The Civilian Soldier Fades Away

By John Kohan

Dmitri Ustinov: 1908-1984

His khaki uniform, decorated with rows of multicolored ribbons, always set him apart from other members of the Politburo at Kremlin receptions. With the notable exception of Leonid Brezhnev, no one else in that select group could have boasted, as he could, of being a marshal of the Soviet armed forces. But for all his military trappings, Defense Minister Dmitri Fedorovich Ustinov, whose death last week at the age of 76 opened up a key post in the Kremlin hierarchy, was a civilian engineer who had never commanded soldiers on the battlefield.

Ustinov owed his position at the top of the mammoth Soviet military machine to a simple truth: no matter how daring a general may be, he cannot wage and win wars if no one provides him with weapons. In that category, Ustinov excelled. During a career in the armaments industry that spanned five decades, he made certain that Soviet arsenals were never empty and lived to see his country surpass the U.S. in arms production.

The news of Ustinov's death first emerged last week after a world chess championship game was unexpectedly canceled in Moscow. The match had been scheduled for Friday evening at the House of Trade Unions, the hall where Soviet dignitaries traditionally lie in state. Questioned by a Western reporter, an elderly door attendant angrily said that Ustinov had died. Official confirmation came several hours later from Politburo Member Mikhail Gorbachev, who ended his trip to Britain a day early in order to return to Moscow. "We have had a great and tragic loss," Gorbachev explained before leaving Edinburgh. "Marshal Ustinov, our old friend and comrade-in-arms, has passed away."

Ustinov, who had been rumored to be ill for several months, was the first civilian to head the Soviet military since Leon Trotsky. He personified the principle that the Soviet armed forces must ultimately be the servant of the Communist Party. Still, during his eight years in the post, the military appeared to have gained unprecedented influence within the Kremlin. Politburo Member Grigori Romanov, 61, was named head of Ustinov's funeral committee, prompting speculation that he would become Defense Minister. But Moscow announced on Saturday that Marshal Sergei L. Sokolov, 73, would replace Ustinov.

The departure added to a sense of uncertainty in the Soviet military. With arms negotiations on hold, the Kremlin has seemed baffled about how to react to the defense policies of the West, particularly to those of the Reagan Administration. The abrupt transfer of Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov from his post as chief of the general staff last September suggested that the leadership was divided over nuclear and conventional strategy.

A stocky, sandy-haired man with gold-rimmed spectacles, Ustinov exuded neither charm nor charisma. Nonetheless, as a member of the dwindling but powerful old guard that had survived both Brezhnev and his successor, Yuri Andropov, he had become a more visible public presence early this year: in February, Soviet Leader Konstantin Chernenko shared the spotlight with Ustinov and Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko at Andropov's funeral. Later, in the fall, Ustinov faded out of the picture. Soviet television viewers had fully expected to see him pass through Red Square to review the massed battalions on the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution in November, but he never appeared. According to the official medical bulletin last week, 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 last Thursday evening.

Born on Oct. 30,1908, in Samara (now Kuibyshev), a city 550 miles southeast of Moscow on the Volga River, Ustinov was the child of working-class parents. 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.

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.

Ustinov earned the prestigious award a second time in 1961, from Nikita Khrushchev for his work in ensuring that the first man to orbit the earth was a Soviet cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin. The irascible Soviet Premier valued Ustinov's managerial skills enough to appoint him First Deputy Premier and place him in control of the civilian economy in 1963. When Leonid Brezhnev took power, Ustinov returned to the defense industry and took charge of developing the Soviet Union's strategic bomber force and intercontinental ballistic missile system.

A committed Communist since joining the party in 1927, Ustinov gained power in the bureaucracy as he rose in the armaments industry. When Defense Minister Marshal Rodion Malinovsky died in 1967, there was widespread speculation that the post would pass to Ustinov. Instead, the Kremlin chose another military man, Marshal Andrei Grechko. Ustinov finally got the Defense portfolio in 1976. Along with it, he gained full membership in the Politburo and the title of marshal.

The Soviet military's growing clout cast Ustinov in the role of a Kremlin kingmaker: his support was apparently critical in giving the edge to former KGB Chief Andropov in the race to succeed Brezhnev. Ustinov emerged as a decisive player in the Chernenko regime, making up for the new leader's limited experience in military affairs. At one point this year, when Chernenko's health appeared to falter, the Defense Minister was viewed as a possible interim leader who could oversee the transfer of power to a younger generation.

In 1979 Ustinov confidently asserted that "the armed forces of the U.S.S.R. are on a high level that ensures the accomplishment of any tasks set by the party and the people." He left his country with massive supplies of rifles, tanks, submarines, bombers and nuclear warheads--a huge arsenal but one that has made neither party nor people feel more secure.

--By John Kohan. Reported by Erik Amfitheatrof/Moscow

With reporting by Erik Amfitheatrof