Hero of the Soviet Union Alexander Ilyich Lizyukov was born in the first year of the twentieth century and lived only 42 years. He died in battle with the rank of major general and entered the history of the Great Patriotic War forever as a brave hero who was not afraid to give his life for his homeland.
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The future General Lizyukov was born in the Belarusian city of Gomel in the family of a rural teacher, who later became a director, Ilya Lizyukov. There were two more sons in the family: the eldest Eugene, who later became a partisan commander, and the younger Peter, who also rose to the rank of Hero of the Soviet Union. Mom died early, Alexander was only nine years old. Perhaps, in part, this was the reason for the unambiguous choice of a military field.
Civil War
Having joined the army, the future General Lizyukov continued his studies. He began with artillery courses for commanders in Moscow. Rifle Division of the 12th Army of the Southwestern Front - this was the first appointment that the future General Lizyukov received. The biography of the hero during the Civil War was full of new appointments and victories in battles against General AntonDenikin and Ataman Simon Petliura.
In 1920 he was appointed artillery commander of the Kommunar armored train. He participated in battles in the war with Poland, which ended in 1921. During the period of hostilities, the train was captured by the Polish army. Then the future General Lizyukov took part in the suppression of the uprising in Tambov. A little later, in the autumn of 1921, he was sent to continue his military education in Petrograd. In 1923 he graduated from the Higher Armored School.
Military career
After graduating from the armored school, he received a new appointment - on the so-called Trotsky train. In September, he took up the post of deputy commander of an armored train in the Far East. For several years, the future General Lizyukov served on several more armored trains. A little later, he continued his military education. In the fall of 1924, Alexander Ilyich entered the Mikhail Frunze Academy, which trained senior officers. The study lasted three years, during which he tried himself both as an author-publicist and as a poet.
In the overwhelming majority of his journalistic works, he devoted to military-technical topics. In addition, he took part in the preparation and publication of the magazine "Krasnye Zori". In his poetic works, he mainly expressed revolutionary views and an unequivocal attitude towards the overthrown government. The following lines can be cited from the printed poems: “Our homeland of the workers / And the fatherland of the peasants / Will not be strangled, will not undermine / Neither bourgeois nor arrogantpan!"
Teaching and HR activities
As soon as Alexander Lizyukov graduated from the Higher Military Academy, he tried his hand at teaching. For a year he taught armored skills to cadets in Leningrad. Then he worked there for another year as an assistant in the educational department. Then he was transferred to the Dzerzhinsky Military Academy at the Faculty of Motorization and Mechanization to teach tactics. After that, he was assigned to the Propaganda Department of the Technical Headquarters of the Armaments of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, where he was in charge of the editorial publishing house.
Two years later, he received a new assignment to the Moscow Military District, where he was appointed commander of a tank battalion. A year later, he was entrusted with a whole tank regiment. However, at this career stage, he not only commanded the regiment, but was also fully responsible for its formation. His skills as a professional military man were so impressive that at the age of less than 36 he was promoted to the rank of colonel and appointed commander of the Sergey Kirov Tank Brigade in the Leningrad Military District.
His training skills were highly appreciated and he was awarded the Order of Lenin.
Abroad and arrest
In 1935, the future General Lizyukov was awarded especially high confidence - he was sent to France as a military observer, where the USSR delegation studied military maneuvers. However, three years later, during the period of severe repression, the biography of General Lizyukov(who at that time was not yet a general) made a sharp turn - this trip became one of the charges in the anti-Soviet conspiracy. Specialists arrested him in early February 1938. The fabricated case was based on the testimony of one of his colleagues, Innokenty Khalepsky. The future general was expelled from the party, fired from the Red Army and stripped of his ranks. He was forced to confess to himself. In order to "knock out" this testimony, interrogations were repeatedly applied to him with prejudice.
In addition to the conspiracy, he also confessed his intention to commit a terrorist attack in order to kill People's Commissar Kliment Voroshilov and some other top leaders of the country. According to special officers, he planned to drive a tank into the Mausoleum. He spent two years without two months in the NKVD prison, and for almost a year and a half of them he spent in solitary confinement. In December 1939, a military tribunal acquitted him. In 1940, he returned to teaching, and in the spring of 1941 he returned to the ranks of the army.
The Great Patriotic War and death
Met the war on vacation. After the attack of the Nazi formations, he was assigned to the Western Front. The first place of hostilities for the general was the city of Borisov in Belarus. In July, he headed the city defense headquarters. And already in the first months he was awarded the highest award - the Hero of the Soviet Union and the Order of Lenin. In January 1942, he was promoted to the rank of major general. From the very beginning of the war until his death, he was at the epicenter of the mostfiercest battles and clashes. The general met his death in battles in the Voronezh region: his tank, which broke into the enemy's positions, was hit. The monument to General Lizyukov was erected only in May 2010 on the sites of his last battles in Voronezh.
