Georgy Zhukov

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Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgi Zhukov
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Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgi Zhukov

Georgi Konstantinovich Zhukov (Russian: Георгий Константинович Жуков) (December 1, 1896 (N.S.)/November 19, 1896 (O.S.)) - June 18, 1974), Soviet military commander and politician, considered by many as one of the most successful field commanders of World War II.

Contents

Prewar career

Born into a peasant family in Strelkovka, Maloyaroslavets Raion, Kaluga Guberniya (now Zhukovo Raion Kaluga Oblast), Zhukov was apprenticed to work in Moscow, and in 1915 was conscripted into the army of the Russian Empire, where he served in a dragoon regiment as a private. During World War I, Zhukov was awarded the Cross of St George twice and promoted to the rank of non-commissioned officer for his bravery in battle. He joined the Bolshevik Party after the October Revolution, and his background of poverty became an asset. After recovering from typhus he fought in the Russian Civil War from 1918 to 1920, receiving the Order of the Battle Red Banner for subduing a non-communist (White) incited peasant rebellion.

By 1923 Zhukov was commander of a regiment, and in 1930 of a brigade. He was a keen proponent of the new theory of armoured warfare and was noted for his detailed planning, tough discipline and strictness. He survived Joseph Stalin's Great Purge of the Red Army command in 1937-39.

In 1938 Zhukov was directed to command the First Soviet Mongolian Army Group, and saw action against Japan's Kwantung Army on the border between Mongolia and the Japanese controlled state of Manchukuo in an undeclared war that lasted from 1938 to 1939. What began as a routine border skirmish—the Japanese testing the resolve of the Soviets to defend their territory—rapidly escalated into a full-scale war, the Japanese pushing forward with 80,000 troops, 180 tanks and 450 aircraft.

This led to the decisive Battle of Halhin Gol. Zhukov requested major reinforcements and on August 15, 1939 he ordered what seemed at first to be a conventional frontal attack. However, he had held back two tank brigades, which in a daring and successful manouvere he ordered to advance around both flanks of the battle. Supported by motorized artillery and infantry, the two mobile battle groups encircled the 6th Japanese army and captured their vulnerable supply areas. Within a few days the Japanese troops were defeated.

For this operation Zhukov was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Outside of the Soviet Union, however, this battle remained little-known as by this time World War II had begun. Zhukov's pioneering use of mobile armour went unheeded by the west, and in consequence the German Blitzkrieg against France in 1940 came as a great surprise.

Promoted to full general in 1940, Zhukov was briefly (January - July 1941) chief of the Red Army General Staff before a disagreement with Stalin led to his being replaced by Marshal Boris Shaposhnikov (who was in turn replaced by Aleksandr Vasilevsky in 1942).

World War II

After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 (see Great Patriotic War) Zhukov was fearless in his direct criticisms of Stalin and other commanders. For example, he proposed Stalin to leave Kyiv. Stalin rejected the proposal, and as a result Zhukov was removed from the command staff and was sent to the Leningrad Military District to organise the city's defence. He stopped the German advance in Leningrad's southern outskirts in autumn 1941.

In October 1941, when the Germans closed in on Moscow, Zhukov replaced Semyon Timoshenko in command of the central front and was assigned to direct the defense of Moscow (see Battle of Moscow). He also directed the transfer of troops from the Far East, where a large part of Soviet ground forces had been stationed on the day of Hitler's invasion. A successful Soviet counter-offensive in December 1941 drove the Germans back, out of reach of the Soviet capital. Zhukov's feat of logistics is considered by some to be his greatest achievement.

By now Zhukov was firmly back in favour and Stalin valued him precisely for his outspokensness. Stalin's willingness to submit to criticism and listen to his generals eventually contributed to his success as a commander - whereas Hitler sacked any general who disagreed with him.

In 1942 Zhukov was made Deputy Commander-in-Chief and sent to the south-western front to be in charge of the defense of Stalingrad. Under the overall command of Vasilievsky, he oversaw the encirclement and capture of the German Sixth Army in 1943 at the cost of perhaps a million dead (see Battle of Stalingrad). During the Stalingrad operation Zhukov spent most of the time in the fruitless attacks in the directions of Rzhev, Sychevka and Vyazma, known as "Rzhev meat grinder" ("Ржевская мясорубка"). Nevertheless he claimed the success at Stalingrad as his own, causing Stalin to sign the order about the improper behavior of Zhukov:

"Contrary to Zhukov's claims, he does not have any relation to plans of liquidation of the Stalingrad group of German troops; it is known that the plan was developed and started to be implemented in winter of 1942, when Zhukov was with another front, far from Stalingrad".

In January 1943 he orchestrated the first breakthrough of the German blockade of Leningrad. He was a STAVKA co-ordinator at the Battle of Kursk in July 1943, playing a central role in the planning of the Soviet defensive battle and the hugely successful offensive operations that followed it. Kursk represented the first major defeat of the German blitzkrieg in summer campaigning weather and has a good claim to be a battle at least as decisive as Stalingard.

Zhukov riding a white horse during the 1945 Victory Parade. There is now an equestrian monument to him nearby.
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Zhukov riding a white horse during the 1945 Victory Parade. There is now an equestrian monument to him nearby.

Following the failure of Marshal Kliment Voroshilov, he lifted the Siege of Leningrad in January 1944. Zhukov led the Soviet offensive of 1944 and the final assault on Germany in 1945, capturing Berlin (see Battle of Berlin) in April, and becoming the first commander of the Soviet occupation zone in Germany. As the most prominent Soviet military commander of the Great Patriotic War, Zhukov inspected the Victory Parade on the Red Square in Moscow in 1945. Stalin, the supreme commander, was said to be frightened of falling off his horse on the wet cobbles of the Square.

General Eisenhower, the supreme Allied commander in the West, was a great admirer of Zhukov and the two toured the Soviet Union together in the immediate aftermath of the victory over Germany.

Postwar career

A war hero and a leader hugely popular with the military, Zhukov constituted a most serious potential threat to Stalin's dictatorship. As a result, in 1947 he was demoted to command the Odessa military district, far away from Moscow and lacking strategic significance and attendant massive troops deployment. After Stalin's death, however, Zhukov was returned to favour and became Deputy Defense Minister (1953), then Defense Minister (1955).

In 1953 Zhukov supported the post-Stalin Communist Party leadership in arresting (and eventually executing) Lavrenty Beria, head of the state security apparatus and one of the main organizator's of Stalin's purges. An urban legend in Russia contends that Zhukov himself made the arrest while the Politburo was in session at the Kremlin.

Zhukov, as Soviet defence minister, was responsible for the invasion of Hungary following the revolution in October, 1956. Along with the majority of members of the Praesidium, he urged Nikita Khrushchev to send troops in support of the Hungarian authorities, and to secure the border with Austria. However, Zhukov and most of the Praesidium were not eager to see a full-scale intervention in Hungary and Zhukov even recommended the withdrawal of Soviet troops when it seemed that they might have to take extreme measures to suppress the revolution. The mood on the Praesidium changed again when Hungary's new Prime Minister, Imre Nagy, began to talk about Hungarian withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact, and Russia pressed ahead ruthlessly to defeat the revolutionaries and install János Kádár in Nagy's place.

In 1957 Zhukov supported Khrushchev against his conservative enemies, the so-called "Anti-Party Group" led by Vyacheslav Molotov. Zhukov's speech to the plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party was the most powerful, directly denouncing the neo-Stalinists for their complicity in Stalin's crimes, though it also carried the threat of force: the very crime he was accusing the others of.

In June that year he was made a full member of the Presidium of the Central Committee. He had, however, significant political disagreements with Khrushchev in matters of army policy. Khruschev scaled down the conventional forces and the navy, while developing the strategic nuclear forces as a primary deterrent force, hence freeing up the manpower and the resources for the civilian economy.

Zhukov supported the interests of the military and disagreed with Khrushchev's policy. Khrushchev, demonstrating the dominance of the Party over the army, relieved Zhukov of his ministry and expelled him from the Central Committee in October 1957. In his memoirs, Khrushchev claimed that he believed that Zhukov was planning a coup against him and that he accused Zhukov of this as grounds for expulsion at the Central Committee meeting.

A propaganda poster depicting Zhukov triumphant over Nazi Germany
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A propaganda poster depicting Zhukov triumphant over Nazi Germany

After Khrushchev was deposed in October 1964 the new leadership of Leonid Brezhnev and Aleksei Kosygin restored Zhukov to favour, though not to power. Brezhnev was said to be angered when, at a gathering to mark the twentieth of anniversary of victory in the Great Patriotic War, Zhukov was accorded greater acclaim than himself. Brezhnev, a relatively junior political officer in the war, was always concerned to boost his own importance in the victory.

Zhukov remained a popular figure in the Soviet Union until his death in 1974. He was buried with full military honors.

Asteroid 2132 Zhukov was named after him. In 1995, commemorating Zhukov's 100th birthday, the Russian Federation adopted the Zhukov Order and the Zhukov Medal.

Alternate version

In his book on Marshal Zhukov, Viktor Suvorov analyses his life as a prime example of fabricated heroism. According to him, Zhukov was essentially a crude and unprofessional soldier, and was held in low regard by his fellow Soviet marshals: Bulganin, Vasilevsky, Yeremenko, Konev, Zakharov, Golikov, Rokossovsky, Timoshenko, Biryuzov, and others. Suvorov argues that Marshal Zhukov was by no means an honorable soldier, but, as the Russians say, a soldafon - a crude, loud-mouthed martinet. The book reviews Zhukov's history from the Battle of Khalkhin-Gol to his reduction in rank by Stalin and the court of inquiry into allegations of looting. In the sequel named "I retract my words" Suvorov brings further evidence to Zhukov's lies, cruelty and sheer greed (for instance, several railroad-cars full of stolen luxery goods from the occupied Germany were brought to his several residences in the USSR). The sequel's provocative title means, as Suvorov clarifies, that he was wrong lauding Zhukov in his first works ("Icebreaker", "Day M" etc.).

Russian military historian Col.(ret.) Dr. Pavel N. Bobylev of the Russian Ministry of Defense Institute of Military History says that "in his memoirs Marshal Zhukov concocts a mainly self-serving, self-exonerating version of what actually occurred in mid-1941 and on the eve of the war." Viktor Suvorov (above) analyzes Zhukov's memoirs and prooves that the editions published after Zhukov's death, allegedly based on 'newly found' Zhokov's drafts, are nothing but a crude forgery concocted by an official Russian historians as a reply to new publications viewed by the Russian establishment as damaging to their version of history.

Trivia

Awards

Zhukov was a recipient of numerous awards. In particular, he was four times Hero of the Soviet Union; besides him, only Leonid Brezhnev was a four-time hero. Zhukov was one of three double recipients of the Order of Victory. He was also awarded the Polish Virtuti Militari with the Grand Cross and Star and the Chief Commander grade of the American Legion of Merit.

Memories

The very first monument to Georgy Zhukov was installed in Mongolia, in memory of the Battle of Halhin Gol. After the collapse of the Soviet Union this monument was one of the very few which did not suffer from the backlash of anti-Sovietism in the former Socialist states.

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Additional reading

  • Suworow, Viktor. Marschall Schukow - Lebensweg über Leichen, Pour-le-Mérite, Selent, Germany, 2002, 350 pp.


Reference

  • Pavel N. Bobylev, Otechesvennaya istoriya, no. 1, 2000, pp. 41-64
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