From NKVD Deputy Commissar to General of the Army: the rare commander who held senior rank in both the security apparatus and the Red Army
At the Vorkuta uprising in 1953, Maslennikov appeared to negotiate. A prisoner shouted: 'General! You abandoned us unarmed in the swamps in 1941! You survived — we got twenty-five years!' Maslennikov listened calmly to the end.
A railway lineman's son, he rose to cavalry brigade commander in the Civil War, then joined the OGPU Border Troops in 1928 to crush basmachi guerrillas in Central Asia. Beria made him Deputy NKVD Commissar for all Border and Internal Troops in 1939. After the German invasion he led the 29th and 39th Armies in the Moscow counteroffensive and the North Caucasus Front in the Battle of the Caucasus, securing Baku's oilfields. In 1944 he commanded the 3rd Baltic Front to recapture Pskov, Tartu and Riga, becoming General of the Army. As Vasilevsky's deputy against Japan he helped plan the destruction of the Kwantung Army and earned the Hero of the Soviet Union. Returning to the MGB after the war, he was hounded after Beria's fall over a fabricated coup plot and shot himself in 1954.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1917–1921Red Guards and Red Army, rising to cavalry brigade commander
- 1928–1935OGPU/NKVD Border Troops in Central Asia, crushes basmachi; Frunze Academy
- 1937–1939Commander NKVD Border Troops Belorussia; First Deputy NKVD Commissar BSSR
- 1939–1941Deputy NKVD Commissar for Troops — all Border and Internal Troops
- 1941–1942Commander 29th and 39th Armies — Moscow counteroffensive, Rzhev pocket
- 1942–1943Commander Northern Group, then North Caucasus Front
- 1944Commander 3rd Baltic Front — Pskov, Tartu, Riga; General of the Army
- 1945Deputy Commander Far East — Kwantung Army plan; Hero of the Soviet Union
- 1948–1954Deputy Minister MGB/MVD — commands all MVD troops
Related historical events
- 1918–1922The Civil War and Foreign Interventioncavalry brigade commander
- 1941–1945The Great Patriotic Warchief of NKVD troops
- 1945.08The Soviet Entry into the War against JapanPlanner of the Kwantung Army operationIn 1945, as Vasilevsky's deputy, he helped plan the operation to destroy the Kwantung Army.
Return to the security apparatus and the Vorkuta uprising
For three post-war years Maslennikov remained a field soldier, commanding the Baku and then Transcaucasian military districts and attending the higher academic courses of the General Staff Academy in 1947-1948. On 10 June 1948 he was recalled into the security system as a deputy minister of the MVD (the renamed NKVD, then the MGB) in charge of troops, effectively restoring his 1939 position. His remit then shifted through repeated reorganizations: in February 1951 it was cut back to Internal Troops only, and the new MVD never again concentrated as many troops under a single command as in 1939. From 5 January 1952 he also sat on the MVD collegium.
He held his post through Stalin's death in March 1953 and the arrest and execution of Beria, his long-time patron. The Vorkuta Rechlag camp uprising that began on 19 or 22 July 1953 drew up to 18,000 striking inmates; from 29 July to 1 August he took part, alongside Prosecutor-General Roman Rudenko and other officials, in negotiations with the prisoners and then in the suppression. On 1 August camp chief Derevyanko ordered direct fire. Casualty figures differ by source: inmate Leonid Markizov's account gives 42 killed on the spot and 135 wounded, the Russian-language reference work records at least 53 killed at Yurshor, and Solzhenitsyn wrote of 66. The alias 'Mironov' also belongs to this career, used while he commanded the 3rd Baltic Front, not to an ethnic or party identity.
He was interrogated over his long association with Beria and over an alleged Beria plan to use Maslennikov's troops to seize power, a plan Pavel Sudoplatov considered non-existent; no indictment was ever brought against him, alive or posthumously. On 16 April 1954 in Moscow he took his own life, and was buried at the Vagankovo cemetery.