Dmitrii Leliushenko

Born Oct. 20 (Nov. 2), 1901, in the khutor (farmstead) of Novokuznetskii, now in Zernograd Raion, Rostov Oblast. Soviet military commander; general of the army (1959); twice Hero of the Soviet Union (Apr. 7, 1940, and Apr. 6, 1945); Hero of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (May 30, 1970). Member of the CPSU since 1924. Son of a peasant.

Leliushenko fought in B. K. Dumenko’s partisan detachment in 1918. He joined the Soviet Army in 1919 and was assigned to the First Horse Cavalry Army. He graduated from the M. V. Frunze Military Academy in 1933 and the K. E. Voroshilov Higher Military Academy in 1949. He was commander of a tank brigade in the Soviet-Finnish War. Leliushenko participated in the Great Patriotic War (1941–45) on the Northwestern, Western, Kalinin, Southwestern, and Third, Fourth, and First Ukrainian fronts as commander of a mechanized corps and a rifle corps; from October 1941 he was commander of the Fifth, Thirtieth, First, and Third Guards armies, and from March 1944 he was commander of the Fourth Guards Tank Army. From 1956 Leliushenko commanded the troops of the Transbaikal, and from 1958 the Ural military districts. He was chairman of the central committee of the Voluntary Society for Assistance to the Army, Air Force, and Navy of the USSR (DOSAAF) from 1960 to 1964. Leliushenko was appointed military inspector and adviser of the Ministry of Defense in 1964. He was a deputy to the first, fifth, and sixth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

Leliushenko has been awarded four Orders of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, four Orders of the Red Banner, two Orders of Suvorov First Class, two Orders of Kutuzov First Class, the Order of Bogdan Khmel’nitskii First Class, various medals, and five foreign orders. A bust of Leliushenko has been erected in Rostov-on-Don. He is the author of the book Moscow-Stalingrad-Berlin-Prague: Notes of an Army Commander (1970).