Rodion Malinovsky

Rodion Yakovlevich Malinovsky (November 23, 1898 – March 31, 1967) was a Soviet military commander who was Marshal of the Soviet Union, and Minister of Defence of the Soviet Union in the late 1950s and 1960s. During World War II, he contributed to the major defeat of Nazi Germany at the Battle of Stalingrad and the Battle of Budapest. During the post-war era, he made a pivotal contribution to the strengthening of the Soviet Union as a military superpower. After his death, Malinovsky was honoured with a state funeral and cremated. His urn was placed in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis. The government gave his name to the leading Soviet Military Academy of Tank Troops in Moscow and to the 10th Guards Uralsko-Lvovskaya Tank Division.

Quotes

 * We are Communist, you are Capitalist. You have your ideas, we have ours. But I tell you this much: many American generals are very often sorry that they have no ideal to plant in the heart of the American soldier, so he will be willing to die for that ideal. You are jealous of us for this. The Communist soldier, the Red Army soldier, has such an ideal in his heart. He has it because he considers the ideal of the commander his own ideal. Your generals in Korea were sorry that Americans were not fighting willingly. We couldn't tell them why this was so, but I will tell you why. There is a difference between us. We have an advantage over you. We have an ideal for which we are prepared to die. You have not.
 * To William Randolph Hearst. Quoted in "Ask Me Anything: Our Adventures with Khrushchev" - Page 152 - by William Randolph Hearst - 1960


 * Service is service, wherever it occurred. The defense of the fatherland is no small thing.
 * Quoted in "The Gates of Hell" - Page 343 - by Harrison Evans Salisbury - 1976


 * The Soviet Army, Air Force and Navy are strong enough to thwart any attempts of imperalist reaction to disrupt the peaceful labor of our people or the unity and solidarity of the socialist camp.
 * Quoted in "Diplomacy of Power: Soviet Armed Forces as a Political Instrument" - Page 93 - by Stephen S. Kaplan - Political Science - 1981


 * Don't touch us, gentlemen imperialists, don't threaten us for you yourselves will fall into the abyss which you are so diligently preparing for us and burn to cinders in nuclear inferno.
 * Quoted in "World Marxist Review" - Page 20 - Communism - 1962


 * Playing down the effective capacity of the USSR to deal a counterblow to the aggressor and exaggeration of their transoceanic capabilities...do not testify to the presence of common sense among the U.S. military.
 * Quoted in "Nuclear Blackmail and Nuclear Balance" - Page 173 - by Richard K. Betts - Political Science - 1987

Quotes about Malinovsky

 * The engagements in which Zhukov won his reputation were so massive that, inevitably, many outstanding Soviet military men were involved- either under Zhukov's command or in coordinated and associated movements. There was then, and there continued for years to be, a raging competition for military glory in these engagements. Deep lines of political cleavage and quarrels also underlay the military disputes. Not only military glory was involved; political intrigue, intra-Party quarrels, high-level Kremlin politics were at issue. The principal military rivals of Zhukov were his fellow marshals, Ivan S. Konev, Rodion Malinovsky, V. I. Chuikov, A. I. Yeremenko, Semyon Timonshenko, and to a lesser extent men like K. K. Rokossovsky, V. D. Sokolovsky, and the staff chiefs, A. M. Vasilevsky, Boris Shaposhnikov and, later on, S. M. Shtemenko. Rivals of a different category were Stalin's cronies, men like Voroshilov and Budenny, and police generals such as L. Z. Mekhlis and G. I. Kulik.
 * Harrison E. Salisbury (editor), Introduction to Marshal Zhukov's Greatest Battles (New York: Harper & Row, 1969) by Georgy Zhukov, translated from Russian by Theodore Shabad, p. 14-15