TretIak, Ivan

Born Feb. 20, 1923, in the village of Malaia Popovka, Khorol Raion, Poltava Oblast. Soviet military figure. General of the army (1976). Hero of the Soviet Union (Mar. 24,1945). Member of the CPSU since 1943.

Tret’iak joined the Soviet Army in 1939. He graduated from the Astrakhan Infantry and Machine Gun School in 1941 and from the M. V. Frunze Military Academy in 1949. He graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff in 1959 and from the Higher Academic Training Courses of the academy in 1970. Tret’iak served in the Great Patriotic War (1941–45) on the Western and Second Baltic fronts as commander of an infantry company and a battalion; in 1944 he became commander of the guards infantry regiment. After the war he held various command posts in the armed forces. He was made commander of the Byelorussian Military District in September 1967 and commander of the Far East Military District in May 1976.

In 1971, Tret’iak became a candidate member of the Central Committee of the CPSU, and in 1976 he became a full member. He was a deputy to the seventh through ninth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Tret’iak has been awarded two Orders of Lenin, three Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of Ku-tuzov Third Class, the Order of Alexander Nevsky, two Orders of the Red Star, and the Order for Service to the Motherland in the Armed Forces of the USSR Third Class. He has also been awarded various medals, as well as foreign orders and medals.