Iosif Vasilevich Shikin

Shikin, Iosif Vasil’evich 

Born Aug. 26 (Sept. 8), 1906, in the village of Lychevo, in what is now Gavrilov Posad Raion, Ivanovo Oblast; died July 30, 1973, in Moscow. Soviet military and party figure. Colonel general (1945). Member of the CPSU from 1927.

The son of a peasant, Shikin became a worker. He graduated from the N. K. Krupskaia Communist Higher Educational Institution in 1931 and became the secretary of a raion committee of the party. He entered the Red Army in 1939 and graduated from courses for senior political personnel that same year. Shikin was appointed head of the political department of the Military Electrotechnological Academy in November 1939 and deputy chief of the Directorate of Political Propaganda of the Leningrad Military District in August 1940.

During the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45, Shikin was a member of the Military Council of the Northern Front and chief of the political directorates of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts. He became deputy chief of the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army in July 1942 and was made a member of the Military Council of the High Command of the Soviet Forces in the Far East in August 1945. Shikin served as chief of the Main Political Directorate of the Armed Forces of the USSR from 1946 to 1949 and head of the V. I. Lenin Military Political Academy in 1949 and 1950.

Shikin took a position in the apparatus of the Central Committee of the CPSU in March 1950. He was the Soviet ambassador to Albania in 1961 and 1962. In late 1962 he was appointed first deputy chairman of the Committee of Party and State Control of the Central Committee of the CPSU and of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. Later he became first deputy chairman of the Committee of the People’s Control of the USSR.

Shikin was chosen a member of the Central Auditing Commission of the CPSU in 1956. He was a deputy to the second convocation of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Shikin was awarded two Orders of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, two Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of Suvorov First Class, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, the Order of the Red Star, and various medals.