Vladimir Tolubko

Born Nov. 12 (25), 1914, in the city of Krasnograd, in what is now Kharkov Oblast. Soviet military commander; general of the army (1970). Hero of Socialist Labor (1967). Member of the CPSU since 1939.

The son of a Ukrainian worker, Tolubko joined the Soviet Army in 1932. He graduated from the Ul’ianovsk Armored Military School in 1937, from the Red Army Mechanization and Motorization Academy in 1941, from the K. E. Voroshilov Higher Military Academy in 1950, and from the Advanced Academic Courses of the Voroshilov Academy in 1968.

During the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45, Tolubko fought on the Leningrad and Kalinin fronts. He served as head of operations and training and chief of staff of a tank division (1941–42), chief of staff and commander of a tank brigade (1942), and chief of staff for operations and training for the IV Guards Mechanized Corps on the Third Ukrainian Front (1944–45). In 1943 he taught at the Red Army Mechanization and Motorization Academy.

Since the war, Tolubko has occupied various positions of command. He was assistant commander in chief of an armed forces group, and in March 1960 he became first deputy commander in chief of the strategic missile force. He became commander of troops of the Siberian Military District in April 1968 and of the Far Eastern Military District in May 1969. In April 1972, Tolubko became commander in chief of the strategic rocket force and a deputy minister of defense of the USSR. He has been a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU since 1976, and he was a deputy to the eighth and ninth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

Tolubko has been awarded two Orders of Lenin, four Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of Bogdan Khmel’nitskii Second Class, the Order of the Patriotic War First Class, two Orders of the Red Star, the Order for Service to the Motherland in the Armed Forces of the USSR Third Class, and various medals. He has also received foreign orders and medals.