People of the Revolution and the USSR

Soviet Union Soviet communism 1897–1968 ○ Natural causes (Moscow, )

A peasant's son from the Grodno lands who framed Soviet nuclear-age strategy

Sokolovsky's best-documented signature action is his direction of the Berlin Blockade as supreme head of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany in 1946-49; Stalin valued the measure highly and awarded him the Order of Lenin for it.

He was born in 1897 to a poor peasant family in Grodno province, finished a church school and the Nevel teachers' seminary, and volunteered for the Red Army in 1918. In the German-Soviet war he commanded the Western Front and was dismissed in April 1944 after failed offensives, then helped prepare the Berlin offensive as chief of staff of the 1st Ukrainian Front. He took part on the Soviet side in the May 1945 ceremony of Germany's unconditional surrender and, as supreme head of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany and commander-in-chief of the occupation forces from 1946 to 1949, directed the Berlin Blockade. He was Chief of the General Staff and first deputy defence minister from 1952 to 1960, then inspector-general of the Defence Ministry until his death, and in 1962 he led the author collective of Military Strategy, the book that made him widely known in the West.

Soviet Union Soviet communism 1900–1938 ✕ Executed

An internationalist soldier who helped organize Madrid’s defense

In the autumn of 1936, Gorev was a central Soviet adviser in turning Republican militias into a disciplined force during Madrid’s defense.

Vladimir Gorev was a Soviet soldier and military adviser shaped by the Russian Civil War and revolutionary China. Sent to Spain in 1936 under the code name “Sancho,” he helped organize Republican forces and defend Madrid before serving on the northern front. Recalled to the USSR, he became a victim of the Great Purge, was executed in 1938, and rehabilitated in 1956.

Soviet Union Soviet communism 1908–1990 ○ Natural causes

Father of the modern VDV, who turned airborne troops into a heavily armored strike force

As his son Alexander tested the world's first crewed parachute drop of a BMD-1 in 1973, Margelov watched from the command post gripping a loaded pistol — ready to shoot himself if the experiment failed.

Vasily Margelov commanded the Soviet Airborne Forces (VDV) for 23 years and is regarded as the father of the modern airborne troops. A decorated officer who earned the Hero of the Soviet Union for forcing the Dnieper at the head of the 49th Guards Rifle Division in 1944, he assumed command of the VDV in 1954 and transformed it from light infantry into a heavily armored strike force. Under his leadership the BMD-1 airborne fighting vehicle, heavy parachute platforms, and the Kentavr and Reaktavr crewed airdrop systems were developed, while An-22 and Il-76 transports gave the force strategic reach. He made over sixty parachute jumps, the last at 65, and led VDV operations during the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia. By his retirement in 1979 the VDV had become one of the Soviet military's most capable arms, popularly called 'Uncle Vasya's troops.'

Soviet Union Soviet communism 1912–1976 ○ Died of illness

Belarusian-born marshal who commanded the Warsaw Pact forces for nine years

In the defence of Minsk in 1941, Yakubovsky's tank unit crushed an advancing German motorcycle convoy by ramming it with their tanks in the city streets.

Born the sixth child of a Belarusian peasant family, he was conscripted into the Red Army in 1932 and graduated from the Kalinin Belarusian United Military School in Minsk in 1934. Through the Great Patriotic War he commanded tank units in the defence of Minsk and Mogilev, at Stalingrad and Kursk, in the liberation of Kyiv, and in the Berlin and Prague offensives, twice earning the title Hero of the Soviet Union. In 1967 he became First Deputy Minister of Defence and a Marshal of the Soviet Union, and as commander-in-chief of the Warsaw Pact forces he directed the military preparations for the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, though operational command passed to Ivan Pavlovsky days before the operation. He died of illness in Moscow on 30 November 1976, and his ashes were interred in the Kremlin Wall.

Soviet Union Soviet communism 1918–1991 ○ Natural causes

Longest-serving GSFG commander who led the Soviet front-line force facing NATO for eight years

4 December 1941: a German tank group was about to encircle Western Front headquarters — Captain Ivanovsky's 27th Tank Battalion stopped the breakthrough and saved the command.

A tank officer who began the Great Patriotic War as a captain and ended it as a colonel at age 26, he fought from the defence of Moscow through to East Prussia. From 1972 to 1980 he served as Commander-in-Chief of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany (GSFG) for eight years, the longest tenure in the post's history. He commanded the Warsaw Pact's most combat-ready formation at the very front line of the Cold War military standoff with NATO. After commanding the Belorussian Military District, he became Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Ground Forces and Deputy Minister of Defence in 1985, overseeing the late Cold War conventional-force buildup, and was awarded Hero of the Soviet Union that same year for his wartime service and postwar contributions to military readiness.