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
Predictions of the dissolution of the Soviet Union German Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union, and the Red Army retreated. Military observers around the world watched closely. It appears that most of them shared Hitler's opinion, expecting Germany to win, destroy the Soviet system, and establish its New Order in Europe. Very few American experts thought the Soviet Union would survive. After the beginning of the German invasion, the United States Department of War advised Franklin D. Roosevelt that the German army would conquer the Soviet Union within one to three months. In July 1941, the American general staff issued memoranda to the American press that a Soviet collapse