"Soldier Marshal" Ivan Konev. Konev Ivan Stepanovich - Biography

Marshal Soviet Union I. S. Konev entered the history of the Second World War as one of the brightest and most talented commanders. His life and military activities will remain in the memory of the people and our Armed Forces as an example of selfless and highly professional service to the Fatherland.

Ivan Konev was born on December 28, 1897 in the village of Lodeyno, Kirov Region, into a peasant family. He graduated from the zemstvo school in the neighboring village of Pushma in 1912. From the age of 12 he worked as a timber rafting worker.

In the spring of 1916 he was drafted into the army. After a training artillery team, junior non-commissioned officer Konev in 1917 was sent to the South Western Front. Demobilized in 1918.

In the same 1918 he joined the Bolshevik Party, was elected county military commissar in the city of Nikolsk, Vologda province. After that, he fought in the ranks of the Red Army on the Eastern Front against the troops of A. V. Kolchak and other White Guard formations in Transbaikalia and on Far East. He was the commissar of an armored train, the commissar of a rifle brigade, a division. In 1921, Konev became the commissar of the People's Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republic.

Among other delegates to the Xth Congress of the RCP (b), he took part in the suppression of the Kronstadt uprising in 1921.

After graduation civil war- Commissar of the 17th Primorsky Rifle Corps. From August 1924 - Commissar and Head of the Political Department of the 17th Nizhny Novgorod Rifle Division. He graduated from the advanced training courses for senior command personnel at the MV Frunze Military Academy in 1926, then was commander and commissar of the 50th Infantry Regiment. Graduated from the Military Academy named after M. V. Frunze in 1934. From December 1934 he commanded the 37th Infantry Division. In 1935 he received the rank of division commander. From March 1937 he commanded the 2nd Infantry Division.

In 1937, Konev served as commander of the special units of the Red Army on the border with Mongolia. The army grouping of the Red Army in this area experienced an acute shortage of all resources. The matter was aggravated by the fact that service in such regions was always considered by officers as extremely unpromising, and they got here either by distribution from military schools, or for misconduct. Of course, there were also romantic volunteers who were eager to serve where it was difficult, but they were few. These are the units that Konev had to command.

At first glance, he had a very responsible position, especially in a strategically important area - next to Japan, which was aggressive towards the USSR. However, in reality it was far from being the case. The Soviet Union took a rather strange and ambivalent position towards Japan. On the one hand, the USSR condemned the imperial habits of world domination by little Japan. But on the other hand, Japan was the militarily strongest state in the region, and the USSR, not having developed transport and industry in the Far East and not having enough troops there, was forced to act very carefully so as not to quarrel with a strong neighbor. Stalin practically turned a blind eye to the Japanese takeover of most of China. However, the Soviet leadership could no longer look calmly at the aggression in Mongolia, which was connected with the USSR by a military alliance treaty - the Japanese army, if successful, could come close to the state border, and in one of its most poorly protected places. Of course, the country's leadership began to transfer additional troops there, but it was not easy to change the situation.

In 1938, Konev was appointed commander of the Special Rifle Corps on the territory of the Mongolian People's Republic, from July 1938 - commander of the 2nd Special Red Banner Army, stationed in the Far East.

When fighting began in the region of the Khalkhin-Gol River, trained units were hastily transferred there and new technology, but in the first days of the fighting the situation was very difficult, and after a series of tactical failures, Stalin decided to change the leadership of the group. Zhukov was called from Moscow, and although other commanders, including Konev, did everything they could, the glory of victory went to practically one Zhukov.

Having failed to become famous in Mongolia, Konev was in Once again bypassed when conferring military ranks. He was not repressed like many others, but he owes his promotion to army commander in the period before the start of the war with Germany only to a long service record and an acute shortage of experienced command personnel as a result of massive repressions in the army. However, his reputation as a competent general remained with him.

Konev became commander of the 2nd rank in February 1939. From June 1940 he commanded the troops of the Trans-Baikal Military District, from January 1941 - the North Caucasian Military District. Lieutenant General from June 1940.

During the Great Patriotic War, Lieutenant-General I.S. Konev assumed the position of commander of the 19th Army, hastily formed from the troops of the North Caucasian Military District. The army was initially sent to the Southwestern Front, but already in early July, due to the catastrophic development of the situation in the western direction, it was transferred to the Western Front. During the Battle of Smolensk, the army troops suffered heavy losses, but avoided defeat and stubbornly defended themselves. Konev's actions as commander of the army were highly appreciated by I. V. Stalin, and in early September 1941 Konev was appointed commander of the troops of the Western Front, at the same time he was awarded the rank of colonel general.

He received the troops of the front, at the end of the Smolensk battle, they went on the defensive at the turn from Lake Seliger to Yelnya, when the German command, having regrouped and brought up additional forces, was preparing a new offensive operation in the Moscow direction, code-named "Typhoon".

Konev commanded the troops of the Western Front for just over a month (September - October 1941), during which time the front under his command suffered one of the most severe defeats in the entire war. He took command of that section of the Soviet defense, where the Germans, literally a few days later, launched a general offensive against Moscow. Three-quarters of the German armed forces on the Eastern Front, including all tank divisions, were to take part in this operation. The reinforced Army Group Center was opposed in this meat grinder by the formations of the Western Front of General Konev, the Bryansk and Reserve Fronts - a total of 13 combined arms armies. Their total number reached a million people, but almost all formations and units lacked artillery, anti-tank weapons, the mobility factor was very low - there were not enough vehicles and horses.

From the point of view of technical equipment and training, these units, which took the blow in the initial period of the battle for Moscow, were the weakest of all the Soviet armies that entered the battlefield. Most of the soldiers and officers were called up from the reserve, did not have combat experience and sufficient military training. The Vyazemsko-Bryansk battle that unfolded in early October 1941, which became the result of the start of Operation Typhoon, gave the Germans a chance to end the war already in 1941.

The troops of the Western, Reserve and Bryansk fronts were unable to resist this enemy offensive and suffered a serious defeat. In particular, the troops of the Western Front suffered losses of up to half a million people, the defense was disorganized and collapsed. Enraged by this defeat, Stalin removed Konev, appointing Zhukov in his place. However, he did not stop the attack. Encircled, the former Konev units of the Western and Reserve Fronts continued to offer stubborn resistance, pinning down 28 German divisions. 14 of them were unable to free themselves until mid-October, which allowed the Soviet command to gain time to organize resistance on the Mozhaisk line of defense. The German offensive was stopped not by Soviet generals, but by ordinary soldiers and officers who died in the encirclement in thousands, and it was their heroic death that became the foundation on which victory in the battle for Moscow was later achieved.

G.K. Zhukov, who generally spoke highly of Konev's military leadership, was forced to note that he "did not find himself on the defensive." Konev, like General Pavlov, who had been shot at the beginning of the war, faced a difficult fate. The commission of the State Defense Committee, headed by V. M. Molotov and K. E. Voroshilov, was supposed to investigate the causes of the disaster. But Zhukov managed to defend him before Stalin, declaring that "Konev clever man and it will come in handy." Zhukov was not mistaken. Few of the great commanders, such as Suvorov, managed to avoid serious setbacks and defeats. But greatness is determined by the ability to learn lessons. G.K. Zhukov suggested leaving Konev as deputy front commander. Konev, after the failures in the Vyazemsky defensive operation, retained his composure, drew the right conclusions for himself. Already in mid-October 1941, heading the right-flank formations of the Western Front, he managed to defeat the units of the 3rd German Panzer Group that had broken through to the city of Kalinin and stop their advance, thereby frustrating the enemy’s plans to bypass Moscow from the north. Then the Headquarters decided to create the Kalinin Front, the commander of which was appointed I. S. Konev.

This front Konev commanded from October 1941 to August 1942, participated in the battle for Moscow. He carried out the Kalinin defensive operation and the Kalinin offensive operation during the counteroffensive near Moscow against superior enemy forces. Despite the lack of forces and means, he secretly concentrated his main efforts on the directions of the strikes and broke through the defenses to the west and southwest of Kalinin. This turned out to be so unexpected for the enemy that the commander of the German 9th Army, under the threat of encirclement, was forced to begin the withdrawal of his troops.

Since January 1942, the name of Konev has been closely associated with the most difficult and unsuccessful Rzhev battle for the Soviet troops, his troops participated in the Rzhev-Vyazemsky operation of 1942, suffered a new defeat in the Kholm-Zhirkovskaya defensive operation.

From August 1942 to February 1943, Konev again commanded the Western Front and, together with G.K. Zhukov, carried out the extremely bloody First Rzhev-Sychev Operation and Operation Mars, in which the troops of his front, with huge losses, achieved only a slight advance of several dozen kilometers. In February 1943, the Zhizdra operation was also unsuccessful, after which, in early March, Konev was removed from his post as commander of the Western Front and appointed to command the much less important Northwestern Front. However, even there he failed to distinguish himself, the troops of this front suffered heavy losses and did not achieve success in the Staraya Russian operation.

I. S. Konev's military leadership talent was most convincingly and vividly manifested in offensive operations. Ivan Stepanovich, according to Vasilevsky, was closest to Zhukov in perseverance and willpower. He possessed an extremely good intuition, skillfully combined the power of artillery and aviation with the speed, onslaught and suddenness of the strike. Foreign military historians call him "the genius of surprise." He strove to see the battlefield with his own eyes, carefully preparing each operation. In the second half of the war, most of the offensive operations of our troops were accompanied by the encirclement and destruction of large enemy groupings, and many commanders succeeded in this. But, apparently, it was Konev who was the greatest master of this business. Long before the Stalingrad operation, he saw the fear of the Germans to be surrounded and then more than once skillfully used this weakness of theirs. At the same time, he tried not to get involved in protracted battles in big cities, by roundabout maneuvers forced the enemy to leave the city, which made it possible to reduce their losses, to prevent great destruction and casualties among the civilian population.

In July 1943, Konev was appointed commander of the Steppe Front, at the head of which he managed to achieve success in Battle of Kursk. The Battle of Kursk, which took place in July - August 1943, went down in history as the largest tank battle war. Although Konev did not play a decisive role in it, in this operation he showed himself with the most better side and returned the location of Stalin. Parts of the Steppe Front entrusted to him were located behind the positions of the other two Soviet fronts as a reserve. Konev practically did not take part in defensive battles in this area. And when Soviet troops launched a counteroffensive, his front supported the offensive of other units.

On August 3, 1943, the Steppe Front struck from the area northwest of Belgorod in the direction of Bogodukhov, Novaya Vodolaga in order to cut into parts the troops of Field Marshal Manstein's Army Group South and cut off their retreat from Kharkov. Characteristic of this operation was that the organization and regrouping of troops were carried out not as usual in a stable situation during the preparatory period, but in the course of fierce defensive battles. It was necessary to attack against very dense enemy groupings, created for the offensive and forced to go on the defensive. That's why fighting were distinguished by great tension and the troops with great difficulty overcame the fierce resistance of the enemy.

The situation required a quick exit to the Dnieper. But the encirclement and destruction of individual enemy groupings were not ruled out. Konev did not abandon his favorite form of operational maneuver this time either. So, when on August 13, 1943, the troops of the Steppe Front broke through the enemy’s defensive line on the outskirts of Kharkov, the commander set the task of the 53rd, 5th Guards Tank and 7th Guards Armies to cover the city from the west, southwest, east and south east. Manstein stubbornly resisted. But when there was only one highway and one Railway on Merefa and Krasnograd, the German troops faltered and began to leave Kharkov. In order to prevent great destruction and defeat the retreating enemy, on August 22 Konev ordered a night assault, while limiting air and artillery strikes on the city. The next day, the troops of his front captured Kharkov.

In September 1943, Poltava was liberated, in October - Kremenchug, which became part of the Poltava-Kremenchug operation. At the end of September 1943, his armies crossed the Dnieper on the move. August 26, 1943 I. S. Konev was awarded military rank army General. In October 1943, the Steppe Front was renamed the 2nd Ukrainian Front, Konev remained its commander, and in October-December 1943 he carried out the Pyatikhat and Znamenskaya operations, and in January 1944, the Kirovograd operation. During the Kirovograd operation, the commander of the Steppe Front, General of the Army Konev, again made a skillful maneuver with tank forces, which, in cooperation with the combined arms armies, surrounded the enemy.

Konev showed his art of generalship brought to perfection in encircling and destroying large enemy groupings in a short time in the Korsun-Shevchenko operation, which he carried out in cooperation with the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front, General N. F. Vatutin. In this operation, the 2nd Ukrainian Front and the 1st Ukrainian Front were faced with the task of destroying 10 German divisions that had fortified themselves on the Kanevsky ledge in the bend of the Dnieper, which were part of the 1st Tank Army and the 8th Combined Arms Army. The suddenness of the offensive was ensured by the fact that it was undertaken in the early spring of 1944, in conditions of mud and impassability. Manstein did not expect that a major offensive could begin at such a time. Surprise was facilitated by the operational camouflage of the main strike and the demonstration of the concentration of forces in a secondary direction.

The 2nd Ukrainian Front went on the offensive on January 24, 1944. With the breakthrough of the enemy's main line of defense, the front commander brought the 5th Guards Tank Army into battle. The 6th Guards Tank Army was brought in to meet it in the zone of the 1st Ukrainian Front, and on January 28 these tank groups joined in the Zvenigorodka area, completing the encirclement of a group of about 80 thousand people, more than 230 tanks and a large number of other equipment. At the same time, the active actions of other tank formations and combined arms armies created a reliable outer front of the encirclement in order to prevent the release of the encircled grouping and provide favorable conditions for its rapid liquidation. At the same time, the encirclement and destruction of the enemy were not carried out sequentially, but almost simultaneously, as a single process. This was a new achievement in strategy and operational art.

For skillful organization and excellent leadership of the troops in this operation, on February 20, 1944, Konev was awarded the military rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union.

The liberation of the Right-bank Ukraine began.

In March - April 1944, he carried out one of the most successful offensives of the Soviet troops - the Uman-Botoshansk operation, in which, in a month of fighting, his troops marched over 300 kilometers to the west through mud and impassability and on March 26, 1944, they were the first in the Red Army to cross the state border entering the territory of Romania.

In May 1944, Konev was appointed commander of the 1st Ukrainian Front.

In July - August 1944, under his command, the troops of the front defeated the army group "Northern Ukraine" of Colonel-General Josef Harpe in the Lvov-Sandomierz operation. During the operation, when the troops in the Lvov direction met with great resistance, and success was indicated in the Rava-Russky direction, Konev transferred part of the forces from the Lvov direction to the Rava-Russky direction, sending them to the rear of the enemy grouping. At the same time, in the Brody area, eight enemy divisions were surrounded and destroyed within a few days. On July 27, Lvov, Przemysl, Stanislav were liberated, and at the end of the operation, the troops of the front crossed the Vistula and captured a bridgehead in the Sandomierz region. With great foresight, Konev advanced the 5th Guards Tank Army to the bridgehead, which ensured the successful repulsion of enemy counterattacks.

The troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front captured and, in the subsequent two-month battles, held the Sandomierz bridgehead, which became one of the springboards for attacking Nazi Germany. Also, part of the forces of the front took part in the East Carpathian operation.

The title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the award of the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal was awarded to Ivan Stepanovich Konev on July 29, 1944 for his skillful leadership of front troops in major operations in which strong enemy groups were defeated, personal courage and heroism.

After the operation was planned and organized, with the beginning of the offensive, Ivan Stepanovich with a small operational group and means of communication, as a rule, was in the battle formations of advanced formations performing the most important tasks. This allowed him to constantly feel the breath of battle, personally influence the troops and quickly respond to changes in the situation. In any situation, the commander knew how to maintain restraint and self-control, did not allow twitchiness and nervousness that were detrimental to command and control of the troops, and was very attentive to his subordinates. But when the interests of the cause demanded, he showed tough firmness and severe demands, especially in relation to commanders who broke away from the troops and showed irresponsibility. Once, in early October 1944, with the entry of Soviet troops into Czechoslovak territory, the 1st Czechoslovak Army Corps was introduced into battle. As always, Konev considered it necessary to see for himself how everything would turn out. Arriving at the battle formations of the corps, he discovered that at this crucial moment, the corps commander, General Kratochvila, being 25 km from the advanced units, was holding a press conference with foreign journalists. The front commander was forced to immediately remove the corps commander from his post and appoint General Svoboda, the commander of the 1st brigade, which began hostilities in the most organized manner, to this position. This decision was approved by Stalin.

During the Sandomierz-Silesian front operation, Konev, with his supreme military art and ability to use a variety of flexible methods of action, saved ancient capital Poland - Krakow. This city blocked the path of the troops of the front to Silesia, and without taking it, it was impossible to develop a further offensive. As Ivan Stepanovich recalled, “the front command refused to strike artillery and aviation on the city ... We did not set ourselves the task of cutting last way departure of the Nazis. If they had done this, we would have had to uproot them for a long time, and we would undoubtedly have destroyed the city.” The commander decided to surround the city with detour maneuvers, but leave the encircled troops a retreat route to the south, and Field Marshal Schroeder decided to use this corridor to withdraw the main forces from the city. But the far-sighted and cunning Ivan Stepanovich did not give the main grouping of German troops that left Krakow the opportunity to retreat. With their release outside the city, powerful air and artillery strikes were inflicted on them, they were attacked and pursued by the advanced detachments of our armies. In terms of the subtlety of strategic thought and the effectiveness of execution, this operation alone would give any commander world fame.

In January 1945, the troops of the front, as a result of a swift strike and a detour in the Vistula-Oder operation, prevented the retreating enemy from destroying the industry of Silesia, which was of great economic importance for friendly Poland.

On January 12, Konev's troops went on the offensive on the Sandomierz bridgehead beyond the Vistula and 36 hours later broke through the main German defense line - the Hubertus line. The titanic efforts of the Wehrmacht high command came to nothing - the front was broken through, and Soviet tanks advanced up to 60 kilometers a day deep into the German defenses, soon entering German territory. On January 20, Konev ordered his troops to turn around and move along the Oder in order to destroy two German groups that were putting up stubborn resistance.

In February 1945, Konev's troops carried out the Lower Silesian operation, in March - the Upper Silesian operation, having achieved significant results in both.

During March 1945, three Soviet fronts, including the fronts under the command of Konev and Zhukov, did not move forward, but cleared the space between Stettin and Danzig from the remnants of German units.

When the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front liberated Dresden, the commander was informed that paintings from the world-famous gallery were found in the galleries - including “ Sistine Madonna» Raphael. Konev ordered that everything be done to save the canvases from destruction. But in the conditions of war, it was not possible to store canvases in accordance with all the rules. A group of restorers headed by Natalya Sokolova was urgently summoned from Moscow. It was decided to send the canvases to Moscow. Konev invited Sokolova to select the most valuable canvases for immediate evacuation by his private plane. He suggested: "Come on, I'll give you my plane." The woman threw up her hands and said: "Ivan Stepanovich, this is scary." - “Why is it scary? This is a very reliable aircraft. I myself fly on it, ”Konev answered. “Well, you are a marshal, and she is Madonna,” the restorer replied.

In April, Soviet troops, having suffered heavy losses, broke through the German defenses and launched an attack on Berlin. But Stalin stopped Konev's troops, giving Zhukov the opportunity to capture the capital of the Third Reich.

After the fall of Berlin, Konev was ordered to turn his front south to Prague. In addition to the 1st Ukrainian Front, troops of the 2nd Ukrainian (R. Ya. Malinovsky) and 4th Ukrainian (A. I. Eremenko) fronts, moving around Prague from the southeast and east, took part in the Prague operation. Field Marshal Schörner's main blow to the Army Group Center was delivered by the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front, advancing from the Berlin and Dresden directions through the impenetrable Ore Mountains. The forced march was unprecedentedly difficult and swift: it took only five days and nights. This was the last offensive operation carried out under the leadership of Marshal I. S. Konev. When he approached the city, it turned out that the troops of the Russian Liberation Army of Vlasov had cleared the capital of the Czech Republic from the Germans. However, all Vlasovites were taken prisoner and handed over to the NKVD. On the morning of May 9, joyful citizens of Prague greeted the Soviet soldiers with flowers.

In almost all operations, Konev’s desire is visible through skillful maneuver and a sudden strike on the enemy’s most vulnerable places to encircle and destroy his main groups or force them to leave fortified defensive lines, cities and fight in unfavorable conditions. At the same time, when it was necessary for the situation, he prepared and carried out a breakthrough of defense, an assault on cities with the same skill and thoroughness.

Marshal I. S. Konev was awarded the second Gold Star medal on June 1, 1945 for exemplary leadership of troops in the final operations of the Great Patriotic War.

By orders of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, the capital of our Motherland, Moscow, saluted the troops commanded by I. S. Konev more than 50 times.

The organization of the Victory Parade was discussed at the Military Council in the Kremlin. Stalin offered Konev to command the Parade and was very unhappy when he refused, citing the fact that he was not a cavalryman and would like to walk along the square at the head of his front troops. Stalin grunted angrily: “You are arrogant, Comrade Konev. We will entrust this to Comrade Rokossovsky. Konev participated in the Victory Parade on June 24, 1945 at the head of a combined regiment of the 1st Ukrainian Front.

Marshal of the Soviet Union I. S. Konev not only won major victories, brilliantly organized and conducted a number of important operations, but also made a great contribution to the development of military art.

Many years after the end of the war, Ivan Stepanovich Konev met with the artists of the Moscow Art Theater. People's Artist Angelina Stepanova, struck by the purity and richness of his speech, asked the marshal where he was from. Konev replied: “My homeland is where there was no serfdom and no conqueror set foot. We have preserved the free and free language of the Slavs who lived near Veliky Ustyug.

Assessing his participation in the war against the fascist states, Ivan Stepanovich will later say with legitimate pride: “I took part in many major events of the war, I saw and knew a lot ...” Yes, it is. And this long, difficult and glorious military path gave him the full moral right to draw the main conclusion: “Centuries will pass, but the heroic feat will never be erased from the memory of future generations. Soviet people and its Armed Forces, which defeated Nazi Germany in the Patriotic War."

At the end of the war, Ivan Stepanovich Konev was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Central Group of Forces and High Commissioner for Austria. In 1946, Marshal Konev was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces and Deputy Minister of the Armed Forces of the USSR. First post-war years deals with organizational issues and technical re-equipment of the army. After the signing of the Warsaw Pact on May 14, 1955, he was appointed First Commander-in-Chief of the Joint Armed Forces and Chairman of the Military Council of the Warsaw Pact countries. Since 1962, Marshal Konev worked as the Inspector General of the USSR Ministry of Defense.

He did much to generalize the experience of the Great Patriotic War, to use it creatively in the training of troops and the development of new problems of military art in connection with the appearance of nuclear missile weapons and other new means of armed struggle.

Soviet commander, Marshal of the Soviet Union (1944), twice Hero of the Soviet Union (1944, 1945), Hero of Czechoslovakia (1971), Hero of the MPR (1971).

Ivan Stepanovich Konev was born on December 16 (28), 1897 in the family of Stepan Ivanovich Konev, a peasant in the village of Nikolsky district of the Vologda province (now in). In 1912 he graduated from the Nikolo-Pushemskoe Zemstvo School in a neighboring village, worked as a timber rafter.

In the spring of 1916, I. S. Konev was drafted into the Russian Imperial Army. He was in a reserve regiment in, then studying in a heavy artillery brigade in. In 1917 he was promoted to junior non-commissioned officer and sent to the 2nd separate artillery division on the Southwestern Front. He took part in the battles of the First World War of 1914-1918. Demobilized in December 1917 and returned to his native village.

In 1918, I. S. Konev joined the RCP (b). In February 1918, he was elected district military commissar in the city of Vologda province, headed the district party committee and a revolutionary volunteer detachment. As a delegate to the V All-Russian Congress of Soviets on July 5-6, 1918, he took part in the suppression of the Left Social Revolutionary rebellion in.

In the second half of 1918, I. S. Konev achieved admission to the Red Army. He was commander of a marching company on the Eastern Front, commander of a spare artillery battery, military commissar of armored train No. 102 on the Eastern Front. Together with the crew of an armored train, he went through a combat path from to, participated in battles against the troops of Admiral, Ataman G. M. Semenov and Japanese invaders. Since 1921, he served as a military commissar of a rifle brigade in the 2nd Verkhneudinsk rifle division, a military commissar of this division, and a military commissar of the headquarters of the People's Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republic.

After the end of the Civil War in the Far East, from December 1922 he was the military commissar of the 17th Primorsky Rifle Corps. From August 1924 he was the commissar and head of the political department of the 17th Nizhny Novgorod Rifle Division. In 1926 he graduated from the advanced training courses for senior officers at the Military Academy. V . From 1926 he commanded the 50th Red Banner Rifle Regiment as part of the 17th Nizhny Novgorod Rifle Division. In January-March 1930, he served as the military commandant of the city. From March 1930 he was assistant commander of the 17th Nizhny Novgorod Rifle Division.

In 1934, I. S. Konev graduated from the Military Academy of the Red Army named after. In 1934-1936, he served as commander and military commissar of the 37th rifle division in the Belarusian military district, in 1936-1937 - the 2nd Belarusian rifle division in the same district. In July 1937, he was appointed senior adviser to the Mongolian People's Army, and when in early 1938 the Soviet troops in Mongolia were united into the 57th Special Rifle Corps, I. S. Konev became its commander. From July 1938 he commanded the 2nd Red Banner Army stationed in the Far East. In June 1940, with the rank of lieutenant general, he became commander of the Trans-Baikal Military District, in January 1941 he was transferred to the North Caucasian Military District.

With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, I. S. Konev was appointed commander of the 19th Army on the Southwestern and Western fronts. In September-October 1941, with the rank of colonel general, he commanded the troops of the Western Front, where he suffered a severe defeat under. To investigate the causes of the catastrophe of the front and punish the commander, a commission of the State Defense Committee headed by V. M. Molotov and. Saved from trial and possible execution by I. S. Konev, who facilitated his appointment as deputy commander of the Western Front. As commander of the Kalinin Front, he successfully acted during the counteroffensive under. From August 1942 to February 1943, I. S. Konev again commanded the Western Front, participated in Operation Mars and unsuccessfully carried out the Zhizdrinsky operation, for which he was removed from the post of front commander.

Subsequently, I. S. Konev commanded the troops of the North-Western Front (March-June 1943), the Steppe Military District (June-July 1943). In the Battle of Kursk, the troops of the Steppe Front also liberated Kharkov. Since October 1943, General of the Army I.S. Konev commanded the 2nd Ukrainian Front. At the head of his troops, he conducted the Nizhnedneprovsk, Korsun-Shevchenkovsk, Kirovograd, Uman-Botoshansk offensive operations. On March 26, 1944, the troops of the 2nd Ukrainian Front were the first to reach the state border of the USSR.

In January 1944, I. S. Konev was awarded the military rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union. From May 16, 1944 until the end of the war, he commanded the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front. In July-August, they defeated Field Marshal E. von Manstein's Northern Ukraine Army Group in the Lvov-Sandomierz operation and captured the Sandomierz bridgehead. By a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of July 29, 1944, Marshal of the Soviet Union I.S. Konev was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for his skillful leadership of the front troops in major operations in which strong enemy groups were defeated.

In the autumn of 1944, the 1st Ukrainian Front carried out the Carpathian-Dukla operation, entering the territory of Czechoslovakia. In 1945, the troops of the front took part in the Vistula-Oder, Lower Silesian, Upper Silesian, Berlin and Prague operations. By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of June 1, 1945, I. S. Konev was awarded the second Gold Star medal.

In 1945-1946, I. S. Konev was Commander-in-Chief of the Central Group of Forces and High Commissioner for Austria. In 1946-1950 he was Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces and Deputy Minister of the Armed Forces of the USSR. From March 1950 to November 1951, I. S. Konev was the chief inspector of the Soviet Army - Deputy Minister of War of the USSR. From November 1951 to March 1955 he commanded the troops of the Carpathian Military District. From May 1956 to June 1960, the marshal served as 1st Deputy Minister of Defense - Commander-in-Chief of the Joint Armed Forces of the States Parties to the Warsaw Pact.

From June 1960 to August 1961, I. S. Konev was the general inspector of the Group of General Inspectors of the USSR Ministry of Defense. From August 1961 to April 1962 he was Commander-in-Chief of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany. In April 1962, the marshal returned to the post of general inspector of the Group of General Inspectors of the USSR Ministry of Defense.

In 1939-1952, I. S. Konev was a candidate member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, in 1952-1973 he was a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU. He was elected a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR for the first eight convocations (1937-1973).

Among the awards of Marshal of the Soviet Union I. S. Konev - the Order of Victory, 7 orders

Marshal Konev is one of the most famous people 20th century. The famous made an invaluable contribution to the Victory. Under his leadership, many strategically important operations of the Great Patriotic War were developed. His name is known to every person in the post-Soviet space. "Marshal Konev: a short biography" is required reading for all students of military academies.

Youth

Marshal Konev was born on December 28, 1897 in Ivan's family consisted of simple peasants. The future commander graduated from college and from adolescence he worked in forestry work. He combined this hard work with learning and self-development. At the age of 19, Ivan was drafted into the army. First, he studied at the capital's academy. A year later, he was sent to the West to take part in the battles against the German and Austro-Hungarian troops. Thus began the military career of a great man.

In the battles on the Southwestern Front, where the future Marshal Konev served, the Russian troops suffered huge losses. During the first 2 years of the First World War, the coalition of forces advanced hundreds of kilometers, practically reaching the Dnieper. One of the most famous events in this area is the Brusilovsky breakthrough. After a series of major defeats, the emperor ordered an offensive operation in the Lutsk region. This was included in overall plan Entente. The operation began in the late spring of 1916 and ended in the autumn with a major defeat for the Austro-Hungarian forces. The future Marshal Konev was directly involved in the breakthrough.

After the war

Ivan was demobilized in the winter of 1918. Growing up in a peasant family, he clearly saw the inequality between the workers and the bourgeoisie in Russian Empire. Therefore, immediately after his arrival, he joined the Bolshevik Party. The experience gained on the battlefields of the First World War allowed him to become a commissar in Nikolsk. He participated in the civil war, mainly in the East. There, detachments of the Red Army entrusted to him fought with units of the "whites" and the Japanese.

When planning operations, the future Marshal Konev proved himself to be an outstanding commander. He did an excellent job with the tasks and often took the initiative. In addition to military merits, he distinguished himself in matters of building a new state.

Marshal Konev: biography. Interwar period

Ivan was devoted to the ideas of communism. Party comrades always listened to his words. He participated in the 10th Congress of the Workers' and Peasants' Party. There it was decided to storm Kronstadt, where the rebels settled. After the end of the civil war and the stabilization of the situation in the country, Konev devoted himself entirely to the art of war. He is studying at the Higher Military Academy. There he is transferred to a special group.

Taking into account combat experience, already in 1935 Ivan became the division commander. He is sent to Mongolia, where he stays until the early 40s. While serving in the East, Konev reads a lot and studies all the intricacies of commanding an army. Little is known about his first wife. They met during the civil war. The wounded Konev immediately fell in love with the young Anna and they soon got married. Contemporaries associate this event with Ivan's youth. During the civil war, young Red Army soldiers were overwhelmed with feelings, so field marriages were by no means uncommon. The lovers lived together for 20 years, after which they broke up. For many, this came as a surprise.

Colleagues did not dare to talk about the personal life of the commander if Marshal Konev was nearby. The family was a refuge for him, a quiet haven in which he could rest after the hard everyday life of the war, and which took him almost half of his life. Anna loved open receptions and noisy feasts. Therefore, many historians believe that this was the reason for the rupture of the union.

The beginning of the Great Patriotic War

In 1941, Marshal Konev became a Lieutenant General of the Red Army. The 19th division entrusted to him immediately after the formation was sent to the south. At this time, the Nazis were rapidly breaking through the territory of Belarus. The main lines of defense were located beyond the Dnieper, near the western borders of the USSR, since it was there that the main blow was expected. The sudden invasion through the seemingly impenetrable swampy terrain of Belarus caused panic in the ranks of the Red Army. Therefore, the experienced Konev was sent to the Western Front to reinforce the group of troops.

In mid-July, Vitebsk fell. A huge number of military personnel were surrounded. Then the chief of the Nazi general staff, Halder, reported that the war against Russia had been won in 2 weeks. In his opinion, further resistance will not be able to stop the Wehrmacht.

The failure of the defense near Vyazma

The Third Reich set its sights on Moscow. Smolensk stood in the way of the Germans. The fighting for the city continued for more than two months. A well-prepared enemy advanced in three directions. The hastily formed units of the Soviet army did not have time to repel the offensive. As a result of the fighting, several divisions fell into the "cauldrons". Marshal Konev Ivan Stepanovich, as part of the 19th Army, was also surrounded.

After the loss of communication, the command believed that the commander died or was captured. But Ivan Stepanovich managed to organize a withdrawal and brought the headquarters, as well as the communications regiment, to his own. His actions at the time aroused the approval of Stalin himself. Therefore, Konev was soon appointed commander of the Western Front.

The most complex operations

It so happened that the Soviet units that took part in the most unsuccessful operations were invariably commanded by Marshal Konev. The biography of the commander has a huge number of difficult periods. But it was the three years of the Second World War that became a real test for Konev.

In the fall, the Germans reached the defense lines in front of Moscow. Here commanded Konev. The German Army Group "Center" delivered a cutting blow, and more than half a million people ended up in a "cauldron" near Vyazma. This defeat is the largest in the entire war. On Stalin's orders, a special group was formed to look into the incident. For some time, the threat of execution hung over Konev. Then Zhukov saved him. After the Vyazemsky tragedy, the Germans came close to the capital of the USSR. And only by the efforts of the urgently deployed units of the Red Army and hastily armed militia managed to repulse their attack. Konev participated in the development of the Kalinin operation.

After that, under the command of Ivan Stepanovich, another infamous Rzhev operation was carried out, where the Red Army was opposed by Nazi formations under the command of the defense genius - Model.

The offensive of the Red Army

After a series of failures, Konev was removed from the post of commander of the front. But a year later he showed himself in the largest tank battle in the history of mankind - the battle of Next, Marshal of the Soviet Union Konev led the offensive in the direction of Lvov. For services to the Motherland, he was awarded the title of Hero of the USSR.

In 1944, Konev liberated Prague and other European territories occupied by the Reich. He managed to quickly drive the Germans out of Silesia, where the Nazis intended to destroy the industrial regions of Poland. Behind special successes in offensive operations, Konev was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for the second time.

Marshal's children

The daughter of Marshal Konev released a series of memoirs about her father after his death. There she brought little known facts from the personal life of the commander. The text also mentioned excerpts from the memoirs of Marshal Konev himself. The collection is also of historical value, since it indirectly reveals the secrets of planning the most important operations of the Great Patriotic War. The children of Marshal Konev lived mainly in Moscow. Helium's son was also a military man.

Konev Ivan Stepanovich (1897-1973), Soviet military commander, Marshal of the Soviet Union (1944). Born on December 16 (28), 1897 in the village. Lodeino Vyatka province in a peasant family.

To the first world war in 1916 he was drafted into the army and after the end of the training team as a junior non-commissioned officer of the artillery division was sent to the South-Western Front. Demobilized from the army, in 1918 he joined the RCP(b) and the Red Army, took part in the establishment of Soviet power in the city of Nikolsk, Vologda province, where he was elected a member of the county executive committee and appointed county military commissar. During the Civil War, commissar of an armored train, 5th rifle brigade; fought in Siberia and the Far East. Participant in the suppression of the Kronstadt uprising.

My homeland is where there was no serfdom and no conqueror set foot. We have preserved the free and free language of the Slavs who lived near Veliky Ustyug.

Konev Ivan Stepanovich

In 1921-1922 he was the commissar of the headquarters of the People's Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republic. Then the military commissar of the 17th Primorsky Rifle Corps, 17th Rifle Division. Upon completion in 1926 of advanced training courses for senior officers at the Military Academy, regiment commander and assistant division commander. From 1931 he commanded a rifle division, studied at the Frunze Military Academy. In 1935-1937 he commanded a rifle corps and the 2nd Separate Red Banner Far Eastern Army.

Konev managed to survive the mass repressions of the highest command of the army. Moreover, in 1939 he was elected candidate member, in 1952 a member of the Central Committee of the party. In 1940-1941 commander of the Trans-Baikal and North Caucasian military districts.

At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, he commanded the 19th Army, which participated in the Smolensk defensive battle. Then he commanded the Western (September-October 1941, August 1942 - February 1943), Kalinin (October 1941 - August 1942), North-Western (from March 1943), Steppe (from July 1943), 2nd Ukrainian (from October 1943) and the 1st Ukrainian (May 1944 - May 1945) fronts. In October 1941 he suffered a crushing defeat near Orel and Vyazma, for which he was demoted to deputy front commander. Stalin wanted to put him on trial, but Konev was saved by G.K. Zhukov, who stood up for him.

In subsequent battles, he showed himself from the best side. The troops under his command successfully operated during the counteroffensive in the Belgorod-Kharkov direction, participated in the liberation of Belgorod and Kharkov in the Battle of Kursk, then in the Korsun-Shevchenko operation, as a result of which a large group of German troops was surrounded and destroyed. At the end of the war, he led the attack on Hungary and Czechoslovakia. During the Berlin operation, he skillfully maneuvered the tank armies of the 1st Ukrainian Front in order to quickly encircle the Berlin enemy grouping, and then in a short time prepared and, together with the troops of the 2nd and 4th Ukrainian Fronts, successfully carried out the Prague offensive operation, during which Prague was liberated.

In 1945-1946 he was Commander-in-Chief of the Central Group of Forces and High Commissioner for Austria. When G.K. Zhukov fell into disgrace, he replaced him in 1946 as Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces and Deputy Minister of the Armed Forces of the USSR. In 1950, when Stalin began another purge among the commanders of the army and navy, he lost the post of commander in chief, but retained the position of deputy minister, receiving the honorary position of chief inspector Soviet army. He was distinguished by his desire to strictly follow any directives of the party leadership. According to the memoirs of N.S. Khrushchev, he turned out to be “the only one of the major military leaders who“ responded ”to the material that was sent out by Stalin in the case of“ wreckers ”... In response to these pseudo-materials, he sent Stalin a letter in which he expressed solidarity with the fake sent out " . Despite this, in 1951 he was again demoted and appointed commander of the Carpathian military district.

After Stalin's death, he took part in the removal of L.P. Beria. He was appointed chairman of the Special Judicial Presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR, which on December 18-23, 1953 considered the case and sentenced to death L.P. Beria, V.K. Merkulov, V.G. Dekanozov, B.Z. Kobulov, S.A. .Goglidze, P.Ya. Meshik, L.E. Vlodzimirsky. At the same time, the vast majority of accusations (treason, espionage, restoration of capitalism, etc.) were completely fictitious.

Ivan Konev a brief biography of the Soviet commander is set out in this article.

Konev Ivan Stepanovich short biography

Konev was born on December 16, 1897 into a peasant family in the village of Lodeino, not far from Arkhangelsk.

He entered the army at the age of fifteen. In 1916 he served on the Southwestern Front, in the artillery, and after the revolution he joined the Bolshevik Party and in 1918 entered the Red Army. Konev received the title, and in the next two decades he was promoted: in 1926-1930. commanded a regiment, in 1934-1937. - divisions, in 1937-1938. - corps, surviving during the Stalinist purges.

At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, Konev commanded an army group that took on the blows of German troops near Smolensk and on the border of the Moscow region. General Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov replaced Konev in this post, initiating a rivalry that did not stop later. Remaining subordinate to Zhukov, Konev took command of the Kalinin Front, which played a crucial role in the Soviet counteroffensive near Moscow on December 5, 1941. After many months of heavy fighting with heavy losses on both sides, Konev managed to drive the Germans back a hundred miles.

At the end of 1943, Konev took command of the 2nd Ukrainian Front, which meant submission to Zhukov, who commanded the 1st Ukrainian Front. Stalin deliberately encouraged the rivalry between Zhukov and Konev, so that both would have the desire to take Berlin: neither of them was solely responsible for this. At the beginning of 1944, Zhukov and Konev surrounded two groups of German troops in the Korsun region and destroyed and captured more than a hundred thousand enemy soldiers and officers. Then they launched an offensive along a front of 350 miles, freeing Soviet territory from German troops. They destroyed 380,000 and captured 158,000 people from Hitler's elite units. On February 20, Stalin promoted Konev to the Marshals of the Soviet Union.

In the autumn of 1944, Konev suspended the offensive in order to enable the units responsible for supplying the army to pull up. On January 12, 1945, Soviet troops resumed their offensive and by February 15 reached the Oder-Neisse line. Here Konev stopped again to replenish supplies of ammunition and food, and on April 16 launched an attack on Berlin. Nine days later, units of Konev met on the Elbe with units of the Americans advancing from the west. Soon Konev's troops were the first among the allies to enter Berlin. On May 2, Konev and Zhukov accepted the surrender of the city.

Shortly after the war, Zhukov fell out of favor with Stalin, and in 1946 Konev replaced his rival as commander of the Soviet Ground Forces. In 1955, Konev became the first deputy minister of defense of the USSR and one of the founders of the East European communist military bloc. When the Warsaw Pact organization was created, Konev became the Commander-in-Chief of its armed forces.

In 1960, he became an inspector of the group of inspectors general of the Department of Defense. He held this position until his death.

Konev's life ended in May 1973.