Smirnov was born on August 27, 1895, in
Saint Petersburg to nobles.
World War I and Russian Civil War In 1915, he was called up for military service in the
Russian Imperial Army. He graduated from the Vladimir Military School in 1916. He took part in the battles of
World War I from January 1916, when, with the rank of
warrant officer, he was sent to the post of junior officer in the 138th Infantry Bolkhov Regiment. As part of the regiment, he fought in the
35th Infantry Division of the
8th and in the
11th (from May 1916) Armies of the
Southwestern Front. For military distinctions, he received the military ranks of
second lieutenant and
lieutenant out of turn. On October 14, 1916, the
company commander, Smirnov, was wounded in a battle near the village of
Zvyzhen near
Brody. In November 1917, he was demobilized and immediately entered the
Red Guard, was an instructor in combat training of the Red Guard detachments. In the
Red Army since February 1918, joining it as one of the first volunteers. During the
Russian Civil War, Smirnov commanded a
platoon of the 1st Red Army
Regiment, was the head of the regimental school of the 1st Reserve Regiment, and commanded a
battalion of the 504th Infantry Regiment. From November 1919, he fought in the
56th Moscow Rifle Division: commander of the 504th Rifle Regiment, commander of the 166th Rifle
Brigade.
Interwar period After graduating from the Higher Academic Courses in 1922, Smirnov served from August of this year as commander of the 168th Infantry Regiment, from August 1923 – commander of the 58th Infantry Regiment, from October 1923 – assistant commander of the 56th Infantry Division in the
Moscow Military District. Since January 1924 – assistant commander of the
10th Infantry Division of the
Leningrad Military District. He graduated from the
Military Academy of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army Named After Mikhail Frunze in 1927. He served as the head of the 4th Department at the headquarters of the
Caucasian Red Banner Army. In 1927, he joined the
All–Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). From October 1929 – assistant commander, and from November 1929 – commander of the 4th Turkestan Rifle Division in the
Leningrad Military District. From February 1930 – commander (from August 1931 also military commissar) of the
12th Infantry Division of the
Separate Red Banner Far Eastern Army. Serving in 1935 as the chief of staff of the 35th Infantry Regiment of the 12th Division,
Afanasy Beloborodov, the future general of the army, spoke about the service with the division commander Smirnov, who was distinguished by his rudeness in dealing with his subordinates: Proskuryakov, chief of staff of the training artillery battalion, added in the same vein: At the same time, other memoirists note that Smirnov had a broad military outlook, was fluent in French, Arabic and Persian, and had great willpower. From June 1936 – commander and military commissar of the 39th Rifle Corps, from July 1937 – deputy commander of the
Primorsky Group of Forces of the Special Red Banner Far Eastern Army. From December 1938 – head of the
Higher Tactical Shooting Courses for the Improvement of Infantry Command Staff «Shot», from September 1939 – head of the Directorate of Military Educational Institutions of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army. From July 26, 1940 –
Inspector General of the
Red Army Infantry. With the introduction of general ranks in the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army on June 4, 1940, Smirnov was awarded the military rank of
lieutenant general. In December 1940, he was appointed commander of the
Kharkov Military District.
World War II From the beginning of the
German-Soviet War of
World War II, he commanded the
18th Army of the
Southern Front, whose troops fought heavy defensive battles on the southern wing of the Soviet–German front. The army participated in the
border battles in Moldova, in the Tiraspol–Melitopol and
Uman defensive operations. In their course, the army defended itself in the Kamenetz–Podolsky and Mogilev–Podolsky fortified regions, then with battles retreated to the line of
Voznesensk, Marinovka, Bolshaya Vradievka and went on the defensive. By mid–August, the troops retreated beyond the
Dnieper, and by the end of September – to the line between the Dnieper Floodplains (south of
Zaporizhzhia) and
Molochnyi Lyman. During the
Donbass–Rostov Defensive Operation, the main forces of the 18th Army were surrounded by the enemy from the north. While trying to break out of the encirclement, Lieutenant General Smirnov died in battle on October 8, 1941, near the village of Popivka (according to other sources, near the village of Andreevka) in
Zaporizhzhia Oblast. There are different versions about the circumstances of the death of Andrey Smirnov: according to one version, he died in a night battle while trying to break out of the encirclement, according to another, at a critical moment in the battle, he shot himself to avoid capture.
Refusal to evacuate During the Great Patriotic War, there was a practice of evacuating the senior command staff of large encircled groups of the Red Army. So
Semyon Budyonny was taken by plane from the cauldron at the
Battle of Kiev. From the
encircled Sevastopol, all the high command was taken out in submarines, including the commander of the garrison,
Ivan Petrov. According to some reports,
Stalin also offered evacuation to Smirnov, for which a special plane was sent, but Smirnov did not leave his troops, fulfilling his military duty to the end. He was buried in the village of
Smyrnove,
Zaporizhzhia Oblast. ==Military ranks==