Vasily Sokolovsky

Vasily Danilovich Sokolovsky (Васи́лий Дани́лович Соколо́вский) (July 21, 1897 – May 10, 1968) 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 (then part of the Russian Empire). He worked as a teacher in a rural school, where he took part in a number of protests and demonstrations against the Tsar. He joined the Red Army in February 1918.

He began his formal military schooling in 1919, but was frequently called up by the Red Army and forced to leave his schoolwork. He graduated in 1921 and was made the chief of staff of a division stationed in Turkmenistan. He was wounded during a battle near Samarkand and subsequently decorated for bravery. After the Russian Civil War he held a number of staff positions, eventually becoming the chief of staff for the Moscow Military District and then the Deputy Chief of the General Staff, the position he held at the beginning of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa.

In December 1941, when German forces were a mere 20 kilometers from Moscow, Sokolovsky was made the chief of staff of the Western Front, where he was able to help co-ordinate the Soviet winter counter-attacks that forced the Germans away from Moscow. He remained in this position until February 1943, when he became the commander of Western Front.

He led this front through the Kursk battles and until April 1944, when the Western Front was broken into two parts and Sokolovsky was made chief of staff of 1st Ukrainian Front. He remained in this position until the end of the war. As the chief of staff of 1st Ukrainian, Sokolovsky helped plan and execute the Berlin operation, among others. After the WWII, Sokolovsky was the deputy commander in chief of Soviet forces in East Germany until July 3, 1946.

On that day Sokolovsky was promoted to the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union, and also made commander in chief of Soviet forces in East Germany and head of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany. His walking out of a meeting of the Allied Control Council on 20 March 1948 as the Soviet representative on that body effectively immobilized it from that date. In 1949 he was made the Deputy Minister of Defense, a position he held until 1952, when he was made the Chief of the General Staff. In 1960, Sokolovsky was made the Inspector-General of the Ministry of Defense. He retained this position until his death on May 10, 1968.

Sokolovsky became widely known in the West with the publication in 1962 of Military Strategy, a book that contained rare detail on Soviet thinking about war, particularly nuclear war.

Sokolovsky was a key member of the Soviet war command during World War II and known as an excellent planner and exceptional military leader. He was particularly well trusted by Marshal Georgy Zhukov. The urn containing Sokolovsky’s ashes is buried in the Kremlin.

Sokolovsky was a prominent figure in William T. Vollmann's 2005 National Book Award winning novel, Europe Central.

Honours and awards

 * Soviet Union
 * Gold Star Medal Hero of the Soviet Union (29 April 1945 - № 6454)
 * Eight Orders of Lenin (22 February 1941, 2 January 1942, 21 February 1945, 29 May 1945, 20 July 1947, 24 June 1948, 20 July 1957, 20 July 1967)
 * Order of the October Revolution (22 February 1968)
 * Order of the Red Banner, three times (28 February 1928, 3 November 1944, 20 June 1949)
 * Order of Suvorov, 1st class, three times (9 April 1943, 28 August 1943, 6 April 1945)
 * Order of Kutuzov, 1st class, three times (27 August 1943, 25 August 1944, 18 December 1956)
 * Honorary weapon with gold National Emblem of the Soviet Union (22 February 1968)
 * Jubilee Medal "XX Years of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army"(22 February 1938)
 * Medal "For the Defence of Moscow" (1 May 1944)
 * Medal "For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945" (9 May 1945)
 * Jubilee Medal "Twenty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945" (7 May 1965)
 * Medal "In Commemoration of the 800th Anniversary of Moscow"
 * Jubilee Medal "30 Years of the Soviet Army and Navy"
 * Jubilee Medal "40 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR"
 * Jubilee Medal "50 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR"


 * Foreign awards
 * Order of the Republic (Tuvan People's Republic, 31 March 1942)
 * Patriotic Order of Merit in gold, twice (East Germany)
 * Golden Order of the Partisan Star (Yugoslavia)
 * Order of the Red Banner (Mongolia)
 * Commander's Cross of the Virtuti Militari (Poland)
 * Cross of Grunwald, 3rd class (Poland)
 * Medal "For Warsaw 1939-1945" (Poland)
 * Medal "For the Odra, Nisso and Baltic" (Poland)
 * Order of the White Lion, 1st class (Czechoslovakia)
 * Dukelskaya commemorative medal (Czechoslovakia)
 * Medal of the Order of the Slovak National Uprising (Czechoslovakia)
 * Legion of Merit, Commander (USA)
 * Grand Officer of Legion of Honour (France)
 * Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (Military Division) (UK)