Sergey Akhromeyev

Akhromeyev as a cadet in Naval School

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.[3]

Enrolled in August 1942 as a cadet in the courses of lieutenants at the 2nd Astrakhan Infantry School, which he graduated in the same year. From May to August 1942 he was a cadet with the Black Sea Fleet, serving as part of the gunnery unit on the ship. He then served as commander of a rifle platoon of the 197th Army Reserve Regiment of the 28th Army, and since 1943 as an adjutant senior rifle battalion of the same regiment on the 4th Ukrainian Front.[4]

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.[5]

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.[4]

Akhromeyev recalled his war experiences:

"A total of 18 months, I have never been in a house, even when the temperature is as low as minus 50 degrees celsius. I have been sleeping outside in two winters, and I have never had a warm day. Always fighting, always starving. Moreover, there are so many dead. 8 out of 10 boys of my age are dead. Of my 32 middle school classmates, only one of my classmates and I survived."

When the war ended in 1945, he was the commander of a tank battalion.

Major General Akhromeyev (1965)

After the war, from June 1945 to September 1945, he was deputy commander of the SU-76 Self-Propelled Artillery Battalion. From September 1945 to February 1947, he commanded a tank battalion of the 14th Separate Tank Regiment of the training center. From February 1947, commander of the ISU-122 battalion of the 14th Heavy Tank-Self-Propelled Regiment of the 31st Guards Mechanized Division in the Baku Military District in Azerbaijan SSR.[6]

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.[6]

From October 1968 to May 1972, he served as commander of the 7th Tank Army in the Belarusian Military District. From May 1972 to March 1974, Akhromeyev served as Chief of Staff and First Deputy Commander of the Far Eastern Military District. In 1973,he graduated from the Higher Academic Courses at the Voroshilov Military Academy of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces.

From March 1974 to February 1979, he was the Chief of the Main Operations Directorate (GOU) of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces and Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces.

In 1979, while serving as the First Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR, Akhromeyev formulated a comprehensive plan to invade Afghanistan. This plan was successful, and the Hafizullah Amin regime in Afghanistan immediately fell. Akhromeyev believed that after the occupation of Afghanistan, the Soviet Army should advance on victory and occupy the western part of Pakistan in one go, so that the Soviet Union could obtain the outlet of the Indian Ocean, in order to eradicate the logistics base of the Afghan Mujahaddin.[7]

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.[8]

Akhromeyev (1988)

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.[9]

Following his retirement from the armed forces, he served as the Deputy of the Council 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 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.[10]

Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff 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".[9]

From December 1988, he served as the Inspector General of the Group of Inspectors General of the Ministry of Defense of the Soviet Union. In March 1990, he was made advisor to the President of the USSR on military affairs. He resigned from all positions in 1991. On November 14, in an interview with the conservative Soviet magazine, he stated that in case of internal division within the USSR, there is a possibility that the military will be dispatched to prevent the country's disintegration. He stated:

"I openly state my position. I support the socialist way of life. If someone attempts to split the country or change its social system by force or other unconstitutional acts, the president and the Soviets can decide to use force to ensure the protection of our motherland. Unify and maintain its constitutional social system."

His comments attracted attention.[11] 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 people, is about to collapse".[12]

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."