Word: ustinov
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Born on Oct. 30,1908, in Samara (now Kuibyshev), a city 550 miles southeast of Moscow on the Volga River, Ustinov was the child of working-class parents. 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 Leningrad...
When the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Stalin chose Ustinov, who was then 33 years old and the director of Leningrad's Bolshevik Arms Factory, to supervise 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 Socialist Labor...
...Ustinov earned the 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. The irascible Soviet Premier valued Ustinov's managerial skills enough to appoint him First Deputy Premier and place him in control of the civilian economy in 1963. When Leonid Brezhnev took power, Ustinov returned to the defense industry and took charge of developing the Soviet Union's strategic bomber force and intercontinental ballistic missile system...
...committed Communist since joining the party in 1927, Ustinov gained power in the bureaucracy as he rose in the armaments industry. 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. Ustinov finally got the Defense portfolio in 1976. Along with it, he gained full membership in the Politburo and the title of marshal...
...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 KGB Chief Andropov in the race to succeed Brezhnev. Ustinov emerged as a decisive player in the Chernenko regime, making up for the new leader's limited experience in military affairs. At one point this year, when Chernenko's health appeared to falter, the Defense Minister was viewed as a possible interim leader who could oversee the transfer of power to a younger generation...