Vlasov, Lt-General Andrey

Vlasov, Lt-General Andrey (1900–46),Red Army Officer who was prominent in the defence of Moscow before becoming deputy commander of the Volkhov front (army group), in March 1942, and the commander of Second Shock Army. Captured by the Germans in July 1942, he agreed to try to form an anti-Stalinist Russian Liberation Movement recruited from prisoners-of-war (see Soviet exiles at war).

The youngest son of a peasant, Vlasov broke off his seminary and agricultural studies at the time of the revolution. In the spring of 1919 he was called up. He served in the Red Army during the civil war, was promoted rapidly, and became a professional soldier during the reorganization of the Red Army. Steady promotion in the 1920s and 1930s was accompanied by party membership from 1930 and in 1938 he was appointed to Marshal Timoshenko's staff. His subsequent appointment as chief of staff to General A. I. Cherepanov, the Soviet military adviser to Chiang Kai-shek, shows that he was seen as politically trustworthy. However, the decoration given to him by the Chinese leader and a watch from Madam Chiang Kai-shek were removed from Vlasov on the border when he returned in 1939; but he was reappointed to the Kiev military district. He was then appointed commander of the 99th Infantry Division. It had been notorious for its indiscipline, but in 1940 it was awarded the Order of the Red Banner for the best division in the Kiev military district, and Vlasov received the Order of Lenin (see decorations).

Vlasov's early war service was exemplary. In command of Thirty-Seventh Army defending Kiev he fought his way out even after losing contact with HQ. Appointed commander of the Twentieth Army in November 1941, he took part, together with Rokossovsky's Sixteenth Army, in the December counter-attack outside Moscow and in January 1942 his army spearheaded the main Soviet counter-offensive in the Mozhaisk–Gzhatsk–Vyazma area. On 24 January he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner and was promoted Lt-General.

In March 1942, he was made deputy commander of the Volkhov front created to relieve the pressure on Leningrad; it was a significant appointment in a precarious situation where inadequately trained troops were under severe pressure. But for reasons which are still unclear GHQ failed to provide Vlasov's Second Shock Army with the necessary support, nor was Vlasov allowed to withdraw, and the army was subsequently surrounded. Vlasov gave his men the order to disband and spent the next three weeks in the forests and swamps.

Subsequently, he explained that he had been horrified by the treatment afforded his men and asked himself why this had occurred. He could not rejoin the Soviet forces as he faced severe punishment for the loss of the army, regardless of where the blame lay. Eventually, he was located by German troops and was well treated in captivity, which predisposed him to agree to try to form a Russian Liberation Movement with the intention of persuading the Nazi authorities to alter political policy towards the USSR. This decision led him to become embroiled in a complex political situation for which he lacked the experience or temperament. He was recaptured by the Red Army in May 1945 and was hanged on 1 August 1946.

C. Andreyev

Bibliography

Andreyev, C. , Vlasov and the Russian Liberation Movement (Cambridge, 1987).
Dallin, A. , German Rule in Russia (2nd edn., London, 1981).
Fischer, G. , Soviet Opposition to Stalin (Cambridge, Mass., 1952).
Steenberg, S. , Vlasov (New York, 1970).
Strik-Strikfeldt, W. , Against Stalin and Hitler (London, 1970).