Early life He was born as the son of a farmer in the village of Kozulichy near
Babruysk in
Belarus. From 1916, he served in the
Tsarist Army as a platoon commander on the North-Western Front of
World War I. He completed artillery courses and became a junior officer of an artillery battery. In the Tsarist Army he achieved the rank of lieutenant. In February 1918 he started studies at the Pedagogical Institute in
Mogilev, but after completing his first year he was drafted into the
Red Army. He fought in the
Russian Civil War and the
War with Poland, as platoon commander, assistant commander and battery commander. After the war, Sviridov attended the Artillery school (1922), the
Frunze Military Academy (1930) and the
Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union, where he graduated in 1938. Between 1938-1941, he was commander of the artillery, of the
Belorussian Special Military District,
Central Asian and
Leningrad Military District. Since June 4, 1940, he was a Major General of Artillery. ===
World War II === When the war with
Germany broke out, he was Artillery commander of the
Northern Front, and in October 1941 Deputy Artillery Commander of the
Leningrad Front. From November 1941, he became commander of the
55th Army until December 1943, when he took over command of the
67th Army. On August 30, 1943 he was appointed Lieutenant General. On March 4, 1944, he was seriously injured and from the end of March 1944; he commanded the
42nd Army on the Leningrad Front and later the 2nd and 3rd Baltic Fronts. The troops under his command took part in breaking the
Blockade of Leningrad, the
Leningrad–Novgorod Offensive, the
Pskov-Ostrov Offensive, the
Riga Offensive (1944) and in the fighting in the
Courland Pocket.
After the War Between July 1945 and November 1947, he was Deputy Chairman of the Control Committee in
Hungary, and between January 1948 and April 1949 commander of the
Special Mechanized Army. In April 1949, he was appointed commander-in-chief of the
Central Group of Forces in Central Europe, a post he would hold until June 1953. At the same time, he was also
High Commissioner of the Soviet zone of occupation in Austria. In December 1954 he was recalled to Russia and became Deputy Commander of the
Odessa Military District, until March 1957, when retired. == Sources==