Filipp Ivanovich Golikov | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Golikov in 1941 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Native name | Филипп Иванович Голиков | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | 2 July [O.S. 15 July] 1900 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Died | 29 July 1980(1980-07-29) (aged 80) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Buried | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Allegiance |  Soviet Union | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Branch | Soviet Army,Main Intelligence Directorate | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Years of service | 1918–1980 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Rank | Marshal of the Soviet Union | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Commands | 6th Army 10th Army 4th Shock Army Bryansk Front 1st Guards Army Voronezh Front | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Awards |
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Filipp Ivanovich Golikov (Russian:Филипп Иванович Голиков; 2 July [O.S. 15 July] 1900 – 29 July 1980) was aSoviet military commander. As chief of theGRU (Main Intelligence Directorate), he is best known for failing to take seriously the abundant intelligence about Nazi Germany'splans for an invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, either because he did not believe them or becauseJoseph Stalin did not want to hear them.[1] He served in subsequent campaigns and was promoted to the rank ofMarshal of the Soviet Union in 1961.
Golikov was born into a peasant family ofRussian ethnicity inBorisova [ru], in thePerm Governorate of theRussian Empire.[2] His father, Ivan Nikolaevich Golikov, served as a medical orderly with the garrison inTobolsk. Father and son both joined theRussian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in April 1918. A month later, Golikov enlisted in the Red Army as a volunteer. He was apolitical commissar through most of theRussian Civil War, and for 11 years afterwards. He graduated from theM. V. Frunze Military Academy in 1933. He was appointed commander of a regiment in 1931, and in 1938, during theGreat Purge he was suddenly promoted to membership of the Military Council of theByelorussian Military District. He was apparently sent there to supervise a purge of Red Army commanders in the district, including the future war heroGeorgy Zhukov, who never forgave him. Later in 1938, he was abruptly removed, and in November 1938 was made commander of the Vinnitsa Army Group, and, in 1939, of the6th Army. During theSoviet invasion of Poland in 1939, he was in charge of overrunning and occupyingLvov,[3] and in 1940 he served in theWinter War against Finland.
In July 1940, Golikov was appointed head ofMain Intelligence Directorate (GRU), despite having no previous experience of intelligence gathering. Stalin evidently knew that he was ill-qualified: during the 18th party conference the following February, he said of Golikov "as an intelligence agent, he is inexperienced, naive: an intelligence agent ought to be like the devil, believing no one, not even himself."[4] Five of Golikov's predecessors had been or were about to be shot; his immediate predecessor,Ivan Proskurov had been held responsible for the fiasco of the Finnish War, though it is more likely that he was sacked for being too outspoken about the poor state of preparedness of the Soviet military. Golikov therefore had a powerful incentive to tell Stalin only what he wanted to hear, and Stalin refused to believe thatHitler would break the non-aggression pact they had negotiated in 1939. From early in 1941, Soviet intelligence was receiving multiple warnings from within Germany, and from the British and American officials of the risk of a German invasion. On 20 March, Golikov signed a widely distributed assessment of all the current intelligence, which began with the observation: "The majority of agent reports concerning the possibility of war with the USSR in the spring of 1941 come from Anglo-American sources, the goal of which at present is without a doubt to worsen relations between the USSR and Germany."[5] As late as May, even though he knew and had told his superiors that the number of German divisions on the USSR border had been increased from 70 to 107, Golikov forecast that Germany's next military operations would be against the UK, inGibraltar, North Africa and the Near East.
In April-June 1941, Golikov reported on the continued concentration of German troops near the Soviet western border, the number of divisions drawn to it, their combat strength and numbers, their locations, called the date of the attack on the USSR — 22 June 1941 (this date was indicated by about 15 reliable sources). From July 1940 to June 1941, the GRU of the General Staff of the Red Army sent 95 (only declassified) messages to the leadership of the USSR about the concentration of German troops.[6]
Despite his record, Golikov was retained as head of the GRU until October 1941. He led a mission to London on 8–13 July, and to Washington on 26 July. In 1942, he commanded theBryansk Front, then at the start of the battle of Stalingrad, he was appointed deputy commander under GeneralAndrey Yeryomenko. When it was decided to move the command headquarters to comparative safety on the East bank of the Volga, Golikov was ordered to stay behind in the city. According toNikita Khrushchev, the front's political commissar: "A look of terror came over Golikov's face...I never saw anyone, soldier or civilian, in such a state during the whole war. He was white as a sheet and begged me not to abandon him. He kept saying over and over, 'Stalingrad is doomed'.".[7] He was recalled to Moscow, where he complained to Stalin about the way Khrushchev and Yeryomenko had treated him. Stalin accepted his version, and appointed him commander of theVoronezh Front in October 1942. He led thecounterattack that recaptured Voronezh on 26 January 1943, andKharkov on 16 February, but afterKharkov was retaken by the Germans, in March 1943, Marshal Zhukov insisted that Golikov be dismissed.
For the remainder of the war, until 1950, he was head of the Chief Personnel Directorate of theSoviet Ministry of Defence. In October 1944, he was also appointed head of the council for the repatriation ofSoviet prisoners of war.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn mentions Golikov briefly in a footnote in part one of hisGulag Archipelago, accused him of the mass incarceration in thegulag system of former SovietPOWs who returned home after World War II. He writes, "One of the biggest war criminals, Colonel General Golikov, former chief of the Red Army's intelligence administration, was put in charge of coaxing the repatriates home and swallowing them up."[8] The later release of Soviet archives showed that there was in fact no such mass incarceration.[citation needed]
After the war, Golikov held a succession of mainly political posts at theSoviet Ministry of Defence. In 1946, Stalin began to resent the praise heaped on Marshal Zhukov as the architect of victory, so Golikov presented a detailed case against the Marshal at a special session of the Military Council, in June. Zhukov was publicly humiliated and relegated to a minor military post. In 1949–50, Golikov contributed to theLeningrad affair, the virulent purge of the Leningrad party leadership, by engineering the dismissal of the head of the Main Political Administration of the Armed Forces,Iosif Shikin. In 1950, he was given command of a mechanised army, and in 1956 was appointed head of theMilitary Academy of Armoured Troops. In January 1958, he benefited from the second fall of Marshal Zhukov, by being appointed head of the Main Political Administration of the Armed Forces, his job being to ensure that the military stayed under communist party control. He was abruptly dismissed in April 1962, officially for health reasons, though the real reason may be that he opposed Khrushchev's decision to ship nuclear missiles to Cuba.[9] Afterwards, he was appointed Inspector General of the USSR Ministry of Defence.
Golikov died on 29 July 1980 in Moscow, and was buried atNovodevichy Cemetery.
Heads of the Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye (GRU) | ||
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