Army and naval ranks in modern Russia were established on February 11, 1993 by the Law "On conscription and military service." They provided for the introduction of ranks from the first - private / sailor - to Marshal of the Russian Federation. The only Russian marshal in more than two decades turned out to be the former Minister of Defense of the country Igor Sergeyev.
First marshals
Marshal of the Russian Federation replaced the title of Marshal of the Soviet Union, which existed since 1935, which 80 years ago was awarded to five legendary Soviet commanders, heroes of the Civil War, Semyon Budyonny, Vasily Blucher, Kliment Voroshilov, Alexander Yegorov and Mikhail Tukhachevsky. Of the entire quintet of red army commanders, only two survived to the Great Patriotic War - Budyonny and Voroshilov. The rest were repressed in 1937-1939, destroying them as "enemies of the people and foreign spies."
In total, 36 military leaders became Marshals of the Soviet Union, as well as - for their contribution to strengthening the country's defense - five prominent political figures of the USSR. Among the latter were Joseph Stalin, Lavrenty Beria, Nikolai Bulganin, Leonid Brezhnev and Dmitry Ustinov. The penultimate Minister of Defense of the USSR Dmitry Yazov, who was removed from his post after the failure in August 1991 of the attempted coup d'etat and the creation of the State Emergency Committee, became Soviet Marshal 41.
Russian stars
Soon after the formation in 1992 of sovereign Russia and the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, the country began to create its own Armed Forces. The law on service in them and conscription appeared in February 1993. They, in particular, provided that the highest rank in the country is now considered the Marshal of the Russian Federation. In second place were the General of the Army and the Admiral of the Fleet.
The first owner of a shoulder strap with one embroidered star 40 mm in diameter, with radially diverging and forming a pentagon silver rays, the country's coat of arms without a heraldic sign and oak wreaths in buttonholes appeared only four years later. On November 21, 1997, the newly minted Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation Igor Sergeev became the bearer of a special sign called "Marshal's Star". Sergeev held his post until he resigned in 2001 and was replaced by Sergei Ivanov from the KGB.
And he could become an admiral
It is curious that at the very beginning of his army career, the future Russian Marshal No. 1 dreamed of a naval service. For this, a 17-year-old graduate of a secondary school in Makeevka, Igor Sergeev, even came to Leningrad in 1955. But having entered the Higher Naval Hydrographic School, a year later, along with the entire course, he was transferred to Sevastopol. At the engineering faculty of the Admiral Nakhimov Naval School, cadet Sergeev began to study rocket weapons, linking his fate with it for a long time.
After completing his studies in 1960, on the eve of the Cuban missile crisis and the clanking of military "muscles" by the Soviet Union off the coast of Cuba and the United States, the young lieutenant went to serve in the recently created Missile Forces. Having started his officer career in the same 1960 as head of the missile inspection department, he eventually rose to the post of commander-in-chief of all domestic Strategic Missile Forces and Strategic Missile Forces.
Hero of Russia
The order on the appointment of Colonel General Igor Sergeyev as commander-in-chief of the Strategic Missile Forces was signed on August 26, 1992. However, a graduate of two academies at once - the Dzerzhinsky Military Engineering Academy and the General Staff - remained the first "military rocketman" in the country for only five years. In May 1997, he was approved as the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation, as well as a member of the Security Council and the Defense Council of the country. In the same year, General of the Army Sergeev was the first in the country to be awarded the rank of marshal.
In 1999 - "closed" for publication by the decree of the President of the country - Igor Sergeev was also awarded the title of Hero of Russia. After voluntarily resigning, not only the first, but also the last Russian marshal for today, until 2004 was the assistant to the Russian president on strategic stability issues. Igor Sergeev died on November 10, 2006 from a hematological disease in the Burdenko military hospital, and was buried in Moscow.
