The military rank General Armii was established in 1940, inferior to only Marshal of the Soviet Union. From 1940 to 1974 the rank insignia was four stars. Although Chief Marshals and Marshals of the Air Force, Artillery, Armoured, Engineer and Signal Troops as well as Admirals of the Fleet were in service equivalent to the General of the Army, in rank they superseded them until 1974 when the rank General of the Army was formally equated with the Chief Marshals of a Troop Arm and Marshals of a Troop Arm. Simultaneously, the shoulderboard insignias were changed from a four star to a single, larger star and a red star inside a wreath, making the rank visually similar to the Marshal ranks. Likewise after 1974 they were permitted to wear the Marshal's Star.

As the estate of Yazov was sold out in the early 1990s, this uniform was sold together with several other items, brought to the USA where it was kept in a collection for about a decade until split up and sold in pieces, wherefrom we were able to pick up this uniform (as well as the Yazov MSU parade-walkout which was sold by us earlier).

The uniform set consists of jacket and visor cap. The jacket is a gray tailor-made (the makers tag is present in the inner pocket) parade-walkout M/69 type with embroidery on collar and sleeves, with six general/marshal type buttons marked "Moschtamp 79". The jacket is fitted with General armii shoulderboards that are in excellent condition with some patina to the golden thread in the big star. This uniform type was initially introduced in 1959 and slightly modified in 1969. The visor cap is a mid 1980s manufacture from the famous Moscow 43TSePK factory with '78' side buttons, very rich embroidery in front and a correct marshal/general cocarde.

There are traces from Yazov's ribbon bar on the right side of the tunic. This has been removed at some stage. On the left side is a hole from the graduation badge.

Dmitri Timofeyevich Yazov (born November 8, 1923, Omsk Oblast) was the last Marshal of the Soviet Union to be appointed before the collapse of the Soviet Union (on April 28, 1990). He was the only Marshal of the Soviet Union to be born in Siberia.

In 1979-1980, Yazov was a commander of the Central Group of Forces in Czechoslovakia. In 1984 he was promoted to General of the Army. He was commanding the Far East Military District in the northern summer of 1986, when, according to Time magazine, he made a favourable impression on General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, which led to later promotions. He held the post of Soviet Defense Minister from May 1987 until late 1991 when succeeded by Yevgeny Shaposhnikov. In 1987-1990, Yazov was a candidate for membership in Politburo. Yazov was responsible for deployment of Russian OMON commando units to Latvia and Lithuania in early 1991. During the August Coup of 1991, Yazov was a member of the State Emergency Committee, for which he was prosecuted and acquitted in 1994. Information provided through Wikipedia.

From the now split collection, we also got with this uniform two documents from the estate of Yazov; a hand-signed invitation card from Dmitri Yazov sent to airforce marshal Kozhedub on June 26th 1990, and an archive photo of Yazov wearing all his awards at his promotion to Lieutenant-General. The invitation card comes with a signed envelope.

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