A son of a landed peasant, Boldin was fortunate enough to attend primary and two years of secondary school before beginning work with his father.

He served for three years on this front against the Turks, taking part in operations around Erzurum and Kars, and also completing his secondary schooling.

He served as an elected member of his regimental and divisional revolutionary committees until he was demobilized in December, when he returned to the Insa Region.

[2] In October 1919, Boldin restarted his military career by volunteering for service in the Red Army in the ongoing Civil War.

By December 1921, Boldin had shown enough military potential that he was enrolled in the Vystrel Officer Rifle School, from which he graduated in September 1923.

After this short, undistinguished campaign, later in that month Boldin was assigned to head the military delegation which effected the Soviet occupation of Latvia.

Late on June 22, Pavlov ordered Boldin by phone to mount a counter-attack against German forces advancing on Grodno.

In conjunction with the rebuilt 1st Guards Cavalry Corps and 10th Army, 50th went on the offensive and drove Guderian's forces back from the southern approaches to Moscow later that month.

[12] In spite of his public image as a hero, his superiors saw his military gifts as limited; the 50th Army was usually relatively low in strength and was used in secondary roles.

When the East Prussian operation began on January 14, 1945, the 50th Army was sent to keep an eye on the German forces defending along the Augustów Canal.

Rokossovsky had seen enough, and in February, just as the army was being transferred to 3rd Belorussian Front, Boldin was relieved of command, and his chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Fyodor Ozerov, took over for the duration.

He then got the prestigious assignment of command of the 8th Guards Army of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, which he held until March 1951, likely because of his political reliability.

[12][15] In 1961, he published his memoirs, Pages of Life, and also several articles about the initial days of the war and his role in the defense of Tula in the journal, Voenno-istoricheskii Zhurnal.