On October 14, 1916, the company commander, Smirnov, was wounded in a battle near the village of Zvyzhen near Brody.

He graduated from the Military Academy of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army Named After Mikhail Frunze in 1927.

From February 1930 – commander (from August 1931 also military commissar) of the 12th Infantry Division of the Separate Red Banner Far Eastern Army.

It is impossible to live with the division commander.Proskuryakov, chief of staff of the training artillery battalion, added in the same vein: Stuffy.

[3]At the same time, other memoirists note that Smirnov had a broad military outlook, was fluent in French, Arabic and Persian, and had great willpower.

From December 1938 – head of the Higher Tactical Shooting Courses for the Improvement of Infantry Command Staff «Shot», from September 1939 – head of the Directorate of Military Educational Institutions of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army.

In their course, the army defended itself in the Kamenetz–Podolsky and Mogilev–Podolsky fortified regions, then with battles retreated to the line of Voznesensk, Marinovka, Bolshaya Vradievka and went on the defensive.

During the Great Patriotic War, there was a practice of evacuating the senior command staff of large encircled groups of the Red Army.