Nikolai Ogarkov
| Nikolai Vasilyevich Ogarkov | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Native name | Николай Васильевич Огарков |
| Nickname(s) | "Formidable soldier" «грозный солдат» |
| Born |
30 October 1917 Molokovo, near Tver, Russia |
| Died | 23 January 1994 (aged 76) Moscow, Russian Federation |
| Allegiance |
 Soviet Union
|
| Years of service | 1938-1994 |
| Rank | Marshal of the Soviet Union |
| Commands held | Soviet General Staff |
| Awards |
 
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Nikolai Vasilyevich Ogarkov (Russian: Николай Васильевич Огарков; 30 October 1917 in the village of Molokovo, Tver Governorate – 23 January 1994) was a prominent Soviet military personality. He was promoted to Marshal of the Soviet Union in 1977. Between 1977 and 1984, he was Chief of the General Staff of the USSR. He became widely known in the West when he became the Soviet military's spokesman following the shootdown of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 near Moneron Island in September 1983. He was fired by General Secretary Konstantin Chernenko in 1984 for his association with Grigory Romanov.
In 1984, Romanov was Gorbachev's main rival for the succession of the ailing Konstantin Chernenko. Romanov had been trying to force a crisis of succession where his control of the armed forces, via Ogarkov, would have tipped a split within the Politburo to his favor. Furthermore, the Politburo was worried about Ogarkov's rapid ascension: Ogarkov had already weakened the power of the Main Political Administration, the organisation tasked with keeping the military under party control, and he had gained access to the Defense Council, though not as a voting member. Ogarkov was a strong advocate of reconstructing the huge, unwieldy Soviet military machine into a smaller, more compact strike force based around advanced technology. In a candid exchange with an American journalist in 1982, he had admitted that "Soviet technology is a generation or two behind America. In your country, even small children play with computers. We do not even have them in every office of the Defense Ministry. And for reasons you well know, we cannot easily make computers available in our society. Economic reforms are sorely needed, but they will most likely also entail political reforms." This openness was in sharp contrast with the bombastic anti-American rhetoric he displayed during the aftermath of the KAL-007 shootdown. Aside from Ogarkov's belief that fundamental changes needed to be made to the Soviet socioeconomic status quo, he also ran afoul of army officers who believed in a more traditional World War II style of warfare. In a 1984 article in the army newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda, Ogarkov outlined his vision for modernizing the Soviet military. Romanov, who was preparing for a diplomatic mission, could not protect Ogarkov from being dismissed from his positions for "unpartylike tendencies". Ogarkov was later made operational commander of the Western theater of the Soviet strategic forces, i.e. of the forces directly posed against NATO forces.
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