There is no doubt that Marshal Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov (1896-1974) is the best-known Soviet general of World War II. His legacy is still debated today. Was he the greatest Soviet general or not? Were the heavy casualties under his command avoidable? How much is true of his glowing praise in Soviet historiography, and how much of the negative remarks by some of his contemporaries? Whatever the truth about Zhukov the legend, it’s certain that Zhukov the man (and one of the very few men who dared to say “No” to Stalin) was, at the very least, the most prominent Soviet general of the war. Zhukov’s prestige was so high in the Soviet Union that he was chosen as the person to accept the German Instrument of Surrender at the end of the war in Europe. Not coincidentally, this article is first published just a few weeks after V-E Day, the celebration of that occasion.
 
Early life and career
Zhukov was born into an impoverished family near Moscow, to a cobbler father and a peasant laborer mother. He attended three years of primary schooling (two was typical for most of the children of the working class), then apprenticed as his uncle’s furrier in the capital. He enrolled in night classes and read whatever he could about the Russian and German languages, science, mathematics and geography.

He started his own fur business in 1914, but was drafted into the Imperial Russian Army the next year and fought in World War I. He was wounded in combat, decorated twice and promoted to non-commissioned officer ranks. He joined the Communist Party (the Bolsheviks) during the October Revolution of 1917, where he was welcomed due to his background of bona fide peasant poverty. He fought in a cavalry unit during the five-year-long Russian Civil War which ended with the formation of the Soviet Union, and was commissioned as an officer.
 
Zhukov rapidly climbed the ranks and became a regimental commander by May 1923, receiving valuable lessons in Germany, which had a training agreement with the Soviet Union at the time; he also attended the prestigious Frunze Military Academy in Moscow.
 
The First Cavalry Army, in which Zhukov served, was posted in the Soviet Far East to protect the border between Mongolia (a Soviet puppet state) and Manchuria, the Japanese-occupied part of China. Japanese strategy at the time advocated expansion into China and the Soviet Far East to acquire more natural resources for the budding empire. This was a doubly lucky posting for Zhukov. For one, he, like many other cavalry officers posted to an important location far away from Moscow, avoided the Great Purge of 1936-38, Stalin’s attempt to remove all political threats to his rule by imprisoning and executing 700,000 to 1.2 million people. Additionally, the service in Mongolia gave him his big break.

Triumph in the Far East
Intermittent small-scale border conflicts between Japan and the Soviet Union began in 1932 and came to a head in the Battle of Khalkhin Gol from May to mid-September 1939, ended a few days after World War II started with Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland. (Stories of Poland’s Fall)  The battle began with 70-90 Mongolian cavalrymen grazing their horses in a disputed strip of land along the Khalkha River (“Khalkhin Gol” in Mongolian) and provoking a Japanese response. The conflict escalated during the summer, until the Japanese crossed the river.

Zhukov’s counterattack crushed the Japanese forces. A pincer attack, combining infantry, tanks, fighters and bombers (in the Soviet Air Force’s first-ever fighter-bomber operation) encircled and defeated the Japanese, putting an end to further incursions into Mongolian territory. The battle proved the validity of combined arms tactics, and revealed some of the weaknesses of Soviet tanks (most importantly, the fire hazard of gasoline engines) which were later fixed in the T-34. Zhukov’s own innovations included bridges hidden just below the water’s surface so enemy scouts wouldn’t spot them, and putting small numbers of veteran soldiers into green units to improve training and morale.

For his leadership at Khalkhin Gol, Zhukov received the title Hero of the Soviet Union, the highest title of the country, and the first of four such distinctions during his career. He was the only man to receive four well-deserved distinctions: Premier Secretary Leonid Brezhnev also got four, but only as part of the cult of personality around him. In 1940, Zhukov was promoted to army general, becoming one of the eight highest-ranking officers of the Red Army.
 
In late 1940, Zhukov participated in a large-scale exercise simulating the defense of the Soviet Union against a German attack. Sources differ about the details, but seem to agree that two lessons were drawn: one, that Zhukov (playing as the German leader) was highly talented, and two, that the Soviet Union was unprepared for such an invasion. Zhukov was appointed chief of the general staff in February 1941.

World War II
The Soviet Union was still unprepared on June 22, 1941, when Hitler actually did launch Operation Barbarossa. The country was unprepared; the Red Army was still reeling from a shortage of competent senior officers after Stalin’s purge. Zhukov was one of the few who were good and who were available. Even he, however, could not stem the flow of German men and weapons. Zhukov came to butt heads with Stalin regarding the defense of Kiev in September. He requested additional armies to be moved to the region, but Stalin insisted those forces were necessary to defend Moscow and the Soviet Far East. Zhukov than suggested pulling back to firm up the frontline, but this would have meant abandoning Kiev to save the troops there, which Stalin refused to do. In the argument, Zhukov told Stalin that if he thought he (Zhukov) was “talking nonsense,” than he should relieve him and send him to the frontline. Stalin did just that: he removed Zhukov from the position of chief of the general staff and sent him to the Reserve Front (“Front” being the Soviet term for an army group). In the end, Kiev fell with 600,000 Soviet troops killed or captured.
 
Zhukov’s new command, the Reserve Front, participated in the defense of Smolensk, and achieved the first victory, the first (small) stretch of ground reclaimed from the Germans, at the Yelnya Offensive. The victory was a morale boost from Russia. Zhukov was next sent to Leningrad, where he oversaw the defense of the besieged city. (900 Days of Starvation) While he could not lift the siege, he did manage to restore discipline, morale and effective defense before whisked away to yet another crisis.

In October, he commanded two merged fronts in the defense of Moscow. He left some of his forces in reserve to look weaker than he really was, constantly stringing the Germans on by dangling an “almost reachable” victory before them, while they bled and their equipment malfunctioned in the winter. Once the Germans were sufficiently weakened, Zhukov pushed them back away from Moscow. To be fair, his counterattack at Rzhev was also a failure, and he was criticized for throwing his men against an impenetrable German defense commanded by Walter Model (Hitler’s Fireman), an excellent defensive general.

Finding his way back into Stalin’s graces, Zhukov was made deputy commander-in-chief in August 1942, second only to Stalin himself. He took charge of the defense of Stalingrad and participated in the counteroffensive that ended up encircling two German armies. He was then sent back to Moscow to plan another counteroffensive there – which admittedly failed –, then to Leningrad again to break the German siege (this time successfully) in January 1943. He was promoted to Marshal of the Soviet Union later that month.
 
Zhukov present at the Battle of Kursk (The Largest Tank Battle in History) as a coordinator from Stavka (the Soviet high command), and is often credited with being the architect of victory there. His importance to victory, however, did not go unchallenged. His long-time rival Konstantin Rokossovsky (The Man with Iron Will and Metal Teeth) claimed that Zhukov took no major part in the planning, he arrived just before the battle and left immediately afterward.

Whatever the truth of Kursk was, Zhukov went on to oversee numerous offensive operations during the Soviet push westward, into Germany and Berlin. After taking Germany’s capital, Zhukov was given the honor of accepting the German Instrument of Surrender.
 
Just how good a general was Zhukov? He had both victories and defeats. One thing often brough up against him was that he was quick to launch aggressive operations that ended up with high casualties. This is true, but it’s hard to say that, given the dire situation the Soviet Union was in, it would have been even possible to win in any other way. On a fairer note of criticism, it’s true that Zhukov had, on several occasion, kept “reinforcing failure,” sending troops to help a breakthrough attempt that was clearly not going to happen. He was also criticized for micromanaging his subordinate officers, making decisions and handing out orders that should have been made closer to the front. This, again, is true, but it’s important to remember that the Great Purge left the Red Army without many competent officers, and it’s quite possible that micromanaging some of the officers who were available was still a lesser evil than letting them make their own decision.

He had good relationships with the commanders of the other occupation zones: Eisenhower (The Supreme Commander – Part I), Montgomery (Montgomery – Part I) and the French Marshal Jean de Lattre. He became especially good friends with Ike, who went on a tour of the Soviet Union with him immediately after the war, introduced him to Coca-Cola (Zhukov’s Cola), and sent him a set of fishing tackle after retirement which Zhukov used for the rest of his life.

Zhukov was a better commander than a politician, and his career hit some bumps after the war. One of his ill-wishers was security chief Lavrenty Beria, a major power player, a man who had Stalin’s ear, and one of the architects of the Great Purge and the terror of the NKVD (the KGB’s predecessor). Thanks in part to Beria’s schemes, Zhukov was removed from Berlin in 1946 and sent on two unimportant assignments far from Moscow. He was also accused of unauthorized looting (he actually was caught trying to take home seven railway carriages’ worth of furniture from Germany and had a collection of jewelry, paintings and furs in his home). Another charge was Bonapartism, which in Soviet usage meant military officers trying to stage a counter-revolutionary takeover of the state (which he was almost certainly innocent of).