,
Semyon Budyonny,
Kliment Voroshilov,
Vasily Blyukher, and
Alexander Yegorov. Only Budyonny and Voroshilov survived the
Great Purge. The military rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union was established by a decree of the Soviet Cabinet, the
Council of People's Commissars (
Sovnarkom), on 22 September 1935. On 20 November, the rank was conferred on five people:
People's Commissar of Defence and veteran
Bolshevik Kliment Voroshilov,
chief of the General Staff of the Red Army Alexander Yegorov, and three senior commanders,
Vasily Blyukher,
Semyon Budyonny, and
Mikhail Tukhachevsky. Of these, Blyukher, Tukhachevsky, and Yegorov were executed during Stalin's
Great Purge of 1937–38. On 7 May 1940, three new marshals were appointed: the new People's Commissar of Defence,
Semyon Timoshenko,
Boris Shaposhnikov, and
Grigory Kulik. During
World War II, Kulik was demoted for incompetence, and the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union was given to a number of military commanders who earned it on merit. These included
Georgy Zhukov,
Ivan Konev and
Konstantin Rokossovsky to name a few. In 1943, Stalin himself was made a Marshal of the Soviet Union, and in 1945, he was joined by his intelligence and police chief
Lavrentiy Beria. These non-military marshals were joined in 1947 by politician
Nikolai Bulganin. Two Marshals were executed in postwar purges: Kulik in 1950 and Beria in 1953, following Stalin's death. Thereafter the rank was awarded only to professional soldiers, with the exception of
Leonid Brezhnev, who made himself a marshal in 1976, and
Dmitry Ustinov, who was prominent in the arms industry and was appointed Minister of Defence in July 1976. The last Marshal of the Soviet Union was
Dmitry Yazov, appointed in 1990, who was imprisoned after the
failed coup against
Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991. Marshal
Sergei Akhromeyev committed suicide in 1991 during the
fall of the Soviet Union. The Marshals fell into three generational groups. • Those who had gained their reputations during the
Russian Civil War. These included both those who were purged in 1937–38 (Blyukher, Tukhachevsky, and Yegorov), and those who held high commands in the early years of World War II (Budyonny, Kulik, Shaposhnikov, Timoshenko and Voroshilov). All of the latter except Shaposhnikov and Timoshenko proved out-of-step with modern warfare and were removed from commanding positions. • Those who built their reputations during World War II and assumed high commands in the latter part of the war. These included Zhukov, Vasilevsky, Konev, Rokossovsky, Malinovsky, Tolbukhin, Govorov, and Meretskov. • Those who assumed high command during the
Cold War era. All were officers in World War II, but their higher commands were held in the
Warsaw Pact or as Soviet defence ministers. These included Sokolovsky, Grechko,
Yakubovsky, Kulikov,
Ogarkov,
Akhromeyev, and
Yazov. All marshals in the third category had been officers in World War II, except Ustinov, who had been
People's Commissar for Armaments. Even Yazov, who was 20 when the war ended, had been a platoon commander. Brezhnev was not a professional soldier, but was still commissioned as a political commissar in the war. Of the 35 Marshals who were career soldiers, the majority were of Russian origin. Timoshenko (Tymoshenko), Kulik (Kulyk), Grechko (Hrechko), Yeremenko (Yeryomenko), Moskalenko, Batitsky (Batytsʹkyy) and Koshevoy (Koshovyy) were of Ukrainian origin, while Sokolovsky (Sakaloŭski) and Yakubovsky (Jakuboŭski) had Belarusian origins. Rokossovsky (Rokossowski) was born in Congress Poland to a Polish family, while Malinovsky (Malinowsky) was born in Odessa (now in Ukraine) to a Polish father. Tukhachevsky also had Polish ancestry. Bagramyan (Baghramyan) was the sole marshal of Armenian origin. The rank was abolished with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991. It was succeeded in modern
Russia by the rank of
Marshal of the Russian Federation, which has been held by only one person,
Igor Sergeyev, who was Russia's defence minister from 1997 to 2001. There have been no living marshals since Yazov's death in February 2020. ==List of marshals==