Dmitrii Pavlov

Born Oct. 23 (Nov. 4), 1897, in the village of Voniukh, now Pavlovo, Kologriv Raion, Kostroma Oblast; died July 1941. Soviet military commander, general of the army (1941). Hero of the Soviet Union (June 21, 1937). Member of the CPSU from 1919.

Pavlov served in World War I (1914–18) as a private. He joined the Red Army in 1919 and fought in the Civil War of 1918–20 as assistant commander of a regiment and commander of a squadron. He graduated from the Omsk Higher Cavalry School in 1922, from the M. V. Frunze Military Academy in 1928, and from academic training courses of the Military Engineering Academy in 1931. From 1928 he commanded cavalry and mechanized regiments. Pavlov fought as a volunteer in 1936–37 on the side of the republican government in Spain and commanded a tank brigade. He was appointed chief of the directorate of motor transport and armored troops of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army in November 1937. He fought in the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939–40. He took command of the troops of the Western Special Military District in June 1940. He was commander of the troops of the Western Front from June 22 to July 2, 1941.

Pavlov was a deputy to the first convocation of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He was elected a candidate member of the Central Committee of the ACP (Bolshevik) at the Eighteenth Congress of the ACP(B). He was awarded three Orders of Lenin and two Orders of the Red Banner.