Vasily Ivanovich Shvetsov (; 12 March 1898 – 1 October 1958) was a

Soviet Army The Soviet Ground Forces () was the land warfare service branch of the Soviet Armed Forces from 1946 to 1992. It was preceded by the Red Army. After the Soviet Union ceased to exist in December 1991, the Ground Forces remained under th ...

colonel general Colonel general is a military rank used in some armies. It is particularly associated with Germany, where historically General officer#Old European system, general officer ranks were one grade lower than in the Commonwealth and the United States, ...

who rose to

field army A field army (also known as numbered army or simply army) is a military formation in many armed forces, composed of two or more corps. It may be subordinate to an army group. Air army, Air armies are the equivalent formations in air forces, and ...

command during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. After fighting in the

Russian Civil War The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...

as an ordinary soldier, Shvetsov became an officer training instructor and rose to command the 133rd Rifle Division by the beginning of

. After leading the division in the

Battle of Moscow The Battle of Moscow was a military campaign that consisted of two periods of strategically significant fighting on a sector of the Eastern Front during World War II, between October 1941 and January 1942. The Soviet defensive effort frustrated H ...

, he rose to command the 29th Army in the

Battles of Rzhev The Battles of Rzhev () were a series of Red Army offensives against the Wehrmacht between 8 January 1942 and 31 March 1943, on the Eastern Front of World War II. The battles took place in the northeast of Smolensk Oblast and the south of Tve ...

. After the lack of success in the latter Shvetsov was reduced to deputy commander of the

3rd Shock Army The 3rd Shock Army () was a field army of the Red Army formed during the Second World War. The "Shock" armies were created with the specific structure to engage and destroy significant enemy forces, and were reinforced with more armoured and ar ...

, but after his leadership of a group of the army during the

Battle of Velikiye Luki The Battle of Velikiye Luki, also named Velikiye Luki offensive operation (), started with the attack by the forces of the Red Army's Kalinin Front against the Wehrmacht's 3rd Panzer Army during the Winter Campaign of 1942–1943 with the o ...

in late 1942 and early 1943 he returned to army command, leading the

4th Shock Army The 4th Shock Army was a combined arms army of the Soviet Armed Forces during World War II. The Army was formed from the 27th Army on 25 December 1941 (1st formation) within the Northwestern Front. On 1 October 1942 it included the 249th, 332 ...

into eastern Belorussia in late 1943. After the unsuccessful performance of the army in these actions, Shvetsov briefly commanded the 21st Army and then served as its deputy commander. He commanded the 23rd Army in the final operations of the

Continuation War The Continuation War, also known as the Second Soviet–Finnish War, was a conflict fought by Finland and Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union during World War II. It began with a Finnish declaration of war on 25 June 1941 and ended on 19 ...

. Postwar, Shvetsov continued to hold army command and rose to first deputy commander of the

Baltic Military District The Baltic Military District () was a military district of the Soviet Armed Forces in the Baltic states, formed shortly before the German invasion during World War II. After the end of the war the Kaliningrad Oblast was added to the District's co ...

before his death.

Early life and Russian Civil War

The son of peasants, Vasily Ivanovich Shvetsov was born on 12 March 1898 in the village of Lykovskaya, Cherepovetsky Uyezd,

Novgorod Governorate Novgorod Governorate was an administrative-territorial unit (''guberniya'') of the Russian Empire and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR, which existed from 1727 to 1776 and from 1796 to 1927. Its administrative cent ...

. After graduating from the Vakhonkino two-year ministerial school, Shvetsov worked as a carpenter on the construction of the

Murmansk Railroad Railway between Murmansk on the Arctic Ocean and Saint Petersburg on the Baltic Sea The Kirov Railway (; until 1935 ''Murman Railway'') is a Russian gauge">broad gauge Russian railway network that links the Murman Coast and Murmansk city (in ...

bridges at the Shonguy siding and the Kola station. In June 1918 he was sent as a delegate to the All-Road Workers Congress in

Petrozavodsk Petrozavodsk (, ; Karelian language, Karelian, Veps language, Vepsian and ) is the capital city of the Republic of Karelia, Russia, which stretches along the western shore of Lake Onega for some . The population of the city is 280,890 as of 2022. ...

, where he was elected chairman of the Main Railroad Inspection Commission of the Murmansk Railroad Directorate. During the

, Shvetsov joined the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

on 12 October 1919 and became a

Red Army man Red Army man () was the lowest military rank in the Red Army of the Soviet Union from 1918 to 1946. On 30 November 1917, after the October Revolution, the Military Revolutionary Committee cancelled all "officer and class ranks". Henceforth, the ...

at the Moscow Military Engineer Courses. From July 1920 he studied at the Petrograd Military Engineer Command Personnel

Tekhnikum A tekhnikum () is a type of secondary vocational school in the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, as well as in modern Russia, Ukraine and some other post-Soviet states The post-Soviet states, also referred to as the former Soviet Union or the ...

of the Petrograd Military District. As part of a consolidated student brigade he fought as a squad leader on the Southern Front against the

Army of Wrangel The Russian Army (), commonly known as the Army of Wrangel (), was a White Army active in South Russia during the Russian Civil War from March to November 1920. It was officially formed on 28 April 1920 from the merger of several White armies, i ...

and the

Makhnovites The Makhnovshchina (, ) was a Political movement#Mass movements, mass movement to establish anarchist communism in southern Ukraine, southern and eastern Ukraine during the Ukrainian War of Independence of 1917–1921. Named after Nestor Makhno, ...

near Orekhov, Gulyai-Pole, Aleksandrovsk, and

Melitopol Melitopol is a city and municipality in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, southeastern Ukraine. It is situated on the Molochna River, which flows through the eastern edge of the city into the Molochnyi Lyman estuary. Melitopol is the second-largest city ...

. After graduating from the tekhnikum in January 1921 he was appointed a class commander in the 6th Petrograd Military Engineer Courses. As a platoon commander in the consolidated student brigade drawn from these courses Shvetsov took part in the suppression of the

Kronstadt rebellion The Kronstadt rebellion () was a 1921 insurrection of Soviet sailors, Marines, naval infantry, and civilians against the Bolsheviks, Bolshevik government in the Russian port city of Kronstadt. Located on Kotlin Island in the Gulf of Finland, ...

, then from May 1921 commanded a battalion of the 6th Talitsa Signals Command Personnel Courses of the

Ural Military District The Red Banner Ural Military DistrictHistory of the Ural Military District / Edited by Alexander Egorovsky, Ivan Tutarinov – 1 – Moscow: Military Publishing House of the Ministry of Defense of the Soviet Union, 1970 – 352 Pages – 11,500 ...

. For distinguishing himself in combat, Shvetsov was awarded the

Order of the Red Banner The Order of the Red Banner () was the first Soviet military decoration. The Order was established on 16 September 1918, during the Russian Civil War by decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. It was the highest award of S ...

in 1921.

Interwar period

After the end of the war, in January 1922 Shvetsov became commander of a battalion of the 2nd Vladikavkaz Signals Command Personnel Courses of the

North Caucasus Military District The North Caucasus Military District was a military district of the Russian Armed Forces from 1992-2010. Before 1992 it had been part of the Soviet Armed Forces since 1918. In 2010 it became the Southern Military District and lately also included t ...

. In June of that year, he was appointed a tactics instructor at the Petrograd Aviation Mechanics School. Shvetsov entered the Petrograd Higher Military Pedagogical School in September and after graduating in November 1923 was appointed an instructor at the 8th Petrograd Infantry School. He transferred to serve as a tactics instructor in the commanders section of the

Novocherkassk Novocherkassk () is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city in Rostov Oblast, Russia, located near the confluence of the Tuzlov and Aksay Rivers, the latter a distributary of the Don (river), Don River. Novocherkassk is best known as the ...

Higher Cavalry School in October 1924. Shvetsov entered the

Frunze Military Academy The M. V. Frunze Military Academy (), or in full the Military Order of Lenin and the October Revolution, Red Banner, Order of Suvorov Academy in the name of M. V. Frunze (), was a military academy of the Soviet and later the Russian Armed Forces ...

in September 1926, and after graduation in July 1929 was sent to the

Ukrainian Military District The Kiev Military District (; , abbreviated ) was a military district of the Imperial Russian Army and subsequently of the Red Army and Soviet Armed Forces. It was first formed in 1862, and was headquartered in Kiev (Kyiv) for most of its exist ...

to gain practical experience as assistant commander of the 132nd Donetsk Rifle Regiment of the

44th Rifle Division The 44th ''Kievskaya'' of the Red Banner Rifle Division of Nikolay Shchors, or ''44th Kievskaya'' for short, was an elite military formation of the Soviet Union. Created during the beginnings of the Russian Civil War. It was destroyed during the ...

. In May 1930 Shvetsov was again sent to study at the Frunze Academy's eastern department. After graduation in May 1931 he remained at the academy as an instructor, serving as a senior tactics instructor before rising to head and military commissar of the 2nd course of the special department in July 1935. Shvetsov rose to serve as head of the Intelligence Officer Improvement Courses of the

Intelligence Directorate Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. It can be described as the ...

in October 1935. On 15 September 1939 he was appointed commander of the new

133rd Rifle Division The 18th Guards Insterburg Red Banner Order of Suvorov Motor Rifle Division (), is an active division of the Russian Ground Forces. History The 18th Guards Motor Rifle Division was formed originally as the 133rd Rifle Division at Novosibirs ...

of the

Siberian Military District The Siberian Military District was a Military district of the Russian Ground Forces. The district was originally formed as a military district of the Russian Empire in 1864. In 1924 it was reformed in the Red Army. After the end of World War II the ...

. Shvetsov received the rank of major general on 4 June 1940.

World War II

Just before

Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and several of its European Axis allies starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II. More than 3.8 million Axis troops invaded the western Soviet Union along ...

began, the 133rd Rifle Division was transferred west and from July held the line in the area of

Dorogobuzh Dorogobuzh (; Belarusian: Дарагабуж) is a historic town and the administrative center of Dorogobuzhsky District in Smolensk Oblast, Russia, straddling the Dnieper River and located east of Smolensk, the administrative center of th ...

as part of the 24th Army of the

Reserve Front The Reserve Front was a major formation of the Red Army during the Second World War. First Formation The Reserve Front describes either of two distinct organizations during the war. The first version was created on July 30, 1941 in a reorganizat ...

. During August and September the division fought in the Yelnya offensive, and during the

fought in sustained defensive battles on the

Klin KLIN (1400 kHz) is a commercial AM radio station broadcasting a talk radio format. It is licensed to Lincoln, Nebraska, and is owned by NRG Media. The studios are in Broadcast House at 44th Street and East O Street ( U.S. Route 34). KLIN i ...

axis. The division was especially distinguished between 26 November and 4 December, when it repulsed the offensive of elements of the German 6th Panzer and 123rd Infantry Divisions. From 11 December, during the Kalinin offensive, Shvetsov commanded the 29th Army of the

Kalinin Front The Kalinin Front was a major formation of the Red Army active in the Eastern Front of World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions ...

. Under his command, the units of the army liberated Kalinin on 16 December in conjunction with the 31st Army. For this operation, Shvetsov was awarded the

Order of Lenin The Order of Lenin (, ) was an award named after Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the October Revolution. It was established by the Central Executive Committee on 6 April 1930. The order was the highest civilian decoration bestowed by the Soviet ...

. Between January and April 1942 he led the army in the Rzhev–Vyazma Offensive. In January, the army and other units of the front cut off German units. At the beginning of February due to a strong flanking German counterattack the 29th Army was itself cut off, but managed to break out with desperate efforts. After linking up with the 31st Army, the 29th Army continued defensive and offensive actions in the

. At the end of July and into August Shvetsov led the army in the Rzhev–Sychyovka offensive. Its units broke through the German defenses to a depth of up to 30 kilometers and reached the

Volga The Volga (, ) is the longest river in Europe and the longest endorheic basin river in the world. Situated in Russia, it flows through Central Russia to Southern Russia and into the Caspian Sea. The Volga has a length of , and a catchment ...

in the sector east of the cities of

Rzhev Rzhev ( rus, Ржев, p=ˈrʐɛf) is a town in Tver Oblast, Russia, located southwest of Staritsa and from Tver, on the highway and railway connecting Moscow and Riga. It is the uppermost town situated on the Volga River. Population: Hist ...

and

Zubtsov Zubtsov () is a town and the administrative center of Zubtsovsky District in Tver Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Volga and Vazuza Rivers, south of Tver, the administrative center of the oblast. Population: 8,100 (1998 est.) ...

. However, Shvetsov was relieved of command for "tolerating mistakes and inability to lead troops" in the area of the Gridino salient, and demoted to deputy commander of the

in September 1942. From November 1942 to January 1943 Shvetsov commanded the Northern Operational Group of the army, advancing on

Velikiye Luki Velikiye Luki ( rus, Вели́кие Лу́ки, p=vʲɪˈlʲikʲɪjə ˈlukʲɪ; lit. ''great meanders''. Г. П. Смолицкая. "Топонимический словарь Центральной России". "Армада-� ...

during the

. He was concussed on 15 February and remained in the hospital until 4 May, after which he was appointed commander of the

. Shvetsov, promoted to lieutenant general on 16 October, led the army in the Nevel and Gorodok offensives. After the inconclusive Gorodok offensive, Shvetsov was relieved of command on 30 December and placed at the disposal of the Main Personnel Directorate for further assignment. He was appointed commander of the 21st Army on 25 February 1944, but replaced on 28 April by Dmitry Gusev. Shvetsov continued to serve with the 21st Army as its deputy commander. The army was sent to the

Leningrad Front The Leningrad Front () was formed during the 1941 German approach on Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) by dividing the Northern Front into the Leningrad Front and Karelian Front on August 27, 1941. History The Leningrad Front was immediately ...

in April 1944. In the summer of 1944 the army took part in the

Vyborg–Petrozavodsk offensive The Vyborg–Petrozavodsk offensive or Karelian offensive was a strategic operation by the Soviet Leningrad and Karelian Fronts against Finland on the Karelian Isthmus and East Karelia fronts of the Continuation War, on the Eastern Front of Wor ...

. Advancing on the main attack axis of the front along the Vyborg highway, the army broke through the Finnish defensive lines and took

Vyborg Vyborg (; , ; , ; , ) is a town and the administrative center of Vyborgsky District in Leningrad Oblast, Russia. It lies on the Karelian Isthmus near the head of Vyborg Bay, northwest of St. Petersburg, east of the Finnish capital H ...

on 20 June. On 3 July 1944 Shvetsov was appointed commander of the 23rd Army of the Leningrad Front, which fought in the elimination of the Finnish bridgehead on the

Vuoksi The Vuoksi (, historically: "Uzerva"; ; ; ) is a river running through the northernmost part of the Karelian Isthmus from Lake Saimaa in southeastern Finland to Lake Ladoga in northwestern Russia. The river enters Lake Ladoga in three branches, ...

. After the end of hostilities with Finland the army guarded the border on the

Karelian Isthmus The Karelian Isthmus (; ; ) is the approximately stretch of land situated between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga in northwestern Russia, to the north of the River Neva. Its northwestern boundary is a line from the Bay of Vyborg to the we ...

until the end of the war.

Postwar

After the end of the war, Shvetsov continued to command the 23rd Army in the Leningrad Military District until its disbandment. In March 1947 he was sent to the Higher Academic Courses at the Voroshilov Higher Military Academy, which he graduated with honors on 20 April 1948. After graduating, Shvetsov was appointed commander of the 25th Army of the

Primorsky Military District The Primorsky Military District was a military district of the Soviet Armed Forces that existed in from 1945 to 1953. Formed from the headquarters of the 1st Far East Front after the end of World War II, the district controlled troops on the terr ...

. He transferred to command the 39th Army of the

Far Eastern Military District The Far Eastern Military District () was a military district of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. In 2010 it was merged with the Pacific Fleet and part of the Siberian Military District to form the new Eastern Military District. Histo ...

in May 1953, and was promoted to the rank of

on 31 May 1954. Shvetsov was transferred west in September 1955 to serve as first deputy commander of the

. At the end of April 1958 he was seconded to Scientific-Research Group No. 1 of the

General Staff A military staff or general staff (also referred to as army staff, navy staff, or air staff within the individual services) is a group of officers, Enlisted rank, enlisted, and civilian staff who serve the commanding officer, commander of a ...

. Shvetsov died on 1 October 1958 in Leningrad and was buried at the

Alexander Nevsky Lavra Saint Alexander Nevsky Lavra or Saint Alexander Nevsky Monastery was founded by Peter I of Russia in 1710 at the eastern end of the Nevsky Prospekt in Saint Petersburg, in the belief that this was the site of the Neva Battle in 1240 when Alexa ...

in that city.

Decorations

Shvetsov was a recipient of the following decorations: *

(2) *

(3) *

Order of Suvorov The Order of Suvorov () is a military decoration of the Russian Federation named in honor of Russian Generalissimo Prince Alexander Suvorov (1729–1800). History The Order of Suvorov was originally a Soviet Union, Soviet award established on ...

, 1st class *

Order of the Patriotic War The Order of the Patriotic War () is a Soviet Union, Soviet military Order (decoration), decoration that was awarded to all soldiers in the Soviet armed forces, security troops, and to Partisan (military), partisans for heroic deeds in the Easte ...

, 1st class

References

Citations

Bibliography

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Shvetsov, Vasily 1898 births 1958 deaths Soviet colonel generals People from Cherepovetsky Uyezd People from Vologda Oblast Soviet military personnel of the Russian Civil War Soviet military personnel of World War II Recipients of the Order of Lenin Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner Recipients of the Order of Suvorov, 1st class Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union alumni Frunze Military Academy alumni Burials at Kazachye Cemetery