secrecy. When American reconnaissance aircraft discovered the missile sites in October 1962, Biryuzov's Strategic Rocket Forces assumed combat readiness on the brink of all-out nuclear war for the first time in their history.
During his tenure, Biryuzov worked to strengthen the RVSN's strategic posture. He expanded underground silo launch facilities, completed the fielding of the second-generation R-16 ICBM, and advanced the development of the mobile-launched R-16U. The command architecture and doctrine he established helped secure the RVSN's position as the preeminent branch among the five Soviet armed services. Biryuzov served as head of the Strategic Rocket Forces for approximately one year before his promotion to Chief of the General Staff in March 1963. That experience directly informed his subsequent drive to modernize Soviet nuclear forces from the highest post in the armed forces.