Psurtsev, Nikolai

Born Jan. 23 (Feb. 4), 1900, in Kiev. Soviet statesman and military and party leader. Colonel general of the signal troops (1945). Hero of Socialist Labor (1975). Member of the CPSU from 1919. Son of a peasant.

Psurtsev graduated from the Higher Military Signal School in 1924 and from the Military Electrical Engineering Academy of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army in 1934. Psurstev saw service in the Civil War of 1918–20 as military commissar of the signal directorates of the Ninth and Twelfth armies and served in the Soviet Army from 1924 to 1930. From 1935 he held command positions in the People’s Commissariat of Defense and then high managerial positions in the People’s Commissariat of Communications. He was chief of communications of the Northwestern Front during the Soviet-Finnish conflict of 1939–40. Psurtsev saw service in the Great Patriotic War (1941–45) as chief of the signal troops of the Western Front from 1941 to 1944 and deputy chief of the signal troops of the Soviet Army from 1944 to 1946. He then served on the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR from 1946 to 1948. He was minister of communications of the USSR from 1948 to 1975. He retired in 1975.

Psurtsev was elected a candidate member of the Central Committee of the CPSU at the Twenty-second through Twenty-fourth Congresses of the CPSU and a deputy to the fourth through ninth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He was awarded five Orders of Lenin, four Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of Kutuzov First and Second Class, the Order of Suvorov Second Class, and various medals. [21–598–2; updated]