13 Facts About Filipp Golikov

Filipp Golikov served in subsequent campaigns and was promoted to the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union in 1961.

Filipp Golikov was a political commissar through most of the Russian Civil War, and for 11 years afterwards.

Filipp Golikov was appointed commander of a regiment in 1931, and in 1938, during the Great Purge he was suddenly promoted to membership of the Military Council of the Byelorussian Military District.

In July 1940, Filipp Golikov was appointed head of Main Intelligence Directorate, despite having no previous experience of intelligence gathering.

Filipp Golikov therefore had a powerful incentive to tell Stalin only what he wanted to hear, and Stalin refused to believe that Hitler would break the non-aggression pact they had negotiated in 1939.

When it was decided to move the command headquarters to comparative safety on the East bank of the Volga, Filipp Golikov was ordered to stay behind in the city.

Filipp Golikov was white as a sheet and begged me not to abandon him.

Filipp Golikov kept saying over and over, 'Stalingrad is doomed'.

Filipp Golikov was recalled to Moscow, where he complained to Stalin about the way Khrushchev and Yeryomenko had treated him.

Filipp Golikov led the counterattack that recaptured Voronezh on 26 January 1943, and Kharkov on 16 February, but after Kharkov was retaken by the Germans, in March 1943, Marshal Zhukov insisted that Golikov be dismissed.

In 1946, Stalin began to resent the praise heaped on Marshal Zhukov as the architect of victory, so Filipp Golikov presented a detailed case against the Marshal at a special session of the Military Council, in June.

Filipp Golikov was abruptly dismissed in April 1962, officially for health reasons, though the real reason may be that he opposed Khrushchev's decision to ship nuclear missiles to Cuba.

Filipp Golikov died on July 29,1980, in Moscow and was buried at Novodevichy Cemetery.