Alexander Yegorov (soldier)

Alexander Yegorov
Yegorov in 1930
Native name	Алекса́ндр Ильи́ч Его́ров
Birth name	Alexander Ilyich Yegorov
Born	(1883-10-13)13 October 1883 Buzuluk, Samara Governorate, Russian Empire (now Buzuluk, Buzuluksky District, Orenburg Oblast, Russia)
Died	23 February 1939(1939-02-23) (aged 55) Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Buried	Donskoi Cemetery
Allegiance	Russian Empire (1902–1917)  Russian SFSR (1917–1922)  Soviet Union (1922–1938)
Service/branch	Russian Imperial Army Red Army
Years of service	1902–1938
Rank	Lieutenant Colonel (Imperial Army) Marshal of the Soviet Union (Red Army)
Commands held	Chief of the General Staff Transcaucasian Military District Kiev Military District Petrograd Military District Belorussian Military District Southwestern Front Southern Front 10th Army 9th Army 14th Army
Battles/wars	World War I Russian Civil War Polish-Soviet War
Awards	(see below)'

Alexander Ilyich Yegorov or Egorov (Russian: Александр Ильич Егоров, romanized: Aleksandr Il'ich Yegórov) (25 October [O.S. 13 October] 1883 – 23 February 1939) was a Soviet military leader and one of the original five Marshals of the Soviet Union.

Yegorov was born in Samara to a middle-class family. He joined the Imperial Russian Army in 1901 and saw action during the First World War. Following the outbreak of the Russian Revolution, Yegorov became a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and was one of the few trusted ex-tsarist officers in the Red Army. During the Russian Civil War, he commanded the Red Army's Southern Front and played an important part in defeating the White forces in Ukraine. Yegorov was the commander of the Southwestern Front during the Polish–Soviet War.

A good friend of Joseph Stalin, Yegorov further advanced his career in the 1920s. He served briefly as a military adviser to Chiang Kai-shek and Feng Yuxiang in China, and following his return to the Soviet Union he commanded the Belorussian Military District. In 1934, Yegorov was elected to the Central Committee of the Communist Party, and a year later he was named a Marshal of the Soviet Union and Chief of the General Staff.

When the Great Purge began, Yegorov was initially spared, and he was one of the judges that presided over the trial of Mikhail Tukhachevsky. By the end of 1937 he had become a target, and he was arrested a few months later. Yegorov was executed in February 1939.