Career
Born in a peasant family of Russian ethnicity in Yarushki, Vyatka Governorate (now part of Izhevsk, Udmurtia), Saburov joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1932 and the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs in 1938. A few months after the German invasion of Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics in the autumn of 1941, Saburov organized first guerrilla units in Bryansk, Oryol and Sumy regions occupied by the enemy. His partisan unit numbered around 1800 men and during the winter of 1941-1942 effectively harassed German troops operating behind the enemy lines.
At the end of 1942 Saburov moved his partisan unit into Ukraine and operated in central and western Ukraine.
Together with Sydir Kovpak he played a key role in the leadership of partisan movement in Ukraine. In 1944 Saburov was promoted to the rank of major general.
After the war he held high-ranking People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs positions in Ukraine and in 1954 became one of the heads of the Soviet Ministry of the Interior. Alexander Saburov died on 15 April 1974 and is buried at Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow. Hero of the Soviet Union (18 May 1942).