Vasily Sokolovsky

Vasily Sokolovsky

Vasily Danilovich Sokolovsky (Russian: Васи́лий Дани́лович Соколо́вский) (July 21, 1897 – May 10, 1968) was a Soviet military commander.

Sokolovsky was born into a peasant family in Kozliki, a small town in the province of Grodno, near Białystok in Poland (then part of the Russian Empire). He worked as a teacher in a rural school, where he took part in a number of protests and demonstrations against the Tsar. He joined the Red Army in February 1918.

He began his formal military schooling in 1919, but was frequently called up by the Red Army and forced to leave his schoolwork. He graduated in 1921 and was made the chief of staff of a division stationed in Turkmenistan. During a battle near Samarkand, he was wounded, and subsequently decorated for bravery. After the Russian Civil War, he held a number of staff positions, eventually becoming the chief of staff for the Moscow Military District and then the Deputy Chief of the General Staff, the position he held at the beginning of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa.

In December 1941, when German forces were a mere 20 kilometers from Moscow, Sokolovsky was made the chief of staff of the Western Front, where he was able to help co-ordinate the Soviet winter counter-attacks that pushed the Germans away from Moscow. He remained in this position until February 1943, when he became the commander of Western Front.

He led this front through the Kursk battles, until April 1944, when the Western Front was broken into two, and Sokolovsky was made chief of staff of 1st Ukrainian Front. He remained in this position until the end of the war. As the chief of staff of 1st Ukrainian, Sokolovsky helped plan and execute the Berlin operation, among others. After the war, Sokolovsky was the deputy commander in chief of Soviet forces in East Germany, until July 3, 1946.

On that day Sokolovsky was promoted to the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union, and also made commander in chief of Soviet forces in East Germany and head of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany. In 1949 he was made the Deputy Minister of Defense, a position he held until 1952, when he was made the Chief of the General Staff. In 1960, Sokolovsky was made the Inspector-General of the Ministry of Defense. He retained this position until his death on May 10, 1968.

Sokolovsky became widely known in the West with the publication in 1962 of Military Strategy, a book that contained rare detail on Soviet thinking about war, particularly nuclear war.

Sokolovsky was a key member of the Soviet war command during World War II as an excellent planner and a fine military leader. He was particularly well trusted by Marshal Georgy Zhukov. The urn containing Sokolovsky’s ashes is buried in the Kremlin.

Sokolovsky was a prominent figure in William T. Vollmann's 2005 National Book Award winning novel, Europe Central.