Ivan Stepanovich Konev (28 December 1897-21 May 1973) was a Marshal of the Soviet Union who fought in World War I, the Russian Civil War, World War II, and the Hungarian Revolution.
Biography[]
Ivan Stepanovich Konev was born on 28 December 1897 in Podosinovets, Vologda Governorate, Russian Empire (present-day Lodeyno, Kirov Oblast, Russia) to a peasant family. In 1916 he was conscripted into the Imperial Russian Army and returned home after the Russian Revolution in 1917, and in 1919 he joined the artillery of the Red Army of the Russian SFSR. He was a friend with Kliment Voroshilov, who was a top Red Army commander and a personal friend of preeminent communist leader Josef Stalin, who would reward Konev in turn. In July 1938 he was made an army corps commander, as the Great Purge left many leadership positions open to new officers. In June 1941, he took over the Soviet 19th Army in Vitebsk, Belorussia (present-day Belarus). From October 1941 to August 1942 he commanded the Kalinin Front and participated in the 1943 Battle of Kursk and the Soviet counteroffensive that immediately followed.
Konev in 1953
Konev remained an important commander during the campaign to drive the Germans out of Ukraine in the first half of 1944, and he assisted in the encirclement of German forces in the Cherkassy Pocket in southwestern Ukraine. He drove from Ukraine and Belarus into Poland and Czechoslovakia and his forces played a major role in the Vistula-Oder Offensive that drove the Germans from Poland into Germany. Leading the 1st Ukrainian Front, Konev was sent to the south of the German capital of Berlin to provide assistance if it was necessary for an attack on the southern approaches of Berlin or to prevent a German escape; Marshal Georgi Zhukov would have the glory of leading the assault.
After the war, Konev was made the commander of Soviet occupation forces in East Germany and in 1946 took over Soviet ground forces. In 1950 he took over the Carpathian Military District, demoted by Stalin to prevent him from gaining even more fame or power. In 1956, Nikita Krushchev, the new Soviet leader, made Konev the commander-in-chief of Warsaw Pact forces, and he commanded the Soviet, Hungarian, and Polish forces in putting down the Hungarian Revolution in Budapest, killing Pal Maleter and his rebel forces. He died in 1973.