Pyotr Grigoryevich Shafranov (; – 4 November 1972) was a Soviet Army colonel general and Hero of the Soviet Union.
Drafted into the Red Army in 1919, Shafranov fought in the Russian Civil War as an infantryman. During the 1920s he became a junior commander in artillery units and served in artillery staff positions during the late 1930s. After the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, he was sent to command an artillery regiment and in late 1941 became commander of the artillery of the 249th Rifle Division, which became the 16th Guards Rifle Division. Shafranov commanded the latter between 1942 and 1943, the 36th Guards Rifle Corps from 1943 to 1944, the 5th Army for a brief period in late 1944, and the 31st Army from January 1945. For his leadership of the 31st Army in the East Prussian Offensive, Shafranov was made a Hero of the Soviet Union. Postwar, he served in command positions in the National Air Defense Forces and ended his career as representative of the Supreme Commander of the Unified Armed Forces of the Warsaw Treaty Organization to the Hungarian People's Republic, retiring in 1965.
Early life, Russian Civil War, and interwar period
Shafranov was born on in the village of Bolshoye Frolovoye, Tetyushsky Uyezd, Kazan Governorate (now in Buinsky District, Tatarstan) to a peasant family. He attended primary school in Tetyushi and left for Tsaritsyn in 1914, where he worked until 1917 as a sailor and helmsman. During the Russian Civil War, he was drafted into the Red Army in October 1919 and was initially sent to the 4th Reserve Rifle Regiment in Kazan as a Red Army man. Shafranov was transferred to the 112th Rifle Regiment of the 13th Rifle Division, with which he fought on the Western Front against Latvian and Finnish troops. From July 1920, he served as a squad leader in the 131st Rifle Regiment of the 15th Rifle Division. With the latter, Shafranov fought against the Army of Wrangel in the Kakhovka bridgehead, the Northern Taurida Offensive, and the Perekop–Chongar Operation.
After the defeat of Wrangel, Shafranov became a Red Army man in a lettered company of the 15th Rifle Division in May 1921. Entering the 6th Saratov Artillery Courses in September 1921, he fought as a squad leader on the Turkestan Front against the Basmachi movement between May and November 1922 with a student detachment. Upon graduation from the courses in February 1923, Shafranov became a gun commander and assistant platoon commander in the artillery battalion of the 44th Rifle Division, stationed at Zhytomyr. He became a platoon commander and assistant battery commander in the 99th Artillery Regiment at Cherkasy in October of that year. Shafranov studied at the Kiev Artillery School from October 1926, before being transferred to the Sumy Artillery School, where he served as starshina of the cadet battery. Upon graduation in March 1928, he was sent to the 56th Artillery Regiment of the Leningrad Military District in Pskov, serving as a battery commander and head of the regimental school.
Shafranov studied at the F.E. Dzerzhinsky Military-Technical Academy of the Red Army (renamed the F.E. Dzerzhinsky Artillery Academy of the Red Army in 1932) from June 1930, and after graduation in November 1934 became an adjunct (graduate student) at the academy. From May 1935 he served in the Main Artillery Directorate of the Red Army as an engineer of the highest qualification before becoming a department head at the directorate in September 1937. Shafranov served as a head of a sector and department at the Defense Committee of the Council of People's Commissars from July 1938.
World War II
After the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, in June 1941, Shafranov was given command of the 778th Artillery Regiment of the 247th Rifle Division of the 31st Army of the Reserve Front in July. From October he was chief of artillery of the 249th Rifle Division, fighting with the 22nd and 4th Shock Armies on the Kalinin and Northwestern Fronts. In fighting for Peno, Andreapol, Toropets, and Velizh during January and February 1942, Shafranov was credited with "skillfully organizing artillery-infantry cooperation and artillery fire support", for which he received the Order of the Red Banner on 31 January 1942. He continued in his position after the 249th was converted into the 16th Guards Rifle Division in March.