Nikolay Gerasimovich Kuznetsovvolunteered at the age of 15 years as a volunteer at the Dvina Flotilla. After its dissolution, he decided to stay in the Navy in 1926 and earned his diploma as an officer. As the ships of the former tsarist fleet in the Russian Civil War had been either destroyed or dismantled in the West, the Soviet fleet was in 1926 in a very poor state.
In the Baltic, you had three old battleships, an old cruiser in the Black Sea, and two destroyers in the Arctic Ocean and the Far East with no naval units. Kuznetsov came to the Black Sea Fleet in 1929 and served on the light cruiser Chervona Ukraina (Ukraine Red); the keel was laid in 1917.
He then attended the Naval Academy, where he acquired language skills in German and French. After his return, he served as 1st Officer on the cruiser Krasny Kavkaz (Caucasus Red) to return soon after the Chervona Ukraina as captain. In 1935, he was able to win with his cruiser as the No. 1 best-trained naval force of the Soviet fleet.
From this point, his career was rapid. After he had served for a year from August 1936 as naval attaché in Spain, he was appointed deputy commander of the Pacific Fleet to take command of this association four months later. In February 1939, Stalin promoted him to deputy commander of the navy and, in April, to the People’s Commissar of the Navy (Admiralty). Kuznetsov was at that time only 37 years old. This career was only possible because the Stalinist purges of the armed forces disproportionately high naval officers had fallen victim. Thus, several naval commanders and all fleet managers lost their lives.
Structure Of The Fleet
As part of the upgrade of the Soviet armed forces after Lenin’s death, the land forces had absolute priority. This was also due to the limited possibilities of the fleet operation, which was divided by geographical constraints into four largely independent operation areas and severely limited due to the icing of the ports in their activities. So you could only after being forced at gunpoint to cede Finland's naval bases, even in winter operating in the Baltic Sea.
Even the sailors of the Black Sea Fleet remained until the mid-1930s in the winter on land. Kuznetsov, however, was able to prevail with the view that the fleet would be able to secure the Seeflanke army at least, including both a number of surface vessels and submarines would be needed.
To compensate for the low level Kuznetsov tried at least to raise the standard of education, which, with the exception of the U-boats, succeeded. In 1941, there were next to Battleship 3 s 7 cruisers, 59 destroyers, and 228 submarines in service; the U-boats were stationed with mass in the Baltic Sea.
After the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the loss of bases in the Baltic States and Finland, as well as a German mine barrier at the entrance of the Gulf of Finland, the Baltic Fleet was virtually paralyzed; this also contributed to the lack of minesweepers and fuel, which on the basis of the Leningrad Blockade the land could not be completed. Only after the lifting of the blockade of the city in 1944 the fleet could regain their freedom of action.
The Northern Fleet was to protect Allied convoys to Murmansk due to shortage; it only performed very limited and had to rely on Allied assistance. In the Black Sea, Fleet units were heavily involved in ensuring the replenishment of the trapped fortress of Sevastopol, had to retreat to smaller ports in the Caucasus but after its fall in 1942.
Postwar
Viewed in total, the Soviet fleet had proven under Kuznetsov, only the success of the U-boat fleet fell short of expectations. To participate in the war against Japan, the Soviet Navy over 250 smaller vessels of the United States, especially frigates, minesweepers, torpedo boats, and landing craft, which the Soviet Union facilitated the capture of South Sakhalin and the Kuril islands in 1945.
A few months after the war, Kuznetsov’s career got a first kink. His vigorous defense of the interests of the Navy and his beliefs earned him enmity. So he opposes Stalin’s penchant for heavy cruisers and, in the presence of interference from Khrushchev in naval affairs, of which he knew nothing, Verbeten.
A little later, he, to have passed under the three admirals constructed reproach secret material to the British, was arrested and convicted. This Kuznetsov was demoted three places (to Vice Admiral) and released. After Stalin’s death, all four officers were rehabilitated, and Kuznetsov got rank and function back.
However, when he again demonstrated under Khrushchev against drastic cuts in the shipbuilding program, he was finally demoted to vice-admiral and sent at the age of 51 years in retirement.
After his release, he wrote his memoirs, learned English, and translated into Russian literature in the English Navy.
Kuznetsov was rehabilitated posthumously in 1988. The Navy named its newest and largest ship an aircraft carrier, according to him (fleet aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov, the Soviet Union)