MARSHAL GEORGY ZHUKOV

Childhood and Adolescence

60 years since the end of World War Two it is quite appropriate to remember the greatest Russian military leader of the 20th century, Georgy Zhukov, whose contribution to the allied victory over Nazi Germany can hardly be exaggerated.

But first, before we take a closer look at the life and work of this outstanding man, let’s go back to the younger days of the legendary Marshal.

Georgy Zhukov was born in 1896 into a poor family in a small village a hundred kilometers away from Moscow. The Zhukovs lived in an old, moth-covered log house where there was only one room with two windows looking out. Anna Zhukova, a childless widow who once lived there adopted a two year-old boy, the father of the would-be Marshal. Growing up, the boy started working as a shoemaker.

Georgy’s mother was born into an equally struggling peasant family. When Georgy’s parents got married his mother was 35 and his father had already turned 50. For both it was a second marriage because they had lost their spouses early on. Mother was a very strong woman easily lifting and carrying 80-kilo grain sacks. They say she had inherited her physical strength from her father who, getting under a horse, had no problem lifting it up. No matter how hard Georgy’s parents labored, the family still lived from hand to mouth. The year Georgy turned six, the grain harvest was poor, just enough to last the family till mid-December. Father and mother earned just enough to buy bread, salt and pay the debts. The neighbors helped them with food which was a traditional gesture of friendship and solidarity among the generally struggling Russian peasantry. With the advent of spring things started getting better as fishing in the local rivers was going well and Georgy, a fine angler, would bring in huge hauls which he generously shared with the neighbors. Georgy started working in the fields from an early age doing almost as well as the adults did…

At the age of seven, Georgy started going to school which was about two kilometers away from his village. Some of the village boys boasted brand-new backpacks brought them by their parents. Georgy’a parents could not afford such a luxury so mother sewed him a simple bag made of fabric. Georgy didn’t like that because it looked like a beggar’s bag. “We’ll buy you a backpack when we get rich,” mother told him. Georgy remained forever grateful to his first teacher, Sergei Remizov. A good mentor and a very decent man, Remizov never punished anyone without a reason and never raised his voice. In 1906 Zhukov finished with honors the local three-class church school, much to the amusement of his parents. Mother presented him a new shirt and father made him a pair of brand new top boots.

At 12, Georgy started thinking about a new profession. He wanted to work at a print shop but his parents did not know anyone in the business so the boy was sent to a furrier’s. Georgy was ready to do just about anything to help his family. That’s how he eventually moved to Moscow where he was supposed to learn his new trade for a whole four years. He had never once seen a train before and was hugely impressed by the trip just as he was by the sight of the huge city opening up before him. He had never seen houses more than two stories high, cobbled streets and posh carriages. Neither had he seen such crowded and bustling streets before…

The lady that owned the workshop assigned Georgy to clean up the place, shine the shoes of the facility’s owners and their children and, of course, to learn the trade. The apprentice boys got up early in the morning and quickly washing up, got the workplaces ready for the day. At 11 p.m. the boys went to bed sleeping right on the floor. During the fist couple of months Georgy was very homesick missing his loved ones whom he only saw again four years later. Georgy was a good student but the shop owner never missed a chance to beat up the boys for the tiniest mistake. Georgy was not spared either and he spent his every spare hour to expand his knowledge of other subjects too.

In 1912 Georgy Zhukov got a happy chance to spend a whole ten days with his family. Leaving home as still a kid he was a mature young man now. Mother met him at the rail station and he could hardly hold back tears seeing how much older she looked compared to the way she did just four years ago…

Georgy spent his vacation helping his old folks and meeting his friends in the evening. Just a day before he was to get back to Moscow there happened a big fire in the nearby village. The strong wind quickly fanned up the flames. There were desperate cries for help coming from one of the burning houses. Without hesitating a moment Georgy rushed inside and pulled out the terrorized children and an elderly woman.

In July 1915, at the very height of World War One, Georgy Zhukov was drafted to the army. That was the beginning of a long and brilliant military career made by the legendary Marshal.

Military Service

Georgy Zhukov was drafted to the army in 1915 at the very height of the First World War. Much to his excitement, he was sent to serve in the cavalry.

Shortly after that Zhukov was sent to a petty officer’s school and assigned to a dragoon regiment. Once he took prisoner a German officer and was awarded St. George’s Cross for valor. A month later he was seriously wounded and that was the end of his service in the tsarist army.

When the Bolsheviks took power in October 1917 Zhukov volunteered to the Red Army. The Civil War over, he started making a very successful military career. In 1933 he already commanded a cavalry division and five years later he was already riding high as deputy commander of the Byelorussian Military District.

In 1939 the long simmering conflicts between the Soviet Union and Japan degenerated into a full-blown war. The Japanese army crossed the Mongolian border and reached the Khalkhin Gol River. The Soviet military command was desperately looking for an able commander to prevent the Japanese crossing the strategic waterway. The choice eventually fell on Zhukov and he was appointed commander of the entire Soviet military contingent in Mongolia. Less than three months and more than 61,000 Japanese deaths later, the Red Army routed the enemy losing three times less of its own. For that momentous victory Georgy Zhukov was awarded his first Gold Star of Hero of the Soviet Union.

In 1941, shortly before the Nazi invasion, Georgy Zhukov was made the chief of staff of the Red Army.

At 4 a.m. on June 22, 1941 Nazi hordes crossed the Soviet border at the start of what has since been known the Great Patriotic War. The surprise German attack spelled tragedy for the Red Army which, caught flat-footed, was suffering terrible losses.

Hating to sit at the military staff headquarters in Moscow, Zhukov just couldn’t wait to be sent out to the battlefront. He didn’t have to wait long and the first Soviet victory over the advancing enemy was won exactly under his expert command. By that time the German armies were standing just outside Leningrad. The Nazis could already see the golden domes of the churches through their binoculars. They had to be stopped at any cost! Entrusted with the daunting task of beating back the enemy, Zhukov kept sending his exhausted and severely outnumbered troops into a counterattack after a bloody counterattack and finally managed to slow down the German advance. Fearing to move any closer to the city, the enemy laid siege to Russia’s northern capital.

In those critical days Josef Stalin decided to put Georgy Zhukov at the head of the Western Front that was defending Moscow. The situation was absolutely critical, more than 600,000 Soviet soldiers had already been taken prisoner and seven Soviet armies had ceased to exist along with bulk of their tanks and artillery…

Arriving in Moscow, Zhukov immediately started putting together a new army and several weeks later he already had a formidable in-depth defense all in place. Exhausted by their quick advance eastward, the Germans were hard hit by the harsh Russian winter and so the time seemed ripe for a major Soviet counteroffensive, which ultimately came in late 1941 and pushed the enemy away from the capital.

During the Battle of Stalingrad in the winter of 1942-1943, the Red Army literally thrashed the 6th German Amy of Filed Marshal von Paulus thanks to an expert plan drawn up by General Zhukov.

In recognition of a major operation he had drawn up that broke the 900-day siege of Leningrad, Zhukov was promoted to the rank of Marshal. Marshal Zhukov also takes credit for routing the Germans in the Battle of Kursk fought in the summer of 1943.

The war now going into its closing phase, Georgy Zhukov developed another major operation codenamed Bagration that aimed to drive the Nazi invaders out of this country. For that he was awarded his Second Gold Star of a Hero of the Soviet Union.

There was no stopping the crushing Russian advance now… Looming ahead now was the daunting task of taking Berlin. Never before did the Soviet Army have to storm such a big and strongly fortified city. There were 13 Russian armies brought in to do the job. On May 2, 1945, after weeks of fierce fighting, Berlin finally fell. Its remaining defenders, 70,000 in all, laid down their weapons. The war was over…

Already made a third time Hero of the Soviet Union for the Berlin Operation, Georgy Zhukov, on May 9 of 1945 put his signature to the text of the unconditional German surrender… A month later he was in Moscow reviewing a Victory parade on Red Square. His experience of a onetime cavalry man came in very handy here as Zhukov, his chest all ablaze with military decorations, faced the troops sitting astride a magnificent white horse. The orchestra blared out a marching song and the victorious Soviet soldiers marched past the Kremlin wall led by their invincible commander…

Post-war Years

Despite his impressive wartime record, Zhukov suffered a string of painful reversals after the war with Nazi Germany was over. The first setback came after he fell out with the powerful and much-feared State Security Ministry led by Lavrenty Beria.

The initial clash came already in 1945 when Beria’s deputy, Viktor Abakumov, arrived in Berlin and arrested several high-ranking members of Zhukov’s staff. There was nothing political in the arrests though since the detained Generals were all accused of misappropriating confiscated German property. Without even bothering to figure out what had happened, Zhukov released all the detainees and sent Abakumov out of the city. Incensed by the Marshal’s heavy-handed treatment, Abakumov returned to Moscow and shortly after, was appointed State Security Minister by Josef Stalin who was apparently alarmed by the growing popularity of his victorious and at times refractory generals. Not surprisingly, Marshal Zhukov was the first to feel the pinch. Abakumov had first-hand knowledge of how the Soviet military really worked and had everything he needed to intimidate the less cooperative generals.

In 1946 Air Force Marshal Alexander Novikov was arrested on trumped-up charges and they immediately started knocking out of him evidence that might in any way incriminate Zhukov. Zhukov, then the commander of the Ground Forces, was summoned to a meeting of the Supreme Military Council to hear the damning evidence given against him by the jailed Marshal Novikov. Zhukov was accused of, no less, conspiring to overthrow the government. The attending Marshals and Generals stood tall with Georgy Zhukov though and so, instead of being thrown behind bars, he was dismissed from his job and sent out to command the Odessa military district on the Black Sea. However, the investigation continued and, shortly after, many of the Generals and officers who had served with Zhukov in Germany were arrested and sentenced to long prison terms. None of them testified against Zhukov though…

In 1948 Josef Stalin exiled Zhukov to command the Urals Military District which he ran until Stalin’s death in 1953. Right after the dictator’s demise, Nikita Khrushchev ordered Zhukov back to Moscow and made him deputy defense minister. Several months later Georgy Zhukov took active part in the arrest and subsequent execution of Lavrenty Beria whom Khrushchev viewed as a serious rival barring his way to the top. Besides, Beria’s long record of bloody reprisals against dissidents and his rise to power was fraught with new purges of innocent people…

In 1955 Georgy Zhukov, a strong Khrushchev ally for several years now, was promoted to Defense Minister of the USSR on the occasion of his 60th birthday, and in late 1956 he became a fourth time Hero of the Soviet Union. The start of Khrushchev’s stint as First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party was soured by strong opposition that was brewing among the leading members of the ruling Politburo. At one point they tried to topple Khrushchev and could have had their way had it not been for the timely intervention of Georgy Zhukov who resolutely came out against the plotters. Shortly after, they all lost their jobs and were forced into early retirement. However, Zhukov’s timely intervention on Khrushchev’s side made him even more popular. Fearing Zhukov might use his clout against him, Nikita Khrushchev came up with a stinging critique of his Defense Minister in October 1957 just as Zhukov was on an official visit to Yugoslavia. This time round, the top military brass that in 1946 saved Zhukov’s neck, unanimously endorsed all the charges brought against their colleague. Soon after Georgy Zhukov was forced to resign…

The first seven years of his retirement looked more like an exile. Zhukov was constantly being watched by state security agents and his role in the war was consistently being underrated. The culmination of that hard-hitting campaign of defamation and hush-hush was the publication of a six-volume history of the Second World War where his name was all but omitted. Incensed by all that, Zhukov started writing his own memoirs but it wasn’t until 1965, already after Khrushchev’s ouster, that people were again talking about him as a great World War Two hero. Zhukov started getting invitations to all sorts of conferences and meetings, his articles began to appear in the Soviet press, but the terrible pressure and stress of the war and post-war years were now taking their toll… In 1967 Zhukov suffered a severe stroke from which he never fully recovered. At 2.30 p.m. on June 18, 1974, Marshal Georgy Zhukov died and was buried under the Kremlin Wall on Red Square with all honors reserved to an outstanding statesman.

Marshal Zhukov enjoyed the profound respect and admiration of his fellow countrymen. A four times Hero of the Soviet Union, he was also the proud holder of two Victory Orders and a wealth of Soviet and foreign decorations. There is a military academy in Moscow bearing his name and many streets and monuments across this country dedicated to one of the greatest military leaders who ever lived…

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Illustrations: Marshal Georgy Zhukov. Photograph Album. “Planeta”, Moscow, 1984