Iosif Iraklievich Gusakovskii

Born Dec. 12 (25), 1904, in the village of Vorod’kovo, Mogilev Province. General of the army (1968). Twice Hero of the Soviet Union (Sept. 23, 1944, and Apr. 6, 1945). Member of the CPSU since 1931.

Gusakovskii was born into a Byelorussian peasant family. He entered the Soviet Army in 1928. He graduated from cavalry school (1931), armor courses (1932), staff courses (1934), and the Military Academy of the General Staff (1948). During the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45 he was chief of staff of a tank brigade, and from September 1943 the commander of the 112th Tank Brigade (renamed the 44th Guards Tank Brigade in October 1943). He participated in the battles of Moscow and Kursk, in the liberation of the Ukraine and Poland, and in the fighting for Berlin. For skillful control of his brigade during the L’vov-Sandomierz operation (destruction of the Brody grouping) and the Vistula-Oder operation (crossing the Pilica River and taking the city of Łowicz), Gusakovskii was twice awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union. After the war he commanded a division and the armored and mechanized troops of a military district, and he served as deputy commander of the troops of a military district. From 1959 to 1963 he was troop commander of the Baltic Military District, and in 1963 he became chief of the Main Directorate of Personnel of the Ministry of Defense of the USSR. He was a deputy to the sixth and seventh convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He has been awarded three Orders of Lenin, four Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of the Patriotic War First Class, two Orders of the Red Star, two Mongolian Orders, and also medals.