Golikov, Filipp

Golikov, Filipp Ivanovich 

Born July 17 (30), 1900, in the village of Borisovo. now in Kurgan Oblast. RSFSR. Marshal of the Soviet Union (1961). Member of the CPSU since 1918.

Golikov joined the Soviet Army in 1918, and took part in the Civil War. He completed advanced courses for higher command personnel (1929) and graduated from a military school (1931) and the M. V. Frunze Military Academy (1933). He was engaged in party and political work until 1931; afterward, he occupied various command posts. In 1939, commanding the Sixth Army, he took part in the liberation of the Western Ukraine, and in July 1940 he became deputy chief of the General Staff. During the Great Patriotic War he commanded the Tenth Army from October 1941, the Fourth Shock Army from February 1942, and the troops of the Briansk Front from April 1942 and the Voronezh Front from July 1942. From August to October 1942 he was commander of the First Guards Army and deputy commander of the troops of the Southeastern (later the Stalingrad) Front and the Northwestern Front. In October 1942 he became commander of the troops of the Voronezh Front. Golikov took part in the battles of Moscow and Stalingrad. In April 1943 he became chief of the Main Directorate of Cadres and beginning in October 1944 also served as a delegate on repatriation affairs of the Council of Peoples’ Commissars of the USSR. He held responsible command posts from 1950 to 1956. From 1956 to 1958 he was head of the Military Academy of Armored Troops and from 1958 to 1962, chief of the Main Political Directorate of the Soviet Army and Navy.

Since May 1962. Golikov has held executive positions in the Ministry of Defense of the USSR. He was a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU from 1961 to 1966 and a deputy to the first, fourth, fifth, and sixth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. The author of two volumes of memoirs— The Red Eagles (1959) and In the Battle of Moscow (1967)—he has been awarded four Orders of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, four Orders of the Red Banner, the Suvorov Order First Class, the Kutuzov Order First Class, the Order of the Red Star, seven foreign orders, and various medals.