Ivan Ilich Liudnikov

Born Sept. 13 (26), 1902, in the village of Krivaia Kosa, now Novoazovsk Raion, Donetsk Oblast. Soviet military commander; colonel general (1945); Hero of the Soviet Union (Oct. 16, 1943). Member of the CPSU from 1925. Son of a worker.

Liudnikov joined the Red Guard in 1917 and joined the Red Army in 1918. He fought in the Civil War (1918-20). He graduated from an infantry school in 1925, from the M. V. Frunze Military Academy in 1938, and from the Higher Academic Training Courses of the Academy of the General Staff in 1952. In the Great Patriotic War (1941-45), Liudnikov commanded a rifle brigade, division, and corps and was appointed commander of the Thirty-ninth Army in May 1944. He participated in the battles of Stalingrad and Kursk; in fighting for the liberation of the Ukraine, Byelorussia, and Lithuania; and in the East Prussian and Manchurian operations. He was chief of Vystrel, the Higher Officers’ Training Courses of the Soviet Army, from 1959 to 1963. Liudnikov was head of a department at the Academy of the General Staff from 1963 to 1968. He retired in 1968. He was a deputy to the second and third convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He was awarded three Orders of Lenin, five Orders of the Red Banner, three Orders of Suvorov First Class, the Order of Suvorov Second Class, the Order of Bogdan Khmel’nitskii Second Class, five foreign orders, and various medals.