Rodion Malinovsky
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Rodion Yakovlevich Malinovsky (Russian: , Rodion Jakovlevič Malinovskij; November 23, 1898 (Odessa, Russian Empire) - March 31, 1967 (Moscow, Soviet Union)), Soviet military commander, Defence minister of Soviet Union in the late 1950s and 1960s, who played one of the key roles in destruction of Germans in the Battle of Stalingrad, won several other crucial battles of the WWII and during a post-war era made a pivotal contribution to the strengthening of the Soviet military superpower.
Early life
Malinovsky was of Karaite Jewish descent Rossiiskaia evreiskaia entsiklopedia, vol. 2 (Moscow, 1995, p. 232) . His father abandoned the family, the child was officially registered as "illegitimate", his mother in a search for the livelihood went to the rural Ukraine and after a few years married again. Her new husband, a powerty-stricken Ukrainian peasant, refused to adapt her son and expelled him when Malinovsky was only 13 years old. Homeless boy survived, working as a farm-hand. Eventually, Malinovsky got shelter from his aunt's family in Odessa and worked as an errand boy in the fancy goods shop.After the beginning of the WWI in July 1914, Malinovsky, who was only 15 years old and too young to be called to the army, stole to the military train that was going to the German front but was discovered. Malinovsky convinced the commanding officers to enlist him as a volunteer and served in the machine-gun detachment on the notorious WWI frontline trenches. In October 1915, for repelling a German attack by the machine-gun fire he received his first military award, the Cross of St. George of the 4th degree and was promoted to the corporal. Soon he was badly wounded, spent several months in hospitals and after recovery he was sent to France in 1916 as a member of the Russian Expeditionary Corps. He fought in hotly-contested sector of front near Fort Brion and was promoted to sergeant. He suffered from the heavy wound in his left hand and received a decoration from the French government. After the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia French government disbanded Russian units but offered some of the best Russian soldiers service in the French Foreign Legion. Malinovsky fought against Germans until end of the WWI, was awarded French Croix de guerre and promoted to senior NCO.
He returned to Russia in 1919, joint the Red Army in the Civil War against the White Army and fought with distinction in Siberia. He stayed in the army after the end of the Civil War, studied in the training school for the junior commanders and rose to commander of a rifle battalion. In 1926 he became a member of the Communist Party, this membership was a requisite for rise in the military ranks. In 1927 he was sent to the elite Frunze Military Academy. He graduated in 1930 and during next seven years rose to the Chief of Staff of the 3rd cavalry corp where his commander was Semyon Timoshenko, a Stalin's protégée.
After start of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 Malinovsky volunteered to fight for the Republicans against right-wing nationalists of General Francisco Franco and their Italian Fascist and Nazi German allies. He participated in planning and directing several main operations. In 1938 he returned to Moscow, was awarded for service in Spain top Soviet decorations Order of Lenin and the Order of the Red Banner, and was appointed a senior lecturer at the Frunze Military Academy.
In the spring of 1941 Timoshenko who then served the People's Commissar for Defense, was alarmed by massive German build up on the Soviet borders. Wehrmacht was preparing for Operation Barbarossa. To strengthen the Red Army field command he dispatched some of the top officers from the military academies to the field units. Malinovsky was promoted to Major General and took command over the freshly raised 48th rifle corps in the Odessa Military District. A week prior to the start of the war Malinovsky deployed his corps close to Romanian border.
After Germany invaded the USSR in June 1941, when the Red Army suffered enormous defeats and lost hundreds thousands troops in German encirclements, Malinovsky emerged as one of the few competent Soviet generals. His corps of three partly formed rifle divisions faced German Blitzkrieg along the line of the river Prut. While as a rule the Red Army generals led their forces from the safety of the rear, Malinovsky went to the crucial sectors of the battles to be with his soldiers to encourage them. Unable to stop numerically and technically superior, and battle seasoned German army Malinovsky under heavy combat retreated along the Black Sea shore, frustrating enemy attempts to encircle his troops. Germans succeeded to encircle his corps in Nikolaev but Malinovsky breached their ring and retreated to Dnepropetrovsk. In August, he was promoted to Chief of Staff of the badly-batered 6th Army and soon replaced its commander. He halted German advance in his section of the front and was promoted to Lieutenant General. After retreat of the Red Army to Donbass, Malinovsky commanded joint operation of 6th and 12th armies and drove Wehrmacht from Donbass. In December 1941 Malinovsky received command of the Southern Front. The front consisted of three week field armies and two divsion-sized cavalry corps. They were short of manpowers and equipment but Malinovsky pushed deeper into German defenses.
On January 18, 1942, Malinovsky and the Southwestern Front under overall command of Timoshenko launched a joint attack in the Second Battle of Kharkov and pushed the Germans back 100 kilometers. Timoshenko overestimated the Red Army ability for the offensive war and suffered a heavy defeat. Although Stalin, in spite of opposition of his top military advisers, supported ill fated Kharkov offense, the paranoiac Kremlin dictator became suspicious that Malinovsky intentionally failed his troops. Stalin feared that Malinovsky might had connection with the foreign interests, referring to his WWI service in the French army. In July 1942 the Southern Front was inactivated, its units and staff were transferred to the North Caucasian Front as a Don Operational Group under command of Malinovsky who also became front's deputy commander. Stalin ordered Malinovsky to stop German Army Group A which was pushing to Rostov and the vital oilfields of Caucasus. Germans had almost ten times numerical and huge technical superiority over Malinovsky, and cut through his weak defenses. In September Stavka disbanded Don Operational Group. The Red Army was hardly pressed by Germans in the Battle of Stalingrad and Stalin entrusted Malinovsky with the command of the hastily formed 66th Army to held positions north-east of Stalingrad. At the same time Stalin charged a Nikita Khrushchev who served his top political officer in Stalingrad "to keep an eye" on Malinovsky.
The 66th Army had no combat experience but first time in the war Malinovsky commanded a unit that was near its full strength in both troops and equipment. In September and October 1942, Malinovsky went on offense. His territorial gains were marginal but he denied Germans an opportunity to encircle Stalingrad from the north and slowed they push to the city. In October 1942 Stavka dispatched Malinovsky to strenghten Voronezh Front as its deputy commander. In December 1942 Stavka sent Malinovsky back to the Battle of Stalingrad. There the Red Army achieved its greatest success. In November 22 1942 Soviet fronts encircled German 6th army. German Army Group Don commanded by the best Wehrmacht Field Marshal Erich von Manstein gathered its panzer in town of Kotelnikovo 150 kilometers east of Stalingrad and spearheaded by Wehrmacht's most prominent panzer General Hermann Hoth, desperately tried to save the 6th Army.
Malinovsky led the powerful Soviet Second Guards Army against Hoth. In a vicious fight of armor he forced German retreat, counterattacked, breached deeply echeloned and well-prepared German defenses and destroyed Kotelnikovo army grouping. It was a first WWII large scale clash of armor which Germans lost. Malinovsky's victory sealed the faith of 250,000 German and other Axis soldiers trapped in the Stalingrad pocket. Stalin promoted Malinovsky to Colonel General and awarded him with the highest Soviet decoration for the outstanding generalship the Order of Suvorov of the 1st degree.
In February 1943, Malinovsky resumed his command of Southern Front, and in a less than two weeks he expelled Manstein from Rostov, opening to the Red Army road to Ukraine. In March 1943, Stalin elevated Malinovsky to rank of Army General and gave him command of Southwestern Front with task to expel Germans from the industrial rich Donbass. In mid-October Malinovsky by a sudden night attack surprised large German force in the region's key city Zaporozhie and captured it. Malinovsky's campaign split German forces in the South and isolated German forces in Crimea from the rest of German Eastern Front.
On October 20, Southwestern Front was renamed 3rd Ukrainian Front. From December 1943 to April 1944, Malinovsky smashed German Army Group South, and liberated much of the southern Ukraine, including Cherson, Nikolaev and his home city Odessa. By that time, according to Khrushchev's opinion, Stalin grew confident of Malinovsky's loyalty.
In May 1944, Malinovsky was transferred to 2nd Ukrainian Front. He expelled Germans from the remaining Soviet territory and launched an invasion of the Balkans together with Army General Fyodor Tolbukhin who received Malinovsky's former command over smaller 3rd Ukrainian Front. In Jassy-Chişinău Operation in late August and early September of 1944, Malinovsky unleashed a brilliant Soviet Blitzkrieg. Together with Tolbukhin he encircled and destroyed half million of German and more than 400,000 of Romanian troops and forced Romania to overthrow pro-German dictator Antonescu and switch from the Axis to the Allies camp. Triumphant Stalin recalled Malinovsky to Moscow, and on September 10 1944 made him Marshal of the Soviet Union.
Malinovsky continued his offensive drive, crossed Transylvanian mountains to Hungary and on 20 October 1944 captured Debrecen, defended by large German force. His troops were tired after several month of combat and needed to be replenished and resupplied but Stalin ordered Malinovsky to take Hungarian capital Budapest. The capture of Budapest could open for the Red Army road to Vienna; Stalin wanted to preempt his Western allies from conquest of Austrian capital. Malinovsky with help of Tolbukhin had to carry out order. Hitler was determined to defend Budapest at any price. Germans and their Hungarian fascist allies tried to make Budapest into "German Stalingrad." Hitler rushed against Malinovsky and Tolbukhin the bulk of his panzer troops among them six elite panzer waffen SS divisions and five panzer divisions of Wehrmacht which were one fourth of all Wehrmacht's armor. The commitment of the bulk of German armor to Hungary weakened German forces fighting the Soviets in Poland and Prussia, and Western allies on the Rhine. Malinovsky's strategic and operational skills enabled him to overcame weakness of his troops and after vicious battle he conquered city on February 13 1945, capturing 70, 000 prisoners. He continued his drive westward, routed Germans in Slovakia, liberated Bratislava, and on April 13 1945 captured Vienna.
His new victories established the Soviets supremacy over Danubian heartland of Europe. Stalin rewarded him with the highest Soviet military decoration of the WWII, the Order of Victory. Malinovsky finished his campaign in Europe with liberation of Brno in Czechsland, and observing a jubilant meeting of his and American advance forces.
Japanese Front
After the German surrender, in May 1945, Malinovsky was transferred to the Russian Far East, where he was placed in command of the Transbaikal Front. In August 1945, Malinovsky lead the last Soviet offensive of World War II: he invaded Manchuria, which was under the occupation of one million men strong Japanese Kwantung Army, renown for the high fighting qualities of its soldiers. Malinovsky crushed Japanese in ten days, a model of mechanized Blitzkrieg warfare and of a classical double envelopment, and the most perfect achievement of the Soviet WWII military art in audacity, scale, surgical execution and tactical innovation. His capture of Manchuria gave enormous emotional uplift to Russian national pride, erasing humiliations of the past when Japan vanquished tsarist empire in the Russo Japanese War of 1904-1905 war. Malinovsky was awarded the Soviet Union's greatest honors, the order of the Hero of the Soviet Union.Post-war Career
During next decade Malinovsky served in the key for the Soviet strategic interests Far East region. Initially a commander of Transbaikal-Amur Military district (1945-1947), with the start of the Cold War he was appointed the Supreme Commander of Far Eastern Forces in charge of three military districts (1947-1953). Malinovsky trained and supplied North Korean and Chinese armies prior and during the Korean War (1950-1953). As an expression of Malinovsky's belonging to the Soviet Party-state elite, Stalin made him a Member of the Soviet Supreme Counsel (1946), the candidate (non-voting) member of the Communist Party Central Committee (1952). After the end of the Korean War, Moscow disbanded Far Eastern Supreme Command. Malinovsky continued to control the major Soviet force in the region as the commander of the Far Eastern military district.After Stalin's death in 1953, Khrushchev became the Soviet leader and in consolidation of his power in Kremlin in 1956 he promoted Malinovsky to Commander-in-Chief of Soviet Ground Forces and First Deputy Minister of Defense Marshal Georgy Zhukov. To confirm Malinovsky's high status in the Soviet Party-state hierarchy, he was "elected" to the full number of the Communist Party Central Committee. In October 1957, Khrushchev who grew apprehensive about political ambitions of Zhukov, ousted him and entrusted the Soviet Ministry of Defense to Malinovsky. Malinovsky served in this position until his death, gaining lasting reputation as the best Soviet Minister of Defense.
Although a personal friend of Khrushchev, Malinovsky maintained his independent position regarding military affairs. Khrushchev and some members of the Soviet military establishment were convinced that the future wars will be won by the nuclear missile attack. They advocated main investment to the development of the missiles and a drastic reducing of the Soviet conventional forces. Malinovsky supported adaptation of strategic nuclear missiles but he saw nuclear missiles as a detergent useful for the prevention of the war and not as a main weaponry of the war. He developed concept of broad based military and vigorously argued that while the nature of the war changed, the decisive factor still will be a standing regular army proficient in mastering of modern military technology and capable to conquer and control the enemy territory. Soviet military policy during these years was a compromise between Malinovsky and Khrushchev. Malinovsky built Soviet army into the most accomplished and powerful force in the world by achieving parity with the USA in nuclear weapons and modernizing Russia's huge conventional army.
Khrushchev's reckless provocation of the Cuban missile crisis brought the world on the brink of nuclear catastrophe and alienated Malinovsky. Following the crisis, he publicly demanded in the army publications that military will be given greater voice in formulation of Soviet stategic policy. The army discontent with Khrushchev encouraged a Party plot and removal of Khrushchev from power in October 1964. The Party new leadership accepted Malinovsky demand for autonomous professional military establishment and his concept of balanced development of the arm forces.
Government turned his death and funeral into a national event. The urn containing his aches was interred in the most prestigious burial cite of the country in the Kremlin Wall facing the Red Square. The government gave his name to the leading Soviet Military Academy of Tank Troops in Moscow and to elite guards tank division. After the collapse of the USSR he is still revered in Russia as one of the most important military leaders in the history of the country.
References
- Alexander Werth, Russia at War (NY, 1964).
- Joseph E. Thach, Jr. "Malinovskii, Rodion Yakovlevich" in The Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History, vol. 21.
- John Erikson, "Rodion Yakovlevich Malinovsky" in Harold Shukman, ed., Stalin's Generals (NY, 1993).
- David M. Glantz, The Soviet Strategic Offensive in Manchuria, 1945.'August Storm' (London, 2003).
- Mark Shteinberg, Evrei v voinakh tysiachiletii (Moscow, Jerusalem, 2005, pp. 316-318).
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