Pliev, Issa

Born Nov. 12 (25), 1903, in the village of Staryi Batakoiurt, now in Pravoberezhnyi Raion, Severnaia Osetiia ASSR. Soviet military commander, general of the army (1962). Twice Hero of the Soviet Union (Apr. 16, 1944, and Sept. 8, 1945), Hero of the Mongolian People’s Republic (1971). Member of the CPSU since 1926.

Pliev joined the Soviet Army in 1922. He graduated from a cavalry school in 1926, from the M. V. Frunze Military Academy in 1933, and from the Military Academy of the General Staff in 1941. He served as an adviser in the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Army from 1936 to 1938. During the Great Patriotic War (1941–45), from 1941 to 1944, Pliev commanded a cavalry division, the II, III, IV Guards, and V Cavalry corps and, from November 1944, the 1st Guards Mechanized Cavalry Group on the Western, Southern, Southwestern, Steppe, Third Ukrainian, First Byelorussian, Second Ukrainian, and Transbaikal fronts. He fought in the battles of Moscow and Stalingrad; in the Melitopol’, Bereznegovatoe-Snigirevka, Odessa, Byelorussian, Budapest, and Prague operations; and in the rout of the troops of imperialist Japan.

After the war, Pliev held responsible positions in the army and served as first deputy commander of the troops of the Northern Caucasian Military District from 1955 to 1958 and as commander of the district’s troops from 1958. He became military inspector-adviser of the Group of Inspectors General of the Ministry of Defense of the USSR in 1968. He was a candidate member of the Central Committee of the CPSU from 1961 to 1966 and a deputy to the second through seventh convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

Pliev was awarded five Orders of Lenin, three Orders of the Red Banner, two Orders of Suvorov First Class, the Order of Kutuzov First Class, various medals, and nine foreign orders.