Marshal of the Soviet Union in 1947 by politician Nikolai Bulganin. Two Marshals were executed in postwar purges: Kulik in 1950 and Beria in 1953, following Stalin's death. Thereafter the rank was awarded only to professional soldiers, with the exception of Leonid Brezhnev, who made himself a Marshal in 1976, and Ustinov, who was prominent in the arms industry and was appointed Defence Minister in July 1976. The last Marshal of the Soviet Union was Dmitry Yazov, appointed in 1990, who was imprisoned after the failed coup against Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991. Marshal Sergei Akhromeev committed suicide in 1991 during the fall of the Soviet
Generalissimus of the Soviet Union created for Joseph Stalin. However, according to Stalin biographer Robert Service, Stalin regretted allowing himself the ostentatious military title, and asked Winston Churchill to continue to refer to him as a marshal instead. Stalin also rejected any kind of distinctions between his military rank and the other Soviet marshals, and kept using the original Marshal of the Soviet Union insignia and uniform like the other Soviet marshals. The matter about Generalissimus of the Soviet Union was mentioned again after the war, when a draft of a decree about the Soviet military ranks was presented to Stalin. Then, General Andrey Khrulyov