Ivanov, Vladimir Dmitrievich

Born July 9 (22), 1900, in the city of Lebedian’, in present-day Lipetsk Oblast; died Dec. 15, 1968, in Moscow. Soviet military commander, general of the army in 1961. Became a member of the CPSU in 1919. The son of a worker.

Ivanov enlisted in the Soviet Army in February 1918 and fought in the Civil War of 1918–20. He graduated from the Higher Artillery School in 1923, from the Frunze Military Academy in 1930, and from the Military Academy of the General Staff in 1950. Deputy chief of a directorate and assistant chief of the General Staff before the war, he began in the Great Patriotic War (1941–45) as the chief of staff and deputy commander of an army. Ivanov was appointed assistant chief of the General Staff in June 1942. In 1945, as deputy commander of the troops of the Transbaikal Front, Ivanov participated in the rout of imperialist Japan. He held various command positions after the war: first deputy chief commander of the National Air Defense Forces (1955–56), commander of the forces of an air defense district (1956–59), assistant and first assistant chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR (1959–65), chief of the Military Academy of the General Staff (1965–68), and finally inspector and adviser of the General Inspectors’ Group.

A deputy to the fifth and sixth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Ivanov was awarded three Orders of Lenin, four Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of Suvorov First Class, the Order of Kutuzov First Class, two Orders of Suvorov Second Class, the Order of the Patriotic War First Class, the Order of the Red Star, two foreign orders, and medals.