Longest-serving Warsaw Pact supreme commander, who led its forces for twelve years
In mid-June 1941, in Vladimir-Volynsky near the Polish border, the landlady told the newly commissioned Lieutenant Kulikov: "Pan Lieutenant, they say on the other side that war will begin on the 22nd."
Born to a poor peasant family, he fought as a tank officer from the first day of the Great Patriotic War through to Berlin. Appointed Chief of the General Staff and First Deputy Minister of Defence in 1971, he drove Soviet military modernisation before serving as Supreme Commander of the Warsaw Pact unified forces from 1977 to 1989, the longest tenure in that post, shaping Eastern Bloc military doctrine through the late Cold War. During the 1981 Polish martial-law crisis he opposed direct Soviet military intervention. Awarded Marshal of the Soviet Union, Hero of the Soviet Union, and the Lenin Prize; after retirement he served in the Russian State Duma as a veterans' affairs advocate.
Career Timeline
- 1939Joined Red Army, trained at Grozny Military Infantry School
- 1941–1945From platoon/company commander to Chief of Staff, 143rd Tank Brigade; fought Moscow to Berlin
- 1953Graduated Frunze Military Academy; commanded mechanised regiment and divisions
- 1959Graduated General Staff Academy; Deputy Commander, 5th Guards Tank Army
- 1964Commander, 6th Combined Arms Army (Leningrad Military District)
- 1967–1969Commander, Kiev Military District
- 1969–1971Commander-in-Chief, Group of Soviet Forces in Germany
- 1971–1977Chief of the General Staff & First Deputy Minister of Defence
- 1977–1989Supreme Commander, Warsaw Pact Unified Forces & First Deputy Minister of Defence
- 1999–2003State Duma Deputy (United Russia), Chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee
Related historical events
- 1941–1945The Great Patriotic Warchief of staff of a tank brigade, fought from Moscow to Berlin
- 1989The Revolutions of 1989Warsaw Pact supreme commander, stepped down amid non-intervention doctrineHe commanded the Warsaw Pact unified forces from 1977 to February 1989: the longest tenure ever. During the 1981 Polish crisis he urged a solution without allied military intervention, and he stepped down as supreme commander just before the 1989 revolutions swept Eastern Europe. The alliance he had led for twelve years dissolved in 1991 as a result of those revolutions.
The 1980-1981 Polish Crisis and the Soviet Decision Not to Intervene
When the Solidarity trade union emerged in Poland in the summer of 1980, the Soviet leadership applied intense military pressure to prevent the defection of this strategic linchpin of the Eastern Bloc. Kulikov, who had been Supreme Commander of the Warsaw Pact unified forces since 1977, was the Kremlin's front-line executor in the crisis. During 1981 alone he met Poland's leader Wojciech Jaruzelski 22 times, so often that Jaruzelski later wrote, "I saw him more than my wife and daughter." In conversations with East German generals, Kulikov made no secret of his disdain, lamenting Poland's "Catholic disease" and its disposition to "nationalism and argumentativeness."
By late 1981, however, the Kremlin's calculus had shifted. At a Politburo meeting on 10 December, KGB chief Yuri Andropov declared: "We do not intend to introduce troops into Poland… even if Poland falls under the power of Solidarity, that's how it will be." Kulikov himself, in a farewell conversation with East German military leaders, stated that "the solution to the Polish problem without the intervention of the allied armies should be the shared goal." When Jaruzelski pleaded with Kulikov on 8 December ("You will have to help us. We won't be able to handle it alone"), Moscow's answer was a firm refusal. On 13 December, Jaruzelski imposed martial law using Polish forces alone; Soviet troops did not cross the border. It was a historic turning point: the first time the Brezhnev Doctrine's 'limited sovereignty' principle, forged in the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, was not applied.
At a 1997 academic conference in Warsaw, a Russian participant publicly stated that Moscow had decided against military intervention. A shaken Jaruzelski approached Kulikov during the break and whispered in Russian: "How could you let them do this to me — in front of the Americans?" Kulikov reportedly embraced his old comrade and kissed him on both cheeks without answering.