Chief of the General Staff (Russia)
Encyclopedia
The Chief of the General Staff is the chief of staff of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation
. He is appointed by the President of Russia, who is the commander-in-chief
. The position dates to the period of the Russian Empire
. The current Chief of the General Staff is Nikolai Makarov.
During the years of the Great Patriotic War (1941-45) the General Staff was the primary organ of the General Headquarters of the Supreme Command on strategic planning and management of armed forces at the front, and was headed by:
Chiefs of the General Staff in the Cold War
period were:
General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation is the military staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. It is the central organ of the Armed Forces Administration and oversees operational management of the armed forces under the Russian Ministry of Defence.The staff is...
. He is appointed by the President of Russia, who is the commander-in-chief
Commander-in-Chief
A commander-in-chief is the commander of a nation's military forces or significant element of those forces. In the latter case, the force element may be defined as those forces within a particular region or those forces which are associated by function. As a practical term it refers to the military...
. The position dates to the period of the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
. The current Chief of the General Staff is Nikolai Makarov.
Chief of the Staff of the Red Army
- 1919 Mikhail Bonch-BruevichMikhail Bonch-BruevichMikhail Dmitriyevich Bonch-Bruyevich was an Imperial Russian and Soviet military commander, Lieutenant General .From 1892-1895, Bonch-Bruyevich served as an officer with the Lithuanian Guards Regiment, posted at Warsaw.-First World War:...
- 1919–24 Pavel Lebedev
- 1924–25 Mikhail FrunzeMikhail FrunzeMikhail Vasilyevich Frunze was a Bolshevik leader during and just prior to the Russian Revolution of 1917.-Life and Political Activity:Frunze was born in Bishkek, then a small Imperial Russian garrison town in the Kyrgyz part of Turkestan, to a Moldovan medical practitioner and his Russian wife...
- Mar–Nov 1925 Sergei KamenevSergei KamenevSergey Sergeyevich Kamenev , 1881 – August 25, 1936), was a Soviet military leader.Kamenev was born Kiev. In World War I he commanded a regiment. He became a member of the CPSU in 1930...
- 1925–28 Mikhail TukhachevskyMikhail TukhachevskyMikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky was a Marshal of the Soviet Union, commander in chief of the Red Army , and one of the most prominent victims of Joseph Stalin's Great Purge.-Early life:...
- 1928–31 Boris ShaposhnikovBoris ShaposhnikovBoris Mikhailovitch Shaposhnikov was a Soviet military commander.-Biography:Shaposhnikov was born at Zlatoust, near Chelyabinsk in the Urals. He joined the army of the Russian Empire in 1901 and graduated from the Nicholas General Staff Academy in 1910, reaching the rank of colonel in the...
- 1931–35 Alexander Ilyich Yegorov
Chief of the General Staff of the Soviet Armed Forces
The formative period Chiefs of the General Staff were:- Marshal of the Soviet UnionMarshal of the Soviet UnionMarshal of the Soviet Union was the de facto highest military rank of the Soviet Union. ....
A. I. Yegorov (September 1935 - May 1937) - Marshal of the Soviet Union B. M. ShaposhnikovBoris ShaposhnikovBoris Mikhailovitch Shaposhnikov was a Soviet military commander.-Biography:Shaposhnikov was born at Zlatoust, near Chelyabinsk in the Urals. He joined the army of the Russian Empire in 1901 and graduated from the Nicholas General Staff Academy in 1910, reaching the rank of colonel in the...
(May 1937 - August 1940) - Army General K. A. MeretskovKirill MeretskovKirill Afanasievich Meretskov was a Soviet military commander. Having joined the Communist Party in 1917, he served in the Red Army from 1920. During the Winter War, he was responsible for penetrating the Mannerheim Line as commander of the 7th Army...
(August 1940 - January 1941) - Army General G. K. ZhukovGeorgy ZhukovMarshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov , was a Russian career officer in the Red Army who, in the course of World War II, played a pivotal role in leading the Red Army through much of Eastern Europe to liberate the Soviet Union and other nations from the Axis Powers' occupation...
(February - July 1941)
During the years of the Great Patriotic War (1941-45) the General Staff was the primary organ of the General Headquarters of the Supreme Command on strategic planning and management of armed forces at the front, and was headed by:
- Marshal of the Soviet Union B. M. Shaposhnikov (August 1941 - May 1942)
- Marshal of the Soviet Union A. M. VasilevskyAleksandr VasilevskyAleksandr Mikhaylovich Vasilevsky was a Russian career officer in the Red Army, promoted to Marshal of the Soviet Union in 1943. He was the Chief of the General Staff of the Soviet Armed Forces and Deputy Minister of Defense during World War II, as well as Minister of Defense from 1949 to 1953...
(June 1942 - February 1945) - Army General A. I. AntonovAleksei AntonovAleksei Innokentievich Antonov was a General of the Soviet Army, awarded the Order of Victory for his efforts in World War II.-Career:...
from February 1945)
Chiefs of the General Staff in the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
period were:
- Army General A. I. Antonov (February 1945 - March 1946)
- Marshal of the Soviet Union A. M. Vasilevsky (March 1946 - November 1948)
- Army General S. M. ShtemenkoSergei ShtemenkoSergei Matveevich Shtemenko was a Soviet general, who served as the Chief of the Soviet Armed Forces' General Staff from 1948 to 1952.-Early life:...
(November 1948 - May 1952) - Marshal of the Soviet Union V. D. SokolovskyVasily SokolovskyVasily Danilovich Sokolovsky was a Soviet military commander.Sokolovsky was born into a peasant family in Kozliki, a small town in the province of Grodno, near Białystok in Poland . He worked as a teacher in a rural school, where he took part in a number of protests and demonstrations against the...
(May 1952 - April 1960) - Marshal of the Soviet Union M. V. ZakharovMatvei ZakharovMatvei Vasilevich Zakharov Marshal of the Soviet Union, Chief of General Staff, Deputy Defense Minister, was born in Tver, to peasant parents. Zakharov joined the Red Guards in 1917. He served under Kliment Voroshilov during the Russian Civil War...
(April 1960 - March 1963) - Marshal of the Soviet Union S. S. Biryuzov (April 1963 - October 1964)
- Marshal of the Soviet Union M. V. Zakharov (November 1964 - September 1971)
- Marshal of the Soviet Union V. G. KulikovViktor KulikovViktor Georgiyevich Kulikov was the Warsaw Pact commander-in-chief from 1977 to 1989. He has held the rank of the Marshal of the Soviet Union for over 30 years, since January 14, 1977.Kulikov was born into a peasant family and joined the Red Army in 1939...
(September 1971 - 1977) - Marshal of the Soviet Union N.V. OgarkovNikolai OgarkovNikolai Vasilyevich Ogarkov , was promoted to Marshal of the Soviet Union in 1977. Between 1977 and 1984 he was Chief of the General Staff of the USSR. He became widely known in the West when he became the Soviet military's spokesman following the shootdown of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 near...
(1977 - 1984) - Marshal of the Soviet Union S.F. Akhromeev (1984 - 1988)
- Army General M.A. Moiseev (December 1988 - August 1991)
- Army General Vladimir Lobov (August 1991 – December 1991)
Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation
- Army GeneralArmy General (Russia)Army General is the second highest military rank in the Russian Federation, inferior only to a Marshal and superior to a Colonel General...
Viktor DubyninViktor DubyninViktor Petrovich Dubynin was a prominent Soviet and Russian military figure, General of the Army, Hero of the Russian Federation .Born in 1943, Viktor Dubynin had been in service with the Soviet Army since 1961...
(1991 – 1992) - Army General Mikhail Kolesnikov (1992 – 1996)
- Army General Viktor SamsonovViktor SamsonovGeneral of the Army Viktor Nikolaevich Samsonov was the acting Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in 1996. He was replaced by Anatoly Kvashnin. Previously in 1993 he was Chief of Staff at the Military Cooperation Headquarters of the Commonwealth of Independent...
(1996) (acting) - Army General Anatoly KvashninAnatoly KvashninGeneral of the Army Anatoly Vasiliyevich Kvashnin was the Chief of the Russian General Staff from 1997 to 2004, when he was dismissed by President Vladimir Putin. Kvashnin graduated from the Kurgan Machine-building Institute in 1969 and served in the armed forces from this time...
(1996 – 2004) - Army General Yuri Baluyevsky (2004 – 2008)
- Army General Nikolai Makarov (2008 – current)
Further reading
- V.I. Feskov, K.A. Kalashnikov, V.I. Golikov, The Soviet Army in the Years of the Cold War 1945–91, Tomsk University Publishing House, TomskTomskTomsk is a city and the administrative center of Tomsk Oblast, Russia, located on the Tom River. One of the oldest towns in Siberia, Tomsk celebrated its 400th anniversary in 2004...
, 2004 (for Soviet era list of CGSs).