Kurkin, Aleksei

Kurkin, Aleksei Vasil’evich 

Born Mar. 17 (30), 1901, in Kharkov; died Mar. 16, 1948, in Moscow. Soviet military commander; colonel general of the tank troops (1944). Member of the CPSU from 1920. Son of a worker.

Kurkin joined the Soviet Army in 1918, fought in the Civil War, and graduated from the Higher Military Polytechnic in 1922 and from the academic training courses of the Military Academy of Mechanization and Motorization in 1935. In the Great Patriotic War (1941–45), Kurkin served as commander of a mechanized corps (1941) and then as deputy commander of the Volkhov Front for the tank troops and commander of the tank and mechanized troops of the Second Ukrainian Front (from December 1941 to 1945). He was inspector general of the tank and mechanized troops after the war. Kurkin was awarded the Order of Lenin, two Orders of the Red Banner, two Orders of Suvorov First Class, two Orders of Kutuzov First Class, the Order of the Red Star, and various medals.