World War II In 1940, he graduated from the 1st Special Naval School in Moscow and in the same year began military service, enrolling in the
M. V. Frunze Higher Naval School. He took additional training at the naval base of the
Baltic Fleet in
Liepāja, in recently Soviet-occupied
Latvia. Akhromeyev was a
Naval Infantry junior officer on the
Eastern Front, serving with distinction during the
Siege of Leningrad, and was wounded and suffered
frostbite. He continued his studies at the M. V. Frunze Higher Naval School. At one point he was ordered to guard and hold a road on which the German Army would be trying to advance. Despite a bloody battle, he was able to accomplish the task. Relating the story during a meal with Secretary of State
George Shultz and Ambassador
Kenneth Adelman in
Reykjavík during the
Reagan Administration, Akhromeyev told Shultz that his accomplishment was not only a great sign of his patriotism, as Shultz suggested, but also was because had he abandoned the road,
Stalin would have had him shot. He was decorated for his participation in the defense of Leningrad. From July 1944, he was commander of a
motorized battalion of machine gunners of the 14th Self-Propelled Artillery Brigade of the Reserve of the High Command in the
Kharkov and
Moscow Military Districts. On 1945, he graduated from the Higher Officers' School of Self-Propelled Artillery of the Armored and Mechanized Forces of the Red Army. In 1952 he graduated from the
IV Stalin Military Academy of Armored and Mechanized Forces of the Soviet Army. From July 1952, he was the chief of staff of the 190th Tank-Self-Propelled Regiment in the
39th Army of the
Primorsky Military District. In August 1955, he commanded tank regiments in the
Far Eastern Military District. From December 1957 to December 1960, he served as deputy commander, chief of staff, and commander of the 36th Tank Division in the
Belarusian Military District. From April 1964, he served as commander of a training tank division. The young Soviet generals advocated for the invasion of Afghanistan.. Marshals
Vasily Chuikov,
Kirill Moskalenko and others held this view. During his time as deputy chief of staff, he almost gave up all rest time and devoted himself to work.
Chief of the General Staff and retirement In 1980, he was awarded the
Lenin Prize for his research into the use of automated systems in the Armed Forces. Akhromeyev was promoted to
Marshal of the Soviet Union in 1983, the only person to have obtained this position without having previously served as chief of the General Staff. Between 1984 and 1989, he served as
Chief of the General Staff of the
Soviet Armed Forces. In that capacity, Akhromeyev was heavily involved in the talks which brought an end to the
Cold War. He grew increasingly dissatisfied with
Mikhail Gorbachev's approach to reforming the military, in particular, his insistence on dismantling the newest and most accurate ballistic missile in the Soviet Army — the
SS-23 Spider — under the tenets of the
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, and resigned from that position. Following his retirement from the armed forces, he served as the Deputy of the
Soviet of the Union of the
Supreme Soviet of the USSR from the
Moldavian SSR on 1984. From December 1988, he served as an advisor to the
General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. During the
Chernobyl Disaster of 1986, Akhromeyev was involved in the organization and deployment of troops to the location of the catastrophe. The
Soviet Armed Forces personnel carried out radiation monitoring, decontamination of the terrain, sheltering contaminated wastes and participated in the burial of the emergency block. He later presented a report on the conduct of the troops during the disaster.
Admiral William J. Crowe (right) welcomes Akhromeyev, at the JCS Conference Room in
the Pentagon (1988) From May 1989, he served as an advisor to the
chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR,
Mikhail Gorbachev. In March 1989, he was elected People's Deputy of the USSR from the
Bălți Territorial District No. 697 of Moldavian SSR. Akhromeyev served as the member of the
Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the
Committee of the USSR Armed Forces on Defense and Security. During the meetings at the
Congress of People's Deputies and the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, he repeatedly spoke as well as in the press with articles about the "danger of a quick conquest of the USSR by
NATO". On June 19, 1991, at a press conference commemorating the 50th anniversary of the
Great Patriotic War, Akhromeyev observed that the situation of the Soviet Union in 1991 was similar to
that of 1941. He believed that the country was heading for its destruction, going so far as to say that "which was defended by Soviet soldiers and civilians
at the expense of millions of people, is about to collapse". According to Russian political writer
Roy Medvedev: "Marshal Akhromeyev was a worthy military leader and was highly respected in the army and in the party. The Marshal was discouraged by the behavior of the President of the USSR, who stopped giving his adviser and assistant any assignments and constantly postponed the decision a number of important military problems that Akhromeyev considered urgent. In the end, Akhromeyev submitted his resignation letter back in June 1991, but Gorbachev was also slow to resolve this issue." ==Involvement in the August Coup and death==