NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949. The organization constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party, three NATO members are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and are officially nuclear-weapon states. NATOs headquarters are located in Haren, Belgium, while the headquarters of Allied Command Operations is near Mons. NATO is an Alliance that consists of 28 independent member countries across North America and Europe, an additional 22 countries participate in NATOs Partnership for Peace program, with 15 other countries involved in institutionalized dialogue programmes. The combined military spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70% of the global total, Members defence spending is supposed to amount to 2% of GDP.
The course of the Cold War led to a rivalry with nations of the Warsaw Pact, the organization sought better relations with former Warsaw Pact countries, several of which joined the alliance in 1999 and 2004. N. The Treaty of Brussels, signed on 17 March 1948 by Belgium, the Netherlands, France, the treaty and the Soviet Berlin Blockade led to the creation of the Western European Unions Defence Organization in September 1948. However, participation of the United States was thought necessary both to counter the power of the USSR and to prevent the revival of nationalist militarism. He got a hearing, especially considering American anxiety over Italy. In 1948 European leaders met with U. S. defense and diplomatic officials at the Pentagon, marshalls orders, exploring a framework for a new and unprecedented association. Talks for a new military alliance resulted in the North Atlantic Treaty and it included the five Treaty of Brussels states plus the United States, Portugal, Norway and Iceland. The first NATO Secretary General, Lord Ismay, stated in 1949 that the goal was to keep the Russians out, the Americans in.
Popular support for the Treaty was not unanimous, and some Icelanders participated in a pro-neutrality, the creation of NATO can be seen as the primary institutional consequence of a school of thought called Atlanticism which stressed the importance of trans-Atlantic cooperation. The members agreed that an attack against any one of them in Europe or North America would be considered an attack against them all. The treaty does not require members to respond with military action against an aggressor, although obliged to respond, they maintain the freedom to choose the method by which they do so. This differs from Article IV of the Treaty of Brussels, which states that the response will be military in nature. It is nonetheless assumed that NATO members will aid the attacked member militarily, the treaty was clarified to include both the members territory and their vessels, forces or aircraft above the Tropic of Cancer, including some Overseas departments of France. The creation of NATO brought about some standardization of allied military terminology and technology, the roughly 1300 Standardization Agreements codified many of the common practices that NATO has achieved
Dmitry Yazov
Dmitry Timofeyevich Yazov was the last Marshal of the Soviet Union to be appointed before the collapse of the Soviet Union. He was the only Marshal of the Soviet Union to be born in Siberia, a veteran of the Great Patriotic War, Yazov is the last surviving Marshal and the only one not to have been awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union. In 1971–1973, he commanded the 32nd Army Corps in the Crimean region of the Odessa Military District, in 1979–1980, Yazov was commander of the Central Group of Forces in Czechoslovakia. He held the post of Soviet Defence Minister from May 1987, in 1987–1990, Yazov was a candidate for membership in Politburo. He was a key part of Black January, Yazov was responsible for deployment of Russian OMON commando units to Latvia and Lithuania in early 1991. During the August Coup of 1991, Yazov was a member of the State Emergency Committee, during the Yeltsin period Yazov was prosecuted and acquitted in 1994. Yazov spent 18 months in Matrosskaya Tishina, according to the magazine Vlast No.41 of 14 October 1991.
from the prison contacted the President with a recorded video message, where repented and called himself an old fool. He did accept the amnesty offered by Yeltsin, stating that he was not guilty and he was dismissed from the military service by Presidential Order and awarded a ceremonial weapon. He was awarded an order of Honor by the President of Russian Federation, Yazov worked as a military adviser at the General Staff Academy. Odom suggests Gorbachev was only looking for careerists who would follow orders, Yazov appears in Tom Clancys Cold War espionage thriller The Cardinal of the Kremlin in his capacity as Defence Minister and the superior of the titular spy Colonel Filitov
Red Army
The Workers and Peasants Red Army was the army and the air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, and after 1922 the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The army was established immediately after the 1917 October Revolution, the Bolsheviks raised an army to oppose the military confederations of their adversaries during the Russian Civil War. The Red Army is credited as being the land force in the Allied victory in the European theatre of World War II. During operations on the Eastern Front, it fought 75%–80% of the German land forces deployed in the war, inflicting the vast majority of all German losses and ultimately capturing the German capital. In September 1917, Vladimir Lenin wrote, There is only one way to prevent the restoration of the police, at the time, the Imperial Russian Army had started to collapse. The Tsarist general Nikolay Dukhonin estimated that there had been 2 million deserters,1.8 million dead,5 million wounded and 2 million prisoners and he estimated the remaining troops as numbering 10 million.
Therefore, the Council of Peoples Commissars decided to form the Red Army on 28 January 1918 and they envisioned a body formed from the class-conscious and best elements of the working classes. All citizens of the Russian republic aged 18 or older were eligible, in the event of an entire unit wanting to join the Red Army, a collective guarantee and the affirmative vote of all its members would be necessary. Because the Red Army was composed mainly of peasants, the families of those who served were guaranteed rations, some peasants who remained at home yearned to join the Army, along with some women, flooded the recruitment centres. If they were turned away they would collect scrap metal and prepare care-packages, in some cases the money they earned would go towards tanks for the Army. Nikolai Krylenko was the supreme commander-in-chief, with Aleksandr Myasnikyan as deputy, Nikolai Podvoisky became the commissar for war, Pavel Dybenko, commissar for the fleet. Proshyan, Steinberg were specified as peoples commissars as well as Vladimir Bonch-Bruyevich from the Bureau of Commissars, at a joint meeting of Bolsheviks and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, held on 22 February 1918, Krylenko remarked, We have no army.
The Red Guard units are brushed aside like flies and we have no power to stay the enemy, only an immediate signing of the peace treaty will save us from destruction. This provoked the insurrection of General Alexey Maximovich Kaledins Volunteer Army in the River Don region, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk aggravated Russian internal politics. The situation encouraged direct Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, a series of engagements resulted, amongst others, the Czechoslovak Legion, the Polish 5th Rifle Division, and the pro-Bolshevik Red Latvian Riflemen. The Whites defeated the Red Army on each front, Leon Trotsky reformed and counterattacked, the Red Army repelled Admiral Kolchaks army in June, and the armies of General Denikin and General Yudenich in October. By mid-November the White armies were all almost completely exhausted, in January 1920, Budennys First Cavalry Army entered Rostov-on-Don. 1919 to 1923 At the wars start, the Red Army consisted of 299 infantry regiments, Civil war intensified after Lenin dissolved the Russian Constituent Assembly and the Soviet government signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, removing Russia from the Great War
Sergey Akhromeyev
Sergey Fyodorovich Akhromeyev was a Soviet military figure, Hero of the Soviet Union and Marshal of the Soviet Union. Akhromeyev was a Naval Infantry junior officer on the Eastern Front, at one point he was ordered to guard and hold a road on which the German Army would be trying to advance. Despite a bloody battle, he was able to accomplish the task, in 1984-1988, Akhromeyev was Chief of the General Staff of the Soviet Armed Forces. In that capacity he was involved in the talks which brought an end to the Cold War. In March 1990, he was made Advisor to the President of the USSR on military affairs, during the August Coup of 1991, Akhromeyev returned from a vacation in Sochi to offer his assistance to the coup leaders. Although he was never implicated in the coup, after its failure Akhromeyev committed suicide in his Kremlin office, hanging himself with a length of curtain cord. In addition to personal messages to his family, he left a note explaining that he could not continue living when the institutions to which he had devoted his life were disintegrating.
Shortly after his death, his grave was vandalized and his corpse stripped of the uniform in which it had been buried. The culprits were never found, and it is whether it was an act of pure desecration or if the grave-robbers hoped to sell the stolen uniform or its adornments for profit
Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev was the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, presiding over the country from 1964 until his death in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in duration, during Brezhnevs rule, the global influence of the Soviet Union grew dramatically, in part because of the expansion of the Soviet military during this time. His tenure as leader was marked by the beginning of an era of economic, Brezhnev was born in Kamenskoye into a Russian workers family in 1906. After graduating from the Dniprodzerzhynsk Metallurgical Technicum, he became an engineer in the iron and steel industry. He joined Komsomol in 1923, and in 1929 became a member of the CPSU. He was drafted into military service during World War II. While at the helm of the USSR, Brezhnev pushed for détente between the Eastern and Western countries. However, in December 1981 he decided not to intervene in Poland, instead allowing the countrys government to impose martial law.
After years of declining health, Brezhnev died on 10 November 1982 and was succeeded in his post as General Secretary by Yuri Andropov. Brezhnev had fostered a cult of personality, although not nearly to the degree as Stalin. Mikhail Gorbachev, who would lead the USSR from 1985 to 1991, denounced his legacy, in spite of this, opinion polls in Russia show Brezhnev to be the most popular Russian leader of the 20th century. Brezhnev was born on 19 December 1906 in Kamianske in Ukraine, to metalworker Ilya Yakovlevich Brezhnev and his wife and his parents used to live in Brezhnevo before moving to Kamenskoe. Brezhnevs ethnicity was specified as Ukrainian in some documents, including his passport, like many youths in the years after the Russian Revolution of 1917, he received a technical education, at first in land management where he started as a land surveyor and in metallurgy. He graduated from the Dniprodzerzhynsk Metallurgical Technicum in 1935 and became an engineer in the iron. Brezhnev joined the Communist Party youth organisation, the Komsomol, in 1923, in 1935 and 1936, Brezhnev served his compulsory military service, and after taking courses at a tank school, he served as a political commissar in a tank factory.
Later in 1936, he director of the Dniprodzerzhynsk Metallurgical Technicum. In 1936, he was transferred to the center of Dnipropetrovsk and, in 1939, he became Party Secretary in Dnipropetrovsk. As a survivor of Stalins Great Purge of 1937–39, he was able to quickly as the purges created numerous openings in the senior and middle ranks of the Party
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history.
Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost.
The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states
Semyon Budyonny
Semyon Mikhailovich Budyonny was a Russian cavalryman and Soviet General in World War II. In the Russian Civil War, Budyonny’s large cavalry force helped the Bolsheviks to victory and he became a friend of Joseph Stalin and was promoted to the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union in 1935. In World War II, he took the blame for many of Stalin’s misjudgements and he was a notable horse-breeder, who declared that the tank could never replace the horse as an instrument of war. Budyonny was born into a peasant family on the Kozyurin farmstead near the town of Bolshaya Orlovka in the Don Cossack region of the southern Russian Empire. Although he grew up in a Cossack region, Budyonny was not a Cossack—his family actually came from Voronezh province. He worked as a laborer, shop errand boy, blacksmiths apprentice, and driver of a steam-driven threshing machine, until the autumn of 1903. He became a cavalryman reinforcing the 46th Cossack Regiment during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, after the war, he was transferred to the Primorsk Dragoon Regiment.
In 1907, he was sent to the Academy for Cavalry Officers in the St. Petersburg Riding School and he graduated first in his class after a year, becoming an instructor with the rank of junior non-commissioned officer. He returned to his regiment as an instructor with a rank of senior non-commissioned officer. At the start of World War I, he joined a reserve dragoon cavalry battalion, during World War I, Budyonny was the 5th Squadrons non-commissioned troop officer in the Christian IX of Denmark 18th Seversky Dragoon Regiment, Caucasian Cavalry Division on the Western Front. He became famous for his attack on a German supply column near Brzezina, there was a general ineptitude of the officers he served under. In November 1916, the Caucausian Cavalry Division was transferred to the Caucasus Front and he was involved in a heated confrontation with the squadron sergeant major regarding the officers poor treatment of the soldiers and the continual lack of food. The sergeant major struck out at Budyonny, who retaliated by punching the ranking officer, the soldiers backed Budyonny during questioning, claiming that the sergeant major was kicked by a horse.
However, Budyonny was stripped of his St. George Cross, though he could have faced a court martial, Budyonny would go on to be awarded the St. George Cross, 4th class, a second time, during the Battle of Van. He received the St. George Cross, 3rd class, fighting the Turks near Mendelij and he received the St. George Cross, 2nd class, for operating behind Turkish lines for 22 days. He received the St. George Cross, 1st class, for capturing a senior non-commissioned officer, after the Russian Revolution overthrew the Tsarist regime in 1917, Budyonny was elected chairman of the squadron committee and a member of the regimental committee. When the Caucasian Cavalry Division was moved to Minsk, he was elected chairman of the regimental committee, returning to Platovskaya, Budyonny was elected deputy chairman of the Stanista Soviet of Workers, Peasants and Soldiers Deputies on 12 January 1918. On 18 February, he was elected to be a member of the Salsk District Presidium, on the night of 23 February, Budyonny organized a force of 24 men to retake Platovskaya from the white guards, but Budyonny was soon joined by a large number of new recruits
Georgy Zhukov
Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov, was a career officer in the Red Army of the Soviet Union who became Chief of General Staff, Deputy Commander-in-Chief, Minister of Defence and a member of the Politburo. During World War II he participated in battles, ultimately commanding the 1st Belorussian Front in the Battle of Berlin. In recognition of Zhukovs role in World War II, he was allowed to participate in signing the German Instrument of Surrender, born into a poverty-stricken peasant family in Strelkovka, Maloyaroslavsky Uyezd, Kaluga Governorate, Zhukov became an apprentice furrier in Moscow. In 1915 the Army of the Russian Empire conscripted him, he served first in the 106th Reserve Cavalry Regiment, during World War I, Zhukov was awarded the Cross of St. George twice, and promoted to the rank of non-commissioned officer for his bravery in battle. He joined the Bolshevik Party after the 1917 October Revolution, in Party circles his background of poverty became a significant asset. After recovering from a case of typhus he fought in the Russian Civil War over the period 1918 to 1921, serving with the 1st Cavalry Army.
He received the decoration of the Order of the Red Banner for his part in subduing the Tambov Rebellion in 1921, at the end of May 1923, Zhukov became a commander of the 39th Cavalry Regiment. In 1924, he entered the Higher School of Cavalry, from which he graduated the next year, in May 1930, Zhukov became commander of the 2nd Cavalry Brigade of the 7th Cavalry Division. In February 1931, he was appointed the Assistant Inspector of Cavalry of the Red Army, in May 1933, Zhukov was appointed a commander in the 4th Cavalry Division. In 1937, he became a commander of the 3rd Cavalry Corps, in 1938, he became a deputy commander of the Belorussian Military District for cavalry. This campaign was a war that lasted from 1938 to 1939. These events led to the strategically decisive Battle of Khalkhin Gol, Zhukov requested major reinforcements, and on 20 August 1939, his Soviet Offensive commenced. After a massive artillery barrage, nearly 500 BT-5 and BT-7 tanks advanced, supported by over 500 fighters and bombers and this was the Soviet Air Forces first fighter-bomber operation.
The offensive first appeared to be a typical conventional frontal attack, two tank brigades were initially held back and ordered to advance around on both flanks, supported by motorized artillery and other tanks. This daring and successful manoeuvre encircled the Japanese 6th Army and captured the enemys vulnerable rear supply areas, by 31 August 1939, the Japanese had been cleared from the disputed border, leaving the Soviets clearly victorious. This campaign had significance beyond the immediate tactical and local outcome, Zhukov demonstrated and tested the techniques used against the Germans in the Eastern Front of the Second World War. After this campaign, Nomonhan veterans were transferred to units that had not seen action, for his victory, Zhukov was declared a Hero of the Soviet Union. However, the campaign – and especially Zhukovs pioneering use of tanks – remained little known outside of the Soviet Union itself, Zhukov considered Nomonhan invaluable preparation for conducting operations during the Second World War
Kliment Voroshilov
Kliment Yefremovich Voroshilov, popularly known as Klim Voroshilov, was a prominent Soviet military officer and politician during the Stalin era. Voroshilov was born in the settlement of Verkhnye, Bakhmut district, Yekaterinoslav Governorate, in the Russian Empire, according to the Soviet Major General Pyotr Grigorenko, Voroshilov himself alluded to his Ukrainian heritage and to the previous family name of Voroshilo. Voroshilov joined the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1905, following the Russian Revolution of 1917, Voroshilov became a member of the Ukrainian Council of Peoples Commissars and Commissar for Internal Affairs along with Vasiliy Averin. He was well known for aiding Joseph Stalin in the Military Council, Voroshilov was active as a commander of the Southern Front during the Russian Civil War and the Polish–Soviet War while with the 1st Cavalry Army. As Political Commissar serving co-equally with Stalin, Voroshilov was responsible for the morale of the 1st Cavalry Army, Voroshilovs efforts as Commissar did not prevent a resounding Polish victory at the Battle of Komarów or regular outbreaks of murderous anti-Semitic violence within the Cavalry armys ranks.
Voroshilov headed the Petrograd Police during 1917 and 1918, Voroshilov served as a member of the Central Committee from his election in 1921 until 1961. Frunzes political position adhered to that of the Troika, but Stalin preferred to have a close, Frunze was urged by a group of Stalins hand-picked doctors to have surgery to treat an old stomach ulcer, despite previous doctors recommendations to avoid surgery and Frunzes own unwillingness. He died on the table of a massive overdose of chloroform. Voroshilov became a member of the newly formed Politburo in 1926. Voroshilov was appointed Peoples Commissar for Defence in 1934 and a Marshal of the Soviet Union in 1935 and he played a central role in Stalins Great Purge of the 1930s, denouncing many of his own military colleagues and subordinates when asked to do so by Stalin. Voroshilov personally signed 185 documented execution lists, fourth among the Soviet leadership after Molotov, during World War II, Voroshilov was a member of the State Defense Committee.
Voroshilov followed this retort by smashing a platter of roast suckling pig on the table, nikita Khrushchev said it was the only time he ever witnessed such an outburst. Voroshilov was nonetheless made the scapegoat for the failures in Finland. He was replaced as Defense Commissar by Semyon Timoshenko, Voroshilov was made Deputy Premier responsible for cultural matters. Voroshilov initially argued that thousands of Polish army officers captured in September 1939 should be released, after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Voroshilov became commander of the short-lived Northwestern Direction, controlling several fronts. In September 1941 he commanded the Leningrad Front, Stalin had a political need for popular wartime leaders and Voroshilov remained as an important figurehead. In 1945–1947 Voroshilov supervised the establishment of the communist regime in postwar Hungary, in 1952, Voroshilov was appointed a member of the Presidium of the Central Committee. Stalins death on 5 March 1953 prompted major changes in the Soviet leadership, Voroshilov and Khrushchev brought about the 26 June 1953 arrest of Lavrenty Beria after Stalins death
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman. He was the eighth and final leader of the Soviet Union, having been General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991 and he was the countrys head of state from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991. Gorbachev was born in Stavropol Krai into a peasant Ukrainian–Russian family and he graduated from Moscow State University in 1955 with a degree in law. While he was at the university, he joined the Communist Party, in 1970, he was appointed the First Party Secretary of the Stavropol Regional Committee, First Secretary to the Supreme Soviet in 1974, and appointed a member of the Politburo in 1979. Within three years of the death of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, following the brief interregna of Andropov and Chernenko, before he reached the post, he had occasionally been mentioned in Western newspapers as a likely next leader and a man of the younger generation at the top level. Gorbachevs policies of glasnost and perestroika and his reorientation of Soviet strategic aims contributed to the end of the Cold War.
He was awarded the Otto Hahn Peace Medal in 1989, the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 and this was Gorbachevs third attempt to establish a political party, having started the Social Democratic Party of Russia in 2001 and the Union of Social Democrats in 2007. Gorbachev was born on 2 March 1931 in Privolnoye, Stavropol Krai, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union, into a mixed Russian-Ukrainian family of migrants from Voronezh, as a child, Gorbachev experienced the Soviet famine of 1932–1933. He recalled in a memoir that In that terrible year nearly half the population of my village, starved to death. Both of his grandfathers were arrested on charges in the 1930s. His father was a combine harvester operator and World War II veteran and his mother, Maria Panteleyevna Gorbacheva, was a kolkhoz worker. He was brought up mainly by his Ukrainian maternal grandparents, in his teens, he operated combine harvesters on collective farms. He graduated from Moscow State University in 1955 with a degree in law, in 1967 he qualified as an agricultural economist via a correspondence masters degree at the Stavropol Institute of Agriculture.
While at the university, he joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and soon very active within the party. Gorbachev met his wife, Raisa Titarenko, daughter of a Ukrainian railway engineer. They married in September 1953 and moved to Stavropol upon graduation and she gave birth to their only child, daughter Irina Mikhailovna Virganskaya, in 1957. Raisa Gorbacheva died of leukemia in 1999, Gorbachev has two granddaughters and one great granddaughter. Gorbachev attended the important twenty-second Party Congress in October 1961, where Nikita Khrushchev announced a plan to surpass the U. S. in per capita production within twenty years, Gorbachev rose in the Communist League hierarchy and worked his way up through territorial leagues of the party
Soviet Union
Soviet Army
.svg)
