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Shaposhnikov was born in 1882. He joined the army of the Russian Empire in 1901 as an officer cadet, and graduated from the Nicholas General Staff Academy in 1910, reaching the rank of colonel in the Caucasus Grenadiers division in September 1917 during World War I. Also in 1917, unusually for an officer of his rank, he supported the Russian Revolution, and in May 1918 joined the Red Army.
Shaposhnikov was one of the few Red Army commanders with formal pre-revolutionary military training, and in 1921 he became 1st Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army's General Staff, where he served until 1925.
In 1937 he was appointed as Chief of the General Staff. In May 1940 he was appointed a Marshal of the Soviet Union.
Following the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, he was reinstated (29 July 1941) as Chief of the General Staff and also became Deputy People's Commissar for Defence. Died from pulmonary tuberculosis in 1945, 26th March.
