Aleksandr Vasilevsky

Aleksandr Mikhaylovich Vasilevsky was a Russian career officer in the Red Army who was promoted to the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union in 1943. He was the Chief of the General Staff of the Soviet Armed Forces and Deputy Minister of Defense during World War II, as well as Minister of Defense from 1949 to 1953. As the Chief of the General Staff, Vasilevsky was responsible for planning and coordinating almost all decisive Soviet offensives in World War II, from the Stalingrad counteroffensive to the assault on East Prussia and Knigsberg.

Vasilevsky was born on September, 1895 in Novaya Golchikha in the Kineshma Uyezd in a family of Russian ethnicity. Vasilevsky was the fourth of eight children. His father, Mikhail Aleksandrovich Vasilevsky, was a priest to the nearby St. Nicholas Church. His mother, Nadezhda Ivanovna Sokolova, was the daughter of a priest in the nearby village of Ugletz. Vasilevsky reportedly broke off all contact with his parents after 1926 because of his Communist Party membership and his military duties in the Red Army three of his brothers did so also. However, the family resumed relations in 1940, following Joseph Stalins suggestion that they do so.

Source: Wikipedia