Only four people entered the history of the Russian Empire, for their military and other merits granted by the highest army rank Generalissimo. One of them in 1799 was the invincible commander Alexander Suvorov. The next after Suvorov and the last holder of this title in the country was the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Great Patriotic War, Joseph Stalin.
Red Marshals
Personal military ranks in the USSR, liquidated shortly after the October Revolution, returned to the Armed Forces of the country only on September 22, 1935. Chief in the Red Army, the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army, the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union was approved. In total, it is assigned to 41 people. Including 36 military leaders and five political figures, including Lavrentiy Beria and Leonid Brezhnev.
Two months after the issuance of the Decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, five well-known Soviet commanders, who became famous in the Civil War, became Vasily Blyukher, Semyon Budyonny, Kliment Voroshilov, Alexander Egorov and Mikhail Tukhachevsky. But before the outbreak of the war, of the five marshals, only Semyon Budyonny and Kliment Voroshilov survived and served, who did not display anything special at the front.
The other party leaders and their comrades in the party and weapons were soon removed from their posts, convicted on false charges and shot as enemies of the people and fascist spies: Mikhail Tukhachevsky in 1937, Vasily Blucher - in 1938, Alexander Egorov - a year later. Moreover, the last two in the fever of pre-war repression even forgot to officially deprive the marshal's titles. All of them were rehabilitated only after the death of Stalin and Beria.
Fleet flagships
The decree of 1935 introduced the highest naval rank - the flagship of the fleet of the first rank. The first such flagships also include repressed and posthumously rehabilitated Mikhail Viktorov and Vladimir Orlov. In 1940, this title was replaced by another, more familiar to sailors - Fleet Admiral, assigning it four years later to Ivan Isakov and later demoted Nikolai Kuznetsov.
The next reform of the highest military ranks in the Soviet Union occurred in the second half of World War II. Then additional Chief Marshals of aviation, artillery, armored and engineering troops, as well as communications troops appeared. And the rank of Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union, similar to the Marshal of the Soviet Union, was introduced into the table of rank of the Navy. In the USSR there were only three such admirals - Nikolai Kuznetsov, Ivan Isakov and Sergey Gorshkov.
Generalissimo in the museum
The marshal's title was the highest in the Soviet country until June 26, 1945. So far, at the "request of the public" and a group of Soviet military leaders led by Marshal of the Soviet Union Konstantin Rokossovsky, a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on the establishment of the rank of Generalissimo that already existed in the Russian Empire did not appear.
They, in particular, were the associate of Peter I, Duke Alexander Menshikov and the famous military leader Alexander Suvorov. A day after the release of the document, the Soviet Generalissimo No. 1 itself appeared. This title was awarded to the head of the USSR and the Red Army Joseph Stalin. By the way, Joseph Vissarionovich never wore a uniform with epaulettes designed specifically for Stalin, and after his death in March 53, she went to the museum.
However, a similar fate awaited the title itself, nominally preserved in the military hierarchy of the Soviet Union and Russia until 1993. Although some historians claim that in the 60s and 70s there were several attempts to assign him to the new leaders of the party and the country — who had front-line merits and military ranks to Lieutenant General Nikita Khrushchev and Major General Leonid Brezhnev.
