Vasily Danilovich Sokolovsky is a vivid example of how the talent of a military theoretician and the talent of practical implementation of their ideas in practice, excellent organizational skills could fit in one person at the same time. During the Great Patriotic War, Vasily Sokolovsky took part in a large number of operations, led several fronts, he is rightfully one of the most famous Soviet generals and marshals - commanders of Victory. He was the author of military-historical and military-theoretical works, including "Military strategy" and "The defeat of the Nazi troops near Moscow." Vasily Danilovich passed away exactly 50 years ago - on May 10, 1968.
Vasily Danilovich Sokolovsky was born on July 9, 1897 in the small village of Kozliki, Bialystok district, Grodno province, now the territory of Poland. The future marshal was born into an ordinary peasant family. Then nothing suggested that he would link his life with the army. Vasily Sokolovsky wanted and could become a teacher. After graduating from a three-year zemstvo school, he himself taught the village children with pleasure. And in 1914, at the age of 17, he entered the Nevelsk Teachers' Seminary, which was intended to train primary school teachers, earning excellent grades in the entrance exams, the right to a scholarship. Upon completion of the seminary in 1917, he was ready to teach, but life decided otherwise.
He gave the next 50 years of his life to the army, having passed a very difficult, but respectable path from a simple Red Army soldier to a marshal. Having chosen the path of a career soldier, he passed it with honor, becoming an example to follow for many Soviet officers. For Vasily Sokolovsky, the defense of the Fatherland has turned not just into a profession, but into a business and the meaning of his whole life.
Vasily Danilovich Sokolovsky joined the ranks of the Red Army in February 1918. In the same year he graduated from the 1st Moscow military instructor courses. He took an active part in the Civil War, fought on three fronts. On the Eastern Front, he first commanded a company, then headed the battalion headquarters, was an assistant commander and a regiment commander. From June 1918 - senior assistant to the chief of staff of a rifle division, brigade commander of the 39th rifle division on the Southern Front, from June 1920 - chief of staff of the 32nd rifle division of the Caucasian front. In 1921, literally in between battles, he graduated from the Military Academy of the Red Army in the first enrollment of its students. After completing his studies at the academy, he was appointed assistant to the head of the operational directorate of the Turkestan front, after which he commanded a group of forces in the Fergana and Samarkand regions. He took an active part in the fight against Basmachism.
After the end of the Civil War, Sokolovsky remained in the army and made an excellent career. From October 1924, he was chief of staff of the 14th Infantry Division of the Moscow Military District. From October 1926 - Chief of Staff of the 9th Rifle Corps of the North Caucasian Military District. In 1928 he successfully graduated from the Higher Academic Courses at the Frunze Military Academy of the Red Army, after which he headed the headquarters of the 5th Rifle Corps of the Belarusian Military District. In July 1930, he was appointed commander of the 43rd Infantry Division in the same district.
In January 1935, Vasily Sokolovsky was transferred to the deputy chief of staff of the Volga Military District, and in May he was appointed chief of staff of the Ural Military District. In November of the same year, Sokolovsky was awarded the military rank of division commander. From April 1938 he was the chief of staff of the Moscow Military District, in January of the following year he became a corps commander, and in June 1940 he became a lieutenant general. In February 1941, he was appointed deputy chief of the General Staff for organizational and mobilization issues.
The knowledge gained during his studies and the real combat experience of the Civil War allowed Sokolovsky to become first noticeable, and then a great staff officer, sometimes he is even called the genius of staff art. He consistently passed all the staff positions - in regiments, divisions, corps, districts - and all several times. He led the headquarters of two divisions, two corps, three military districts. At the same time, his staff experience was combined with that of a commander. At various times he commanded three divisions (the 2nd rifle division of the Turkestan front, the 14th rifle division of the Moscow military district, the 43rd rifle division of the Belarusian military district). At the same time, all the listed formations under his command necessarily became exemplary.
It is clear that the appointment to work in the General Staff in February 1941 was not accidental, only the most intelligent, the most talented and most thinking officers with rich experience in staff work were recruited here. The Great Patriotic War Vasily Danilovich Sokolovsky was met by the first deputy of Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov, who was the chief of the General Staff of the Red Army.
Already in July 1941, Lieutenant General Sokolovsky was appointed chief of staff of the Western Front, he was entrusted with planning operations in one of the most crucial sectors of the unfolding battles with the Nazis. Vasily Danilovich held this position with short interruptions until February 1943. The front headquarters under his leadership during the Smolensk battle and the Moscow battle, despite the existing mistakes and miscalculations in the work, managed to establish reconnaissance, organize large-scale engineering and construction work at the front lines and in the depths of the defense. The headquarters of the Western Front took an active part in planning, preparing and conducting the Moscow offensive operation of the Soviet troops in the winter of 1941-42, as well as the Rzhev-Vyazemskaya operation of 1942. In June 1942, Vasily Sokolovsky was awarded the rank of Colonel General.
Since February 1943, Sokolovsky was appointed commander of the Western Fronts, whose troops, in close cooperation with other fronts, conducted the Rzhev-Vyazemsk, Oryol and Smolensk operations of 1943, in August 1943 he was awarded the next military rank - General of the Army. At the same time, he headed the front for a little over a year, for the failures in the Orsha and Vitebsk offensive operations in April 1944, Sokolovsky was removed from his post as front commander and transferred to the chief of staff of the 1st Ukrainian Front. From April 1945 he was deputy commander of the 1st Belorussian Front. While in these positions, the commander made a great contribution to the development, preparation and implementation of the Lvov-Sandamir, Vistula-Oder and Berlin offensive operations of the Soviet troops.
The main milestones in the military fate of Vasily Sokolovsky were associated with the names of two famous marshals - Zhukov and Konev, and the main successes during the Great Patriotic War were the victory near Moscow and the capture of Berlin. His fate was closely intertwined with the fate of the commander of the first magnitude Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov. At one time, he also received the Western Front from Zhukov. And already in March 1946, after the end of the war, it was Georgy Konstantinovich who blessed Sokolovsky for the post of commander-in-chief of the Group of Soviet Occupation Forces in Germany. The military fate of Sokolovsky was inseparable from Marshal Ivan Stepanovich Konev - in joint work on the Western and 1st Ukrainian fronts. Both marshals knew very well the capabilities of Vasily Danilovich, appreciated his work and awarded their chief of staff with awards. Among all Soviet marshals, only Sokolovsky was awarded three Orders of Suvorov I degree and three Orders of Kutuzov I degree - special awards for commanders of his level.
A very important touch to his military portrait is the fact that, being in April 1945 the deputy commander of the 1st Belorussian Front, on the orders of Zhukov, he led the hostilities directly in Berlin. This is a very remarkable and important touch to the portrait of the commander. It was Sokolovsky who, on May 1, 1945, was the first of the Soviet commanders to enter into surrender negotiations with the chief of the German ground forces, General Krebs, becoming one of those Soviet commanders who put the last victory point in the Great Patriotic War. And on May 29, 1945, General of the Army Sokolovsky was awarded the high title of Hero of the Soviet Union for the skillful leadership of the military operations of the entrusted troops, personal courage and courage.
The end of the war did not stop the military career of the commander. Since March 1946, he was not only the commander-in-chief of the Group of Soviet Occupation Forces in Germany, but also the head of the Soviet military administration, at the same time being a member of the Control Council in Germany from the USSR. In June 1946 Vasily Sokolovsky became Marshal of the Soviet Union. Since March 1949 - he served as First Deputy Minister of the Armed Forces of the USSR (since February 1950 - Minister of War of the USSR).
On June 16, 1952, the Marshal was appointed Chief of the General Staff - First Deputy Minister of War of the country (since March 1953 - Minister of Defense). Beginning in 1954, the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union entered a new stage in their development - the stage of large-scale technical re-equipment and radical reorganization, the introduction of nuclear missiles. The advancing scientific and technological progress has seriously expanded, but at the same time complicated the activities of the country's military and political leadership, especially in the field of military development. At the same time, the activities of the General Staff in this difficult time proceeded against the background of a sharp aggravation of international relations. It was on the employees of the General Staff in this difficult period that the task of ensuring reliable defense of the Soviet Union and the countries of the socialist bloc fell. To solve this problem, Marshal Vasily Danilovich Sokolovsky used all his accumulated combat and practical experience in command and staff work during the war years, while simultaneously carrying out work on the further development of military science and improving the construction of the country's Armed Forces.
In April 1960, Sokolovsky was relieved of his post as Chief of the General Staff, in the same year he became Inspector General of the Group of Inspectors General of the USSR Ministry of Defense. Throughout the post-war years, the marshal actively worked to preserve the memory and perpetuate the feat of the participants in the Great Patriotic War. It is known that it was he who was one of the initiators of the awarding of the honorary title of Hero City to Moscow, the initiator and active participant in the creation of the monument to the Liberator Soldier in Berlin's Treptower Park. He also actively supported the idea of creating a memorial "Tomb of the Unknown Soldier" in the capital. In the second half of the 1960s, he also did a lot for the appearance of the famous Motherland Memorial in Volgograd.
Marshal Vasily Danilovich Sokolovsky passed away on May 10, 1968 at the age of 70, 50 of which he devoted to military service. The urn with the ashes of the Marshal was buried in the Kremlin wall on Red Square in Moscow. Much has been done both in Russia and in Belarus to perpetuate the memory of the commander. In particular, in Grodno, the memory of a fellow countryman was immortalized by naming one of the city streets in his honor, and in the Grodno State Historical and Archaeological Museum a part of the exposition is dedicated to the marshal. There are also streets named after him in Smolensk and Moscow. His name was given to the Novocherkassk Higher Military Command School of Communications, which existed until 2011.
