Background
VLASOV, Andrey was born in 1900 in Vladimir Province, now Ivanovo Oblast.
VLASOV, Andrey was born in 1900 in Vladimir Province, now Ivanovo Oblast.
Graduate military college, then Frunze Military Academy.
From 1918 in Red Army. Rose from private to commander of a front. From 1938 Soviet military adviser in China.
Late 1938 recalled from China and appointed commander of infantry regt, then div with forces of Ukraine Military district. 1940 led his div in the occupation of Western Ukraine. 1940 Vlasov’s 99th Division was rated the best trained after an inspection by People's Commissar of Defense Timoshevnko.
With start of World War 2 commandered motor-mechanized corps, with which he retreated from Western Ukraine to Kiev area. August—September 1941 commanded army in battle of Kiev and commanded Kiev Fortified Area on Southwestern Front. After the Soviet forces group at Kiev was routed, Vlasov broke out of German encirclement with the remains of his army and joined up with main body of Soviet troops.
December 1941—January 1942 in battle of Moscow commanded 20th Soviet Army on Zhukov’s Western Front and in winter counter-offensive near Moscow achieved first major Soviet success, taking Solnechnogorsk and smashing the Germans’ 2nd Tank Division and two infantry division Winter 1942 appointed deputy commander of chief, Volkhov Front. February—April 1942 in the operation to lift the blockade of Leningrad, when two Soviet armies were sunounded on the western bank of the Volkhov, he coordinated the operations of the surrounded armies which, for a long time, the Soviet command would not allow to break out of encirclement.
Summer 1942, after these armies were routed, retreated to the forests with the remnants of the Soviet units and was finaly captured by the Germans. He later testified that it was at this time that he underwent a crisis in his Communist outlook, caused by his realization that the Soviet high command was mismanaging military operations, the contradiction between the interests of the people and the regime, dawning nationalist feelings and his awareness that the Soviet regime was incapable of political evolution. This explains the fact that, while in German captivity, he agreed to head an anti-Soviet Russian nationalist movement.
Fall 1942 published his “Smolensk Appeal”, urging Russians to fight the Communist regime and headed the Russian National Committee. However, the German political authorities’ decision to use his name for propaganda purposes virtually prevented development of this liberation movement. From 1942 to fall 1944 he did everything he could to try and overcome the German Nazi regime’s opposition to development of the “Liberation Movement”, but it was not until the fall of 1944 that the Nazis removed some of their obstacles.
November 1944 the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia published in Prague a manifest outlining the Liberation Movements’ political program and Vlasov was authorized to form two divs of the Russian Liberation Army from the various Russian battalions scattered throughout the German Army. May 1945, with the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the American and Soviet forces, he surrendered with his two divs to the Americans but was handed over to Soviet authorities together with his closest aides.
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.
Communist Party member from 1930.