Nikolai Pukhov

Born Jan. 13 (25), 1895, in the village of Grishevo, now in Babynino Raion, Kaluga Oblast; died Mar. 28, 1958, in Moscow. Soviet military commander; colonel general (1944). Hero of the Soviet Union (Oct. 16, 1943). Member of the CPSU from 1941. Son of a village teacher.

Pukhov was drafted into the army in 1916, graduated from a school for ensigns, and fought in World War I. He joined the Red Army in 1918 and was chief of staff of a brigade and of a division in the Civil War of 1918–20. Pukhov graduated from Vystrel, the Higher Infantry School of the Red Army, in 1926; from the Advanced Academic Courses for Commanders of the Military Academy of Mechanization and Motorization in 1935; and from the Higher Academic Training Courses of the Higher Military Academy in 1952. In the Great Patriotic War (1941–45) he commanded a rifle division in 1941 and from January 1942 to the end of the war the Thirteenth Army on the Southwestern, Briansk, Central, and First Ukrainian fronts.

After the war, Pukhov commanded the forces of the military districts of Odessa (1948–51), the Northern Caucasus (1953), Western Siberia (1953–56), and Siberia (1956–57). He was a deputy to the third and fourth convocations of the Supreme Soviet. Pukhov was awarded four Orders of Lenin, three Orders of the Red Banner, three Orders of Suvorov First Class, two Orders of Kutuzov First Class, the Order of Bogdan Khmel’nitskii First Class, various medals, and several foreign orders and medals.