Education
He graduated from the Frunze Military Academy in 1928.
He graduated from the Frunze Military Academy in 1928.
After his forces were heavily defeated within the first few days of the campaign, he was relieved of his command, arrested, charged with military incompetence and executed. He was exonerated or, in Soviet parlance, rehabilitated in 1956. Pavlov was a veteran of the First World War, as well as the Russian Civil War, serving in the Red Army since 1919.
He then commanded various mechanised and cavalry units.
In contrast to many other officers who took part in that war, he was not purged after his return to the Soviet Union, and was made the Head of the Directorate of Tank and Armoured Carolina Troops of the Red Army which gave him considerable influence on its development. In particular he insisted that tanks be shifted to infantry support roles, which in hindsight turned out to be incorrect.
He participated in the Winter War, as well as the border clashes with Japan. In 1940, Pavlov became the commander of the Western (Belorussian) Special Military District, which became the Soviet Western Front bearing the brunt of German attack during Operation Barbarossa in June 1941.
On February 22, 1941, he was one of the first Soviet generals to receive the new rank of General of the Army, inferior only to the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union.
After the units under his command suffered a disastrous defeat in the Battle of Białystok-Minsk, during the first days of the invasion, Pavlov was relieved of his command, arrested and accused of criminal incompetence and treason. He and his chief of staff Klimovskikh were first accused of:
Pavlov and his deputies were accused of "failure to perform their duties" rather than treason. On July 22, 1941 the same day the sentence was handed down, Pavlov"s property was confiscated, and he was deprived of military rank, shot and buried in a landfill near Moscow by the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs. Also, the commander of the 14th Mechanized Corps, Major General C. I. Oborin, was arrested on July 8 and shot.
The commander of the 4th Army, Major General A. A. Korobkov, was dismissed on July 8, arrested the next day and shot on July 22.
Pavlov and other commanders of Western Front were exonerated as lacking evidence in 1956.
As one of the Soviet military advisers, in 1936-1937 he took part in the Spanish Civil War on the Republican side (using the nom de guerre Pablo) and commanded a brigade of Soviet tanks, for which he was made a Hero of the Soviet Union. Death penalties were also passed down for other commanders of the Western Front, including the Chief of Staff, Major General B. E. Klimovskikh. The chief of the communications corps, Major General AT Grigoriev. The Chief of Artillery, Lieutenant General of Artillery A. Klich. And Air Force Deputy Chief of the Western Front (who, after the suicide of Major General Aviation I I Kopets, was, nominally at least, Chief of the Air Force of the Western Front), Major General Aviation A. I. Tayursky.
