Leonid Aleksandrovich Govorov was born into a peasant family of Russian ethnicity in the village of Butyrki in Vyatka Governorate (now in Kirov Oblast).

[1] He attended a technical high school in Yelabuga and enrolled in the shipbuilding department of Petrograd Polytechnical Institute.

Govorov fought in the Spring Offensive of the Russian Army, a general drive westwards by White forces in the east.

Govorov joined the Red Army in January 1920, serving in the 51st Rifle Division as an artillery battalion commander.

With the division, he fought in the Siege of Perekop in November, during which Soviet forces drove Pyotr Wrangel's White Army out of Crimea.

In 1936, Govorov was among the first officers who attended the newly founded Military Academy of Red Army General Staff, from which he graduated in 1938.

Govorov was close to being arrested, but in the end survived thanks to the intervention of Mikhail Kalinin[6] and continued to rise in rank.

[5] After Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, Govorov commanded the Artillery on the Western Front in Belarus from August to October 1941.

During the Battle of Moscow, he was appointed Chief of Artillery of the 5th Army, under the command of Major General Dmitri Danilovich Lelyushenko.

The Road of Life, which was the only means of supply to the city, was frequently cut by regular German and Finnish air strikes.

As a result, the Soviet Sinyavino Offensive failed and the 2nd Shock army was decimated for the second time in a year, but the German forces suffered heavy casualties and canceled Operation Northern Light.

[15] Several other offensives were conducted by Govorov in the area in 1943, slowly expanding the corridor into Leningrad, and making other small gains.

[16] In November 1943, Govorov began planning the Leningrad-Novgorod Offensive which would drive Army Group North out of the Leningrad region.

[1] In the postwar years Govorov was commander of the Leningrad Military District, and then Chief Inspector of Ground Forces.

In these posts he oversaw the modernization of the Soviet air defence system for the age of the jet aircraft and the atomic bomb.