to the 2nd Separate Heavy Artillery Battalion (then part of the Southwestern Front) as a junior sergeant in 1917, he fought in the Kerensky Offensive in Galicia in July 1917. When the October Revolution broke out in November 1917, he was demobilized and returned home; in 1918, he joined the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the Red Army, serving as an artilleryman. During the Russian Civil War of 1917-1923, he served with the Red Army in the Russian Far Eastern Republic. His commander at one time was Kliment Voroshilov, a close colleague of Joseph Stalin, who later became People's Commissar for Defense (in office: 1925-1940). (This connection was the key to Konev's subsequent career and to his protection during the Great Purge of the late 1930s.) In his memoirs, he wrote: "Together with a group of demobilized soldiers, I organized the overthrow of the land administration, the confiscation of agricultural land and the imprisonment of traders." He participated in the violent suppression of the 1921 Kronstadt rebellion. In 1926 Konev completed advanced officer training courses at the Frunze Military Academy, and between then and 1941 he held a series of progressively more senior commands, becoming head first of the Transbaikal then of the North Caucasus Military Districts in 1940 and 1941, respectively. In 1934 he became commander and political commissar of the 37th Rifle Division. In July 1938, he was appointed commander of the 2nd Red Banner Army. In 1937 he became a Deputy of the Supreme Soviet and in 1939 a candidate member of the Party Central Committee. World War II When Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, Konev was assigned command of the 19th Army in the Vitebsk region, and waged a series of defensive battles during the Red Army's retreat, first to Smolensk and then to the approaches to Moscow. He commanded the Kalinin Front from October 1941 to August 1942, playing a key role in the fighting around Moscow and the Soviet counter-offensive during the winter of 1941–42. For his role in the successful defense of the Soviet capital, Stalin promoted Konev to Colonel-General. In the summer of 1942 Konev led the Kalinin Front and later the Western Front in the battle on the Rzhev salient. Konev held "Front" (army group) commands for the rest of the war. He commanded the Soviet Western Front until February 1943, the North-Western Front February–July 1943, and