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Dmitry Ustinov, Soviet statesman and military figure, Marshal of the Soviet Union, was born
On October 17 (30), 1908 Dmitry Fyodorovich Ustinov, a prominent statesman, party official and military figure, initiator of the defense industry and rocket and space engineering, Marshal of the Soviet Union, was born into a family of a working man in Samara.
From the age of 10 Dmitry Fyodorovich had worked as a courier and meanwhile attended evening general education courses. In 1921 the Ustinov family moved to Samarkand. In 1922 at the request of the elder brother Dmitry Fyodorovich was enlisted in the Red Army and served as a telephonist in special purpose units. Later he became a volunteer of the 12th Turkestan Regiment.
After demobilization in the autumn of 1923 Ustinov entered a vocational school in Makaryev, a town in Kostroma Region. After that he worked as a mechanic at a pulp and paper mill in the town of Balakhna, Nizhny Novgorod Region, and between 1927-1929 – he was a mechanic and a diesel operator at Zaryadye factory in Ivanovo-Voznesensk.
In 1934 Dmitry Ustinov graduated from the Military Institute of Mechanics in Leningrad and was appointed as a construction engineer at the Artillery Marine Research Institute. Later Dmitry Fyodorovich headed the operation and research department at the institute. In 1937 Dmitry Ustinov was transferred to the “Bolshevik” State Armament Optical and Steel Plant, where he worked as a senior construction engineer, deputy chief construction engineer, and from April 1, 1938 - director of the plant.
In June 1941 two weeks before the beginning of the Great Patriotic War Dmitry Ustinov was appointed as People’s Commissar of Armaments of the USSR. In hard military conditions he supervised the evacuation of plants into the heart of the country and the military production. In 1942 for significant contribution towards organization of production, mass production of armaments and development of new weapons the People's Commissar Ustinov was honoured with a title ‘Hero of Socialist Labor’.
In March 1953 Dmitry Ustinov took up a post of the Minister of Defense Industry of the USSR. He took part in the organization of rocket production, the development of new weapons for the army and navy. At the plenary session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) on March 26, 1965, Dmitry Fyodorovich was elected as Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU and held the post until October 1976. In April 1976 Dmitry Ustinov headed the Ministry of Defense of the Soviet Union, and the same year was awarded the title ‘Marshal of the Soviet Union’.
Dmitry Fyodorovich Ustinov paid much attention to the training of qualified engineers for enterprises and institutions of the military-industrial complex and the rocket and space industry of the country, foundation and development of research organizations of the Ministry of Defense of the USSR. As a result of this all military forces of the Soviet Union had advanced armaments, which were demonstrated at military exercises (“Zapad-81” being the largest of them).
Dmitry Fyodorovich Ustinov died on December 20, 1984. His ashes were interred in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis in Red Square, Moscow.
Marshal of the Soviet Union was awarded the gold star medal of the Hero of the Soviet Union and two gold star medals of the Hero of Socialist Labor, 11 Orders of Lenin, the Order of Suvorov 1st class, the Order of Kutuzov 1st class, medals of the USSR along with orders and medals of foreign states.
Lit.: Абрамов А. У Кремлёвской стены. 1988. С. 223-224; Дмитрий Фёдорович Устинов [Электронный ресурс] // Космический мемориал. 2006-2018. URL: http://sm.evg-rumjantsev.ru/ustinovy/ustinov-dmitrij-fyodorovich.html; Зенькович Н. Самые закрытые люди. От Ленина до Горбачева: Энциклопедия биографий. 2002; То же [Электронный ресурс]. URL: https://e-libra.ru/read/363202-samye-zakrytye-lyudi-ot-lenina-do-gorbacheva-enciklopediya-biografiy.html а.; Устинов Дмитрий Федорович [Электронный ресурс] // Министерство обороны Российской Федерации. Б. д. URL: http://encyclopedia.mil.ru/encyclopedia/history_department/more.htm?id=11345784@SD_Employee; Черток Б. Е. Ракеты и люди (в 4-х тт.). Кн. 1. Гл. 4. М., 1999; То же [Электронный ресурс]. URL: http://militera.lib.ru/explo/chertok_be/04.html.
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