Dmitriy Ustinov

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Dmitriy Fyodorovich Ustinov (Russian: Дмитрий Фёдорович Устинов) (October 17, 1908–December 20, 1984) was Defense Minister of the Soviet Union from 1976 until his death. He had previously been head of the defense industry since Stalin appointed him People's Commissar of Armaments in 1941. He also became deputy premier in 1957.

Dimitry Fyodorovich Ustinov was born in Samara to a working-class family. He began his career working as a fitter in a paper mill and as a diesel mechanic and went on to study design engineering in Leningrad. He joined the communist party in 1927.

When the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Stalin chose Ustinov, who was then 33 years old and the director of Leningrad's Bolshevik Arms Factory, to supervise the evacuation of the defense industry to the east of the Ural Mountains. Stalin later rewarded Ustinov, whom he called "the Red-head," with the Soviet Union's highest civilian honor: Hero of Socialist Labor.

A candidate member of the Politburo since 1965, he did not become a full member until he was Defense Minister, at which time, though he had no prior military career, he was also made a Marshal of the Soviet Union.

Ustinov was widely regarded as the likely conservative candidate to succeed Yuri Andropov as General Secretary of the ruling CPSU. However the appointment of Konstantin Chernenko allowed the reformist forces around Mikhail Gorbachev to further strengthen their hand and eventually it was Gorbachev who succeeded.

In November 7, 1984, Soviet television viewers had fully expected to see him pass through Red Square to review the Military Parade on the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, but he never appeared. Ustinov had contracted pneumonia in October. Emergency surgery had to be performed to correct an aneurysm in the aortic valve. His liver and kidneys later malfunctioned, and he suffered a cardiac arrest and died. He was honoured with a state funeral and was buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis on December 24th.

On his death the city of Izhevsk was briefly renamed for him, but under Mikhail Gorbachev cities that had been renamed for recent Soviet leaders reverted to their former names.

Ustinov had a son named Nikolai (1931-1992).