The M. V. Frunze Military Academy (Russian: Военная академия имени М. В. Фрунзе), or in full the Military Order of Lenin and the October Revolution, Red Banner, Order of Suvorov Academy in the name of M. V. Frunze (Russian: Военная орденов Ленина и Октябрьской Революции, Краснознамённая, ордена Суворова академия имени М. В. Фрунзе), was a military academy of the Soviet and later the Russian Armed Forces.
Established in 1918 to train officers for the newly formed Red Army, the academy was one of the most prestigious military educational institutions in the Soviet Union.
Special wartime courses for staff officers were briefly instituted from 30 October 1916 on the initiative of General Mikhail Alekseyev, but closed in late April 1917.
[1] The early battles of the Red Army during the first stages of the Russian Civil War demonstrated that battlefield commands could not be given to former workers and soldiers who had little experience with tactics or with leading men.
[1] The first intake of students, who joined on 25 November that year, numbered 183, with the official opening of the academy taking place on 8 December 1918.
[1] The academy, in common with many other Soviet institutions of military education, suffered during the Great Purges of the late 1930s.
[1] Following the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, many of the academy's students and teachers were posted to active roles.
Between June and July 1941, 43 generals and 167 senior officers were dispatched to the front from the academy, many of them taking up high positions in the Soviet defence effort.
[1] Those who remained at the academy were soon occupied in preparing defensive lines and fortifications around Moscow, and in training militia units.
[7] The academy continued to operate after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, training officers for the Russian Armed Forces.
In addition to officers from the Soviet Union, students were also drawn from the armed forces of Warsaw Pact and other associated countries.
[3] Candidates attended the academy after having graduated from one of the higher military training colleges and spent some time on active service.
[9][10] Teaching faculty at the academy often held senior military ranks alongside higher academic qualifications.
Among them were marshals Georgy Zhukov, Leonid Govorov, Ivan Konev, Rodion Malinovsky, Kirill Meretskov, Fyodor Tolbukhin, Konstantin Rokossovsky, army generals Andrey Yeryomenko, Ivan Bagramyan, and generals Hamazasp Babadzhanian, Pavel Batitsky, Pavel Belov, Vladimir Kirpichnikov, Pavel Batov, Afanasy Beloborodov, Alexander Gorbatov, Mikhail Yefremov, Lev Dovator, Pyotr Koshevoy, David Dragunsky, Alexander Lizyukov, Issa Pliyev and Vasily Chuikov, among others.