There is such a famous Soviet World War II general, in his brilliant combat life, he conquered the north and south, and repeatedly made new achievements. A former military diplomat, he can be described as an evergreen presence among Soviet military generals. Although his origins were poor, he did not spend his life in mediocrity. In the defense of Stalingrad, he took the lead and became the most indestructible "strong fortress" in this heroic city.
He is our protagonist today, Marshal of the Soviet Union Vasily Ivanovich Trikov.
On February 12, 1900, the village of Sherebriane Prud in the Oshettel Valley of the Tula Province of the Russian Empire began with a small thin life, which was named Vasily Ivanovich Trikov by happy parents. Compared with the thin Trikov, his father was a famous local Hercules, and the disparity between the father and son's back has always been the topic of discussion in the village.
As a child, due to the large number of children in the family, Trikov's parents had to work several jobs to support the family. Although the family is reduced in food and clothing, life is still very hard, only enough to make ends meet. In 1912, due to the compulsion of life, the 12-year-old Trikov had to drop out of school and leave his parents to go to Petersburg to earn a living alone.
In Petersburg, Trikov painstakingly found a job in a factory to make a living, making a kind of needle that only tsarist officers could use. In his work, Trikov was influenced by the society of the time and received many progressive ideas, especially the ideas of the proletarian revolution. During this time in the factory, his consciousness has greatly improved. After the February Revolution in Russia in 1917, Trikov's factory also unfortunately closed. After idleness, Trikov met a friend who influenced his life, Ivan Ziming.
Under the influence of Ji Ming, Trikov became a staunch adherent of proletarian ideas. He longed for the people to be free from the exploitation of the factory owners and live a good life. But then the unfortunate thing happened, when his friend Ivan Ziming was shot dead by reactionary soldiers during a march against the bourgeois Provisional Government. At the same time that Trikov witnessed the death of his good friend, shocked and indignant, a major decision had taken root in his heart.
In 1917, Trikov joined the Baltic Fleet as an ordinary sailor. The October Revolution, which took place in the same year, further deepened his conviction to devote himself to the revolution. In the spring of the following year, Trikov entered the training course of military instructors in Moscow of the Red Army and became the first cadet. In the training class, Trikov received strict military training, and his military quality was greatly improved.
At the same time, a civil war was raging in the Soviet Union. After the training course, Trikov immediately threw himself into the torrent of civil war, and served as a deputy company commander in the Southern Front, serving as deputy regimental commander and regimental commander in November 1918 and May 1919 in the Eastern Front and the 40th Regiment of the 28th Division of the 2nd Army of the Western Front. During his tenure as commander, Trikov took part in the battle to crush the Kolchak bandit army, in which Trikov took the lead and personally led the warriors in a fierce battle with the enemy. As a result of his outstanding performance, on May 4, 1919, Trikov officially became an honorable member of the Bolshevik Party.
After crushing the Kolchak bandit army, Trikov was transferred to the Western Front as a regimental commander and took part in the battle against the Polish White Bandit Army. During the civil war, Trikov was brave and tenacious, and suffered a total of 4 wounds in the legs, shoulders and arms, but he remained on the front line and refused to take a step back, which also left a foreshadowing for the strong and indomitable defense of Stalingrad later.
In the era when Russia was in an eventful autumn, as an excellent commander, Trikov could be said to be in the "southern conquest and northern war" at home, leaving his figure in every battlefield and every battle. In 1922, after the end of the civil war, Trikov entered the Frunze Military Academy to study, accumulating a lot of practical experience and improving his theoretical skills.
After graduating in August 1925, Trikov did not leave the academy, but continued his studies in the Chinese Department of the Oriental Department of the Academy. It was here that he learned to Chinese and often talked about the Chinese revolution with Chinese students. In 1926, he visited China as an envoy, leaving footprints in Harbin, Shenyang, Dalian, Tianjin, and Beijing. In 1938 Trikov was promoted to major general and became an iron-blooded general defending Soviet power.
In 1942, the Soviet-German War officially broke out, Leningrad, Stalingrad and other cities were directly threatened by the Nazis, in order to defend the territory of the Soviet Union, in March Trikov was ordered to return to China and was appointed commander of the First Reserve Army, in May the army was officially renamed the 64th Army and in July was ordered to march into the Stalingradton River Dawan Bend for deployment. On 25 July, the Soviets engaged in the first direct confrontation with the Germans, and the 64th Army was forced to retreat across the Don River for defense due to the German superiority.
In early August, the 64th Army was incorporated into the South-East Front, tasked with blocking the Advancing German Forces. In the process of blocking, Trikov was repeatedly put in danger, but he ignored the danger and still held his position to command the troops to engage in fierce battles with the enemy. On September 12, 1942, the troops of the 64th Army, under the pressure of the enemy's superior forces, after heroic resistance, retreated to a defensive line only 2-10 kilometers from Stalingrad. The German assault groups attacked Stalingrad directly from the northeast and southwest, and the battle for the urban area of Stalingrad officially began.
At the critical moment, Trikov was ordered to become commander of the 62nd Army to replace his former commander, General Lopatin. After receiving the appointment, Trikov first reorganized the interior of the 62nd Army and made an oath: Stalingrad was the last line of defense, and in order to defend the city, all the soldiers were not allowed to retreat, and vowed to coexist with the city.
From 12 September, the Germans mobilized their forces to launch a frenzied attack on Stalingrad. In every corner of the city, every inch of land, every street, the German and Soviet armies engaged in close combat, Mamayev Post, Pavlov building, railway station... Every inch of Stalingrad was soaked with the blood of soldiers,
The Soviets used all available conditions to block the enemy to the maximum extent possible. In order to boost morale and hold the city, even though the German army had broken through to 1-3 kilometers from the headquarters and it was difficult to command the troops to fight, Trikov led the front-line command to stick to his post and refused to withdraw across the Volga. He even shouted the slogan: "I swear never to leave this city, I will do everything I can to hold on, I am determined to either defend this city or die here!" ”
Throughout October, Stalingrad was in the midst of brutal fighting, and both the Soviets and Germans paid a great price for it. On November 11, 1942, the Germans launched their last large-scale offensive in an attempt to occupy Stalingrad, and the 62nd Army was even divided into 3 parts, but under Trikov's stubborn resistance, the German attempt to occupy Stalingrad was unsuccessful.
While the 62nd Army held Stalingrad, the Soviet High Command took advantage of this period to quietly assemble a large number of troops in the Stalingrad area and drew up a battle plan to encircle and annihilate the enemy groups in Stalingrad. On November 18, 1942, Trikov led his troops to hold important strategic points, and the Soviet defensive phase of the Battle of Stalingrad ended. The Soviets began a strategic offensive campaign to encircle and annihilate the German group.
During the counter-offensive, Trikov led the 62nd Army and friendly forces to launch a fierce attack on the German army in the city, and on January 26, 1943, the 21st Army and Trikov's 62nd Army were victoriously divided into two parts. The Soviets then took advantage of the victory to pursue, and after 5 days of arduous fighting, the German Southern Army was wiped out and the remnants of the 6th Army surrendered. On 2 February, German commander Paulus led 91,000 German troops to surrender to the Soviet Union, and Trikov, who had persevered to the end, won the hard-won victory with the Soviet generals.
After the victory at Stalingrad, the 62nd Army under Trikov's command was reorganized by the Soviet High Command into the 8th Guards Army and transferred to the Southwestern Front. In the summer of 1943, the Soviets and germans fought the famous Battle of Kursk in history. As commander of the 8th Army, Trikov led his troops in battles including Iyzyum-Bałenkovo and Donbass, as well as the forced crossing of the Northern Donets and Dnieper Rivers, the night raid on Zaporozhye and the liberation of Odessa. For the bravery and tenacity of the combat command, on March 19, 1943, Trikov was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
After the Battle of Kursk, Trikov went on to participate in the battles of Lublin-Brest, Vist-Oder and Berlin. His 8th Guards Army had become a disciplined and daring iron army of the Soviet Army on the battlefield. In April 1945, Trikov led his troops into Berlin, on April 30 Hitler committed suicide in fear of crime, and on May 2 the German army completely stopped resisting.
On May 8, 1945, the German High Command sent a representative, led by Marshal Keitel, to sign an unconditional surrender in Karlshorst, on the outskirts of Berlin, and the German army formally surrendered. Trikov also participated in the surrender ceremony as a representative of the Soviet army, witnessing this historic moment.
After the war, Trikov was awarded the rank of Grand General. After that, he served as the first deputy commander of the Soviet army cluster in Germany, the commander-in-chief of the Soviet army cluster in Germany, the commander of the Kiev Military District, the deputy minister of defense of the USSR and the commander-in-chief of the army. On March 11, 1955, Trikov was officially awarded the title of Marshal of the Soviet Union.
In the last years of his life, Trikov wrote "The Collective Heroic Army Group", "180 Days in the War", "From Stalingrad to Berlin" and other works, recalling his magnificent military career and deep expectations for the modernization of the army's national defense.
On March 18, 1982, Vasily Ivanovich Trikov, Marshal of the Soviet Union and a military general of the most distinguished generation in the history of World War II, died of illness at the age of 82. According to his last wishes, his ashes were placed under the sculpture of "Mother of the Fatherland" in Mamayev Hill, where they were forever buried with their comrades who died there.
The life of Marshal Trikov was a glorious life. His heroic courage and decisiveness and simple spirit in the war will always be remembered by all peace-loving people. As Soviet Field Marshal Rokossovsky said: "As a commander, Trikov's courage and dedication are a living example for his subordinates."
Resources:
"World War II Soviet Generals"
"Trikov in My Eyes"
List of Generals of world war II