Kovalev, Mikhail

Born June 25 (July 7), 1897, in the stanitsa (large cossack village) of Briukhovetskaia, now in Briukhovetsksaia Raion, Krasnodar Krai; died Aug. 31, 1967, in Leningrad. Soviet military commander; colonel general (1943). Member of the CPSU from 1927. Son of a peasant.

Kovalev entered the army in 1915. He graduated from a school for ensigns (1915) and fought in World War I (1914–18) as a company and battalion commander and staff captain. Kovalev joined the Soviet Army in 1918. In the Civil War of 1918–20 he commanded a regiment and a brigade. He graduated from the M. V. Frunze Military Academy (1924) and from the Higher Academic Training Courses of the General Staff Military Academy (1948). He was deputy commander of the Kiev Military District from 1938 and then commander of the Byelorussian Military District; from December 1940 he was commander of the Kharkov Military District. In the Soviet-Finnish War (1939–40) he was commander of the Fifteenth Army. In June 1941 he was appointed commander of the Transbaikal Military District and from 1941, commander of the Transbaikal Front. Kovalev served as deputy commander of the Transbaikal Front from July 1945 to 1947 and participated in the war against imperialist Japan. He was commander of the Transbaikal-Amur Military District from 1947 and assistant commander of the Leningrad Military District from March 1949.

He went in to the reserves in October 1955. He was a candidate member of the Central Committee of the ACP (Bolshevik) from 1939 to 1941. He was a deputy to the first convocation of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Kovalev was awarded two Orders of Lenin, four Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of Suvorov First Class, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, the Order of the Red Star, three foreign orders, and various medals.