Mikhail Kalashnikov, Soviet Inventor of the AK-47, Dies at 94

Mikhail Kalashnikov, the Soviet general who in his 20's designed the ubiquitous automatic weapon that has killed more people than any other firearm, died on Dec. 23 at the age of 94. Iterations of the gun he invented now exist in the tens of millions, making it the most popular rifle in the wars of the latter half of the 20th century.

Kalashnikov submitted his prototype as part of a competition held to design a new Soviet infantry rifle in the waning moments of World War II. The AK-47 was born: a lightweight automated gun that was both easy to use and maintain. As C.J. Chivers — the New York Times journalist and author of a book on the history of the AK-47 — writes, Soviet infantry first wielded these rifles during the brutal crackdown on the Hungarian uprising in 1956. It was “repression’s chosen weapon, the rifle of the occupier and police state,” writes Chivers. But it was also the chief instrument of a new generation of global conflict.

At a lavish Kremlin ceremony on Kalashnikov's 90th birthday, the then president, Dmitry Medvedev, bestowed on him the highest state honour, the Hero of Russia gold star medal, and lauded him for creating "the national brand every Russian is proud of".

Subsequent models and versions of the gun mushroomed elsewhere. It became synonymous with the activities of militant groups. In the 1980s, mujahedin brandishing Kalashnikovs clashed with the Soviet army occupying Afghanistan and, to this day, the culture that spawns the Taliban’s foot soldiers is branded with a telling alliteration: the Koran and the Kalashnikov.

Kalashnikov, the man himself, remained through his life a figure of Soviet and later Russian nationalism. He still professed loyalty to Lenin and Stalin, despite losing family members to Siberian prisons. He also claimed the creation of his weapon was not for offensive purposes, but the “defense of the motherland”.