MARSHAL RODION MALINOVSKY
On a sunny morning in April, 1944, a car pulled up to a dilapidated
house on the outskirts of a small seaside town just liberated by the advancing
Soviet Army. Half destroyed after the recent fighting, the street was deserted
and few people saw a young and well-built General getting out of the car.
Glancing at the gentle green of the bushes lining up the  street,
the general walked into the house of his youth… It was from here that Rodion
Malinovsky, still a young boy, once sneaked out into the night and without
his mother even knowing it, boarded a military train that was heading to
the Russo-German front. Now, thirty years on, he, already a nationally
acclaimed General of the Army and the commander of the Ukrainian Front,
was finally back in the city he loved.
The child years of the would-be Marshal were not easy. His mother,
a struggling cook, hardly managed to send her son to an elementary school
after which he was forced to take up a number of manual jobs. Reading books
about Russian heroes was his only diversion from the daily toil. Impressed
by his readings, the young Rodion dreamed about someday becoming a military
man too. By the time World War One broke out he, already a 16-year-old
young man, made his way to the battlefront. He fought valiantly, was wounded
and decorated with the much-touted St. George’s Cross for Valor.
In 1916 his life took a drastic turn and he found himself on board a steamer
that was taking elite Russian soldiers to Marseilles across two oceans
around Asia, via Singapore and across the Red and Mediterranean Seas. The
Russians were being sent to reinforce the allies who were fighting an uphill
battle against the Germans. Once, it was outside Rheims, a small Russian
unit was encircled by the Germans and held out heroically for nearly 24
hours until reinforcements finally arrived and pushed back the advancing
enemy. The best fighters were later awarded by the French, including Rodion
Malinovsky who received a military cross for meritorious service. He spent
two more years away from Russia fighting the Germans as part of the Foreign
Legion of the First Moroccan Division. His second French award was for
the heroism he displayed fighting the enemy in Picardy.
Back in Russia, Malinovsky was now fully dedicated to military service.
In 1930 he graduated from a military academy and seven years later, already
a full Colonel, he was in Spain fighting the mutinous forces of General
Francisco Franco. During the Second World War that broke out shortly
after, Rodion Malinovsky commanded large Red Army units. During the battle
of Stalingrad the Second Guards Army he commanded routed the German’s Don
group of armies commanded by Field Marshal Mannstein. If it hadn’t been
for the Second Army’s heroic performance the Germans would have reached
Stalingrad and helped the stranded Sixth German Army of Field Marshal von
Paulus break out of the Soviet encirclement in which case the outcome of
the Stalingrad battle could have been quite different. Malinovsky’s
armies later did an equally great job liberating Ukraine, Moldavia, Hungary
and Czechoslovakia from Nazi enslavement.
The much-awaited Victory Day did not mean the end of war for Rodion Malinovsky,
however. In the Far East the Japanese armies still remained a formidable
force and so Malinovsky was put at the head of the Far Eastern Army that
was now poised to destroy Hitler’s onetime ally in the Pacific. By
its scope, ingenuity and strategic excellence the Far Eastern campaign
went down in the history of the Second World War. The Kwantung Army was
the backbone of Japan’s military might. Almost 40 divisions-strong, it
was a formidable force of well-trained soldiers eager to fight to the bitter
end. On August 9 of 1945 the Russian forces launched a general offensive
and, implementing Malinovsky’s plan, hit out hard surprising the enemy.
Caught virtually flat-footed, the Japanese defenses started falling apart
and in some sections of the front the Russian forces cut up to a hundred
kilometers deep into the enemy territory already on the first day of the
battle. The Kwantung army was eventually trapped and just 24 days
after the start of the far eastern campaign Japan unconditionally surrendered
to the allied powers.
In 1957 Rodion Malinovsky was appointed Defense Minister of the Soviet
Union and spared no time and effort building this country’s defense potential.
During his more than a half century long military career Rodion Malinovsky
worked his way up the military ladder from an ordinary soldier to a Marshal,
from a machine gunner to Defense Minister. A warrior and an outstanding
military leader, Rodion Malinovsky fulfilled his soldier duty to his chantry.
03/28/2005
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