Army General (Soviet rank)

Army general was a rank of the Soviet Union which was first established in June 1940 as a high rank for Red Army generals, inferior only to the Soviet Union. In the following 51 years the Soviet Union created 133 generals of the army, 32 of whom were later promoted to the rank of marshal of the Soviet Union. It is a direct counterpart of the Russian Federation's "Army general" rank.

Promotion

The rank was usually given to senior officers of the Ministry of Defence and General Staff, and also to meritorious military district commanders. From the 1970s, it was also frequently given to the heads of the KGB and the Ministry of the Interior.
Soviet army generals include Ivan Chernyakhovsky, Aleksei Antonov, Issa Pliyev and Yuri Andropov.
The Soviet rank of army general is equivalent to the UK and US ranks of general; Soviet and current Russian rank systems also have a marshal rank.
The corresponding naval rank is fleet admiral, which has been used in both the Soviet and Russian navies, although conferred much more rarely.
Army general was used for the infantry and marines, but in the air force, artillery, armoured troops, engineer troops and signal troops the ranks of marshal of the branch and chief marshal of the branch were used.