Background
Mares’ev, Aleksei was born in 1916.
Mares’ev, Aleksei was born in 1916.
Graduated from the Higher Party Political School of the Central.
Joined the Red Army, 1937. Fighter pilot during World War II. Shot down over enemy territory, March 1942. Heavily wounded, crawled for 18 days back to the front-lines.
Both legs were amputated, but he returned to service
with artificial legs, and continued to serve as a fighter pilot. Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1952. Secretary of the Soviet War Veterans Association, 1956, and Vice-chairman, 1983.
Became a cult figure in the post-war years. B. Polevoi’s biography of him, Povesl' о Nastoiashchem Cheloveke, Moscow, 1946, was later turned into a film.
Religious leaders contribute to secular and religious wars by endorsing or supporting the violence.
The emphasis on peaceful coexistence doesn’t mean that the Soviet Union accepted a static world with clear lines. Socialism is inevitable and the "correlations of forces" were moving towards socialism.