Khrulev, Andrei Vasilevich

Born Sept. 18 (30), 1892, in the village of Bol’shaia Aleksandrovka, in what is now Kingisepp Raion, Leningrad Oblast; died June 9, 1962, in Moscow. Soviet military and state figure. General of the army (1943). Member of the CPSU from 1918.

The son of a worker, Khrulev entered the Red Army in August 1918. During the Civil War of 1918–20 he was assistant chief and then chief of the political section of the 11th Cavalry Division of the First Horse Cavalry Army. Khrulev graduated from the Academic Training School for Senior Political Personnel of the Red Army in 1925 and worked in the central administration of the People’s Commissariat of Defense of the USSR. He was made chief of the directorate of supply of the Red Army in October 1939 and chief quartermaster of the Red Army in August 1940. During the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45, Khrulev became deputy people’s commissar of defense of the USSR and chief of the Main Directorate of the Rear of the Red Army in August 1941, serving simultaneously from March 1942 as people’s commissar of railroads of the USSR. He became chief of the Rear of the Red Army in May 1943 and chief of the Rear of the Armed Forces and deputy minister of the Armed Forces of the USSR in charge of the rear in March 1946.

Khrulev served as deputy minister of the building-materials industry of the USSR from 1951 to 1953 and deputy minister of motor vehicle transportation and highways of the USSR from 1953 to 1956. He was deputy minister of construction of the USSR from 1956 to 1958, becoming a military inspector and adviser to the Group of Inspectors General of the Ministry of Defense of the USSR in April 1958. Khrulev was a deputy to the second convocation of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He was awarded two Orders of Lenin, four Orders of the Red Banner, two Orders of Suvorov First Class, and various medals. He was also the recipient of orders and medals from other socialist countries. Khrulev is buried on Red Square at the Kremlin Wall.