Shavrov, Ivan

Born Mar. 14 (27), 1916, in the village of Shabuni, in what is now Vitebsk Raion, Vitebsk Oblast. Soviet military leader. General of the army (1973). Member of the CPSU since 1940.

The son of a peasant, Shavrov joined the Red Army in 1935. He graduated from a school for armored troops in 1938, the Military Academy of Mechanization and Motorization of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army in 1941, and the K. E. Voroshilov Higher Military Academy in 1948. He completed the Higher Academic Courses at the Voroshilov academy in 1968.

During the Great Patriotic War, Shavrov served between 1941 and 1943 as a battalion chief of staff and as deputy chief of staff and chief of staff of a tank brigade. In 1943 he became chief of the operations section of the directorate in charge of the armored and mechanized forces of the Don Front and then held the same position in the Fourth Guards Tank Army. He was chief of staff of a tank corps between 1943 and 1945 on the Briansk, Southwestern, Don, Central, Fourth Ukrainian, and First and Second Baltic fronts.

After the war, Shavrov held staff and command positions in the armored and mechanized combat arms. He became first deputy commander of the Baltic Military District in October 1963, commander of the Leningrad Military District in May 1967, and head of the K. E. Voroshilov Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR in February 1973. Shavrov was a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU from 1971 to 1976 and a deputy to the eighth convocation of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He has been awarded the Order of Lenin, four Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of Suvorov Second Class, two Orders of Kutuzov Second 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. Shavrov has also received foreign orders and medals.