Кеңес маршалы Сергей Ахромеев: өмір жолы мен қызметі

Soviet marshal (1923–1991)

Sergey Fyodorovich Akhromeyev (Серге́й Фёдорович Ахроме́ев; May 5, 1923 – August 24, 1991) was a Soviet military figure, Hero of the Soviet Union (1982) and Marshal of the Soviet Union (1983). When he was the first deputy chief of staff of the Soviet Army, he formulated a military plan to invade Afghanistan. He later served as Chief of the General Staff of the Soviet Armed Forces from 1984 to 1988 and as chief military adviser to General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev. A member of the State Committee on the State of Emergency during the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, Akhromeyev died by suicide after the failure of the coup.

Sergey Akhromeyev was born on 5 May in 1923 in Vindrey, a village in the Tambov Governorate of the Russian SFSR (now Mordovia), in a family of Russian ethnicity. His father fell under dispossession and died in the late 1940s in Central Asia. His mother, after divorcing her husband in 1928, left with her children to Moscow, where she worked at the plant in Krasny Bogatyr.

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 Ken 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.

During the August Coup of 1991, Akhromeyev returned from Sochi, where he was on vacation with his wife Tamara Vasilievna and grandchildren, and met with the Vice President of the Soviet Union Gennady Yanaev, to offer his assistance to the coup leaders. On August 20, he worked in the Kremlin and in the building of the Ministry of Defense. Akhromeyev prepared a plan of measures to be taken in connection with the introduction of the state of emergency. On the night of August 20–21, he spent the night in his office in the Kremlin. From his office, he called his daughters and wife in Sochi. On August 20, Akhromeyev and Grigory Baklanov gathered a working group and organized the collection of information and analysis of the situation. On August 21, according to Akhromeyev, two reports prepared by this group were considered at a meeting of the Emergency Committee. In addition, Akhromeev prepared a draft text for Yanayev for his planned report at the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet. However, Yanayev did not like the text prepared by Akhromeev. On August 22, he sent a personal letter to Gorbachev, where he declared his support of the coup and urged Gorbachev to take action to prevent the dissolution of USSR. On August 23, he attended a meeting of the USSR Supreme Soviet Committee for Defense and State Security. He was, among others author of the planned assault on the White House. The defeat of the coup heralded the imminent end of his political career. After its failure, Akhromeyev committed suicide. Shortly after his death, there was speculation that the suicide and suicide note were fake and that he was in fact murdered. Among other things, there was speculation as to why he did not shoot himself with his service weapon. There have also been rumors that he has been murdered to prevent him from revealing the partnership of others in a coup attempt. Army general Valentin Varennikov expressed doubts about the suicides of Akhromeyev and Boris Pugo. In addition to personal messages to his family, he left a note explaining that he could not continue living when the institutions to which he had devoted his life were disintegrating. Akhromeyev was buried at the Troyekurovskoye Cemetery in Moscow. Shortly after his burial, his grave was vandalized and his corpse stripped of the decorations in the uniform, in which it had been buried. The culprits were never found, and it is uncertain whether it was an act of pure desecration or if the grave robbers hoped to sell the stolen uniform or its adornments for profit. The decorations were never recovered. As a result, a few days later a second funeral and reburial was conducted for him in the same cemetery. His tombstone is engraved with the coat of arms of the USSR and the words; 'communist', 'patriot' and 'soldier'. Admiral William Crowe, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and later the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom knew Marshal Akhromeyev

Akhromeyev was married to Tamara Vasilievna Akhromeyeva. They had two daughters, Tatiana and Natalia.