Filipp Ivanovich Golikov (; July 30, 1900 – July 29, 1980) was a Soviet military commander. As chief of the GRU (Main Intelligence Directorate), he is best known for failing to take seriously the abundant intelligence about Nazi Germany's plans for an invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, either because he did not believe them or because Joseph Stalin did not want to hear them. He served in subsequent campaigns and was promoted to the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union in 1961. Early career Golikov was born into a peasant family of Russian ethnicity in Borisova, in the Perm Governorate of the Russian Empire. His father served as a medical orderly with the garrison in Tobolsk. Father and son both joined the Russian Communist Party (b) in April 1918. A month later, Golikov enlisted in the Red Army as a volunteer. He was a political commissar through most of the Russian Civil War, and for 11 years afterwards. He graduated from the M. V. Frunze Military Academy in 1933. He was appointed commander of a regiment in 1931, and in 1938, during the Great Purge he was suddenly promoted to membership of the Military Counil of the Belorussian (Belarus) Military District. He was apparently sent there to supervise a purge of Red Army commanders in the district, including the future war hero Georgy Zhukov, who never forgave him. Later in 1938, he was abruptly removed, and in November 1938 was made commander of the Vinnitsa Army Group, and, in 1939, of the 6th Army. During the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, he was in charge of overrunning and occupying Lvov. and in 1940 he served in the Winter War against Finland. Head of Military Intelligence In July 1940, Golikov was appointed head of Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), despite having no previous experience of intelligence gathering. Stalin evidently knew that he was ill-qualified: during the 18th party conference the following February, he said of Golikov "as an intelligence agent, he is inexperienced, naive: an intelligence agent ought to be like the devil, believing no one, not even himself." Five of Golikov's predecessors had been or were about to be shot; his immediate predecessor, Ivan Proskurov had been held responsible for the fiasco of the Finnish War, though it is more likely that he was sacked for being too outspoken about the poor state of preparedness of