Semion Ivanov Semion Pavlovich Ivanov ( ; September 13 , 1907 – September 26 , 1993 ) was a Soviet general . Biography . Early life . Ivanov was born to a peasants ' family . He worked in railroad maintenance since the age of twelve , while continuing to study at school during his spare time . He volunteered into the Red Army in 1926 , and was sent to the 1st Infantry School in Moscow . Graduating at 1929 , he was given command of a platoon in the 16th Infantry Division . Ivanov joined the All - Union Communist Party ( Bolsheviks ) during the same year . In 1936 , he was sent to the Frunze Military Academy . Three years later , when he completed his studies , Ivanov was assigned to the Ural Military District as an assistant to the chief of operations . During the Soviet - Finnish War , he served as the chief of staff in the 1st Infantry Corps of the 8th Army . World War II . Shortly after the beginning of the German - Soviet War in 22 June 1941 , Colonel Ivanov was appointed operations ' chief of the 13th Army and took part in the Battle of Białystok – Minsk . In December , he was made chief of staff in the Southwestern Front ' s 38th Army . On July 1942 he was given the same office in the 1st Tank Army , and later , in the 1st Guards Army . He became a Major General and the Southwestern Front ' s chief of operations on 14 October and as such participated in the Battle of Stalingrad . At December , he was promoted to the front ' s chief of staff . On 19 January 1943 , he was promoted to Lieutenant General . When the Southwestern was reformed as the Voronezh Front , Ivanov retained his position under General Nikolai Vatutin and took part in the Battle of Kursk . When the 1st Ukrainian Front was created from the Voronezh ' s forces , he remained as its chief of staff . On 11 November 1943 , Ivanov was relieved from his post after making two contradictory redeports to Moscow on the military situation in the Fastiv Raion , without noticing that he was submitting data on the same region at both occasions . He was removed from the front and sent to be chief of staff in the Transcaucasian Front . At October 1944 , he was assigned in the same capacity to the 3rd Ukrainian Front , which was engaged in fighting near Budapest . He remained in this post until the end of the war with Germany , being promoted to Colonel General on 19 April 1945 . Later , he took part in the Moscow Victory Parade of 1945 . In late June , Ivanov was transferred to the Far East Command , serving as Marshal Aleksandr Vasilevsky chief of staff during the Soviet - Japanese War . For his role in planning the operation , he was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union at 8 September 1945 . Post - war years . Ivanov served as chief of staff in a variety of Soviet formations : the Belorussian Military District ( March 1946 - November 1948 ) , the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany ( November 1948 - June 1952 ) , the Odessa Military District ( 1952 - 3 ) , Moscow Military District ( 1953 - April 1956 ) and the Kiev Military District ( April 1956 - September 1959 ) . At September 1959 , he became the chief of the Soviet Army ' s Main Operations Directorate and a deputy to the Army ' s Chief of the General Staff Marshal Vasily Sokolovsky . As such , he was involved in Operation Anadyr and the Cuban Missile Crisis , during the latter of which he stayed in the Kremlin and assisted Nikita Khruschev . In 1963 , when Colonel Oleg Penkovsky was arrested , Ivanov committed negligence in his work ; Khruschev wrote in his memoirs that he did not recall the exact deed , but only that it might have ended in a security risk . The general was therefore removed from office and sent to command the remote Siberian Military District , where he remained until 1968 . At 19 February 1968 , Ivnaov was promoted to Army General , and became commander of the Voroshilov Academy in May . This was his last post in the army . He retired from the Armed Forces in February 1973 , and served as an inspector in the Ministry of Defence until 1992 .