Vasilii Kazakov

Born July 5 (17), 1898, in the village of Filippovo, in present-day Buturlino Raion, Gorky Oblast; died May 25, 1968, in Moscow. Marshal of artillery (1955), Hero of the Soviet Union (Apr. 6, 1945). Became a member of the CPSU in 1932. The son of a peasant.

Kazakov was a worker before he joined the army in 1916. He participated in the February Revolution of 1917 in Petrograd, joined the Soviet Army in February 1918, and served in the Civil War of 1918–20 as a battery commander. Kazakov graduated from the Second Petrograd Artillery Course (1918), an artillery school (1923), an advanced training school for commanders (1929, 1936), the M. V. Frunze Military Academy (1934), and an advanced training school for top commanders (1939). In the Great Patriotic War (1941–45), Kazakov was chief of the artillery of the Sixteenth Army (July 1941 to July 1942) and then commander of the artillery of the Briansk, Stalingrad, Don, Central, Byelorussian, and First Byelorussian fronts. He participated in the battles of Moscow, Stalingrad, and Kursk, in the liberation of Byelorussia and Poland, and in the assault on Berlin.

After the war Kazakov was the commander of the artillery of the Soviet troops in Germany and then was deputy commander, first deputy commander, and commander of the artillery of the Soviet Army and chief of the Army Air Defense Team. He was a member of the Group of Inspectors General of the Ministry of Defense of the USSR from 1965. Kazakov was awarded fourOrders of Lenin, five Orders of the Red Banner, three Orders ofSuvorov First Class, the Order of Kutuzov First Class, the Orderof Suvorov Second Class, the Order of the Red Star, two foreignorders, and medals.