Nikolai Ogarkov

Nikolai Vasilyevich Ogarkov
Native name	Николай Васильевич Огарков
Nickname	"Formidable soldier" «грозный солдат»
Born	(1917-10-30)October 30, 1917
Died	January 23, 1994(1994-01-23) (aged 76)
Place of birth	Molokovo, near Tver, Russia
Place of death	Moscow, Russia
Allegiance	Soviet Union
Years of service	1938-1994
Rank	Marshal of the Soviet Union
Commands held	Soviet General Staff
Awards

Nikolai Vasilyevich Ogarkov (Russian: Николай Васильевич Огарков; October 30, 1917 in the village of Molokovo, Tver Governorate - January 23, 1994), was promoted to Marshal of the Soviet Union in 1977. Between 1977 and 1984 he was Chief of the General Staff of the USSR. He became widely known in the West when he became the Soviet military's spokesman following the shootdown of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 near Moneron Island in September 1983. He was fired by General Secretary Konstantin Chernenko in 1984 for his association with Grigory Romanov (see below).

The Revolution in Military Affairs and Ogarkov's Ouster

In 1984, Romanov was Gorbachev's main rival for the succession of the ailing Konstantin Chernenko. Romanov had been trying to force a crisis of succession where his control of the armed forces, via Ogarkov, would have tipped a spilt within the Politburo to his favor. Furthermore, the Politburo was worried about Ogarkov's rapid ascension: Ogarkov had already weakened the power of the Main Political Administration, the organisation tasked with keeping the military under party control, and he had gained access to the Defense Council, though not as a voting member. Ogarkov's ouster from his powerful position was triggered by an article he released in May 1984 in the military newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda, wherein he stressed how western developments in rapid information gathering and dissemination in the battlefield had changed the way wars would be fought (see above), and how woefully unprepared the Soviet Army was for such warfare. His call that the "demand" for all-around efforts to adapt the Soviet Army to the new technologies should "be unconditionally met" was interpreted as a challenge to the civilian party leadership. Romanov, who was preparing for a diplomatic mission, could not protect Ogarkov from being dismissed from his positions for "unpartylike tendencies". Ogarkov was later made operational commander of the Western theater of the Soviet strategic forces, i.e. of the forces directly posed against NATO forces.

Awards

• Hero of the Soviet Union (28 October 1977)
• Two Orders of Lenin (28 October 1977, 28 April 1980)
• Order of the October Revolution (29 October 1987)
• Order of the Red Banner (21 February 1969)
• Order of Suvorov, 1st Class (4 November 1981)
• Orders of the Patriotic War, 1st class, twice (23 June 1945, 6 April 1985) and 2nd class (22 October 1944)
• Two Orders of the Red Star (5 November 1954, 28 October 1967)
• Order for Service to the Homeland in the Armed Forces of the USSR, 3rd class (30 April 1975)
• Lenin Prize (1981)
• Medal for Combat Service
• Jubilee Medal "In Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary since the Birth of Vladimir Il'ich Lenin"
• Medal "For the Defence of the Soviet Transarctic"
• Medal "For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945"
• Jubilee Medal "Twenty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945"
• Jubilee Medal "Thirty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945"
• Medal "For the Capture of Budapest"
• Jubilee Medal "30 Years of the Soviet Army and Navy"
• Jubilee Medal "40 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR"
• Jubilee Medal "50 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR"
• Medal "For Impeccable Service" 1st class
• Order of the Red Banner (Czechoslovakia)
• Order of Polonia Restituta, 5th class (Poland)
• Order of Tudor Vladimirescu, 1st class (Romania)

Legacy

In 2003, a regional museum was opened in Molokovo. The museum is named after Ogarkov and presents expositions about his life.

External links

• (Russian) Biography
• Works by or about Nikolai Ogarkov in libraries (WorldCat catalog)

|- ! colspan="3" style="border-top: 5px solid #CF9C65;" | Military offices

|- style="text-align: center;" |- style="text-align:center;" |style="width:30%;" rowspan="1"|Preceded by
Viktor Kulikov |width="40%" style="text-align: center;" rowspan="1"|Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union
1977-1984 | style="width: 30%; text-align: center;" rowspan="1"| Succeeded by
Sergey Akhromeyev |- |}