Afanasii Beloborodov

Born Jan. 18 (31), 1903, in the village of Akinino, now in Irkutsk Oblast. General of the army (1963). Twice Hero of the Soviet Union (July 22, 1944, and Apr. 19, 1945). Member of the CPSU since 1926.

Born into a peasant family, Beloborodov served in a partisan unit in the Far East in 1919–20. Having joined the Soviet Army in 1923, he graduated from infantry school (1926), the Military Political School (1929), and the Frunze Military Academy (1936). He participated in battles on the Chinese Eastern Railway (1929). At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, from October 1941, he commanded the 78th (later the 9th Guards) Rifle Division, which distinguished itself in the battle for Moscow. From October 1942 he commanded a rifle corps, and from May 1944 he commanded the 43rd Army, which participated in the Byelorussian Operation, the liberation of Lithuania, and the Eastern Prussian Operation. During the war against imperialist Japan he commanded the First Red Banner Army in August 1945.

After the war he was the head of Vystrel, the higher infantry school of the Soviet Army. From 1955 he commanded troops of the Voronezh Military District, and from 1957 he was chief of the Main Directorate of Cadres of the Ministry of Defense of the USSR. After 1963 he commanded troops of the Moscow Military District, and from 1968 he did executive work in the Ministry of Defense of the USSR. He has been a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU since 1966 and served as a deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR during the third and seventh convocations. He has been awarded two Orders of Lenin, five Orders of the Red Banner, Orders of Suvorov of the first and second class, the Order of Kutuzov of the second class, and medals.