Andrei Antonovich Grechko (Russian: Андре́й Анто́нович Гре́чко, Ukrainian: Андрій Антонович Гречко; 17 October [O.S. 4 October] 1903 – 26 April 1976) was a Soviet military commander and Marshal of the Soviet Union during the Cold War. He served as the Soviet Minister of Defence from 1967 to 1976.
After the war, Grechko commanded the Kiev Military District. In 1953, he was appointed commander-in-chief of Soviet Forces in East Germany, and led the suppression of the East German uprising. In 1955, he was named a Marshal of the Soviet Union. In 1957, he became commander-in-chief of the Soviet Ground Forces, and three years later he also became the commander of the Warsaw Pact forces. In 1967, Grechko was appointed Minister of Defence, and oversaw the subsequent Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia and violent border clashes with China. He helped modernize the Soviet Army and was responsible for continuing the Soviet hegemony over Eastern Europe. An ideological hardliner, he was a defender of the first strike nuclear strategy, and only reluctantly supported Leonid Brezhnev's détente with the United States and the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT). Grechko died in 1976 at the age of 72.
Early life
Grechko was the thirteenth child born to a family of Ukrainian peasants on 17 October 1903, at a small town near Rostov-on-Don.[1][2]
From September 1921 to July 1922, he served in a separate battalion of OSNAZ in Taganrog. He studied at the Crimean Cavalry courses Named After the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, in which he graduated in August 1923. After graduation, he was sent to study at the Taganrog Cavalry School of the North Caucasian Military District and in August 1924, he was transferred to the North Caucasian Mountain Nationalities Cavalry School in Krasnodar. During his studies, he was a foreman of a squadron and from 1925 to 1926, he participated in military operations against gang formations in Chechnya and Dagestan. He graduated in 1926 and became a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.[2]
From September 1926 to April 1932, he served in the 61st Cavalry Regiment of the 1st Separate Cavalry Brigade at the Moscow Military District, and platoon and machine-gun squadron commander.[2]
Grechko graduated from the Military Academy of the Red Army named after M. V. Frunze in 1936. After graduation, he served in the Special Red Banner Cavalry Division named after I.V. Stalin of the Moscow Military District and later transferred to the Belarusian Special Military District, where he served as assistant chief and chief of the 1st (operational) part of the division headquarters and commander of the 62nd Cavalry Regiment. From May 1938 to October 1938, he served as assistant chief of staff of the division.[2]
Grechko (center), commander of the 1st Guards Army, at the Árpád Line (1944)
In October 1938, he was appointed as chief of staff of the 62nd Cavalry Regiment. While serving in this position, he participated in the Soviet invasion of Poland.[2]
On 15 January 1942, Grechko was put in command of the 5th Cavalry Corps and took part in the Barvenkovo–Lozovaya offensive. From March 1942, he was appointed as commander of the operational group of troops in the Southern Front, which operated in the Donbas. Starting 15 April 1942, Grechko was placed in command of 12th Army and took part in the defense of Voroshilovgrad and from July, took part in the Battle of the Caucasus. In September 1942, Grechko commanded the 47th Army and at the same time acting as commander of the Novorossiysk Defensive Region. He commanded the 47th Army in the Transcaucasian Front from 19 October 1942 and took part in the Tuapse Operation.[3]
From 5 January 1943, Grechko was commander of the 56th Army in the Transcaucasian Front, during which he took part in the North Caucasian Strategic Offensive Operation. After fierce battles in January, his unit broke through the heavily fortified enemy defenses and reached the approaches to Krasnodar. From February to March, as part of the North Caucasian Front, he participated in the Krasnodar Offensive, and then in a number of local and mostly unsuccessful offensive operations of the front troops. In September 1943, the troops of the 56th Army, in cooperation with the 9th and the 18th Armies, liberated the Taman Peninsula from the direction of Novorossiysk, during the Novorossiysk-Taman Strategic Offensive Operation.[4]
Then, on 14 December 1943, he was made the Commanding General of 1st Guards Army, a position he held until the end of the war. The First Guards Army was a part of the 4th Ukrainian Front, which was led by Col.-Gen. Ivan Yefimovich Petrov. Grechko led the 1st Guards in a number of offensive operations, predominantly in Czechoslovakia, Hungary and into Austria.[5]
From 1960 to 1967, he was the Commander-in-Chief of the Warsaw Pact Forces.[8]
Minister of Defense
On 12 April 1967, Grechko was made the Minister of Defense, taking over shortly after Marshal Rodion Malinovsky died. Grechko served in this capacity until his death in 1976. During the 1970s, Grechko served as the chairman of the editorial commission that produced the official Soviet history of the Second World War.[9]
In December 1971, during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, Grechko helped to provide military support to India during the war. During the Arab-Israeli conflict, Grechko oversaw the providing of Soviet military support to Arab countries against Israel. In the final days of the Yom Kippur War in 1973, Grechko authorized the Soviet advisers operating the Scud missile brigade stationed in Egypt to fulfill Egyptian request to launch a barrage of missiles at Israeli Defense Forces targets at the Israeli bridgehead on the western bank of the Suez Canal on October 22, just moments before the ceasefire. Seven Israeli soldiers were killed in the attack.[12][13][14]
By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of October 16, 1973, "for services to the Motherland in the construction and strengthening of the Armed Forces of the USSR and in connection with the 70th anniversary of his birth", Grechko was awarded the title of the Hero of the Soviet Union for the second time.[7]
Grechko was an active member in the Communist Party, and was a member of the Politburo. As Minister of Defense, he helped modernize the Soviet Army and was greatly responsible for maintaining the military strength of the Soviet Union. He was also responsible for maintaining Soviet military might and hegemony over Eastern Europe. An ideological and strategic hardliner, and a reluctant supporter of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT), his most notable idea was his assumption that a Third World War would always go nuclear at some point, and as such he planned that if World War III did begin, to launch all-out nuclear strikes against the NATO nations the moment that the war began.[15] For Grechko, nuclear weapons would be weapons of first resort in a world war, not weapons of last resort. His views had caused opposition within the military and the political leadership, who wanted the Soviet Union to have a second strike capacity in order to prevent a war with the United States from going nuclear immediately as he preferred.[15]
In 1976, shortly before his death, he initiated the deployment of the RSD-10 medium-range ballistic missiles, which led to the NATO Double-Track Decision in the early 1980s.[16][17]
Personal life and death
Grechko was married to Claudia Vladimirovna Grechko (1907-1990), with whom he had a daughter Tatyana Andreevna (1927-2002). Tatyana was married to Soviet and Russian diplomat Yuriy Kirichenko (1936-2017), the son of First Secretary of the Communist Party of UkraineAleksey Kirichenko. According to the memoirs of his contemporaries, Grechko was an enthusiastic fan of the sports club CSKA Moscow. Due to his efforts, the club received not only a new stadium, but also an arena, a base in Arkhangelsk and a host of other sports facilities.[18]
Grechko died on 26 April 1976, at the age of 72. According to The New York Times, Grechko's medical report which was published by the Soviet press agency TASS stated that he had suffered for a long time from atherosclerosis and coronary insufficiency. He was honoured with a state funeral and cremated on 30 April. The urn containing his ashes is buried by the Kremlin Wall Necropolis.[19][20][21]
Honours and awards
Portrait of Marshal Grechko featured in the 2003 Russian postal cover
Bronze bust of Grechko at the Alley of Heroes Monument
Bronze busts honoring Grechko were installed in his hometown at the Kuibyshevo in Rostov Oblast of Russia and Alley of Heroes Monument in Slovakia.[25]
^ abCant, James "The SS-20 Missile-Why Were You Pointing at Me?" pages 240-253 from Russia War, Peace and Diplomacy edited by Ljubica and Mark Erickson, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2004 page 245
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