Shurukhin, Pavel Ivanovich

Born Nov. 5 (18), 1912, in the village of Solenyi Erik, in what is now Bykovo Raion, Volgograd Oblast; died Nov. 3, 1956, in Moscow. Twice Hero of the Soviet Union (Oct. 23,1943, and Mar. 24, 1945). Major general (1953). Member of the CPSU from 1940.

After joining the Red Army in 1931, Shurukhin graduated from the Ordzhonikidze Military School in 1934 and completed courses for rifle-division commanders at the M. V. Frunze Military Academy in 1950. He commanded a battalion of ski troops in the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939–40. During the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45 he commanded a rifle battalion on the Western Front in 1941 and a partisan detachment in Gomel’ Oblast in 1941 and 1942. In 1942 and 1943 he led a force made up of partisan detachments in Orel Oblast. From July 1943 until the end of the war, Shurukhin was commander of a rifle regiment on the Voronezh, First Ukrainian, and Second Ukrainian fronts.

Shurukhin was a deputy to the second convocation of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He was awarded two Orders of Lenin, two Orders of the Red Banner, two Orders of the Red Star, and various medals. A bust of Shurukhin has been placed in the village of Novonikol’skoe, in Volgograd Oblast.