Stalin's General E-Book

Geoffrey Roberts

• Herausgeber: Icon Books
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 679

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

Marshal Georgy Zhukov is one of military history's legendary names. He played a decisive role in the battles of Moscow, Stalingrad and Kursk that brought down the Nazi regime. He was the first of the Allied generals to enter Berlin and it was he who took the German surrender.He led the huge victory parade in Red Square, riding a white horse, and in doing so, dangerously provoking Stalin's envy. His post-war career was equally eventful – Zhukov found himself sacked and banished twice, and wrongfully accused of disloyalty. However, he remains one of the most decorated officers in the history of both Russia and the Soviet Union. Since his death in 1974, Zhukov has increasingly been seen as the indispensable military leader of the Second World War, surpassing Eisenhower, Patton, Montgomery and MacArthur in his military brilliance and ferocity. Making use of hundreds of documents from Russian military archives, as well as unpublished versions of Zhukov's memoirs, Geoffrey Roberts fashions a remarkably intimate portrait of a man whose personality was as fascinating as it was contradictory. Tough, decisive, strong-willed and brutal as a soldier, in his private life he was charming and gentle. Zhukov's relations with Stalin's other generals were often prickly and fraught with rivalry, but he was the only one among them to stand up to the Soviet dictator. Piercing the hyperbole of the Zhukov personality cult, Roberts debunks many of the myths that have sprung up around Zhukov's life, to deliver fresh insights into the marshal's relations with Stalin, Khrushchev and Eisenhower. A highly regarded historian of Soviet Russia, Roberts has fashioned the definitive biography of this seminal 20th-century figure.

Leseprobe

Praise for Stalin’s General:

‘Confident and detailed’ John Lloyd, Financial Times

‘Although this book will naturally attract readers interested in military history, it also provides broad insights into how individuals functioned and survived under Stalin and Khrushchev. It is a skilfully written account of an extraordinary man living in extraordinary times.’ Evan Mawdsley, BBC History Magazine

‘This book is an example of high quality biography. It is meticulously researched and objective in its judgments. It is an important contribution to understanding the Soviet psychology as well as the history of the Second World War.’ Douglas Osler, Scotsman

‘[A] well-written and meticulously researched biography’ Richard Overy, Literary Review

‘Roberts does a large measure of justice to Stalin’s general […] in his thoroughly researched and well-written book, which will give pleasure not only to his fellow specialists and Second World War enthusiasts but also to a wide circle of readers.’ History Today

‘Geoffrey Roberts’ fine book, Stalin’s General, takes its place among the last, but no less valuable pieces in the jigsaw of World War Two historiography. It is a shrewd, balanced account.’ Henry Coningsby, Waterstones.com

‘The most comprehensive biography of Zhukov available in English, which chronicles not only the marshal’s well-known military feats but also, and very importantly, the military and political intrigues and infighting that went on behind the scenes […] It is an informative, accessible and academically rigorous work, the publication of which fittingly marks the 70th anniversary of Stalingrad.’ Seamus Martin, Irish Times

‘Roberts is an excellent historian […] This is a brisk, comprehensive biography.’ Herald

‘[Roberts’] book is worth particular attention […] for its fascinating interweaving of public and private events and for the light it sheds on the changing patterns and possibilities of life among the Soviet elite.’ London Review of Books

‘[Roberts] has written in Stalin’s General […] the most comprehensive biography of Zhukov.’ Washington Post

‘There’s no doubt that the man who comes through, bluff disciplinarian though he may have been, was undoubtedly the right man in the right place at the right time to make a substantial difference to the Soviet war effort, and thus to the whole fate of World War II. Recommended reading.’ Bookgeeks.co.uk

‘A welcome new biography of the ruthless Red Army general who defeated the Nazis and then spent decades alternately disgraced and rehabilitated in Soviet Russia. […] Zhukov’s relationship with Stalin emerges as a key, fascinating aspect to the story. […] A solid, engaging life.’ Kirkus

‘Roberts makes the only English-language Zhukov biography a WWII essential.’ Booklist

‘Roberts has pored over Zhukov’s personal papers, his unexpurgated memoirs and recent Russian scholarship to write a definitive account of an impressive if only intermittently sympathetic commander.’ Military History

‘With maps of the action, unpublished photos, and unprecedented access to historical documents, Roberts reveals the story of Russia’s ruthless general and his subsequent fall from grace as he faced obliteration by the Soviet government he fought tirelessly to preserve.’ Daily Beast

‘To tell the General’s tale Geoffrey Roberts wades through sources that are often contradictory. Accusations of enormous cruelties, mythological feats of heroism, and requisite romantic entanglements are woven through every aspect of Zhukov’s life. […] Roberts takes his task seriously and with a biographer’s modesty perfectly suited to his subject’s largeness. In broad, clear language aimed at history fans of all stripes, he fills pages with detailed information on the military and political aspects of the Red Army. […] Zhukov’s personality is revealed through a play-by-play account of Stalin’s war with Hitler’s Germany, thus offering a portrait of Stalin as well.’ Biographile

‘Roberts, who has studied and written on the Soviet experience in World War II for decades, shows his comfort with the material in his absolute control over a complex narrative. […] This is a fine biography, wrapped well into the broader context of Zhukov’s war and the Soviet system he served so loyally. The general reader can come away with a clear understanding of Zhukov’s character and operating style. […] Geoffrey Roberts has accomplished his aim, with a readable, sound, balanced portrait of a fascinating man operating on a vast scale.’ Washington Independent Review of Books

‘Roberts’ book gives us a true appreciation of Russian generalship during the war’ Steve Forbes, Forbes magazine

ALSO BY GEOFFREY ROBERTS

The Unholy Alliance: Stalin’s Pact with Hitler

The Soviet Union and the Origins of the Second World War

The Soviet Union in World Politics, 1945–1991

Victory at Stalingrad: The Battle That Changed History

Stalin’s Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939–1953

Molotov: Stalin’s Cold Warrior

Printed edition published in the UK in 2012 by

Icon Books Ltd, Omnibus Business Centre,

39–41 North Road, London N7 9DP

email: [email protected]

www.iconbooks.com

Published by arrangement with Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc

This electronic edition published in the UK in 2012

by Icon Books Ltd

ISBN: 978-18483-1-443-6 (epub format)

ISBN: 978-18483-1-444-3 (Adobe ebook format)

Text copyright © 2012 Geoffrey Roberts

The author has asserted his moral rights.

All maps, except as noted below, copyright © 2012 by Mapping Specialists, Ltd.

Maps on pages 68, 94, 102, 146, 158, 166, 172, 174, 190, 201, 208, 217, 225 and 232 are from Stalin’s Wars by Geoffrey Roberts (New Haven, Conn. and London: Yale University Press, 2007) and are reprinted by permission of Yale Representation, Ltd., London.

All photos, except for the photo of the statue of Georgy Zhukov, are reprinted by permission of SCRSS, Society for Co-operation in Russian and Soviet Studies.

Photo of the statue of Georgy Zhukov by Geoffrey Roberts.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

For Celia

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

IF RUSSIA HAS A PRE-EMINENT HERO IT IS GEORGY ZHUKOV, THE MAN WHO beat Hitler, the peasant lad who rose from poverty to become the greatest general of the Second World War, the colourful personality who fell out with both Stalin and Khrushchev yet lived to fight another day. When Jonathan Jao of Random House suggested I write a new biography of Zhukov I was intrigued. While working on my book Stalin’s Wars I’d formed a questioning view of Zhukov’s role in the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany, not least concerning the mythology generated by his self-serving memoirs. If I had a favourite Soviet general, it would be Konstantin Rokossovsky – a rival of Zhukov’s who had a very different leadership style. My working title for the new project was ‘Zhukov: A Critical Biography’ and the intention was to produce a warts-and-all portrait that would expose the many myths surrounding his life and career as well as capture the great drama of his military victories and defeats, and his journey on the political roller coaster. But the more I worked on his biography the more sympathetic I became to Zhukov’s point of view. Empathy combined with critique, and the result is what I hope will be seen as a balanced reappraisal that cuts through the hyperbole of the Zhukov cult while appreciating the man and his achievements in full measure.

This is not the first English-language biography of Zhukov and I have to acknowledge the groundbreaking efforts of Albert Axell, William J. Spahr, and, especially, Otto Preston Chaney. The main limitation of their work was overreliance on Zhukov’s memoirs, an indispensable but problematic source. In this biography I have been able to utilise an enormous amount of new evidence from the Russian archives, including Zhukov’s personal files in the Russian State Military Archive. I have also benefited from the work of many Russian scholars, especially V. A. Afanas’ev, V. Daines, A. Isaev, and V. Krasnov, who have all written valuable biographical studies focused on Zhukov’s role in the Second World War. Mine, however, is a full-scale biography that gives due weight to Zhukov’s early life as well as his postwar political career.

In Moscow my research was greatly facilitated by my friends in the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of General History, especially Oleg Rzheshevsky, Mikhail Myagkov, and Sergey Listikov. Professor Rzheshevsky was kind enough to arrange for a meeting and interview with Zhukov’s eldest daughter, Era. Mr. Nikita Maximov and Alexander Pozdeev accompanied me on a fascinating visit to the Zhukov museum in the hometown that now bears his name. I do not share Boris Sokolov’s hostile view of Zhukov but he was generous in advising me of the work of Irina Mastykina on Zhukov’s family and private life.

Evan Mawdsley was kind enough to read the first draft and to make some valuable suggestions as well as correct mistakes. The most amusing of the latter was my conviction that Zhukov had fallen in love with a young gymnast rather than a schoolgirl (in Russian gimnazistka). Evan’s own work on the Soviet-German war has been indispensable, as have the writings of Chris Bellamy, David Glantz, Jonathan House, and the late John Erickson. My main guides through the prewar Red Army that Zhukov served in were the works of Mary Habeck, Mark von Hagen, Shimon Naveh, Roger Reese, and David Stone.

I am grateful to Ambassador John Beyrle for finding time in his busy day to talk to me about his father, Joseph’s, chance meeting with Zhukov in 1945 and for giving me the materials that enabled me to reconstruct the incident.

Opportunities to present my research on Zhukov were provided by the Society of Military History, the Irish Association for Russian and East European Studies, the Society for Co-operation in Russian and Soviet Studies in London, the Centre for Military History and Strategic Studies at Maynooth University, and the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Hull.

Many weeks of research in Moscow and many more months writing would not have been possible without research leave and financial support from my employer, University College Cork, Ireland.

For this book I was fortunate to have the input of not one but two brilliant editors: my partner, Celia Weston – to whom the book is dedicated – and Jonathan Jao, who gave me a master class in the writing of popular scholarly biography. I have also been privileged to have the services of my agent, Andrew Lownie, who has also encouraged me to take on the challenges of writing for a broader audience.

Finally, an acknowledgement of Nigel Hamilton’s How to Do Biography. It was only when I read the book for a second time – after I had finished writing about Zhukov – that I realised how many of its valuable lessons I had taken to heart. But neither he nor anyone else mentioned in this preface can be blamed for any defects, which are entirely my own.

Contents

Endorsements

Also by Geoffrey Roberts

Half title

Full title

Copyright information

Dedication

Preface and Acknowledgements

List of Maps and Charts

TIMELINE: The Life and Career of Georgy Zhukov

1. SIC TRANSIT GLORIA: The Rises and Falls of Marshal Georgy Zhukov

2. FABLED YOUTH: From Peasant Childhood to Communist Soldier, 1896–1921

3. A SOLDIER’S LIFE: The Education of a Red Commander, 1922–1938

4. KHALKHIN-GOL, 1939: The Blooding of a General

5. IN KIEV: War Games and Preparations, 1940

6. ARCHITECT OF DISASTER? Zhukov and 22 June 1941

7. STALIN’S GENERAL: Saving Leningrad and Moscow, 1941

8. ARCHITECT OF VICTORY? Stalingrad, 1942

9. NA ZAPAD! From Kursk to Warsaw, 1943–1944

10. RED STORM: The Conquest of Germany, 1945

11. EXILED TO THE PROVINCES: Disgrace and Rehabilitation, 1946–1954

12. MINISTER OF DEFENCE: Triumph and Travesty, 1955–1957

13. FINAL BATTLE: The Struggle for History, 1958–1974

14. MARSHAL OF VICTORY

Notes

Bibliography

Index

About the author

LIST OF MAPS AND CHARTS

Map 1: The Battle of Khalkhin-Gol, 20–31 August 1939

Map 2: The Soviet-Finnish War, 1939–1940

Map 3: The First War Game, 2–6 January 1941

Map 4: The Second War Game, 8–11 January 1941

Map 5: The Soviet Plan for an Offensive War Against Germany, May 1941

Map 6: Operation Barbarossa, June–December 1941

Map 7: The Border Battles, 22 June–9 July 1941

Diagram 1: The Structure of Soviet Military and Political Decision-Making During the Great Patriotic War

Map 8: The Yel’nya Offensive, August–September 1941

Map 9: The German Advance to Leningrad, June–September 1941

Map 10: The Battle for Leningrad, September 1941

Map 11: The Battle for Moscow, October–December 1941

Map 12: Zhukov’s Moscow Counteroffensive, December 1941

Map 13: Operation Mars – the Third Rzhev-Viazma Operation, November–December 1942

Map 14: The German Advance in the South, Summer 1942

Map 15: The Battle for Stalingrad, September–November 1942

Map 16: Operation Uranus, November 1942

Map 17: Operations Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus

Map 18: Zhukov’s Plan for Operation Polar Star

Map 19: Operation Citadel, July 1943

Map 20: The Soviet Counteroffensives at Kursk, July–August 1943

Map 21: The Battle for the Ukraine, 1943–1944

Map 22: The Plan for Operation Bagration, June 1944

Map 23: The Soviet Advance on Warsaw, Summer 1944

Map 24: The Vistula-Oder Operation, January–February 1945

Map 25: The Berlin Operation, April 1945

Map 26: Allied Occupation Zones in Germany

TIMELINE:

THE LIFE AND CAREER OF

GEORGY ZHUKOV

1896

1 December: Birth of Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov in Strelkovka, Kaluga Province, Russia

1903

Begins elementary school

1908

Migrates to Moscow to work as a furrier

1914

August: Outbreak of World War One

1915

August: Conscripted into the tsar’s army and assigned to the cavalry

1916

October: Wounded in action and decorated for bravery

1917

March: Tsar Nicholas II abdicates following military mutiny in Petrograd

November: Bolsheviks overthrow the Provisional Government and seize power

1918

1 October: Joins the Red Army

1919

March: Becomes a candidate member of the Communist Party

October: Wounded in action in the Russian Civil War

1920

Marries Alexandra Dievna Zuikova

March: Enrols in Red Commanders Cavalry Course at Ryazan

May: Becomes a full member of the Communist Party

October: Promoted to platoon and then squadron commander

1921

Death of Zhukov’s father

March: Decorated for bravery

1922

June: Appointed squadron commander in the 38th Cavalry Regiment

1923

March: Promoted to assistant commander of the 40th Cavalry Regiment

July: Appointed commander of the 39th Buzuluk Cavalry Regiment

1924

October: Attends Higher Cavalry School in Leningrad

1928

Birth of daughter Era

1929

Birth of daughter Margarita

Attends Frunze Military Academy in Moscow

1930

May: Promoted to command of 2nd Cavalry Brigade of the 7th Samara Division

1931

February: Appointed assistant inspector of the cavalry

September: Japan invades Manchuria

1933

January: Hitler comes to power in Germany

March: Appointed commander of the 4th (Voroshilov) Cavalry Division

1935

Awarded the Order of Lenin

1937

Birth of daughter Ella

May: Arrest and execution of Marshal Tukhachevsky and start of military purges

July: Japan invades China

July: Appointed commander of the 3rd Cavalry Corps in Belorussia

1938

March: Transferred to the command of the 6th Cossack Corps

June: Appointed deputy commander of the Belorussian Military District

1939

May: Posted to the Mongolian-Manchurian border

June: Appointed commander of the 57th Special Corps at Khalkhin-Gol

July: 57th Corps reorganised into 1st Army Group with Zhukov in command

20 August: Launch of attack on Japanese forces at Khalkhin-Gol

23 August: Signature of Nazi-Soviet Pact

30 August: Made a Hero of the Soviet Union for his victory at Khalkhin-Gol

1 September: German invasion of Poland

17 September: Soviet invasion of eastern Poland

December: Soviet invasion of Finland

1940

March: Soviet-Finnish peace treaty

May: Appointed commander of the Kiev Special Military District

May: Restoration of the titles of general and admiral in the Soviet armed forces

2 June: First meeting with Stalin

5 June: Promoted to general of the army

22 June: France surrenders

28 June: Leads Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and North Bukovina

18 December: Hitler issues his directive on Operation Barbarossa

25 December: Delivers report, ‘The Character of Contemporary Offensive Operations’

1941

January: Takes part in General Staff war games

14 January: Appointed chief of the General Staff

February: Elected alternate member of the Central Committee at the 18th Party conference

15 May: Draft of Soviet plan for a pre-emptive strike against Germany

22 June: German invasion of the Soviet Union

30 June: Fall of Minsk

10 July: Establishment of Stavka, campaign headquarters of the Supreme Command

29 July: Removed as chief of the General Staff and appointed to command of Reserve Front

8 August: Stalin becomes supreme commander of the Armed Forces

August: Leads counter-offensive at Yel’nya

September: Fall of Kiev and blockade of Leningrad

11 September: Appointed commander of the Leningrad Front

11 October: Appointed commander of the Western Front

5 December: Beginning of Moscow counter-offensive

1942

January: Launch of first Rzhev-Viazma operation

June: Germans launch southern offensive towards Baku

and Stalingrad

July: Second Rzhev-Viazma operation

17 July: Beginning of the battle for Stalingrad

28 July: Stalin issues Order No. 227 – Ni Shagu Nazad! (Not a Step Back!)

26 August: Appointed Stalin’s deputy supreme commander

November: Third Rzhev-Viazma operation (Operation Mars)

19 November: Operation Uranus – Red Army counter-offensive

at Stalingrad

1943

January: Supervises operations to end the German blockade of Leningrad

18 January: Promoted to marshal of the Soviet Union

February: Final surrender of Germans at Stalingrad

July: Battle of Kursk

November: Liberation of Kiev

1944

Death of Zhukov’s mother

June: Operation Bagration; D-Day landings in France

August: Warsaw uprising

September: Supervises Soviet invasion of Bulgaria

12 November: Appointed commander of 1st Belorussian Front

1945

January: Launch of Vistula-Oder operation; capture of Warsaw

18 February: Stavka halts 1st Belorussian’s advance on Berlin

16 April: Launch of attack on Berlin

25 April: Soviet and American forces meet on the Elbe

30 April: Hitler commits suicide

May: Red Army captures Berlin and Zhukov accepts German surrender

30 May: Appointed commander of Soviet occupation forces in Germany

24 June: Zhukov leads Victory Parade in Red Square

July–August: Attends Potsdam conference

1946

February: Elected to the Supreme Soviet

22 March: Appointed commander-in-chief of Soviet ground forces

June: Dismissed as commander-in-chief of Soviet ground forces and posted to Odessa

1947

February: Expelled from membership of the party Central Committee

1948

January: Censured for extracting war booty from Germany

February: Transferred to the command of the Urals Military District

1950

Reelected to the Supreme Soviet

Meets Galina Semonova in Sverdlovsk

1952

October: Attends 19th Party Congress and is elected to Central Committee

1953

March: Returns to Moscow and appointed deputy defence minister

March: Stalin dies

June: Arrests Beria

1954

Death of Zhukov’s sister, Maria

September: Oversees nuclear test and exercise at Totskoe

1955

February: Appointed minister of defence

May: Signing of Warsaw Pact

July: Attends Geneva summit and meets Eisenhower

1956

February: Elected to the Presidium at the 20th Party Congress

25 February: Khrushchev gives Secret Speech to 20th Party Congress

November: Oversees Soviet military intervention in Hungary

1957

January–February: Tours India and Burma

June: Leads defence of Khrushchev against attempted coup by the so-called antiparty group

June: Birth of daughter Maria

October: Central Committee dismisses Zhukov for distancing army from the party

1958

February: Retired from the armed forces by the Presidium

1959

Attacked at 21st Party Congress by Minister of Defence Malinovsky

1961

Attacked at 22nd Party Congress by Khrushchev

1964

October: Fall of Khrushchev

1965

Divorces Alexandra Dievna Zuikova

1966

Marries Galina Semonova

November: Awarded fifth Order of Lenin

1967

December: Death of Alexandra Dievna Zuikova

1968

January: Suffers stroke

1969

April: Publication of first edition of Zhukov’s memoirs

1971

September: Khrushchev dies

1973

November: Death of Galina Semonova

1974

18 June: Dies in the Kremlin hospital

July: Publication of the revised edition of Zhukov’s memoirs

1.

SIC TRANSIT GLORIA:

THE RISES AND FALLS OF MARSHAL GEORGY ZHUKOV

OF ALLTHE MOMENTS OF TRIUMPH IN THE LIFE OF MARSHAL GEORGY Konstantinovich Zhukov nothing equalled that day in June 1945 when he took the salute at the great Victory Parade in Red Square. Zhukov, mounted on a magnificent white Arabian called Tspeki, rode into the square through the Spassky Gate, the Kremlin on his right and the famous onion domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral directly ahead. As he did so a 1,400-strong orchestra struck up Glinka’s Glory (to the Russian Motherland). Awaiting him were columns of combined regiments representing all the branches of the Soviet armed forces. In the middle of the square Zhukov met Marshal K. K. Rokossovsky, who called the parade to attention and then escorted Zhukov as he rode to each regiment and saluted them.

When the salutes were finished Zhukov joined the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin on the plinth above Lenin’s Mausoleum and gave a speech celebrating the Red Army’s victory over Nazi Germany. The sky was overcast and there was a drizzling rain that worsened as the day wore on. At one point Zhukov’s hat became so wet he was tempted to remove it and wipe the visor but desisted when he saw that Stalin was making no such move.

As a former cavalryman Zhukov relished the salute portion of the proceedings. Giving a speech that would be seen and heard by millions of people across the world was a different matter. The idea made him anxious and he prepared as thoroughly as he could, even rehearsing the speech in front of his daughters Era and Ella, who were so impressed they burst into spontaneous applause. The delivery of the speech was carefully crafted, with prompts in the margin directing Zhukov to speak quietly, then louder, and when to adopt a solemn tone.

Zhukov seemed more than a little nervous but it was a commanding performance nonetheless. His delivery was halting but emphatic and reached a crescendo with his final sentence: ‘Glory to our wise leader and commander – Marshal of the Soviet Union, the Great Stalin!’ At that moment artillery fired a salute and the orchestra struck up the Soviet national anthem.

After his speech Zhukov reviewed the parade standing beside Stalin. Partway through there was a pause in the march while, to a roll of drumbeats, 200 captured Nazi banners were piled against the Kremlin wall, much like Marshal Kutuzov’s soldiers had thrown French standards at the feet of Tsar Alexander I after their defeat of Napoleon in 1812. The parade over, the day ended with a fabulous fireworks display.1

Stalin’s choice of Zhukov to lead the parade evoked no comment. He was, after all, Stalin’s deputy supreme commander and widely regarded as the main architect of the Soviet victory over Adolf Hitler’s Germany, a victory that had saved Europe as well as Russia from Nazi enslavement. Newsreel film of the parade that flashed across the world only reinforced Zhukov’s status as the greatest Soviet general of the Second World War.

When the German armies invaded Soviet Russia in summer 1941 it was Zhukov who led the Red Army’s first successful counter-offensive, forcing the Wehrmacht to retreat and demonstrating to the whole world that Hitler’s war machine was not invincible. When Leningrad was surrounded by the Germans in September 1941 Stalin sent Zhukov to save the city from imminent capture. A month later, Stalin recalled Zhukov to Moscow and put him in command of the defence of the Soviet capital. Not only did Zhukov stop the German advance on Moscow, but in December 1941 he launched a counter-offensive that drove the Wehrmacht away from the city and ended Hitler’s hope of subduing the Red Army and conquering Russia in a single Blitzkrieg campaign.

Six months later Hitler tried again to inflict a crippling blow on the Red Army, this time by launching a southern offensive designed to capture the Soviet oilfields at Baku. At the height of the German advance south Zhukov played a central role in masterminding the Soviet counter-offensive at Stalingrad in November 1942 – an encirclement operation that trapped 300,000 German troops in the city. In July 1943 he followed that dazzling success with a stunning victory in the great armoured clash at Kursk – a battle that saw the destruction of the last remaining reserves of Germany’s panzer power. In November 1943 cheering crowds welcomed Zhukov as he and the future Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev drove into the recaptured Ukrainian capital of Kiev. In June 1944 Zhukov coordinated Operation Bagration – the campaign to liberate Belorussia from German occupation. Bagration brought the Red Army to the gates of Warsaw and the capture of the Polish capital in January 1945 marked the beginning of the Vistula-Oder operation – an offensive that took Zhukov’s armies through Poland, into eastern Germany, and to within striking distance of Berlin. In April 1945 Zhukov led the final Soviet assault on Berlin. The ferocious battle for the German capital cost the lives of 80,000 Soviet soldiers but by the end of April Hitler was dead and the Soviet flag flew over the ruins of the Reichstag. It was Zhukov who formally accepted Germany’s unconditional surrender on 9 May 1945.

Following Zhukov’s triumphant parade before the assembled legions of the Red Army, Navy, and Air Force in June 1945 he seemed destined for an equally glorious postwar career as the Soviet Union’s top soldier and in March 1946 he was appointed commander-in-chief of all Soviet ground forces. However, within three months Zhukov had been sacked by Stalin and banished to the command of the Odessa Military District.

The ostensible reason for Zhukov’s dismissal was that he had been disloyal and disrespectful towards Stalin and claimed too much personal credit for victory in the Great Patriotic War, as the Soviets called it. In truth, Zhukov’s loyalty to Stalin was beyond question. If anyone deserved the appellation ‘Stalin’s General’, he did. Zhukov was not slow to blow his own trumpet, at least in private, but that was characteristic of top generals the world over, including many of his colleagues in the Soviet High Command – who all voted in favour of Stalin’s resolution removing him as commander-in-chief. What Stalin really objected to was Zhukov’s independent streak and his tendency to tell the truth as he saw it, a quality that had served the dictator well during the war but was less commendable in peacetime when Stalin felt he needed no advice except his own. Like Zhukov, Stalin could be vain, and he was jealous of the attention lavished on his deputy during and immediately after the war, even though he had been instrumental in the creation of Zhukov’s reputation as a great general. Stalin’s treatment of Zhukov also sent a message to his other generals: if Zhukov, the most famous among them and the closest to Stalin, could suffer such a fate, so could any one of them if they did not behave themselves.

According to his daughter Era, Zhukov was not a man given to overt displays of emotion, even in the privacy of his family, but his demotion and exile to Odessa caused him great distress.2 Later, he told the Soviet writer Konstantin Simonov: ‘I was firmly resolved to remain myself. I understood that they were waiting for me to give up and expecting that I would not last a day as a district commander. I could not permit this to happen. Of course, fame is fame. At the same time it is a double-edged sword and sometimes cuts against you. After this blow I did everything to remain as I had been. In this I saw my inner salvation.’3

Zhukov’s troubles were only just beginning, however. In February 1947 he was expelled from the Communist Party Central Committee on grounds that he had an ‘antiparty attitude’. Zhukov was horrified and he pleaded for a private meeting with the dictator to clear his name. Stalin ignored him and the anti-Zhukov campaign continued. In June 1947 Zhukov was censured for giving the singer Lidiya Ruslanova a military medal when she had visited Berlin in August 1945. Shortly after, Ruslanova and her husband, General V. V. Krukov, were arrested and imprisoned. ‘In 1947 I feared arrest every day’, recalled Zhukov later, ‘and I had a bag ready with my underwear in it.’4

The next development was even more ominous: an investigation began into the war booty Zhukov had extracted while serving in Germany. According to the report of a party commission Zhukov amassed a personal hoard of trophies, including 70 pieces of gold jewellery, 740 items of silverware, 50 rugs, 60 pictures, 3,700 metres of silk, and – presumably after casting a professional eye over them – 320 furs (he had been a furrier in his youth). Zhukov pleaded that these were gifts or paid for from his own pocket but the commission found his explanations insincere and evasive and concluded that while he did not deserve to be expelled from the party he should hand over his ill-gotten loot to the state. In January 1948 Zhukov was demoted to the command of the Urals Military District based in Sverdlovsk.5

Further punishment came in the form of treating Zhukov as an ‘unperson’. He was written out of the history of the Great Patriotic War. Paintings of the 1945 Victory Parade omitted him. A 1948 documentary film about the battle of Moscow barely featured Zhukov. In a 1949 poster tableau depicting Stalin and his top generals plotting and planning the great counter-offensive at Stalingrad Zhukov was nowhere to be seen.

But as early as October 1949 there were signs of Zhukov’s rehabilitation. That month Pravda carried a funeral notice of the death of Marshal F. I. Tolbukhin and Zhukov was listed among the signatories.6 In 1950 Zhukov, along with a number of other senior officers, was re-elected to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. In 1952 the second edition of the official Great Soviet Encyclopedia carried a short but favourable entry on Zhukov, stressing his important role in the realisation of Stalin’s military plans during the war.7 In October 1952 Zhukov was a delegate to the 19th Party Congress and he was restored to candidate (i.e., probationary) membership of the Central Committee. Incredibly, Zhukov believed that Stalin was preparing to appoint him minister of defence.8

In March 1953 Stalin died and Zhukov was a prominent member of the military guard of honour at the dictator’s state funeral.9 Zhukov’s appointment as deputy minister of defence was among the first announcements made by the new, post-Stalin Soviet government. Zhukov’s rehabilitation continued apace with his appointment in February 1955 as minister of defence by Khrushchev, Stalin’s successor as party leader. In July 1955 Zhukov attended the great power summit in Geneva of Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States – the first such gathering since the end of the war. There he met and conversed with President Dwight Eisenhower, with whom he had served in Berlin just after the war. ‘Could the friendship of two old soldiers’, wondered Time magazine, ‘provide the basis for a genuine easing of tensions between the U.S. and Russia?’10

As minister of defence, Zhukov emerged as a prominent public figure in the Soviet Union, second only in importance to Khrushchev. In June 1957 Zhukov played a pivotal role in resisting an attempt to oust Khrushchev from the leadership by a hard-line faction led by Vyacheslav Molotov, the former foreign minister. Unfortunately for Zhukov his bravura performance in the struggle against Molotov turned him into a political threat in Khrushchev’s eyes. In October 1957 Zhukov was accused of plotting to undermine the role of the Communist Party in the armed forces. Among Zhukov’s most active accusers were many of the same generals and marshals he had served with during the war. Khrushchev sacked Zhukov as minister of defence and in March 1958 he was retired from the armed forces at the relatively young age of sixty-one.

During the remainder of the Khrushchev era Zhukov suffered the same fate of excision from the history books he had experienced during his years of exile under Stalin. In 1960, for example, the party began to publish a massive multivolume history of the Great Patriotic War that barely mentioned Zhukov while greatly exaggerating Khrushchev’s role.11 Another expression of Zhukov’s disgrace was his isolation from the outside world. When American author Cornelius Ryan visited the USSR in 1963 to research his book on the battle of Berlin, Zhukov was the only Soviet marshal he was prohibited from seeing.12

Zhukov took solace in writing his memoirs. His authorial role model was Winston Churchill, whose memoir-history of the Second World War he had read when a restricted-circulation Russian translation was published in the USSR in the 1950s. Churchill’s motto in composing that work was that history would bear him out – because he was going to write the history! Zhukov seems to have harboured similar sentiments and his memoirs were designed not only to present his own point of view but to answer and refute his Khrushchevite critics, even if that meant skewing the historical record in his own favour.

While Khrushchev continued to rule the Soviet Union there was no chance Zhukov’s memoirs would be published. When his daughter Ella asked him why he bothered he said he was writing for the desk drawer. In October 1964, however, Khrushchev was ousted from power and there began a process of rehabilitating Zhukov as a significant military figure. Most notably, the Soviet press began to publish Zhukov’s articles again, including his accounts of the battles of Moscow, Stalingrad, Kursk, and Berlin.

Zhukov’s second rehabilitation rekindled interest in him in the West, which had faded somewhat after he was ousted as defence minister. In 1969 the American journalist and historian Harrison E. Salisbury published an unauthorised translation of Zhukov’s articles in a book called Marshal Zhukov’s Greatest Battles. In his introduction to the volume Salisbury famously described Zhukov as ‘the master of the art of mass warfare in the 20th century’.13 Most reviewers agreed. John Erickson, the foremost British authority on the Red Army, writing in The Sunday Times, said ‘the greatest soldier so far produced by the 20th century is Marshal Georgi Zhukov of the Soviet Union. On the very simplest reckoning he is the general who never lost a battle. . . . For long enough the German generals have had their say, extolling their own skills . . . now it is the turn of Marshal Zhukov, a belated appearance to be sure but the final word may be his.’14

When Zhukov’s memoirs were published in April 1969 it was in a handsome edition with coloured maps and hundreds of photographs, including some from Zhukov’s personal archive.15 The Soviet public was wildly enthusiastic about the memoirs. The initial print run of 300,000 soon sold out and millions more sales followed, including hundreds of thousands in numerous translations. The memoirs quickly became – and remain – the single most influential personal account of the Great Patriotic War.

Zhukov’s triumph in the battle for the historical memory of the Great Patriotic War was not one that he lived to savour. By the time a revised edition of his memoirs was issued in 1974 he was dead.16 In 1968 Zhukov had suffered a severe stroke from which he never really recovered. His health problems were exacerbated by the stress of his second wife, Galina, suffering from cancer. When she died in November 1973 at the age of forty-seven, Zhukov’s own health deteriorated rapidly and he passed away aged seventy-seven in the Kremlin hospital in June 1974.

Zhukov’s funeral was the biggest such occasion in the Soviet Union since the death of Stalin. As Zhukov lay in state in the Central House of the Soviet army in Moscow thousands came to pay their respects. When his ashes were interred in the Kremlin wall on 21 June the chief pallbearer was party general secretary Leonid Brezhnev and at the memorial service that followed the main speaker was Minister of Defence Marshal A. A. Grechko.17

In Russia Zhukov was – and still is – considered not only the greatest general of the Second World War but the most talented polkovodets (military leader) in Russian history. In the West Zhukov’s reputation is only slightly less exalted. Of course, Zhukov is not everyone’s hero. Even in Russia he has his critics. There are those who consider him an egotistical brute with an inflated military reputation. According to Viktor Suvorov, a former Soviet intelligence officer, whose history books are huge bestsellers in Russia, ‘all the top military leaders of the country were against Zhukov. The Generals knew, the Marshals knew, that Zhukov was vainglorious. They knew he was both a dreadful and a dull person. They knew he was rude and a usurper. They knew he was in a class of his own as a careerist. They knew he trampled over everyone in his path. They knew of his lust for power and the belief in his own infallibility.’18

As we shall see, Zhukov certainly was a flawed character and his fellow generals did have many negative things to say about him during the course of his career, but Suvorov accentuated only the negatives. Suvorov’s critical onslaught had little impact on Zhukov’s popularity in Russia. If anything, the continuing controversy only added to Zhukov’s allure as a deeply flawed character of epic achievements.

One of the most common criticisms levelled against Zhukov was that he was profligate in expending the lives of the soldiers under his command and was little troubled by the human cost of his victories. Zhukov rejected this vehemently, pointing out that it was easy for armchair critics to claim in retrospect that this battle or that campaign could have been won at the cost of far fewer lives. He was, it is true, an offensive-minded general. But during the war, he learned the virtues of withdrawal and retreat. Indeed, there is plenty of evidence that Zhukov did what he could to conserve his forces and protect his troops. His preparation for battle was always meticulous, and he would garner as many resources as Stalin allowed. Certainly the troops under Zhukov’s command suffered no greater casualty rates than those of other Soviet generals, including those such as Rokossovky, who had a reputation for being a more benign commander. The idea that Zhukov was personally indifferent to the fate of his troops is also mistaken. His sometimes brutal treatment of subordinates was not a matter of personal cruelty but of command style, and when frustrated and dissatisfied, most of his ire was directed at senior commanders – which may explain why some were so critical of Zhukov later.

When Zhukov published his memoirs the Russian archives were closed and little or no independent documentary evidence was available. To write his biography was perforce to gloss his officially sanctioned memoirs, and the result was a lopsided story of his life. The situation began to improve with the publication in the early 1990s of new editions of Zhukov’s memoirs incorporating a large amount of material excluded by the Soviet censors in the 1960s.19 After the end of the Soviet regime in 1991 many thousands of documents concerning Zhukov’s career were published from Russian military and political archives. More recently these materials have been supplemented by direct archival access to some of Zhukov’s private papers.20 Now it is possible to render an account of his life that is grounded in the documentary evidence.

Zhukov’s life consists of far more than a chronology of the battles he fought. His story reflects both the triumphs and the tragedies of the Soviet regime he served. Above all, Zhukov was a dedicated communist and a loyal servant of Stalin and the Soviet regime. While his victories over the Nazis served humanity well, they also helped to buttress and legitimate a system that was itself highly authoritarian and harshly repressive. As an ideologue as well as a soldier Zhukov accepted Soviet repression as necessary to progress the communist cause in which he believed. Had he lived to see the end of the Soviet Union it is doubtful that Zhukov would have felt the need to repudiate his beliefs or apologise for his role in saving Stalin’s regime. Rather, like many of his generation, he would have argued that he was a patriot as well as a communist and that the Soviet regime – for all its faults – was the only one he could serve on behalf of his country.

Zhukov was neither the unblemished hero of legend nor the unmitigated villain depicted by his detractors. Undoubtedly, he was a great general, a man of immense military talent, and someone blessed with the strength of character necessary to fight and win savage wars. But he also made many mistakes, errors paid for with the blood of millions of people. Because he was a flawed and contradictory character it will not be possible to render a simple verdict on Zhukov’s life and career. But it is those flaws and contradictions, as well as his great victories and defeats, that make Zhukov such a fascinating subject.

2.

FABLED YOUTH:

FROM PEASANT CHILDHOOD TO COMMUNIST SOLDIER, 1896–1921

THEACCEPTED STORY OF GEORGY ZHUKOV’S CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH READS like a rags-to-riches fairy tale. Born into a poor peasant family in rural Russia in 1896, the story goes, Zhukov was apprenticed to a furrier at the age of twelve and sent to work in Moscow. Conscripted into the tsar’s army in 1915 to fight in the First World War, he was wounded and decorated for bravery. Politicised by the Russian Revolution of 1917, the young Georgy joined the Red Army and then the Communist Party and fought on the victorious Bolshevik side of the Russian Civil War. Selected for officer training, Zhukov then rose through the ranks of the Red Army to become a marshal of the Soviet Union and the most famous Soviet general of the Second World War.

There is a lot of truth in this story and Zhukov’s humble origins and stratospheric rise are keys to understanding his lifelong loyalty to communism and to the Soviet system. The regime that Zhukov served all his adult life was brutal, repressive, authoritarian, and at times terroristic. Economically, it was not particularly efficient, although capable of mobilising resources effectively in emergency situations (such as wars). It was a system that consistently failed to live up to its egalitarian ideals and was ruled by a political party that rarely, if ever, enjoyed the support of a majority of the population. But compared with the old tsarist regime it offered people like Zhukov unprecedented and previously unimaginable opportunities for social mobility. With advancement came material privileges, high social status, and a strong sense of identity as a member of an elite committed to building a new socialist society. This is not to say that Zhukov’s commitment to the Soviet system was merely a matter of career opportunities. For Zhukov and the many others who succeeded in becoming members of the new Soviet elite, there was no contradiction between their ideals and the perks of promotion. Both were seen as integral to progress towards a better world.

The problem with this story of Zhukov’s early life is that its main source is Zhukov himself and while he did have a tough childhood by modern standards his background was not as underprivileged as the myth suggests. Because of where he was born and the connections of his family he was a relatively privileged peasant.

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH

Zhukov’s story begins on 1 December 1896, in the village of Strelkovka in the Kaluga Province about eighty miles southwest of Moscow.1 His father, Konstantin, was a cobbler and his mother, Ustin’ya, a peasant labourer. The Zhukov family name derived from the Russian word for beetle – ‘Zhuk’. In Russian slang it can also mean someone who is a bit of a rogue. For both of Zhukov’s parents it was a second marriage, each having lost their previous partner to tuberculosis.2 In his memoirs Zhukov recalled that his father and mother were quite old when they married, fifty and thirty-five, respectively. However, according to his youngest daughter, Maria, the church records (not available to Zhukov when he wrote his memoirs) show that Konstantin was forty-one and Ustin’ya twenty-six when they married in 1892.3 But given the physical toll exacted by the harshness of peasant life in Russia it is perhaps not surprising that Zhukov remembered or imagined them to be older than they were.

Georgy was the family’s second child, a sister, Maria, having been born two years earlier. When he was five his mother had a second son, Alexei, but the child did not live beyond a year. ‘My sister and I, let alone Father and Mother, grieved bitterly and often went to his graveside.’4 All three children were baptised into the Russian Orthodox Church. ‘Father was by birth, upbringing and outlook an Orthodox person’, claimed Zhukov’s daughter Maria, ‘just like his soldiers, who said with him before battle, “we go with God!” ’5 During the Second World War it was rumoured that Zhukov carried an icon in his car. However, when Zhukov’s wartime driver was asked about this, he described it as nonsense: ‘he was a communist . . . if there had been an icon in the car I would have known about it’.6 His daughter’s beliefs notwithstanding, there is no evidence that religious conviction played any part in Zhukov’s life.

The Russia into which Zhukov was born was a vast land empire that stretched thousands of miles across ten time zones from Warsaw to Vladivostok, from the Arctic Ocean to the Caspian and Black seas. Within its borders there lived more than 100 nationalities and ethnic groups, although most of the population were Russians like Zhukov. In 1900 the population of Russia was some 140 million, the great majority of whom were peasants.

Zhukov’s birthplace in Kaluga Province was located in an area called the Central Industrial Region – Moscow and its surrounding provinces. Unlike the fertile ‘Black Earth’ steppes of southern Russia and Ukraine the topography of the Central Industrial Region was dominated by lakes, rivers, and adjacent forests – good for hunting and fishing – which Zhukov loved – but not so conducive to agriculture. Flax and vegetables, rather than cereals, were the main crops and much of the labour was provided by peasant women like Zhukov’s mother, while many peasant men in the Central Industrial Region had non-agricultural jobs and trades, often migrating to Moscow for work, where they found a city brimming with their compatriots from the countryside.

At the beginning of the twentieth century peasant life in Russia was undergoing a cultural revolution as primary education spread to the countryside. Schools were established in most villages of any size. One beneficiary was Zhukov, who took the full three-year primary education course, as opposed to the two-year course favoured by most peasants – evidence that, poor though they might be, his parents had aspirations for their son. Education as the route to personal advancement was an attitude that Zhukov retained throughout his life and passed on to his own family.

Despite having a trade Zhukov’s father, Konstantin, never had much work. Consequently, Georgy’s early childhood was one of grinding poverty, a common fate of Russian peasants, even those living in the relatively prosperous Central Industrial Region.

In looks Georgy took after his mother and he also inherited her great physical strength – she was apparently capable of carrying a 200-pound sack of grain some distance.7 But emotionally he seems to have been much closer to his father, notwithstanding – or perhaps because of – Konstantin’s frequent absences from home in search of work in Moscow: ‘I adored Father, and he spoiled me. Still, now and again he punished me for some fault, taking it out on me with his belt and demanding an apology. I was stubborn and no matter how hard he thrashed me I bit my lips and never asked for pardon. One day he gave me such a flogging that I ran away from home and spent three days hiding in a neighbour’s hemp field.’8 Physical punishment featured also in Zhukov’s life as an apprentice, and again when he joined the army, but he did not harbour resentment about his treatment. ‘A difficult life is life’s best school,’ he told his daughter Maria many decades later.9

Georgy started school in 1903 at the age of seven and completed successfully the three-year elementary course. To celebrate his success his mother gave him a new shirt, while his father made him a new pair of boots. The family soon decided that Zhukov should go to Moscow to work for his mother’s brother, Mikhail, as an apprentice furrier.

Moscow was only four hours from Strelkovka by train (today the journey would take a little over an hour) but to the young Georgy it was a world very different from the one he was used to. When he arrived in summer 1908 he was shocked and confused by the crowds of people, the high buildings (in the village there was nothing taller than two stories) and the frenetic pace of life. On the other hand, Moscow was a city full of people like himself: educated peasant lads with family connections in the city who worked in artisan trades as furriers, tailors, carpenters, and cobblers.

His uncle’s business was in the city centre, not far from Red Square. Zhukov’s working day was twelve hours, including an hour for lunch. The work was hard, and punctuated by beatings of the apprentices by the craftsmen (and women), but Georgy survived quite well, finding time to enroll in night school to continue his education. Disciplined study habits were to stay with Zhukov for the rest of his life. Zhukov was not an intellectual general. He was rather what the Soviets called a praktik – a practical man of action. But he was a good student of military theory, strategy, and tactics and a voracious reader of a wide range of literature. According to his daughter Ella, reading was always at the heart of the Zhukov household and by the time the marshal died he had amassed a library of 20,000 books at his dacha, his country cottage. Unfortunately, most of the collection was pulped when the dacha was repossessed by the state after his death, although a few hundred of his volumes did end up in museum collections.10

Georgy’s partner in self-education was cousin Alexander, the boss’s son. Together they studied the Russian language, maths, geography, and popular science texts. Another subject was German. Alexander was sent to Leipzig by his father to learn German to help with the business. On his periodic trips home to Moscow he found time to teach his cousin the language11 – knowledge that Zhukov was to put to good use during his military career.

By 1914 Zhukov had finished his apprenticeship and was earning good money as a trained furrier with three young boys working under him. A photograph of him and his fellow furriers dating from this time shows affluent, smartly dressed young urbanites seemingly confident of their future. Another picture of Zhukov with Alexander similarly displays a young man who had already transcended his humble origins and successfully adapted to his new urban environment. Were it not for the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914 Zhukov no doubt would have continued his career as a furrier and ended up running his own business.

Zhukov was frank in his memoirs about his youthful lack of politics, pointing out that political apathy was common among his fellow furriers, which he attributed to the petit bourgeois individualist mentality of artisan workers, in contrast to the proletarian solidarity of the industrial working class. At the same time he claimed to have been influenced by various revolutionary ideas that were spreading in Russia under the impact of the events of the First World War and his narrative suggested a gradual conversion to communism. But aside from Zhukov’s own testimony, there is no evidence of incipient class consciousness and militancy. His embrace of the communist cause was probably more hesitant than he later presented it. He did become a committed communist, but it was more by accident than design, the result less of socialist revelation than the contingencies of military and political events. The most important of these events was the First World War, which led to his military career.

TSARIST SOLDIER

The First World War broke out as a result of the July Crisis of 1914. Following the assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, by a Bosnian Serb nationalist in Sarajevo at the end of June (the Archduke’s wife, Sophie, was also killed), Austria-Hungary mobilised for war against Serbia. When Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on 28 July Russia mobilised in support of its Balkan ally and fellow Slav state. In response to the Russian mobilisation Germany, Austria-Hungary’s ally, declared war on Russia on 1 August and two days later attacked Russia’s ally France. The picture was completed by a British declaration of war on Germany on 4 August in response to German violations of Belgian neutrality. Subsequently, a number of other states became involved in the war – Turkey (1914) and Bulgaria (1915) on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary, Japan (1914), Italy (1915), and the United States (1917) on the side of Britain, France, and Russia.

From the Russian point of view they were involved in a war of national defence against the aggressors Germany and Austria-Hungary. The outbreak of war inspired a massive patriotic mobilisation in Russia – in much the same way that it did a quarter of a century later when Hitler attacked the Soviet Union. Zhukov, caught up in the patriotic fervour, was tempted to volunteer but after talking it over with another furrier from his home village, he decided to wait until his age cohort was called up. Alexander volunteered, however, and tried to persuade Georgy to follow suit.

When Zhukov was conscripted in summer 1915 he consulted with Uncle Mikhail, who told him that he could get a deferment for a year on medical grounds. When Zhukov pointed out that he was in good health and well able to serve on the front his uncle asked him whether he really wanted to be a fool like Alexander. ‘I told him’, recalled Zhukov, ‘that it was my duty to defend the motherland.’12

Zhukov reported for military duty in Kaluga Province in August 1915 and was assigned to the 5th Reserve Cavalry Regiment, where he was ‘very happy to serve . . . for I entertained many romantic feelings about [the cavalry]’.13 In September Zhukov was sent with his regiment to the Kharkov province in Ukraine to join the 10th Cavalry Division. It was there that he received his cavalry training. His first horse was a shrewish dark grey mare called Chashechnaya, whom he groomed three times a day.

Zhukov completed his cavalry training by spring 1916 but was then selected for further training as a non-commissioned officer. During this course Zhukov had his first adult clash with authority, a particularly brutish NCO nicknamed ‘Four-and-a-Half’ because he was missing half his right-hand index finger. Four-and-a-Half picked on Zhukov and pressured him to leave the cavalry to become a clerk. Although Zhukov expected to graduate at the top of his class, a fortnight before the exams it was announced that he was being discharged for disloyalty and insubordination towards Four-and-a-Half. He thought that was the end of his cavalry career but was rescued from this fate when a fellow trainee reported the matter to the commanding officer, who decided to allow Zhukov to finish the course.

In his memoirs Zhukov looked back on his NCO training with mixed feelings. On the one hand it was good training in horsemanship, weapons use, and drill techniques. On the other hand, the ‘NCO was not taught the human approach. He was expected to mould the soldier into a pliant robot. Discipline was maintained by harshness. Though regulations did not stipulate corporal punishment, it was rather common.’14

In August 1916 Zhukov was posted to combat duty along the River Dnestr in Moldova, at that time a province of tsarist Russia. Before he even arrived at the front Zhukov had his baptism of fire when his unit was bombed by a reconnaissance plane, killing one soldier and wounding five horses. Not long after his arrival at the front Zhukov won his first medal – the St. George Cross – for capturing a German officer. In an unpublished interview with a Soviet journalist in Berlin in 1945 Zhukov recalled that he was fascinated by intelligence work and because he knew some German he had specialised in capturing prisoners.15 While on another reconnaissance patrol in October 1916 Zhukov was blown off his horse by a mine that badly injured his two companions. A shell-shocked Zhukov was evacuated to Kharkov in Ukraine and hospitalised. It was for this wounding that Zhukov received his second St. George Cross. He was posted back to his original unit, the 5th Reserve Cavalry Regiment, at the end of 1916. As he recalled in his memoirs: ‘I had left the squadron a young soldier. I was now returning with my NCO stripes, combat experience, and two St. George Crosses.’16

REVOLUTION AND CIVIL WAR

Zhukov’s old unit was based at Lageri near Balakleya, about eighty miles southeast of Kharkov. Here Zhukov and his fellow soldiers were soon caught up in the revolutionary events of 1917 that began with the fall of the autocratic Romanov dynasty that had ruled Russia for 400 years and culminated with the seizure of power by Lenin and the Bolsheviks. The precipitating event was the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II in March 1917 following a general strike and soldiers’ mutiny in Petrograd, the Russian capital. (Petrograd was formerly St. Petersburg – a name it reverted to after the collapse of the USSR, in 1991. During Soviet times, the city was called Leningrad.)

Behind the tsar’s downfall lay a rising tide of popular discontent and protest. The war had not gone well for Russia. It had suffered a series of defeats and territorial losses and incurred millions of casualties. The tsarist government had proved incapable of organising the country’s war effort. There were inadequate supplies of weapons and ammunition and many of the troops’ basic needs – food, clothing, and medical aid – were provided for by civic organisations. Printing money to pay for the war created rampant inflation and consequent food shortages in the cities as peasants were reluctant to part with their produce for a devaluing currency. The urban population responded with strikes and political demonstrations. In November 1915 Tsar Nicholas took over command of the armed forces and became personally identified with Russia’s military defeats and its other wartime woes. Adding to his troubles was a loss of middle-class confidence in his leadership and its constant calls for the modernisation and democratisation of Russia.

Matters came to a head when strikes and demonstrations by female textile workers in Petrograd in March 1917 developed into citywide protests. Troops were ordered to restore order and a number of demonstrators were shot. But the city’s garrison soldiers then mutinied and joined the side of the protesters. Having lost control of his capital Nicholas was persuaded to resign in the national interest. He abdicated in favour of his brother, the Grand Duke Michael, who refused to take the throne. That was the end of the autocratic Romanov dynasty.