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Marshal of the Soviet Union R.Ya. Malinovsky went down in military history as one of the most outstanding, brightly gifted and talented commanders who made a great contribution to achieving victory over Nazi Germany and militaristic Japan.

Rodion Yakovlevich Malinovsky - one of the brightest and most talented commanders of the Great Patriotic War, went through a difficult and glorious military path in five wars.

With the outbreak of the First World War at the age of 16, he volunteered for the front. He took part in the battles, was wounded. In 1916 he was sent to France as part of the Russian expeditionary force. here he was again wounded, but did not leave the battlefield, for which he was awarded a bronze cross with swords, and then a soldier's "George".

In 1919 he returned to Vladivostok with a group of soldiers and joined the Red Army in November. Participated in hostilities against the troops of Kolchak and General Ungern.

In 1930 he graduated from the Military Academy. Frunze and went through a number of stages of staff service: chief of staff of a cavalry regiment, work in the operational departments of the headquarters of the Belarusian and North Caucasian military districts, later appointed chief of staff of the cavalry corps. In 1937-1938. fought in Republican Spain. Then he was a teacher at the military academy, wrote a Ph.D. thesis in history. Thus, even before the war, he received good experience in command, staff and teaching work. He knew the life of the troops and universities firsthand.

Having entered the Great Patriotic War as a commander, General Malinovsky in August 1941 became commander of the 6th Army, and in December - commander of the troops of the Southern Front. In an unfavorable situation, he showed a desire to be ahead of events and active actions. So, when the enemy captured Chisinau on July 16, 1941, Malinovsky's corps, interacting with the 2nd mechanized corps, launched a counterattack from the Florenta area in the direction of Dubno and threw back the German-Romanian formations that had broken through.

Commanding the troops of the Southern Front, in cooperation with the South-Western Front, Malinovsky successfully carried out the Barvenkovo-Lozovsky offensive operation in difficult winter conditions, throwing the superior enemy a hundred kilometers away and forcing him to go on the defensive.

But the situation that had developed by the summer of 1942 in a number of cases made it impossible to confront the enemy in the zones of individual fronts. As a result of serious mistakes made by the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command and the General Staff in assessing possible enemy actions and planning strategic actions for 1942, the Southwestern and Southern Fronts found themselves in a particularly difficult situation. With the beginning of the Kharkov offensive operation, the enemy concentrated superior forces in the Barvenkovo ​​direction at the junction of fronts and delivered a powerful blow to the flank of the Southwestern Front, followed by the development of a major strategic offensive. The troops were forced to fight back in the Caucasus and Stalingrad directions.

It must be said that Malinovsky managed twice to withdraw his main grouping from the threat of encirclement and to take up defense at the turn from Verkhne-Kurmoyarskaya to Rostov. However, the enemy, taking advantage of the extended front troops and the presence of a weakly covered area south of Kamensk-Shakhtinsky, broke through to Rostov and captured the city. At the end of July 1942, the remaining troops of the Southern Front were transferred to the North Caucasian Front. R.Ya. Malinovsky was first appointed deputy commander of the Voronezh Front, then commander of the 66th Army of the Don Front, and soon commander of the 2nd Guards Army. This army was originally intended for operations as part of the Don Front, and the commander of the troops of this front, K.K. Rokossovsky and Stavka representative H.N. Voronov stubbornly insisted that she remain in the front.

But in connection with the threat of a breakthrough by the Manstein strike force to the encircled troops of Paulus in the Stalingrad region, at the insistence of A.M. Vasilevsky, the 2nd Guards Army was transferred to defeat it. The advanced units of Manstein were already 40-50 km from the encircled troops, and the army commander was required to regroup in the shortest possible time. Moreover, they had to start regrouping in a new direction in difficult weather conditions, when the army formations had not yet completely completed their concentration in the Don Front.

R.Ya. Malinovsky, despite all these difficulties, managed to complete the assigned task quite quickly and in an organized manner and, in cooperation with other troops of the Stalingrad Front, thwarted the plan of the German command. Without waiting for the arrival and full deployment of the main forces, he sent advanced detachments reinforced with artillery to the Myshkova River, which stopped the enemy and ensured the deployment of the main forces of the army.

Beginning with this operation and throughout the war, the most characteristic feature of Malinovsky's military leadership was that he included in the plan of each operation some method of action unexpected for the enemy, he knew how to mislead the enemy and outwit him with a whole system of well-thought-out measures. A case is widely known when, after a march and repelling the first enemy strike in the Gromoslavka area, tank corps of the second echelon were running out of fuel. Malinovsky ordered the tanks of these corps to be withdrawn from the beams and other shelters to a well-visible area, showing the enemy that the 2nd Guards Army still had a large untapped tank power. As a result, he ensured that the Nazi command hesitated and decided to continue the attacks after the regrouping of their troops. Malinovsky won the much-needed time for the delivery of fuel and ammunition. The risk was great, but it was based on a good knowledge of the tactics and psychology of the Nazi generals.

On February 12, Rodion Yakovlevich was appointed commander of the Southern Front and, developing an offensive against Rostov, inflicted a number of new defeats on the troops of Field Marshal Manstein's Army Group South. From then on, until the end of the war, Malinovsky commanded the troops of various fronts: the Southwestern, 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian and Transbaikal, which carried out a number of major offensive operations. The idea and implementation of each of them were distinguished by originality and methods of action unexpected for the enemy.

In October 1943, Malinovsky undertook a sudden and unprecedented night assault on the city of Zaporozhye. Fights in large settlements are particularly difficult. How much, however, increase the difficulties of command and control, organization of interaction, combat use of artillery, aviation and other types of weapons during operations at night in a large city of a large group of troops consisting of three combined arms armies and two corps! But the courage of the commander, his confidence in his troops, the well-thought-out organization and maintenance of military operations, and most importantly, the achieved surprise made it possible to overcome many difficulties, and the troops of the front successfully captured the city. This was achieved with comparatively fewer losses than was usually achieved by storming cities in daylight conditions.

Malinovsky, having understood the painful sensitivity of the fascist German troops to flank attacks and emerging threats of encirclement, skillfully exploited this weakness of the enemy and very ingeniously built operations. Thus, in the Nikopol-Krivoy Rog operation of the 3rd Ukrainian Front, he launched flank attacks in secondary directions, forcing the German command to send reserve tank divisions to these sectors, and unexpectedly delivered the main blow in the center of the front’s operational formation. This took the enemy by surprise and ensured the successful development of the operation. In the subsequent Bereznego-Sniger operation, he does the opposite. The enemy is again waiting for blows on the flanks, but the commander immediately delivers the main blow in the center, cuts through the main enemy grouping and achieves its defeat in parts.

The pinnacle of Malinovsky's military art, the most striking manifestation of his talent was the Iasi-Kishinev operation of the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian fronts.

By the beginning of this operation, the general strategic situation was developing in such a way that it was practically impossible to hide the preparation of a new offensive. Surprise could be ensured only by skilful concealment of the true intentions and misinformation of the enemy regarding the timing of the transition to the offensive and the directions of strikes. Skillful, strict measures were taken to disguise the regrouping and concentration of troops in decisive directions and the false concentration of troops in the direction that the enemy considered most threatening to himself. Rodion Yakovlevich took into account not only operational-strategic, but also military-political factors associated with the need to separate Romania from Germany. Proceeding from this, he made the main bet in this operation on achieving the most powerful, crushing first strike in order to break through the enemy defenses in a short time and develop a rapid offensive in depth.

This well-thought-out, original idea was brilliantly carried out. Already on August 23, 1944, the troops of the 3rd Ukrainian Front, in cooperation with the troops of the 2nd Ukrainian Front, closed the encirclement ring of a large enemy grouping in the Chisinau area. Moreover, there was a simultaneous process of encirclement and destruction of the enemy and the development of an offensive on the external front in the direction of Ploiesti, Bucharest. The whole process took only 5-6 days. Romania was forced to capitulate and declared war on Germany.

A new bright page of the classic operation to encircle and destroy a large enemy group was inscribed in the history of military art, which led to a radical change in the entire military-political and strategic situation in the southern part of the Soviet-German front. Representative of Stavka S.K. Timoshenko wrote to Stalin: “Today is the day of the defeat of the Nazi troops in Bessarabia and on the territory of Romania, west of the Prut River: The main German Chisinau group is surrounded and destroyed. Observing the skillful leadership of the troops, I consider it my duty to ask your petition to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on conferring the military rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union to General of the Army Malinovsky.

The most difficult tasks had to be solved by Malinovsky at the head of the troops of the 2nd Ukrainian Front during the Debrecen and Budapest operations, where he had to resort to both offensive and defensive actions of an operational-strategic scale. In the process of developing the offensive operation, at the beginning, he rather presciently sought to break into Budapest on the shoulders of the retreating enemy and take the city on the move, which he oriented the commander of the 46th Army, General I.T. Shlemin. But when this failed and the enemy gained a foothold, Malinovsky was more and more inclined towards the need for more thorough preparations for the assault on Budapest and asked Stalin for permission to continue the offensive after 5 days.

In some military history works, this case is portrayed too straightforwardly and one-sidedly: Stalin, based on political considerations, insisted on an immediate offensive, and the commander, approaching professionally, showing courage and firmness, insisted on postponing its start. This happened, but in this case, such a scheme does not reflect the complexity of the situation. And the conclusion is incorrect that due to the refusal of the Headquarters to provide 5 days to prepare for the offensive, the battles near Budapest stretched out for 3.5 months.

Military-political and strategic interests at that time really demanded the speedy capture of Budapest in order to create conditions for the withdrawal of Hungary from the war. There was such an opportunity. The fact is that at the end of October, part of the Hungarian military began to surrender, there were cases of "fraternization." And, if not for the seizure of power in Budapest by the fascist Salashi, the possibilities for taking Budapest would have remained favorable. There is also no evidence that after 5 days the offensive would have been more successful - the enemy was able to organize defense within 5-6 days. In a word, it is difficult to say how events would develop with other decisions. Therefore, our conclusions today should not be unambiguous.

In the course of stubborn, intense combat operations, the troops of the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts surrounded and destroyed the 180,000-strong Budapest enemy grouping. The Nazi command was forced to transfer large reserves to this direction, which contributed to the successful development of the offensive in the Berlin direction.

Malinovsky's troops ended the war with the Vienna, Bratislava-Brnov and Prague operations.

R.Ya. Malinovsky also had to fight in the Far East, commanding the troops of the Trans-Baikal Front.

According to the plan of the Manchurian strategic operation, the Transbaikal Front was to break through the Japanese fortifications on the Mongol-Manchurian border, overcome the Gobi Desert, the Great Khingan Range and defeat the southern grouping of the Kwantung Army.

The concept of the operation and the strategic situation required the rapid overcoming of enemy resistance and the rapid development of the offensive in depth. Initially, it was envisaged to have combined arms armies in the first echelon of the front, and to bring the 6th tank army into battle in depth, i.e. just as it was done in most operations of the Great Patriotic War. But Malinovsky, taking into account the specific conditions of the situation, decided to have a tank army in the main direction in the first echelon. This ensured a more powerful first strike and the rapid development of an offensive in depth. Otherwise, the introduction of a tank army into battle on very difficult mountainous terrain would be extremely difficult and the pace of development of the offensive could slow down. This became especially evident a few days after the start of the offensive, when the roads were so clogged with vehicles that fuel had to be supplied by aircraft to the tank and mechanized brigades operating in front. Thus, the deep assessment by the front commander of the prevailing conditions for the fulfillment of the task and the terrain, his adoption of a non-standard decision, but corresponding to the specific situation, largely predetermined the success of the operation.

Malinovsky also took a number of other measures to ensure a stunning blow and the rapid development of the offensive throughout the entire depth of the operation. Reinforced forward detachments were trained and sent out, which were continuously supported by aviation. Active hostilities were carried out continuously - day and night. Airborne assault forces were suddenly landed on the most important airfields in the enemy's position. So, in Changchun, Mukden, Port Arthur, landing troops were landed by landing method, specially designated advanced detachments were rapidly moving forward to meet them. From the rifle, cavalry and tank formations of the first echelon, the front commander demanded to block and bypass the strongest nodes of resistance and move in depth without delay in order to defeat the suitable enemy reserves piece by piece. The troops developed the offensive at a rate of 100-120 km per day:

All this, as well as close cooperation with the 1st and 2nd Far Eastern Fronts, ensured the brilliant success of the entire Manchurian strategic offensive operation, where R.Ya. Malinovsky. In general, he most convincingly showed himself precisely in large offensive operations, and therefore he was called the "general forward." As Marshal Vasilevsky emphasized, "all Malinovsky's operations bore the imprint of genuine creative inspiration, extraordinary perseverance in their implementation, and made bright pages in the history of military art."

Rodion Yakovlevich, as a man and military leader, was especially distinguished by endurance and calmness in the most difficult conditions, personal courage, strong will, and high organizational qualities. He was especially responsible for making decisions for the operation. “The moment the commander makes a decision,” he wrote, “is a difficult moment. You must decide on a great cause, you must give yourself without a trace to only one, often very risky, but necessary decision. Under these conditions, thought works hard, it is full of contradictions: Doubts are intertwined, difficulties, searches: But it is necessary to make a decision. It requires great courage and great willpower. "

Malinovsky believed that a military man throughout his entire service should master this art. Being demanding of himself, he was very strict in the training of subordinate generals, admirals and officers, regardless of any ranks and merits.

Marshal of the Soviet Union R.Ya. Malinovsky went down in military history as one of the most outstanding, brightly gifted and talented commanders who made a great contribution to achieving victory over Nazi Germany and militaristic Japan.

Rodion Yakovlevich Malinovsky. Born on November 10 (22), 1898 in Odessa - died on March 31, 1967 in Moscow. Soviet military leader, Marshal of the Soviet Union (1944). Twice Hero of the Soviet Union, People's Hero of Yugoslavia. Minister of Defense of the USSR (1957-1967). Member of the Central Committee of the CPSU (1956-1967).

By nationality - Ukrainian.

Father - Yakov, killed in Odessa.

Mother - Varvara Nikolaevna Malinovskaya.

His parents were not married. The father was killed before the son was born.

According to one version, which was presented by Malinovsky's first wife in 1954 in her complaint to the Central Election Commission for elections to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, his father was allegedly Yakim (Yakov) Ivanovich Bunin, the Odessa police chief, from the hereditary nobles of the Tambov province, a colonel who came out retired as a major general and died in 1902.

After the death of Rodion's father, his mother returned to her native places and served as a housekeeper on the estate of Count Heiden, where she met her future husband Sergei Zalesny, who worked as a lackey on the estate.

On the day when his mother remarried, 11-year-old Rodion ran away from home (according to another version, his mother’s husband refused to adopt him and therefore Rodion was raised by his mother’s sister, Natalya Nikolaevna, who lived near Odessa, in the village of Yurkovka). He worked as a laborer, clerk in a haberdashery store in Odessa.

Later, Rodion was taken to Odessa by another sister of his mother, Elena Nikolaevna, and her husband, Mikhail Alexandrovich, who assigned Rodion to the haberdashery shop of the merchant Pripuskov as an errand boy. While working in the store, Rodion began to learn French on his own.

In August 1914, attributing age to himself, he went to the front of the First World War in the echelon of the Elisavetgrad Infantry Regiment. Rodion was going to be returned home due to his infancy, but he persuaded him to leave him and in the end was enlisted as a carrier of cartridges in the machine gun team of the 256th Elisavetgrad Infantry Regiment of the 64th Infantry Division. The division took its first battle on September 14 on the banks of the Neman River.

At the age of 16, in July 1915, he received his first military award - the St. George Cross of the IV degree - already as a machine gun gunner. The number of the cross is 54850. In October 1915, he was seriously wounded near Smorgon (two fragments hit his back, one in his leg). In October 1915 - February 1916 he was treated at the Ermakov hospital in Moscow, then in Kazan. Upon recovery, he was seconded to Oranienbaum, where a reserve machine-gun regiment was formed.

Since 1916, as part of the 1st brigade of the expeditionary corps of the Russian army in France, he fought on the Western Front. On April 16, 1917, on the very first day of the offensive of the Russian units in the area of ​​Fort Brimont, he was seriously wounded in the arm. He ended up in a military hospital in the city of Reims, where he hardly persuaded the surgeon not to amputate his hand. The doctor sent him to the English hospital in Epernay, where an English surgeon performed a complicated operation on him at that time, which allowed him to save his hand. Received French awards - 2 military crosses.

After the unsuccessful offensive of the French army, which was called the "Nievel massacre" after the commander of the French army, discontent and revolutionary sentiments began to grow in the Russian and French units under the influence of news from Russia. In this offensive, only the Russian units achieved success in fierce battles for Fort Brimont and the village of Coursi, earning fame and respect from the French. The French command, due to heavy losses and the spread of revolutionary ideas in parts, decided to withdraw the Russian brigades from the front.

In the summer of 1917, Russian soldiers of the 1st and 3rd brigades stationed in the La Curtin military camp began to demand that the command be sent to Russia. However, the Provisional Government did not want about 20 thousand revolutionary-minded soldiers to return to Russia and tried to send them to the Thessaloniki sector of the front, and then persuaded the French to suppress the uprising. But the French command did not want to use its units to shoot Russian soldiers, fearing a negative response. Almost all the officers with a large part of the soldiers of the 3rd brigade fled the camp. To suppress the uprising, General Zankevich formed a detachment from the fresh 2nd artillery brigade, recently arrived from Russia, part of the soldiers of the 3rd brigade and officers. The commanding officers gave the remaining soldiers an ultimatum to lay down their arms and leave the camp. Most of the soldiers refused.

Rodion did not participate in the uprising, since in September 1917 he was in a hospital in the city of Saint-Servan due to bleeding from a wound on his arm that opened shortly before the uprising. The uprising of Russian soldiers in the La Courtine camp in September 1917 was suppressed with the use of artillery, according to some reports, during the 3-day battles, about 600 soldiers from both sides were killed and wounded.

After the uprising was suppressed, the Russian units were disbanded, and Rodion, after treatment in the hospital, enrolled in the Foreign Legion. In its composition, he served until August 1919 as a lower rank in the legendary Russian Legion of Honor, which was part of the 1st Moroccan Division. For heroism during the breakthrough of the German line of defense (the Hindenburg line) in September 1918, the French marked Malinovsky with a Military Cross with a silver star, and Kolchak's General Dmitry Shcherbachev, wanting to encourage the Russian fighters, presented him to be awarded the St. George Cross III degree. Thus, he was awarded two St. George's crosses, but Rodion did not know about the second award.

Most Russian soldiers in France dreamed of returning to Russia, and Rodion sought to get into the Red Army in order to fight the former "masters of life", as he called them. In August 1919, with a group of soldiers, Rodion, as part of a Russian sanitary detachment under the auspices of the American Red Cross, set off on a steamer from France to Vladivostok. They presumably got to Vladivostok only in October 1919, and there the group began to disintegrate. Together with his comrade, Rodion persuaded the commander of their detachment to issue them a pass to Verkhneudinsk. Comrade Rodion, being from a small village near Verkhneudinsk, agreed with his relative, and he helped Rodion get by rail to Omsk, which was packed with retreating Kolchak troops.

Further, Rodion Malinovsky made his way on his own: he moved to the left bank on the ice across the river. Irtysh and walked west parallel to the railway. Near Omsk, he was captured by a patrol of Red Army soldiers and at first was almost shot - the Red Army soldiers of the 27th Infantry Division, who detained him, found French awards and books in French in him and considered him a spy. He hardly persuaded them to take him to the headquarters, where he was believed.

As part of this division of the Red Army, he took part in the Civil War on the eastern front against the troops of Admiral Kolchak. In 1920, he contracted typhus.

After the civil war, Malinovsky graduated from the school of junior command personnel, was appointed commander of a machine gun crew, then - head of a machine gun team, assistant commander and commander of a rifle battalion.

Rodion Malinovsky was a member of the CPSU (b) since 1926.

In 1927-1930 he studied at the MV Frunze Military Academy.

From May 1930 to January 1931 - Chief of Staff of the 67th Caucasian Cavalry Regiment of the 10th Cavalry Division of the North Caucasian Military District.

From January to February 1931 - assistant chief of the 1st (operational) department of the headquarters of the North Caucasian military district.

From February 15, 1931 to March 14, 1933 - assistant chief of the 3rd sector of the 1st department of the headquarters of the Belarusian military district.

From January 10, 1935 to June 19, 1936 - Chief of Staff of the 3rd Cavalry Corps. With the introduction of personal military ranks, he was awarded the rank of colonel.

From June 19, 1936 - assistant inspector of the cavalry of the Belarusian military district for the operational part. During the maneuvers of the troops of the Belarusian Military District in 1936, he was the chief of staff of the "Western" army.

In 1937-1938, Colonel Malinovsky was in Spain as a military adviser during the Spanish Civil War (pseudonym "colonel (colonel) Malino"), where he developed military operations against the Francoists, for which he was awarded two Soviet orders.

Since 1939 - senior lecturer at the Military Academy named after M. V. Frunze. On June 4, 1940, he was promoted to the rank of major general. He prepared a Ph.D. thesis on the topic: “The Aragonese operation, March-April 1938”, but did not manage to defend it.

From March 1941 - commander of the 48th rifle corps in the Odessa military district.

Rodion Malinovsky during the Great Patriotic War:

He met the war in the position of commander of the 48th rifle corps of the Odessa Military District, located in the Moldavian city of Balti. At the beginning of the war, despite the retreat, Rodion Malinovsky managed to maintain the main forces of his corps and showed good commanding skills.

From August 1941 he commanded the 6th Army on the Southern and Southwestern fronts, and at the head of the army participated in the Donbass-Rostov defensive operation.

In December 1941 he was appointed commander of the Southern Front.

In January 1942, the Southern and Southwestern fronts pushed back the German front in the Kharkov region by 100 kilometers during the Barvenkovo-Lozovsky operation. However, in May 1942, in the same area, both of these fronts suffered a crushing defeat during the Kharkov operation. Then the enemy threw back the troops under the command of Malinovsky from Kharkov to the Don, during which the Soviet troops suffered heavy losses.

In July 1942, Malinovsky was removed from the post of front commander and appointed with a demotion as commander of the 66th Army, operating north of Stalingrad. From October 1942 - Deputy Commander of the Voronezh Front.

From November 1942 - Commander of the 2nd Guards Army. In this post, he again showed himself from the best side: the army troops advanced to the Rostov direction, when the shock group of the German general struck from the south in the direction of Stalingrad, with the task of breaking through the Soviet encirclement ring around the 6th Army of Friedrich Paulus. While the Deputy People's Commissar of Defense, Colonel General, argued the need to involve Malinovsky's army in repelling a German attack, Malinovsky, on his own initiative, stopped the movement of the army and deployed it into battle formations. The initiative actions of Malinovsky and the heroism of the personnel of the army he led played a big role in the victory in the Kotelnikovskaya operation and, as a result, in the Battle of Stalingrad.

As a result, in February 1943, Stalin again returned Malinovsky to the post of commander of the troops of the Southern Front. In this post, he managed to free Rostov-on-Don.

From March 1943 he commanded the troops of the Southwestern Front, from October 1943 renamed the 3rd Ukrainian Front. In this post, independently and in cooperation with other fronts, from August 1943 to April 1944, he carried out the Donbass, Lower Dnieper, Zaporozhye, Nikopol-Krivoy Rog, Bereznegovato-Snigirevskaya, and Odessa offensive operations. As a result, Donbass and all of Southern Ukraine were liberated.

In April 1944, he happened to liberate his native city of Odessa. In liberated Odessa, Malinovsky found Mikhail Alexandrovich, the husband of his aunt Elena, in whose family he lived in 1913-1914. Mikhail Alexandrovich hardly recognized in the army general Rodion, whom he sheltered before the 1st World War.

In May 1944, Malinovsky was transferred to the commander of the 2nd Ukrainian Front, which, together with the 3rd Ukrainian Front (under the command of Fyodor Tolbukhin), continued the offensive in the southern direction, defeating the troops of the German Army Group South Ukraine during the Iasi-Chisinau strategic operations. After that, Romania withdrew from the alliance with Germany and declared war on the latter.

On September 10, 1944, at the suggestion of Semyon Timoshenko in the name of Stalin, Malinovsky was awarded the military rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union.

In October 1944, Malinovsky inflicted a second severe defeat on the enemy in eastern Hungary during the Debrecen operation and reached the near approaches to Budapest. However, the extremely fierce battle for Budapest dragged on for almost five months. In its course, it was possible to first encircle and then destroy the almost 80,000-strong enemy grouping.

In the spring of 1945, in cooperation with the troops of Fyodor Tolbukhin, the front of Rodion Malinovsky successfully carried out the Vienna operation, essentially liquidating the German front in Austria and uniting with the Allied forces. For the complete defeat of the enemy troops in this operation, Malinovsky was awarded the highest Soviet commander's order "Victory". At the same time, the troops of the right wing of his front carried out the Banska Bystritsa offensive operation in March 1945.

After ending the Great Patriotic War in Austria and Czechoslovakia, Rodion Malinovsky was transferred to the Far East, where during the Soviet-Japanese war he took command of the Trans-Baikal Front, which, quite unexpectedly for the Japanese command, broke through the Gobi Desert into the central part of Manchuria, completing the encirclement and complete defeat Japanese troops. Malinovsky was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for this operation.

After the war, Malinovsky continued to stay in the Far East for 11 years. Since September 1945, he commanded the troops of the Trans-Baikal-Amur Military District.

Member of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR from 1946 until the end of his life.

Since 1947 he was the Commander-in-Chief of the Far East. Since 1953 - Commander of the Far Eastern Military District.

Since 1952 - a candidate member of the Central Committee of the CPSU, since 1956 - a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU.

In March 1956, he became Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR - Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces of the USSR.

On October 26, 1957, he was appointed Minister of Defense of the USSR and remained in this position until his death.

At the October (1957) plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, where the issue of Zhukov's "Bonapartism" and his withdrawal from the Central Committee of the CPSU was discussed, he criticized Zhukov.

According to unconfirmed reports, Marshal Malinovsky gave sanction to General Issa Pliev to use troops to suppress the protests of Novocherkassk workers in 1962.

As Minister of Defense of the USSR, Malinovsky, on the one hand, pursued a policy of building up military power, priority development of nuclear missile forces of strategic deterrence, on the other hand, following the directive of the party leadership, he carried out a massive reduction in the Armed Forces. He made a great contribution to strengthening the combat power of the USSR, to the strategic rearmament of the army.

In 1966, the marshal was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He was dying hard, with terrible pains, metastases had already penetrated into the bones, but the marshal went to the hospital only after the parade on November 7, 1966. He died on March 31, 1967 in Moscow. After cremation, the ashes were buried on April 3 near the Kremlin wall on Red Square in Moscow.

Marshal Rodion Malinovsky

Personal life of Rodion Malinovsky:

Was married twice.

First wife- Larisa Nikolaevna, French teacher. I met her in Irkutsk. They married in August 1925.

In 1926, the couple had a son, Gennady (he died in 1930 from meningitis).

In 1929, a son, Robert, was born, later a doctor of technical sciences.

In 1934, a son, Eduard, was born, later a music teacher.

During the Great Patriotic War, after the capture of Ukraine by the Nazis, the mother took both sons from Kyiv, first to Moscow, and then to Irkutsk. In July 1945, on his way to a new duty station in Irkutsk, he took his family to his echelon, and the family was reunited after 4 years of war. But it was not possible to restore relations with his wife. And in 1946 Malinovsky divorced his first wife.

Second wife- Raisa Yakovlevna Galperina (maiden name - Kucherenko; after her first husband - Halperina; 1920-1997). He met her in the summer of 1942 when leaving the encirclement. Raisa was a volunteer of the army bath and laundry plant, drew attention to her when she correctly counted enemy tanks and distinguished herself in collecting intelligence. In 1943, Raisa was awarded the Order of the Red Star from the hands of the front commander Malinovsky. In 1944, Rodion Yakovlevich transferred Raisa to his front headquarters and appointed the head of the dining room of the Military Council. After the war they got married. From her first marriage she had a son Herman (born 1936).

In 1946, the couple had a daughter, Natalia, in Khabarovsk, later a Spanish philologist, keeper of her father's archive.

Malinovsky was the only major Soviet commander of the Great Patriotic War who was fluent in several European languages. He was especially fluent in French and Spanish.

He was fond of playing chess, composed chess problems published in magazines, and participated in solver competitions. He loved fishing and was fond of photography.

After returning from Khabarovsk to Moscow in 1956, he settled with his family in the house number 3 on the street. Granovsky (in apartment 95), where he lived until the end of his life.

Natalia Malinovskaya - daughter of Rodion Malinovsky

Career of Rodion Malinovsky:

Major General (June 4, 1940);
Lieutenant General (November 9, 1941);
Colonel General (February 12, 1943);
General of the Army (April 28, 1943);
Marshal of the Soviet Union (September 10, 1944)

Awards of Rodion Malinovsky:

Twice Hero of the Soviet Union (September 8, 1945, November 22, 1958);
order "Victory" (No. 8 - April 26, 1945);
five orders of Lenin (July 17, 1937, November 6, 1941, February 21, 1945, September 8, 1945, November 22, 1948);
three orders of the Red Banner (October 22, 1937, November 3, 1944, November 15, 1950);
two orders of Suvorov, I degree (January 28, 1943, March 19, 1944);
Order of Kutuzov, I degree (September 17, 1943);
medal "For the defense of Stalingrad";
medal "For the Defense of the Caucasus";
medal "For the Defense of Odessa";
medal "For the victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945";
anniversary medal "Twenty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945";
medal "For the capture of Budapest";
medal "For the Capture of Vienna";
medal "For the victory over Japan";
medal "XX years of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army";
medal "30 years of the Soviet Army and Navy";
medal "40 years of the Armed Forces of the USSR";
People's Hero of Yugoslavia (May 27, 1964) - for highly professional command of the troops and heroism shown in the fight against a common enemy, for services in the development and strengthening of friendly relations between the armed forces of the USSR and the armed forces;
Order of the Partisan Star, 1st class (SFRY, 1956);
Order of Sukhbaatar (MPR, 1961);
Order of the Red Banner of War (MPR, 1945);
Medal "25 Years of the Mongolian People's Revolution" (MPR, 1946);
Medal "For the victory over Japan" (MPR, 1946);
Order of the White Lion, 1st class (Czechoslovakia, 1945);
Order of the White Lion "For Victory", 1st class (Czechoslovakia, 1945);
Czechoslovak Military Cross 1939-1945 (Czechoslovakia, 1945);
Dukel Commemorative Medal (Czechoslovakia, 1959);
Medal "25th Anniversary of the Slovak National Uprising" (Czechoslovakia, 1965);
Order of the Legion of Honor of the degree of Commander-in-Chief (USA, 1946);
Grand Officer of the Order of the Legion of Honor (France, 1945);
Military Cross 1914-1918 (France, 1916);
Military Cross 1939-1945 (France, 1945);
Order "Protection of the Fatherland" 1, 2 and 3 degrees (Romania, 1950);
Medal "For the liberation from fascism" (Romania, 1950);
Order of Merit of the Hungarian Republic, 1st class (Hungary, 1947);
2 Orders of Merit for Hungary, 1st class (Hungary, 1950 and 1965);
Order of Hungarian Freedom (Hungary, 1946);
Order of the Star of Indonesia, 2nd class (Indonesia, 1963);
Order of the Star of Valor (Indonesia, 1962);
Medal "20 years of the Bulgarian People's Army" (NRB, 1964);
Order of the Shining Banner, 1st class (China) (PRC, 1946);
Medal of "Chinese-Soviet Friendship" (PRC, 1956);
Grand Ribbon of the Order of Military Merit (Morocco, 1965);
Order of the State Flag (DPRK), 1st class (1948);
Medal "40 Years of the Liberation of Korea" (DPRK, 1985, posthumously);
Medal "Brotherhood in Arms" 1st class (GDR, 1966);
Cross of Independence (Mexico, 1964)

Bibliography of Rodion Malinovsky:

1988 - Soldiers of Russia (an autobiographical novel dedicated to the fate of the expeditionary corps of the Russian army in France in 1916-1919).

The image of Marshal Rodion Malinovsky in the cinema:

1993 - Gray Wolves - in the role of Marshal Malinovsky, actor Yevgeny Bykadorov.

Rodion Malinovsky was born on November 22, 1898 in Odessa, Ukraine. In 1911 he graduated from the parochial school in the village of Klishchevo. Malinovsky's mother, Varvara Nikolaevna, a Ukrainian by nationality, was a hired worker. The son was born out of wedlock. Father, Bunin Yakov Ivanovich, worked in the Odessa police department. But Rodion was raised only by her mother. From childhood, the boy got used to work, as a teenager he worked in a haberdashery store.

As soon as the First World War began, the guy persuaded the soldiers to take him to the train. He was immediately enrolled in the machine-gun team of the 64th division of the 256th Elisavetgrad regiment as a carrier of cartridges. In 1915, he was seriously wounded near Smorgon. Shrapnel from the shell hit the soldier in the back and leg. After this injury, he received his first award, the George Cross of the fourth degree and the rank of corporal. During this period, Rodion was in the Kazan hospital for treatment. Then he went to fight on the Western Front. In April 1917 he was wounded again and received two combat crosses as a reward. Then he volunteered for the Foreign Legion.

When Rodion Yakovlevich returned to Russia in 1919, he was almost shot by the Red Army soldiers, having found books in French in his possession. An ordinary postcard with a view of the Potemkin Stairs in the city of Odessa helped to avoid death. The soldier took her with him before leaving for the front. Malinovsky was able not only to list all the buildings drawn on the postcard, but also to describe the history of each of them. After he managed to avoid being shot, he joined the Red Army and fought in the Civil War in the 27th division against Kolchak.

When the Civil War ended, he went to the school of the commanding staff and successfully graduated from it. Further, he was appointed commander of a machine-gun platoon, then a team, assistant commander of a rifle battalion. In 1930 he graduated from the Frunze Military Academy.

After receiving his diploma, Malinovsky was appointed chief of staff of a cavalry regiment, officer of the Belarusian and North Caucasian military districts and chief of staff of the cavalry corps, then the army of the "Western". Since 1937, already in the rank of colonel, Rodion Yakovlevich served as a military adviser in Spain. He had a pseudonym "Malino" and provided great assistance to the republican command.

For his service he was awarded two orders: the Red Banner and Lenin. In 1938, Malinovsky was awarded the title of brigade commander. A year later, he began teaching students at the Frunze Academy.

In 1941 he was appointed commander of the 48th rifle corps in the military district of Odessa, in the city of Balti. There he was caught by the Great Patriotic War. Malinovsky with parts of the corps had to defend against the Germans. Despite the fact that the enemy was outnumbered, the fighters held out heroically, not departing from the state border near the Prut River. But the forces were unequal, the corps had to retreat under the city of Nikolaev. So he was trapped. But thanks to General Malinovsky, the corps was taken out of the encirclement. Moreover, continuing to retreat to the east, the fighters were able to inflict significant damage on the Nazi troops.

As a result, Rodion Yakovlevich received the rank of lieutenant general. Then he was appointed commander of the 6th Army and the Southern Front. However, victories were not always won. In the winter of 1942, the Germans were thrown back from Kharkov by 100 kilometers. But already in the spring, the enemy dealt crushing blows to the Soviet troops. Due to the defeat during the Kharkov operation, Stalin removed Malinovsky from command of the front and appointed, with a reduction in rank, command of the 66th Army.

In the fall of 1942, Malinovsky was appointed deputy commander of the Voronezh Front. And a month later he led the troops of the Second Guards Army. He managed to prove himself from the best side, after which Stalin returned him to his former position, commander of the Southern Front.

Thanks to many successful military operations, Southern Ukraine and Donbass have been liberated from the Germans. In the spring of 1944, Malinovsky was able to liberate Odessa as well. As a result, he was promoted to the rank of General of the Army. Then he was transferred to command the Second Ukrainian Front. After the defeat of the German army "Southern Ukraine", Romania broke off the alliance with Germany.

On September 10, 1944, at the suggestion of Semyon Timoshenko addressed to Stalin, Malinovsky was awarded the military rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union, and after the Vienna operation, he was awarded the unique Order of Victory.

He received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union after the Great Patriotic War, for his service in the Far East. During the Soviet-Japanese War, he commanded the Trans-Baikal Front. Having broken through the Gobi desert, he ended up with an army in the center of Manchuria. And completed the complete encirclement of the enemy. Thanks to this, the Japanese were completely defeated.

After the end of the war, Marshal Malinovsky remained in the Far East as commander of the Trans-Baikal-Amur Military District. In 1947 he became Commander-in-Chief. Since 1953, he was appointed to command the Far Eastern Military District. Three years later, he was appointed Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR Georgy Zhukov. In 1957 he assumed the post of Minister of Defense of the USSR. Marshal Malinovsky remained on it until his death. As minister, he made a huge contribution to strengthening the military power of the USSR, as well as to the rearmament of the army.

Marshal Malinovsky Rodion Yakovlevich died of a serious illness on March 31, 1967. At that time he was already in Moscow. After death, he was cremated, and his ashes rest on the Red Square of the capital, near the Kremlin wall.

Awards of Rodion Malinovsky

Russian empire

George Cross III

St. George's Cross IV degree

Military cross with silver star

USSR awards

Five Orders of Lenin (July 17, 1937, November 6, 1941, February 21, 1945, September 8, 1945, November 22, 1948)

Medal "For the Defense of Stalingrad"

Medal "For the Defense of the Caucasus"

Medal "For the Defense of Odessa"

medal "For the victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945"

Jubilee Medal "Twenty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945"

medal "For the capture of Budapest"

Medal "For the Capture of Vienna"

medal "For the victory over Japan"

medal "XX years of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army"

medal "30 years of the Soviet Army and Navy"

medal "40 years of the Armed Forces of the USSR"

Foreign awards

Yugoslavia

People's Hero of Yugoslavia (May 27, 1964) - for highly professional command of the troops and heroism shown in the fight against a common enemy, for services in the development and strengthening of friendly relations between the armed forces of the USSR and the armed forces of the SFRY

Order of the Partisan Star, 1st class (1956)

Mongolia

Order of Sukhbaatar (1961)
Order of the Red Banner of War (1945)
Medal "25 Years of the Mongolian People's Revolution" (1946)
Medal "For the victory over Japan" (1946)

Czechoslovakia

Order of the White Lion 1st class (1945)
Order of the White Lion "For Victory", 1st class (1945)
Czechoslovak War Cross 1939-1945 (1945)
Dukel Commemorative Medal (1959)
Medal "25 years of the Slovak National Uprising" (1965)

Order of the Legion of Honor of the degree of Commander-in-Chief (1946)

France

Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor (1945)
Military Cross 1914-1918 (1916)
Military Cross 1939-1945 (1945)

Romania

Order "Protection of the Fatherland" 1, 2 and 3 degrees (all in 1950)
Medal "For the liberation from fascism" (1950)

Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary, 1st class (1947)
2 Orders of Merit for Hungary, 1st class (1950 and 1965)
Order of Hungarian Freedom (1946)

Indonesia

Order of the Star of Indonesia 2nd class (1963)
Order of the Star of Valor (1962)

Medal "20 years of the Bulgarian People's Army" (1964)

Order of the Shining Banner, 1st class (China) (1946)
Medal of "Sino-Soviet Friendship" (PRC) (1956)

Morocco

Grand Ribbon of the Order of Military Merit (1965)

North Korea

Order of the State Flag (DPRK), 1st class (1948)
Medal "40 Years of the Liberation of Korea" (1985, posthumously)

Medal "Brotherhood in Arms" 1st class (1966)

Born on November 23, 1898 in the city of Odessa. Mother - Varvara Nikolaevna - a hired worker. Sons: Robert Rodionovich - Doctor of Technical Sciences; Eduard Rodionovich - music teacher; German Rodionovich - Colonel of the Russian Army. Daughter - Natalya Rodionovna, candidate of philological sciences, member of the Writers' Union.

At 16 Rodion Malinovsky became a soldier of the First World War - a carrier of cartridges in a machine gun company of the 256th Infantry Regiment of the Elisavetgrad 64th Infantry Division. Six months later, he replaced the wounded second number of the machine gun crew. Many times repulsed the attacks of the infantry and cavalry of the enemy. In March 1915, an ordinary machine-gun team Rodion Malinovsky awarded the St. George Cross IV degree and promoted to corporal.

In September 1915, R. Ya. Malinovsky was seriously wounded. Two shrapnel stuck in the back, one pierced right through the leg. After recovery, he was enrolled in a special regiment, which was preparing to be sent to France in exchange for the weapons and ammunition missing in the Russian army.

Rodion Malinovsky was appointed head of the machine gun. And again, as at the front in Russia - repeated reflection of enemy attacks, a difficult life in the trenches. And the worst thing is the big losses. Until October 15, 1916, the 1st brigade lost up to 35% of its personnel in battle.

Far from their homeland, Russian soldiers learned about the February Revolution. The regiments began to unrest. R. Ya. Malinovsky was elected chairman of the company committee. Increasingly, the Russians demanded to be sent to their homeland. But only after the insistent demands of the Soviet government in 1919 did the return of the Russian Expeditionary Force begin. R. Ya. Malinovsky, with the help of revolutionary-minded railway workers, managed to leave Vladivostok for the west. On the way, he contacted the command of the Red Army. As part of the 27th Infantry Division, he participated in battles with the White Guards, liberated Omsk, Novo-Nikolaevsk, the Taiga station and Mariinsk. He fell ill with typhus. At the end of 1920, after recovering, he was sent to a school for junior officers. After graduating from it, he became the commander of a machine-gun platoon, then a company commander, and later a rifle battalion commander of the 246th regiment.

From 1927 to 1930 he studied at the Military Academy named after M. V. Frunze. After graduation, he served as chief of staff of a cavalry regiment, held senior positions in the headquarters of the North Caucasus and Belarusian military districts, and headed the headquarters of the cavalry corps. At that time, this formation was commanded by S.K. Timoshenko. He highly appreciated the commanding abilities of Rodion Yakovlevich and his excellent staff training.

In 1937, Colonel R. Ya. Malinovsky, as a military leader with rich combat experience and a specialist thoroughly trained in the field of the theory of military art, was sent to Spain. Under the pseudonym Malino, Rodion Yakovlevich provided active real assistance to the republican command in organizing and conducting hostilities. His work as a military adviser was highly appreciated. He was awarded the Orders of Lenin and the Red Banner.

In 1939, Malinovsky was appointed senior lecturer at the M.V. Frunze Military Academy. In March 1941, he was assigned to the Odessa Military District as commander of the 48th Rifle Corps. The headquarters of this association was located in the Moldavian city of Balti.

Here, on June 22, 1941, the Great Patriotic War found the commander. The enemy in terms of numbers and military equipment significantly outnumbered the defenders. But parts of the corps held out heroically. For several days they did not depart from the state border along the banks of the Prut River. But the forces were too unequal. The weakened units began to withdraw in an organized manner near Nikolaev. And they were surrounded. General Malinovsky, able to firmly control the troops in the fight against superior enemy forces, managed to escape from the trap. Parts of the corps began to retreat to the east, continuing to inflict damage on the Nazis.

Komcor was awarded the rank of lieutenant general. In August 1941, he was appointed commander of the 6th Army, and in December - commander of the Southern Front. Under his leadership, the troops of the Southern Front, together with the Southwestern Front, advancing in the Barvenkovo ​​and Lozovaya regions, pushed the enemy back to a depth of 100 km, captured a bridgehead on the right bank of the Seversky Donets. True, later they had to retreat, since the enemy, as a result of the regrouping, created a significant superiority in forces.

A special page in the life of General Malinovsky is Stalingrad. In August 1942, in order to hold Stalingrad, the 66th Army was created, reinforced with tank and artillery units. R. Ya. Malinovsky was appointed its commander. In September-October 1942, units of the army, in cooperation with the 24th and 1st Guards armies, went on the offensive north of Stalingrad. They managed to pin down a significant part of the forces of the 6th German Army and thereby weaken its strike group advancing directly on the city.

In October 1942, R. Ya. Malinovsky was deputy commander of the Voronezh Front. Then he left for Tambov, in the area of ​​​​which the 2nd Guards Army was urgently formed. It was intended to participate in the defeat of the Nazi group of troops near Stalingrad. General Sergei Semyonovich Biryuzov was appointed chief of staff. Rodion Yakovlevich was united with him by military fate for many years.

The actions of the 2nd Guards Army are a glorious and bright page in the annals of the history of the Great Patriotic War. This army was ready for combat by December 1942. Its advance to Stalingrad began at the most critical period of the great battle. Then the German command, in order to save their numerous troops, who were surrounded, threw into battle the last, but powerful tank reserves of the Don Army Group. The Soviet command made a timely decision on the immediate advance of the 2nd Guards Army towards the main enemy forces. In conditions when enemy tanks with troops on board were already close, Army Commander Malinovsky threw regiments into battle as they arrived. Reinforced by artillery and tanks, they stopped the advance of the Nazis. Then, in cooperation with the 5th and 51st armies, the 2nd Guards Army of Malinovsky stopped and defeated Manstein's troops. Nothing - neither the December frosts, nor snowdrifts, nor the fierce resistance of the Nazi troops of the Don Army Group - could disrupt the implementation of the strategic plan of the Soviet command.

From February 1943, R. Ya. Malinovsky was again the commander of the Southern, and from March - the South-Western Front. (On October 20, 1943, the Southwestern Front was renamed the 3rd Ukrainian Front.) Front troops under the command of General of the Army Malinovsky participated in a number of offensive operations.

A special place among them is occupied by the Zaporozhye operation, carried out by the troops of the Southwestern Front on October 10–14, 1943. The balance of power at the beginning of this operation was in favor of the Soviet troops. This made it possible to break through the well-fortified enemy lines in four days and reach the near approaches to Zaporozhye. The front commander decided, without giving the enemy a break, to capture the city by night assault with the participation of 200 tanks and self-propelled artillery mounts. This plan of R. Ya. Malinovsky was successfully implemented. Early in the morning, Soviet troops broke into the city. On the evening of October 14, the order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief was transmitted by radio. It noted that the troops of the Southwestern Front captured the large regional and industrial center of Ukraine, the city of Zaporozhye, one of the important strongholds of the Germans in the lower reaches of the Dnieper. In commemoration of the victory won, 31 formations and units began to be called "Zaporozhye".

In this operation, as in a number of subsequent ones, Rodion Yakovlevich showed his ability for creative, non-standard solutions, stunning the enemy with ingenuity and surprise. So, during the capture of Zaporozhye, he conducts an unprecedented night assault in military history. Three armies and two corps simultaneously participate in it. As a result of the operation, the situation on the southern wing of the Soviet-German front improved significantly. And the troops of the Southwestern Front, having expanded the captured bridgeheads on the Dnieper, continued the offensive in the Krivoy Rog direction. Then they defeated the Melitopol enemy grouping. This contributed to the isolation of German troops in the Crimea.

The Southwestern Front, renamed the 3rd Ukrainian Front, together with the neighboring 2nd Ukrainian Front, expanded the bridgehead in the area of ​​the Dnieper bend and, in cooperation with the troops of the 4th Ukrainian Front, successfully completed the Nikopol-Krivoy Rog operation. Then they carried out the Bereznegovato-Snigirevskaya and Odessa operations, crossed the Southern Bug, liberated Nikolaev and Odessa. In those days, Rodion Yakovlevich had the opportunity to visit his native city and meet relatives and friends, remember his childhood ...

In May 1944, Army General R. Ya. Malinovsky received the 2nd Ukrainian Front from Marshal of the Soviet Union I. S. Konev. By that time, he had already established himself as a commander who knew how to accurately determine his own forces and the plans of the enemy, taking into account the combat capabilities of his troops, accurately determine the direction of the main attack, closely cooperate with the command of neighboring fronts and armies, and act decisively and prudently.

The Iasi-Chisinau strategic offensive operation of the troops of the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian (commander - General of the Army F.I. Tolbukhin) fronts was coming. These fronts, in cooperation with the Black Sea Fleet and the Danube military flotilla, were tasked with defeating the Iasi-Chisinau grouping of Nazi troops, completing the liberation of the Moldavian SSR, and withdrawing Romania from the war on the side of Nazi Germany.

On August 20, after a powerful artillery preparation, the troops of the 2nd Ukrainian Front on the very first day of the offensive broke through the enemy defenses to the full depth, advanced 16 km. Army General Malinovsky, contrary to the expectations of the enemy, ordered in the middle of the same day to bring the 6th Panzer Army into the gap. This decision of the front commander made it possible to ensure a high rate of advance, and ultimately the encirclement of the main grouping of enemy troops. In a short time, the Army Group "Southern Ukraine" was defeated. The collapse of the enemy defenses on the southern wing of the Soviet-German front changed the entire military-political situation in the Balkans.

The decisive creative activity of the front commander received a worthy assessment. In September 1944, R. Ya. Malinovsky was awarded the title of Marshal of the Soviet Union for his high ability to lead the troops of the front and the manifestation of military leadership talent. The Marshal's Star was awarded to him on September 13, 1944 in Moscow.

And ahead were the Debrecen, Budapest, Bratislava-Brnov and Vienna operations. As a result of their implementation, Romania, Hungary, Austria withdrew from the war, and Slovakia was liberated. Dozens of selected Nazi divisions collapsed and ceased to exist.

Rodion Yakovlevich had yet to approach the peak of his military glory. A hotbed of aggression was still smoldering in the Far East. A significant part of the troops of the 2nd Ukrainian Front was transferred there. They were introduced into the Trans-Baikal Front. The command of this front was entrusted to Marshal of the Soviet Union Malinovsky. He flew to the front headquarters shortly after the Victory Parade.

The troops of the Trans-Baikal Front were to deliver the main blow to the forces of the Japanese Kwantung Army in the Manchurian strategic operation. Here again the military talent of Rodion Yakovlevich was clearly manifested. He accurately defined the tasks of all the armies of the front, boldly and unexpectedly for the enemy, decided to transfer the 6th Guards Tank Army across the Greater Khingan Range. The Japanese command was sure that cars and tanks would not be able to overcome the mountains and gorges. And therefore did not prepare defensive lines there. The Japanese generals were shocked when they learned about the appearance of Soviet tanks from the Greater Khingan. Being in the first echelon and interacting with the forward units of the rifle divisions, the tankers attacked the enemy in several directions. This hastened the defeat of the Kwantung Army. The signing of the act of surrender of militaristic Japan on September 2, 1945 was the end of World War II.

For his courage and great service in the defeat of the Kwantung Army, Rodion Yakovlevich Malinovsky was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. 48 times the Supreme Commander-in-Chief in his orders announced gratitude to the troops commanded by R. Ya. Malinovsky.

After the war, Rodion Yakovlevich commanded the troops of the Trans-Baikal-Amur Military District for two years. From 1947 to 1953 he was commander-in-chief of the troops of the Far East. For the next three years he commanded the troops of the Far Eastern Military District.

In March 1956, Rodion Yakovlevich was recalled to Moscow and appointed First Deputy Minister of Defense and Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces. And in October 1957, Marshal of the Soviet Union R. Ya. Malinovsky became the Minister of Defense of the USSR. In this post, he did a lot to strengthen the Armed Forces and improve the country's security. He was constantly concerned about the development of military art, the construction of the army and navy, the training of personnel for them, and the prospects for the development of equipment and weapons.

On his 60th birthday, R. Ya. Malinovsky was awarded the second star of the Hero of the Soviet Union. Rodion Yakovlevich was awarded the highest military order "Victory", five orders of Lenin, three orders of the Red Banner, two orders of Suvorov I degree, many medals and orders of foreign countries.

Rodion Yakovlevich Malinovsky died on March 31, 1967 after a severe and prolonged illness. He was buried in Red Square near the Kremlin wall. The memory of the outstanding commander is inextinguishable. His name was given to the Military Academy of Armored Forces and the Guards Tank Division. In Moscow, Kyiv, and a number of other cities there are streets of Marshal Malinovsky.