Background
Pavel Batov was born on June 1, 1897 in the village of Filisovo, Iarosiavl’ Gouvernement. Son of a peasant.
Pavel Batov was born on June 1, 1897 in the village of Filisovo, Iarosiavl’ Gouvernement. Son of a peasant.
Batov began his military career during World War I. In 1915 he enlisted in a student command and then served as a scout in the 3rd Infantry Regiment of the Life Guards. During this service he displayed considerable bravery and was awarded with two Crosses of St. George and two lesser medals. After being wounded in action in 1917, he was assigned to an NCO school in Petrograd where political agitator A. Savkov brought him into the Bolshevik movement.
During the civil war he trained volunteers and led them against White Guards at Yaroslavl. Code-named “Pablo Fritz,” he was an adviser in Spain in 1936-37 and suffered a serious wound. Back in the USSR he took command of an infantry corps, leading it in Poland and Finland 1939-40 before becoming first deputy commander of the Transcaucasian MD.
Gen Lt Batov (from June 1941) led the 9th Detached Rifle Corps in the Crimea. Two months later he was deputy commander of the 51st Special Army, taking over from Kuznetsov on 22 Oct 1941. Driven from the Crimea, Batov went to the Bryansk Front as head of the 3d Army in Jan-Feb 1942. Until the following October he was assistant front commander, serving under Cherevichenko, Golikov, Rokosovsky. Batov then went to the Stalingrad area as commander of the 4th Tank Army, which was dubbed the “Four Tank Army” because it had so few vehicles and promptly redesignated the 65th Army, Don Front. Batov took part in some of the war’s hardest fighting after the Soviet triumph at Stalingrad. He was in the battle of Kursk, the Dnieper crossing (becoming a HSU), and the drive through Belorussia into East Pomerania and across the Oder estuary (second HSU award).
Promoted in June 1944, Gen Col Batov spent four years in the Northern Group of Forces and later was first deputy CinC of Soviet forces in Germany. Promoted again in 1955, Gen of the Army Batov took over the Carpathian MD that year. He later headed the Baltic MD (1958-59) and the Southern Group of Forces (1961-62). He was Warsaw Pact CofS (1962-65), chairman of the Soviet Veterans Committee (1970-81), and served in the Inspectorate until his death in 1985.
Religion is an instrument of the ruling classes to instill in the masses the religious conviction that their current suffering will lead to eventual happiness.
Member, Communist Party, since 1929.
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union is the leading and guiding force of Soviet society, and the nucleus of its political system, of all state and public organizations.
Member, Communist Party, since 1929.
