Nikolai Ogarkov

Born Oct. 17 (30), 1917, in the village of Molokovo, now in Molokovo Raion, Kalinin Oblast. Soviet military commander; marshal of the Soviet Union (1977). Member of the CPSU from 1945.

Ogarkov joined the Red Army in 1938. He graduated from the V. V. Kuibyshev Military Engineering Academy in 1941 and from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR in 1959. In the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45, he served on the Western, Karelian, and Third Ukrainian fronts as regiment and brigade engineer (1941–42), assistant chief of staff of an army’s engineers (1942–43), assistant chief of the operations department of the engineer troops of the Karelian Front (1943–44), and division engineer (1944–45). Ogarkov held responsible staff positions after the war. He became deputy chief of staff of the Far Eastern Military District in November 1955. He served as commander of a motorized rifle division from December 1959, chief of staff and first deputy commander of the forces of the Byelorussian Military District from December 1961, and commander of the forces of the Volga Region Military District from December 1965.

In April 1968, Ogarkov was appointed first deputy chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR, and in March 1974 deputy minister of defense of the USSR. In January 1977 he became chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR. He was a candidate member of the Central Committee of the CPSU from 1966 and a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU from 1971. He was a deputy to the seventh, eighth, and ninth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Ogarkov was awarded the Order of the Red Banner, the Order of the Patriotic War First Class, the Order of the Patriotic War Second Class, two Orders of the Red Star, various medals, and five orders of foreign states.