Dmitrii Mikhailovich Popov

Born Oct. 25 (Nov. 7), 1900, in the village of Beliaevo, now in Usman’ Raion, Lipetsk Oblast; died Jan. 7, 1952. Soviet party official. Member of the Communist Party from 1921. Son of a peasant.

Popov graduated from the Leningrad Communist University in 1930 and from the Agricultural Institute of the Red Professors in 1936. He fought in the Civil War of 1918–20. Popov did soviet and party work from 1923 and served as secretary of the Krasnodar Krai Committee of the party in 1939 and as first secretary of the Smolensk oblast and city committees of the ACP (Bolshevik) from 1940 to 1948. As a member of the Military Council of the Western Front from July 1941, Popov carried out the immense task of evacuating the oblast’s population and valuable material possessions and forming Soviet Army units. He was a leader of the partisan movement in the Great Patriotic War (1941–45) and organized underground district and raion party committees, raiding parties, and partisan detachments. He was chief of the Western Staff of the Partisan Movement from August 1942 to September 1943.

Popov became an official in the apparatus of the Central Committee of the ACP(B) in 1949. He was a deputy to the second and third convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He was awarded the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Patriotic War First Class, and various medals.