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 Generalissimus of the Soviet Union Generalissimus of the Soviet Union (; ) was a proposed military rank created on 27 June 1945, following the tradition of the Imperial Russian Army (the rank in question only ever having been held by Count Aleksandr Vasiliyevich Suvorov who served during the reign of Catherine II the Great.). It was granted to Joseph Stalin following World War II; however, Stalin refused to officially approve the rank and died with the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union. It would have been the highest military rank in the Soviet Union. This military rank was specifically