Dmitry Ustinov
Dmitriy Fyodorovich Ustinov (Russian: Дмитрий Фёдорович Устинов) (October 17, 1908–December 20, 1984) was Defense Minister of the Soviet Union from 1976 until his death.
Dimitry Fyodorovich Ustinov was born in Samara to a working-class family. He began his career working as a fitter in a paper mill and as a diesel mechanic and went on to study design engineering in the Military Institute of Mechanics in Leningrad (now St. Peterburg). He graduated in 1934, and worked first as a construction engineer. He joined the communist party in 1927.
When the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Stalin appointed Ustinov, who was then 33 years old and the director of Leningrad's Bolshevik Arms Factory, to the post of People's Commissar of Armaments, and he supervised the evacuation of the defense industry to the east of the Ural Mountains. Stalin later rewarded Ustinov, whom he called "the Red-head," with the Soviet Union's highest civilian honor: Hero of the Socialist Labor.
In 1957, he became deputy premier. Ustinov earned this prestigious award a second time in 1961, from Nikita Khrushchev for his work in ensuring that the first man to orbit the earth was a Soviet cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin. Khrushchev valued Ustinov's managerial skills enough to appoint him to First Deputy Premier and place him in control of the civilian economy in 1963.
In October 1964, Nikita Khrushchev was ousted. while Dmitry Ustinov served as chairman of the Supreme National Economic Council, he was detailed to fly down to the Black Sea and bring Khrushchev back. Ustinov arrived on the morning of Tuesday, Oct. 13, as Khrushchev was talking with French Atomic Science Minister Gaston Palewski. Ustinov demanded that Khrushchev return immediately to Moscow for the special meeting of the Presidium. At sunset, Khrushchev and Ustinov landed at Moscow's Vnukovo Airport, where a ZIL limousine waited to take him to the Kremlin.
After the ouster of Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev took power, and Ustinov returned to the defense industry and took charge of developing the Soviet Union's strategic bomber force and intercontinental ballistic missile system. Ustinov who was known in the defense industry as Uncle Mitya, and also as Chelomei's stolid personal adversary also signed onto the Salyut project.
When Defense Minister Marshal Rodion Malinovsky died in 1967, there was widespread speculation that the post would pass to Ustinov. Instead, the Kremlin chose another military man, Marshal Andrei Grechko.
A candidate member of the Politburo since 1965, he did not become a full member until he was Defense Minister, at which time, though he had no prior military career, he was also made a Marshal of the Soviet Union.
The Soviet military's growing clout cast Ustinov in the role of a Kremlin kingmaker: his support was apparently critical in giving the edge to former K.G.B Chief Yuri Andropov in the race to succeed Brezhnev.
Ustinov was widely regarded as the likely conservative candidate to succeed Yuri Andropov as General Secretary of the ruling CPSU. However the appointment of Konstantin Chernenko allowed the reformist forces around Mikhail Gorbachev to further strengthen their hand and eventually it was Gorbachev who succeeded.
In November 7, 1984, Soviet television viewers had fully expected to see him pass through Red Square to review the Military Parade on the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, but he never appeared. Ustinov had contracted pneumonia in October. Emergency surgery had to be performed to correct an aneurysm in the aortic valve. His liver and kidneys later malfunctioned, and he suffered a cardiac arrest and died. He was honoured with a state funeral and his ash was buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis on December 24th in a temperature of (-7) celsius.
On his death the city of Izhevsk was briefly renamed for him, but under Mikhail Gorbachev cities that had been renamed for recent Soviet leaders reverted to their former names.
Ustinov had a son named Nikolai (1931-1992).