Semen Vasiagin

Vasiagin, Semen Petrovich 

Born Feb. 1 (14), 1910, in the village of Beliaevo, in what is now Kimry Raion, Kalinin Oblast. Soviet military leader. General of the army (1976). Member of the CPSU since 1932.

Vasiagin joined the Soviet Army in 1932. He graduated from the Communist University in 1937 and from retraining courses at the V. I. Lenin Military Political Academy in 1948. During the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45, he served as chief of a political section, a military commissar, and a deputy commander of political affairs of a rifle division and a corps on the Western, Kalinin, First Baltic, and Third Byelorussian fronts. From 1950 to 1953 he was chief of the political directorate of Far Eastern forces; thereafter he served as a member of the Military Council and chief of the political directorate of the Far Eastern (1953–57) and Odessa (1957–58) military districts and of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany (1958–67). In November 1967, Vasiagin became a member of the Military Council and chief of the political directorate of the Ground Forces of the USSR. He has been a member of the Central Auditing Commission of the CPSU since 1966.

Vasiagin was a deputy to the fourth and the sixth through ninth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He has been awarded four Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of Kutuzov Second Class, the Order of the Patriotic War First Class, two Orders of the Red Banner of Labor, the Order of the Red Star, the Order For Service to the Motherland in the Armed Forces of the USSR Third Class, and various medals. He has also been the recipient of foreign orders and medals.