Vladimir Triandafillov

Born Mar. 14 (26), 1894, in the village of Magaradzhi, Kars Oblast, in what is now Turkey; died July 12, 1931, in Moscow. Soviet military figure and theorist. Member of the Communist Party from 1919.

Triandafillov served in World War I (1914–18), rising to the rank of staff captain. He joined the Red Army in July 1918. During the Civil War (1918–20) he commanded a battalion, a regiment, and an infantry brigade on the Eastern, Southwestern, and Southern fronts. He graduated from the Military Academy of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army (RKKA) in 1923. From 1923 to 1931 he served as a department head and chief of the operations department of the RKKA. He was a commander and commissar of an infantry corps and deputy chief of staff of the RKKA.

In his works on military theory, Triandafillov studied the development of armies after World War I. Taking into account the special features of the Red Army, he developed basic concepts that could be used in preparing for and conducting a possible future war and operations. He made conjectures about the initial period of a future war and indicated new possibilities for strategic and operational leadership in relation to the growth of military technology.

Triandafillov was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. He died in an airplane crash.