Ogarkov joined the
Red Army in 1938 and graduated from the Astrakhan Rifle and Machinegun School. In 1941, he graduated from the Military Engineering Academy named after Kuibyshev and was awarded the rank of Military Engineer of the 3rd Rank.
World War II Following the start of
Operation Barbarossa in 1941, Ogarkov was stationed at the construction of a fortified area near the
Łomża region as a regimental engineer within the 1st Infantry Regiment of the 17th Infantry Division of
Western Front. From October 1941 to February 1942, he served as a Senior Fortification Engineer of the 2nd Department in the engineering department of the
Karelian Front and from February 1942, he served as a Regimental Engineer of a Rifle Regiment in the 289th Rifle Division. In June 1942, Ogarkov served as a Brigade Engineer of the 61st Naval Rifle Brigades and from December 1942, he served as an assistant to the chief of staff of the Engineering Troops of the
32nd Army. In August 1943, he served as assistant to the chief of the Operational Department of the Headquarters of the Engineering Troops of the Karelian Front. From May 1944, he was appointed as Division Engineer of the 122nd Rifle Division in Karelsky. In November 1943, Ogarkov was assigned to the
2nd Ukrainian and
3rd Ukrainian Fronts. During World War II, he participated in the defense of
Karelia, and
Vyborg-Petrozavodsk,
Petsamo-Kirkenes,
Budapest and
Vienna offensives. In October 1944, he was awarded the
Order of the Patriotic War, 2nd degree. On April 11, 1945, during a battle, while leading
sapper units, Ogarkov was wounded and met the end of the war in the hospital. In July, he returned to his division, but three months later, in connection with its disbandment, Lieutenant Colonel Ogarkov was appointed assistant chief of staff of the Engineering Troops of the 27th Army of the
Carpathian Military District. On the same year, he joined the
Communist Party of Soviet Union.
Post war In 1947, he finished studying again at the Kuibyshev Military Academy for Engineer Troops and in 1959 the military academy of the General Staff. From 1945 to 1946 Ogarkov was assistant and senior assistant to the chief of staff of the Engineering Troops of the Carpathian Military District. From 1947 to 1948, he served as deputy head of the Engineering Directorate of the staff of the Commander-in-Chief of the
Primorsky Military District. There, after an excellent performance of a number of assignments, he attracted the attention of the commander of the district
Rodion Malinovsky, who contributed to his successful career growth. (left), following presentation of their
Marshal's star (1977) In September 1948, he was appointed senior officer of the department, and in January 1949, chief of a department of a directorate of the staff of the Commander-in-Chief of the Far East. From 1949 to 1953 he was then head of the operational management department and on September 4, 1950, he was promoted to
colonel. From 1953 he was deputy chief and finally from 1955, head of this leadership and deputy chief of staff of the
Far Eastern Military District. On July 11, 1957, he was appointed
major general. On the same year, he was sent to study at the
Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR. After graduating from the academy in 1959, Ogarkov commanded the
20th Guards Motor Rifle Division of the
Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, at the
East German city of
Grimma from 1959 to 1961. In December 1961, he was appointed chief of staff and deputy commander of the
Belarusian Military District. In December 1965, he was appointed as commander of the
Volga Military District and in April 1968, he was appointed as first Deputy Chief of the
General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR. Ogarkov was the candidate member of the
CPSU Central Committee from 1966 to 1971 and member of the CPSU Central Committee from 1971 to 1991. He served as deputy of the
Council of Nationalities of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR from 7th to 11th convocations from 1966 to 1989, from the
Lithuanian SSR. From March 1974 to January 1977, Ogarkov was the Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR, chairman of the State Technical Commission of the USSR and member of the Collegium of the Ministry of Defense of the USSR. On January 8, 1977,
General Ogarkov was appointed Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR and first Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR. On January 14, 1977, he was awarded the title of
Marshal of the Soviet Union. In the 1970s, he played an important role in the preparation of
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, in the development of formulas acceptable to both sides. Ogarkov was known as an active opponent of the
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, for which he had heated disputes with a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU and
Minister of Defence Dmitry Ustinov. As chief of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces, Ogarkov was not afraid to argue with Ustinov on a number of other issues such as military and weapons development.
The revolution in military affairs Ogarkov was a strong advocate of reconstructing the huge, unwieldy Soviet military machine into a smaller, more compact strike force based around advanced technology. In a candid exchange with an American journalist in 1982, he had admitted that: "Soviet technology is a generation or two behind America. In your country, even small children play with computers. We do not even have them in every office of the Defense Ministry. And for reasons you well know, we cannot easily make computers available in our society. Economic reforms are sorely needed, but they will most likely also entail political reforms." This openness was in sharp contrast with the anti-American rhetoric he displayed during the aftermath of the KAL-007 shootdown. Aside from Ogarkov's belief that fundamental changes needed to be made to the Soviet socioeconomic status quo, he also ran afoul of army officers who believed in a more traditional World War II style of warfare. In a 1984 article in the army newspaper
Krasnaya Zvezda, Ogarkov outlined his vision for modernizing the Soviet military. During the years of leadership of the Soviet General Staff, Ogarkov prepared and conducted several of the largest operational-strategic exercises and maneuvers in the history of the Soviet Armed Forces in all major strategic directions and with the use of all branched of the
Soviet Armed Forces, military scientific and military-industrial bodies. The largest of these was the operational-strategic exercise, code-named
Exercise Zapad-81, which was conducted in September 1981. In terms of its scale, it is comparable only to major operations during
World War II. It was the first to test an
industrial control system and some types of
precision-guided munitions. Ogarkov paid serious attention to the development of the theory of control of
Strategic Missile Forces and
missile defense, in fact, he created a center for operational-strategic research at the General Staff. Former secretary of the
Security Council of Russia Andrey A. Kokoshin recalled that Ogarkov was among the pioneers of considering the issues of the modern revolution in military affairs.
Ogarkov's ousting Ogarkov was fired by the
Politburo on 6 September 1984 in both his capacity of Chief of the General Staff and First Deputy Minister of Defense, and was replaced by
Sergey Akhromeyev. Romanov, who was preparing for a diplomatic mission, could not protect Ogarkov from being dismissed from his positions for "unpartylike tendencies".
Raymond L. Garthoff has written that although "the reasons for Ogarkov's abrupt removal are not known, there is little question that they concerned matters of defense allocation". Contrary to Zemtsov, Garthoff argued that "There is no indication that Ogarkov was involved in factional political infighting".
Career after ousting From August 1988 to January 1992, he served as inspector general of the
Group of Inspectors General of the Ministry of Defense. At the same time, from 1990 to August 1991, he headed the All-Union Council of Veterans of War, Labor, Armed Forces and Law Enforcement Agencies. Following the
dissolution of Soviet Union, in January 1992, he was appointed advisor to the newly formed
Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and at the same time, as an adviser to the Chief of the General Staff of the Joint Armed Forces of the
Commonwealth of Independent States. As an adviser to the Ministry of Defense, Ogarkov communicated primarily with the First Deputy Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation Andrey A. Kokoshin and the chiefs of the
General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, Generals of the Army
Viktor Dubynin and
Mikhail Kolesnikov. Kokoshin noted that consultations with Ogarkov were very important for working out optimal decisions on the first state arms program of the Russian Federation. ==Personal life and death==