Dmitri Fyodorovich Ustinov

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Dmitri Fyodorovich Ustinov

Dmitriy Ustinov ( Russian Дмитрий Фёдорович Устинов , English Dmitriy Ustinov * October 17 jul. / The 30th October  1908 greg. In Samara , Russian Empire ; † 20th December 1984 in Moscow , Soviet Union ) was Marshal of the Soviet Union from 1976 to 1984 Soviet Minister of Defense .

Life

Youth, training and advancement

Ustinov came from a working-class family in Samara who had to move from the Volga region to Samarkand because of the famine resulting from the civil war . After the father's death in 1923, the family moved again to Makarjew ( Ivanovo-Voznesensk Governorate ) in central Russia .

As early as 1927, at the age of 19, Ustinow became a member of the CPSU (B) . From 1929 he studied mechanical engineering at the Polytechnic Institute of Ivanovo, then at the Bauman Technical University in Moscow and finally at the Military Institute of Mechanics of Leningrad and graduated in 1934 as a mechanical engineer. He first worked as a construction engineer in the Leningrad Naval Artillery Institute, in 1937 he moved to the Leningrad Factory No. 232 "Bolsheviks" - the former Obukhov works - and became director of this armaments factory in the late 1930s.

Armaments Minister, political advancement

In 1941 - at the age of 33 - Ustinow became People's Commissar for Armaments (Minister from 1946). He exercised this function with great success under Stalin until 1953. With the relocation of many operations in the arms industry behind the Urals , he played a significant role in the victory of the Soviet Union in World War II . After the war, Ustinov's department was involved in expanding the programs for rocket construction and space travel.

From 1953 to 1957 ( Khrushchev's time) he was Minister for the Defense Industry (successor: LW Smirnov) and from 1957 to 1963 Deputy Chairman and from 1963 to 1965 First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and Chairman of the Supreme Economic Council . Since Khrushchev did not particularly support him, he increasingly supported Brezhnev .

In the party he became a member of the Central Committee in 1952 and was secretary of the Central Committee from 1965 to 1976 during the Brezhnev period . In 1965 he also became a candidate for the Politburo .

He was responsible for the further expansion of the armaments industry, combined with the development of military space stations in collaboration with space pioneer Sergei Koroljow .

Defense Minister, Politburo member

Ustinow met Erich Honecker , Heinz Hoffmann and Egon Krenz during a visit to the GDR in 1984

After the death of Marshal AA Grechko on April 26, 1976, Ustinov became the new Defense Minister of the USSR just two days later , which he would remain until his death. Ustinov was almost 70 years old, but he was a confidante of Brezhnev and, as an armaments specialist, an ideal candidate during this phase of the re-arming of the Soviet army. This made Ustinov the first quasi “civilian” to the post of defense minister since Leon Trotsky , although he was supported and flanked by the experienced generals SL Sokolow as first deputy and NW Ogarkov as chief of the general staff. Together with WG Kulikow , the commander-in-chief of the Warsaw Pact , all of these personalities were promoted from Brezhnev to Marshal of the Soviet Union between July 30, 1976 (Ustinov) and February 17, 1978 (Sokolow) . At the same time, Ustinov was from March 4, 1976 to December 20, 1984 also a full member of the highest political body of the USSR, the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).

The war in Afghanistan also fell during his time as Defense Minister . When Brezhnev died in 1982, he supported his successor Andropov and promoted Gorbachev's rise. Ustinov was married and had a son.

death

On November 7, 1984, Soviet television viewers expected him to attend the military parade on Red Square on the anniversary of the October Revolution. Surprisingly, the Deputy Minister of Defense, Marshal Sokolov, accepted the parade of the troops. Ustinov fell ill with pneumonia in October. Furthermore, an aneurysm of the aortic valve was removed in an emergency operation. In the period that followed, his health deteriorated more and more and there were liver and kidney problems. He died of heart failure on December 20, 1984. He was honored with a state funeral and found his final resting place at the Kremlin wall.

Orders and decorations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter Gosztony: The Red Army - History and Structure of the Soviet Armed Forces since 1917 , Vienna / Munich 1980, p. 411f
  2. ↑ Dmitri Ustinow - biography. Retrieved May 11, 2018 (Russian).

literature

  • Michel Tatu: Power and Powerlessness in the Kremlin . Ullstein, 1967
  • Merle Fainsod : How Russia is governed . Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1965
  • Klaus Dorst / Birgit Hoffmann (eds.): Small Lexicon of the Soviet Armed Forces , Military Publishing House of the GDR, Berlin (East) 1987.
  • Peter Gosztony: The Red Army - History and Structure of the Soviet Armed Forces since 1917 . Fritz Molden Verlag, Vienna et al. 1980, ISBN 3-217-00666-6
  • Garri Tabachnik: Stalin's heirs . Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main 1991, ISBN 3-550-07210-4
  • Göttingen working group: The Soviet Union in the transition from Brezhnev to Andropow . Dumcker & Humblot, Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-428-05529-2
  • Spuler: regents and governments of the world (Minister-Ploetz). Vol. 4 and 5, 1964 and 1972, ISBN 3-87640-026-0
  • Mikhail Gorbachev: Memories . Siedler, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-88680-524-7
  • Dmitrij F. Ustinow , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 12/1985 of March 11, 1985, in the Munzinger Archive ( beginning of article freely available)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Ustinow, Dmitri Fyodorowitsch
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Устинов, Дмитрий Фёдорович (Russian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Soviet Defense Minister and Marshal of the Soviet Union
DATE OF BIRTH October 30, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Samara , Russian Empire
DATE OF DEATH December 20, 1984
Place of death Moscow , Soviet Union