Rodion Yakovlevich Malinovsky, Soviet statesman and military leader, Marshal and twice Hero of the Soviet Union.
Childhood[]
The Soviet marshal was born on November 11 (23), 1898 in the Northern Black Sea region of the Russian Empire, in the port city of Odessa. Ukrainian by nationality. In his memoirs, Malinovsky wrote that he did not know who his father was; historians have several versions about this. In different sources, police chief Bunin, shoemaker Yankel and Karaite Yakub are indicated as the parent. Be that as it may, Rodion Yakovlevich never saw his father; he was raised by his mother, a cook.
His early years were spent in Mariupol, where he was sent by his mother, who found new love and got married. On the wedding day, the boy ran away from home - he did not accept his mother’s chosen one and chose to find work as an apprentice rather than live with an unfamiliar man. Subsequently, Malinovsky practically did not communicate with his parents. The young man attended school, and thanks to his passion for literature in childhood, he began to independently study French.
Rodion found himself on the fronts of World War I in 1914 at the age of 16. He joined the army as a volunteer, changing his date of birth, but the deception was soon revealed. The young man managed to persuade his colleagues to leave him at the location of the military unit, and participated in battles on the territory of modern Belarus. A native of Odessa received several wounds, and after recovery, fate brought him to the other end of the continent, to France.
The history of the Russian Army Expeditionary Force is not the most famous episode of the First World War. According to allied agreements, the Russian Empire sent a large unit to the Western Front, which took part in the “Nivelle meat grinder.” Malinovsky himself was once again wounded and almost lost his arm; after recovery he joined the Moroccan division. In 1919 he returned to his homeland.
Military career[]
Malinovsky arrived in Vladivostok at the height of the Civil War on the fragments of the former Russian Empire. In his memoirs, the commander colorfully described his journey to Omsk. Not wanting the restoration of the monarchy, the former legionnaire joined the Red Army in November 1919. In his youth, he trained machine gunners and served in Siberia. As a capable commander, Rodion Yakovlevich, after the defeat of the white movement, went to study, was educated at the M. V. Frunze Military Academy and subsequently held staff positions.
In the 1930s, the Soviet officer spent more than a year in Spain, fighting on the side of the Republicans against the rebels of Francisco Franco. He was respected by his comrades and participated in the development of operations in the north of the country. Rodion Yakovlevich received several Soviet awards. Returning to the USSR, he took up scientific activities and proved himself to be a brilliant theorist. Malinovsky, with the rank of major general, met the beginning of World War II on the border with Romania.
The commander called the liberation of Rostov-on-Don in 1943 the most memorable day in his biography. Two years earlier, his units took part in the defense of the city and inflicted the first major defeat on German troops on the Eastern Front. Rodion Yakovlevich showed himself to be an proactive commander; for him, the preservation of human lives was always a priority; he scolded subordinate officers who sought to occupy enemy positions at any cost. The military leader tried to be active on the defensive; his units performed well in the final stages of the Battle of Stalingrad and the Battle of the Caucasus.
Malinovsky participated in the liberation of Zaporozhye and Odessa, and received the rank of marshal for the brilliant Iasi-Kishinev operation. The battle ended with the withdrawal of Romania from the Nazi coalition, the Red Army suffered relatively low losses. Rodion Yakovlevich was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union in 1945, having liberated Hungary, Austria and Czechoslovakia. He was distinguished by his ability to coordinate units during the offensive and stood out for his high rates of advancement, actively using mechanized units.
In July 1945, a native of Odessa was transferred to the Far East, he was faced with the task of defeating the Kwantung Army of Japan, which was considered the most combat-ready of the enemy and had rich combat experience. The Soviet units actually applied the German blitzkrieg tactics, winning a landslide victory and surprising foreign theorists with the pace of the offensive. Against the backdrop of months of bloody fighting on the Pacific islands, Malinovsky’s success, which liberated Northern China from occupation within a month, looked like an anomaly.
After war[]
The hero of the Great Patriotic War remained in the Far East after the surrender of the Japanese Empire and held a leadership position. Since 1946, Malinovsky was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and was also a member of the CPSU Central Committee. The commander wrote his memoirs “Soldiers of Russia,” describing in detail his military path during the World War I.
As Minister of Defense, Malinovsky spent ten years carrying out large-scale reform of the army. He promoted the concept of reducing the size of the Armed Forces, while simultaneously developing rocket science. The Hero of the Soviet Union considered nuclear weapons as a deterrent that would help avoid a full-scale war in the future.
Death[]
Rodion Yakovlevich Malinovsky died on March 31, 1967 in Moscow.