Chief of the General Staff (Russia)

The Chief of the General Staff (Russian: Начальник Генштаба) is the chief of staff of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. He is appointed by the President of Russia, who is the commander-in-chief. The position dates to the period of the Russian Empire. The current Chief of the General Staff is Nikolai Makarov.

Chief of the Staff of the Red Army

• 1919 Mikhail Bonch-Bruevich
• 1919–24 Pavel Lebedev
• 1924–25 Mikhail Frunze
• Mar–Nov 1925 Sergei Kamenev
• 1925–28 Mikhail Tukhachevsky
• 1928–31 Boris Shaposhnikov
• 1931–35 Alexander Ilyich Yegorov

Chief of the General Staff of the Soviet Armed Forces

The formative period Chiefs of the General Staff were:

• Marshal of the Soviet Union A. I. Yegorov (September 1935 - May 1937)
• Marshal of the Soviet Union B. M. Shaposhnikov (May 1937 - August 1940)
• Army General K. A. Meretskov (August 1940 - January 1941)
• Army General G. K. Zhukov (February - July 1941)

During the years of the Great Patriotic War (1941-45) the General Staff was the primary organ of the General Headquarters of the Supreme Command on strategic planning and management of armed forces at the front, and was headed by:

• Marshal of the Soviet Union B. M. Shaposhnikov (August 1941 - May 1942)
• Marshal of the Soviet Union A. M. Vasilevsky (June 1942 - February 1945)
• Army General A. I. Antonov from February 1945)

Chiefs of the General Staff in the Cold War period were:

• Army General A. I. Antonov (February 1945 - March 1946)
• Marshal of the Soviet Union A. M. Vasilevsky (March 1946 - November 1948)
• Army General S. M. Shtemenko (November 1948 - May 1952)
• Marshal of the Soviet Union V. D. Sokolovsky (May 1952 - April 1960)
• Marshal of the Soviet Union M. V. Zakharov (April 1960 - March 1963)
• Marshal of the Soviet Union S. S. Biryuzov (April 1963 - October 1964)
• Marshal of the Soviet Union M. V. Zakharov (November 1964 - September 1971)
• Marshal of the Soviet Union V. G. Kulikov (September 1971 - 1977)
• Marshal of the Soviet Union N.V. Ogarkov (1977 - 1984)
• Marshal of the Soviet Union S.F. Akhromeev (1984 - 1988)
• Army General M.A. Moiseev (December 1988 - August 1991)
• Army General Vladimir Lobov (August 1991 – December 1991)

Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation

• Army General Viktor Dubynin (1991 – 1992)
• Army General Mikhail Kolesnikov (1992 – 1996)
• Army General Viktor Samsonov (1996) (acting)
• Army General Anatoly Kvashnin (1996 – 2004)
• Army General Yuri Baluyevsky (2004 – 2008)
• Army General Nikolai Makarov (2008 – current)

Further reading

• V.I. Feskov, K.A. Kalashnikov, V.I. Golikov, The Soviet Army in the Years of the Cold War 1945–91, Tomsk University Publishing House, Tomsk, 2004 (for Soviet era list of CGSs).

External links

• Official Russian Ministry of Defense website