Source: http://vho.org/tr/2004/3/Michaels334-340.html
Viktor Suworow, Marschall Schukow - Lebensweg über Leichen,
Pour-le-Mérite, Selent, Germany, 2002, 350 pp., €25.80
Prologue
Every war produces genuine military strategists and heroes, many of whom die
on the battlefield or whose exploits go unrecognized. Decorated "Hero of
the Soviet Union" four times, Marshal Georgi Zhukov was indisputably the
most honored military figure in the Soviet Union. During World War II he rose
to the position of deputy supreme commander and, after Josef Stalin, was the
USSR's most popular figure. Viktor Suvorov, arguably the foremost revisionist
of the Russo-German War, attempts in his most recent book[1]
to show that Zhukov was neither a genuine hero nor a great strategist. Not
only, Suvorov contends, was Zhukov the only general in world history to be
honored for losing more than five million of his men in combat, but he was also
an unscrupulous commander who squandered the men serving under him through
gross incompetence and callousness. As to the character of the man, 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 entire history of the Soviet Union, Viktor Suvorov writes in his latest
book, is a fabrication based on lies and propaganda. With the exception of the
Russian people themselves, whose courage and stoicism deserve every
acknowledgment, there were no genuine Communist heroes during the entire Soviet
regime, especially not those designated by the ink and electronic media under
the direction of the propaganda directorate (Agitprop). Suvorov takes the case
of four-times "Hero of the Soviet Union" Marshal Georgi Zhukov as a
prime example of such fabricated heroism.
The legend of Zhukov's genius, Suvorov states, was an invention of the
Communist Party and the marshal himself in his memoirs.[2]
It was propagated throughout the world by Communist political commissars and
propagandists like General David Ortenberg, chief editor of the military
newspaper Red Star, and Boris Polevoy (né Kampov), chief editor of Pravda.
The legend was echoed and magnified in the Western media by fellow travelers
and innocent dupes alike. By 1970 one benighted cleric even proposed that
Zhukov be made a saint in the Russian Orthodox Church.
Essentially a crude and unprofessional soldier, Zhukov was held in low
regard by his fellow Soviet marshals: Bulganin, Vasilevsky, Yeremenko, Konev,
Zakharov, Golikov, Rokossovsky, Timoshenko, Biryuzov, and others. Suvorov cites
descriptions of Zhukov by these colleagues, and the adjectives most frequently
used to describe Zhukov are crude, brutal, sadistic, vainglorious, obtuse,
morbidly narcissistic, overrated. They also employed the terms butcher, drunk,
braggart, careerist, fraud, and the like. Nor were these epithets simply a
matter of professional jealousy. Unfortunately for Zhukov, first Stalin and
later Khrushchev concurred in this evaluation.
Writing today, Russian military historian Pavel N. Bobylev of the Russian
Ministry of Defense Institute of Military History admits 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."[3]
Marshal Zhukov was not, as the media has depicted him, the master
strategist and architect of most of the Soviet battlefield victories. He was,
instead, one of Stalin's brutal executioners - a ruthless individual given
plenipotentiary powers to ensure that the military strategies and tactics
developed by Stalin and the Supreme High Command (Stavka) were successfully
executed, regardless of the cost in men or materiel. At times the marshal used
to weep uncontrollably for no apparent reason.
Suvorov compares Zhukov's role and responsibilities to those of the secret
police chief Genrikh Yagoda, who received credit for supervising the building
of the Baltic-White Sea Canal in which countless thousands of slave laborers
perished. Yagoda was the slave master who ensured the laborers were on the job,
but had nothing to do with the planning, engineering, and subsequent operation
of the canal. So it was with Zhukov, who drove his men into battle without
himself having developed a strategy that would yield victory with the least
number of casualties. As to Zhukov's modus operandi, Marshal Rokossovsky wrote:[4]
"Zhukov much preferred to give orders than to lead his men. At
difficult moments no subordinate could expect any support from his side - the
support of a comrade, leader, or an encouraging word of friendly counsel."
Suvorov reviews Zhukov's career chronologically from his early undeserved
"victories" to his final, fully-deserved disgrace.
Battle of Khalkhin-Gol
Zhukov's first major command, in which he won his first Hero of the Soviet
Union award, was in the Battle of Khalkhin-Gol in Mongolia in the summer of
1939, considered by many the dress rehearsal for the planned Soviet attack on
Germany in 1941. When the decision was taken by the Kremlin to teach the
Japanese a lesson while at the same time trying out the Soviet war machine,
General Zhukov was chosen to head the operation and was given a free hand to
request as many men and as much military hardware as he wanted. According to
Suvorov, General Zhukov did not himself devise the sudden, Soviet steamroller
encirclement operation that was executed with overwhelming forces.
While the accounts of the battle highlight the names of Zhukov, the
political commissars assigned to the operation, and even those of individual
heroes among the troops, no mention whatsoever is made of the key officers -
the chief of staff and the chief of operations - who were most responsible for
the conduct and outcome of the battle. In his research Suvorov found that most
of the important data on the operation are still classified and inaccessible.
He did, however, eventually find the name of Zhukov's chief of staff in the
little-publicized memoirs of Marshal Matvei Zakharov. It was Brigade Commander
M. A. Bogdanov, the best in the Red Army at the time, who must be credited with
developing the strategy used so successfully at Khalkhin-Gol, not General
Zhukov.
Admiral of the Fleet Nikolai Kuznetsov, who was later purged by Marshal
Zhukov personally, commented on Zhukov's role in the battle:[5]
"After it was over, he [Zhukov] did
everything he could to take credit for every success in the battle with the
Japanese."
Prelude to World War II
After his return from the successful campaign in Mongolia in late 1940,
Zhukov found the map of Europe changed to reflect Stalin's advance into
Finland, the Baltic states, and Bessarabia, as well as Hitler's invasion of
Western Europe. In September 1940 Stalin ordered all his major military
commanders and the entire Politburo to attend a ten-day conference in Moscow,
beginning on December 23, to discuss possible strategies in the event of war
with Germany. Ostensibly, the conference was to address the problem of how best
to defend the Soviet Union in the event of an attack by Germany. Actually,
Suvorov notes, most of the reports delivered by the attendees discussed methods
of how best to attack Germany.[6]
General Zhukov, who was then-commander of the Kiev Military District, was -
owing to his unique experience in Mongolia - assigned to deliver the main
report, "The Character of a Modern Offensive Operation." Because, he
claimed, he was very busy with his other duties, Zhukov delegated the writing
of his report to a then little-known but gifted officer, Colonel I. Kh.
Bagramyan. Bagramyan, Suvorov notes, later rose to the rank of marshal in World
War II and authored the Soviet 1944 summer offensive that broke the German
front in the central sector.
Suvorov lists other reports read at the conference, e.g., "The Air
Force in an Offensive Operation and in the Fight for Mastery of the Skies"
by the head of the Main Air Force Administration, General P. V. Rychagov; and
"The Use of Mechanized Units in a Modern Offensive Operation and the
Insertion of a Mechanized Corps in a Breakthrough" by General D. G. Pavlov.
When General F. N. Remizov, addressing People's Commissar of Defense, Marshal
S. K. Timoshenko, made the comment, "Comrade Commissar of Defense, by
modern defense we mean..." Timoshenko cut him off sharply: "We are not
talking about defense."
The reports outlining the offensive deployment procedures to be followed to
accomplish a sudden, steamroller attack against Germany similar to that used
against the Japanese in Mongolia, were well received. All participants in the
conference were sworn to absolute secrecy about the proceedings. However, in
his memoirs published in 1969, Zhukov falsely stated that the conference was
concerned with the defense of the Soviet Union in the event of a German attack.
Prewar Maneuvers
In January 1941, immediately following the conference, large-scale
strategic operational maneuvers were held to test the theoretical discussions
at the conference. Stalin and the entire Politburo observed. The People's
Commissar of Defense, Marshal Timoshenko, directed the war games.
According to Marshal Zhukov, he and some twenty-one other generals
commanded the "Western (Blue) forces," i.e., the invading German
forces, while General D. G. Pavlov with twenty-eight generals commanded the
defending "Eastern (Red) Russian forces." Zhukov, by his own account,
miraculously deployed his forces in precisely the manner the Germans did in
their attack a year later. Writer Ivan Stadnyuk has sarcastically described
Zhukov's brilliance:[7] "His talent was so brilliant
that he could merely glance at the map to evaluate the situation. Putting
himself in the place of the German command, he almost faultlessly divined the
decisions that the Germans would take."
As a youth at the time of these maneuvers, Suvorov had wondered why the
Chief of the General Staff, General Kirill Meretskov, had not himself directed
the defense, as important as it was to the survival of the state. In reality,
but concealed by Marshal Zhukov in his memoirs, there were not one, but two war
games conducted in January 1941.[8] The first ran from 2
through 6 January during which the "Germans" launched their attack
from East Prussia, while the second ran from 8 through 11 January, with the
"Germans" attacking from Romania and Hungary. In the second war game,
Zhukov commanded the Soviet forces, while Pavlov commanded the "Germans."
Despite the legend that the Germans attacked in Operation Barbarossa with
superior forces, Suvorov points out that even in these maneuvers the Western
forces had only 3,512 tanks and 3,336 aircraft, while the Russians had 8,811
tanks and 5,652 aircraft. In the actual war, the Germans had even fewer tanks
and aircraft, while the Russian had more.
In these war games, Suvorov continues, the Soviet forces had two options
for attack: a direct strike north of Polesya against East Prussia, Königsberg,
and Berlin, which would have destroyed the entire German army; or south of
Polesya, toward Budapest and the Romanian oilfields. Stalin himself chose the
second option.
International Situation
Soon after the January 1941 maneuvers, Zhukov was appointed Chief of the
General Staff. In that position, Suvorov asserts, Zhukov should have warned
Stalin that the advances made by Soviet forces in Finland, the Baltics, and
Romania in the past two years had left Hitler no choice but to attack before
Germany was totally cut off from her raw material suppliers.
Germany was fully dependent on Sweden for iron ore and on Finland for
nickel and timber. First, the Soviet Union in the preceding years had built up
her Baltic Fleet to the point where it alone had more naval assets than Germany
to defend against the combined British and American navies in the Atlantic.
(For example, at that time Germany had a total of 57 submarines in its entire
navy, while the USSR had 65 subs in the Baltic Sea alone.) Second, the Soviet
Union had successfully invaded Finland and could now easily block the Gulf of
Bothnia. Third, the Soviet Union had occupied the three Baltic states of
Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. None of these measures had needed to be taken
for defensive reasons. They were obviously taken to cut Germany off from her
raw materials supplies.
Similarly, when the Soviet Union occupied Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina
and threatened Germany's only major oil source, Zhukov should have known that
Germany could not possibly tolerate that situation for long, and warned Stalin
of a possible attack. Zhukov did not.
The better strategic course of action on the Soviet side in the case of the
Romanian oil fields, in Suvorov's opinion, would have been either to seize the
Ploesti oilfields outright or else not do anything in that regard. Most of
Germany's military assets at the time were committed to the Western front; the
Eastern front was wide open. By taking the halfway action of seizing Bessarabia
and Bukovina, the Russians succeeded only in baiting the German tiger and
throwing Romania into the German camp. Boxed in a corner, the tiger could only
attack. Stalin made those political decisions, but Marshal Zhukov could and
should have recommended against them on strategic grounds.
June 22, 1941
When, on June 22, 1941, the German tiger attacked the Soviet Union, stunned
indecision paralyzed the Stavka. As Suvorov recounts, it was not because the
USSR was unprepared for war: they were armed to the teeth and almost ready to
attack in an offensive war of their own design. The code name for the Soviet
attack on Germany and Europe was "Groza," or
"storm." Very detailed invasion plans had been distributed to all
commanders at the front in red packets that were only to be opened when the
signal was given. Commenting after the war, Marshal Vasilevsky wrote:[9]
"There were very detailed operational plans, just as there were
mobilization plans. Mobilization plans had been given to literally each unit,
including the secondary rear units. [...] The
calamity was not in the absence of operational plans but in our inability to
use them in the situation that had developed."
The Stavka had prepared absolutely no plans for a defensive war. The
operational plans in the red packets were never opened. Josef Stalin and
Marshal Zhukov were responsible for this.
Moreover, the main thrust of the Germans was north of Polesya, while
Zhukov, who had claimed to know precisely what the Germans planned to do, had
deployed his main forces somewhat south of Polesya. Because Zhukov's own plans
had been upset, his first directives to the Soviet armed forces were impromptu
and confused.
On June 22, the day of the German attack, Zhukov distributed Directive No.
1 which ordered Soviet forces not to respond to any provocative actions.
Directive No. 2 followed later in the day, after the Germans had already
penetrated Soviet defenses. When Directive No. 3 was issued on June 24, it
sealed the fate of the front line troops of the Red Army by unrealistically
calling upon the Red Army in the Suvalka region to attack, encircle the enemy,
and destroy him. The reverse occurred.
Two months later in August, Suvorov recalls, Zhukov was faced with another
strategic decision. General Guderian's tank units had earlier seized the
strategically important town of Elnya, situated on a high-ground salient just
300 kilometers from Moscow. In August the German High Command was undecided
whether to use Guderian's forces for a push on Moscow or to turn south, meet up
with General Kleist's forces, and encircle the Soviet armies around Kiev.
Zhukov decided to make a frontal assault on the German salient at Elnya. Zhukov
eventually took Elnya, but his losses in men and equipment were so great that
it was a Pyrrhic victory.
Unfortunately for Zhukov, Guderian's main forces managed to slip by and
elude detection by the Soviets. Before moving south, however, the Germans
thoroughly mined the area around Elnya. Zhukov's forces attacked the now
abandoned Elnya salient and suffered heavy casualties on the minefields.
Meanwhile, Guderian's forces had joined up with Kleist's southern group,
encircled six Soviet armies, captured 665,000 Russian prisoners, 884 tanks,
3,178 field guns, and much ammunition and fuel.
The legend of Marshal Zhukov's genius, Suvorov recalls, attributes to him
the successful defense of Leningrad, the repulsing of the Germans at the gates
of Moscow, the defeat of the Germans at Stalingrad, and the taking of Berlin.
To stabilize the front after the disastrous rout of his armies, Stalin -
one week after the German attack - acted quickly by ordering the gifted
strategist, General Andrei Yeremenko, who at the time was commander of the Far
East Army in Khabarovsk, to take charge of the European theater, restore order,
and slow the German advance. This Yeremenko, not Zhukov, accomplished in
hard-fought battles around Smolensk and Bryansk.
Leningrad
Since tsarist times Leningrad has been so heavily defended on land and at
sea as to dissuade any attempt to attack it. With the guns of the Baltic Fleet
providing artillery support, the defense of the city was formidable indeed.
Only a madman, Suvorov says, would waste forces merely to take the city as a
trophy. Not being that madman, Hitler decided to leave the city to its misery
and move his now depleted and exhausted forces to a more important objective:
Moscow. Consequently, Suvorov comments sarcastically, Zhukov saved a city that
the Germans had no intention of storming.
Moscow
While it is true, Suvorov concedes, that the Germans were stopped at the
gates of Moscow, Marshal Zhukov had little to do with it. First, the German
forces had been depleted and exhausted after five months of uninterrupted
combat. They had also exhausted their supplies, especially fuel, and had yet to
receive winter clothing. In many cases unit strength was at 40 percent or less
of initial authorized strength. Second, Stavka, not Zhukov, had transferred 39
more battle-ready divisions and 42 brigades from Siberia, the Urals, and
Kazakhstan to the Western front.
Soviet defenses along the Lama River, running just west and northwest of
the Soviet capital, proved particularly difficult to overcome. For the first
time in the Russo-German war, Soviet defenses and men were managed with
consummate skill. The Russian commander who had accomplished this was given no
credit. That general's name was Andrei Vlasov, and he later defected to the
German side.
German losses were indeed grave in the battle for Moscow, and in many
sectors of the front they were forced to retreat. Marshal Zhukov, according to
Suvorov, then falsely exaggerated to Stalin German losses and the extent of the
German retreat. Zhukov convinced Stalin that a major offensive along the entire
Western front would completely rout the Germans. However, instead of
concentrating their forces into a fist and smashing the main German force
strength, the Soviets attacked all along the front, like the fingers on a hand.
Red Army losses were staggering as the German lines stiffened. Zhukov lost
three more armies and two corps. "Nicht kleckern, sondern klotzen" -
"Don't piddle away your strength; concentrate it for smashing an important
target!" is a famous German adage that Zhukov was apparently not familiar
with.
Despite the failure of the Soviets to drive the Germans out of Russia in
the first winter of the war (the Russo-German war would last another
three-and-a-half years), Stalin praised Zhukov and awarded him new honors. It
was the practice of Stalin, Viktor Suvorov observes, to lavish awards on his
bloodiest political henchmen. Thus, for example, Stalin also made Lev Mekhlis,
Lavrenty Beriya, Nikolai Bulganin, and other political murderers into generals
and marshals, praised them, and gave them the highest awards.
Stalingrad
The legend of Marshal Zhukov's genius also gives him credit for the Soviet
victory at Stalingrad. Suvorov points out that Zhukov had spent very little
time in Stalingrad. His first visit was on August 31, when he proposed
counterattacks. After two weeks he returned to Moscow. His last visit to
Stalingrad was on November 16. The main Soviet encircling offensive began on
November 19, without Zhukov. The marshal was mostly concerned with launching
unsuccessful offensives in other sectors of the front, especially in the
direction of Sychevka, Rzhev, and Vyazem. For these failed operations, Zhukov
was provided more men and materiel (ten armies, plus five more under Marshal
Konev) than were allotted to the successful Stalingrad operation, which
initially Zhukov thought of lesser importance.
According to Suvorov, neither the Stavka nor Zhukov believed that the
Germans had committed 22 divisions to the Stalingrad operation. Believing that
only about 7-8 German divisions were entrapped, Zhukov and the Stavka were
planning a broad-front, deep-penetration (600 km) offensive in the direction of
Riga, Vitebsk, and Minsk. As it turned out, that major planned offensive
advanced only 37 km and suffered very heavy losses.
When the magnitude of the Soviet victory at Stalingrad was realized,
Marshal Zhukov was in a position to entrap the entire southern wing of the
German advance in the Caucasus. Had the Soviets captured Rostov, which would
have cut off the Germans in the Caucasus, the war might have ended that year,
Suvorov speculates. However, Zhukov failed to seize the opportunity.
Zhukov had absolutely nothing to do with the Soviet victory in Stalingrad.
Most of the credit for the successful Soviet encirclement of the German 6th
Army must again, as in the case of the Fall 1941 checking of the German advance
on Moscow, go to General Andrei Yeremenko, the strategist who was ordered by
Stalin in early August 1942 to establish a Southeast Front that would include
Stalingrad and the Caucasus. General Aleksandr Vasilevsky was the responsible
commander of the Stalingrad forces. General Vasili Chuykov commanded the famed
62nd Soviet Army in Stalingrad.
Operation Mars
The successful Stalingrad operation surprised both Zhukov and Stalin. When
the Stavka planned its Fall 1942 offensive, it had in mind several major
offensives named after the planets Mars, Uranus, and Saturn. Operation Mars,
also known as the "Rzhev-Sychevka Offensive" and situated about 400
km west of Moscow, was primarily General Zhukov's responsibility; Operation
Uranus, the Stalingrad encirclement, was under the command of General Aleksandr
Vasilevsky; and, finally, Operation Saturn was intended to be a drive to
Rostov. All three simultaneous operations, the Soviets hoped, would result in
the total collapse of German Army Group Center.
The forces allotted to Zhukov were about equal to those assigned to
Vasilevsky. Mars began on November 29, Uranus on November 19. To Operation Mars
Zhukov committed about 670,000 men and 2,000 tanks, while Vasilevsky could
commit about 700,000 men and 1,400 tanks to the Stalingrad encirclement. Stalingrad,
of course, was a major Soviet success and a turning point in the war. Operation
Mars, under Zhukov, was a total failure. Zhukov failed to break the German
defense line and lost most of his tanks and 200,000 dead in the attempt. To
cover this failure, Stavka later claimed that Mars had only been carried out to
divert forces from Stalingrad. In reality, Stavka's original plan placed its
greatest hopes on Zhukov. Because of this failure, the German Army Group Center
managed to regroup and hold the line for another eighteen months.
This little known battle has been referred to as "Zhukov's greatest
defeat." David Glantz, an American military historian specializing in the
Russo-German war, has written a solid work on this one battle.[10]
Kursk
Precisely the same sequence of events occurred during the great tank battle
at Kursk. As Suvorov tells it, Zhukov had almost nothing to do with either the
preparations or conduct of the battle. He visited Soviet headquarters on the
eve of the battle, after all preparations had been made, and departed for
another sector of the front four hours after the battle had begun. Two
well-prepared Soviet fronts - the Central Front under General Rokossovsky and
the Voronezh Front under General N. F. Vatutin - awaited the German attack.
Marshal Vasilevsky supervised from Moscow.
The Soviets had been fully informed of German plans by the English, who by
this time were reading Enigma signals and sending a selection to Soviet
intelligence. As a backup, Soviet intelligence had their agent John Cairncross
working at Bletchley Park to provide more detailed information. After the
victory Zhukov paraded about boasting of his new victory. Years later Marshal
Rokossovsky recalled:[11]
"Comrades who had participated in the Kursk battle have come to me
with questions: Why has Marshal Zhukov distorted history in his memoirs,
claiming credit for things he never did? He shouldn't be permitted to do
that!"
Berlin
Marshal Zhukov's final claim to fame on the battlefield was the storming of
Berlin. Called to Moscow by Stalin in January 1945, Marshal Zhukov was put in
charge of the 1st Belorussian Front, Marshal Konev in charge of the 1st
Ukrainian Front, and Marshal Rokossovsky of the 2nd Belorussian Front. Stalin
encouraged rivalry between Zhukov and Konev to take the German capital;
Rokossovsky, being of Polish descent, was shunted somewhat to the sidelines because
Stalin wanted a Russian to take the German capital.
In the final battle for Berlin, the city was defended by remnants of
various Wehrmacht units, the Volkssturm, and small units of French and German
SS. With an advantage of approximately 10:1 in men and arms; with the addition
of Polish and Romanian units; and with the U.K. and U.S. air forces pounding
Berlin, Dresden, and other cities in the Russian path, Russian forces finally
took Berlin in the first week of May. To take Berlin, Zhukov's forces suffered
a third of a million casualties and lost two tank armies. For him it was a
typical victory with Russian casualties far higher than they need have been.
Marshal Georgi Zhukov: The smile of a mass murderer.
Occupation of Germany
After the war Stalin had ten marshals from whom to choose his military
adviser in Moscow. Having little regard for Zhukov's intelligence, he assigned
the popular marshal to Germany to restore order and put an end to the
marauding, looting, raping, drunkenness, and general anarchy that was
besmirching the image of the Red Army and the Soviet Union. For his personal
adviser, Stalin chose Marshal Aleksandr Vasilevsky, perhaps the most talented
of Russia's generals.
In charge of the German occupation, with headquarters in Wünsdorf, Zhukov
gradually restricted the lower ranks to barracks life. He indulged his own
greed, however. Of course, to do this he needed accomplices, of whom many were
to be found among the higher ranks, especially of the political secret police
officers (NKVD). NKVD General Ivan Serov, himself a Hero of the Soviet Union,
and NKVD General Konstantin Telegin organized most of the looting for the
marshal and his friends. Zhukov became, as Suvorov puts it, Russia's first
oligarch by looting things of value (jewelry, furs, carpets, paintings, rare
books, etc.) and shipping them home or presenting them as gifts to friends in
high places who might be of use to him one day.
Suvorov's search of the archives revealed that in August 1946 General
Bulganin reported to Stalin that "seven train cars containing 85 crates
loaded with furniture belonging to Marshal Zhukov were being held up in the
Yagoda customs."
To indicate how the racket was run, Suvorov also quotes several statements
made by General Aleksei Sidnev, NKVD commander in Berlin, at a hearing held in
Moscow in 1948:
"1) Zhukov sent me a crown that by all indications once belonged to
the wife of the German Kaiser. The gold had been removed from the crown to
decorate a piece of jewelry Zhukov wanted to give his daughter on her
birthday."
2) Serov ordered me to send him all the gold objects directly. In carrying
out his directive, I, at various times, sent Serov's organization about 30
kilograms of gold. Besides me, other sector chiefs sent Serov lots of gold
objects."
Stalin, fearing that the behavior of his marshals, troops, and political
officers was soiling the image of the Communist Party, took action against
Zhukov. In June 1946 Generalissimo Stalin stated:[12]
"Marshal Zhukov, having lost any sense of modesty and obsessed with
personal ambition, considers that his services have been insufficiently
appreciated. He, in conversations with subordinates, claims to have led all the
major operations in the Great Patriotic War, even those in which he had not the
slightest connection."
However, when Stalin in that same year proposed to his leading military
figures that Zhukov be relieved of all his commands, imprisoned, and possibly
shot, the generals and marshals unanimously advised against it. According to
Suvorov, they feared that if Stalin purged Zhukov, they might well be next in
line. They all remembered the purges in the 1930s. As it was, Stalin reduced
Zhukov in rank (up to that time the marshal had been second only to Stalin in
power), and assigned him to command the Odessa Military District.
Hearings and courts were set up to try the worst offenders. Secretary of
the Central Committee Andrei Zhdanov investigated the looting operations of
Zhukov and Telegin. Zhukov attempted to defend himself:[13]
"Accusing me of collaborating with Telegin in looting is slander. I
can't say anything about Telegin. I assume he acquired the furniture improperly
in Leipzig. I spoke to him about this. I don't know what he did with it."
Conveniently for the defendants, Zhdanov died in 1948; Stalin followed in
1953. The impending purge never took place, and Marshal Zhukov would remain
Minister of Defense for a few more years.
In 1957, when Khrushchev, who unlike Stalin did not murder the opposition,
was in power, the generals and marshals unanimously agreed that Zhukov should
be relieved of all his offices and commands. And so he was.
Zhukov's Love of Medals and Disdain for the Lives of his Men
Part of the Communist-generated legend was that Zhukov's troops loved the
marshal, and that he loved his troops. Marshal Zhukov used and wasted his men
like so many sacrificial lambs. There is no evidence that Zhukov ever tried to
spare the lives of his men or reduce casualties on the battlefield by brilliant
tactics or subterfuge. Those that did not willingly go to the sacrificial altar
were simply shot. Of some 6.5 million Russians who died on the battlefield and
are known to be buried, the names of only about 2.3 million have ever been
found. Mass graves were the norm for the fallen. In many cases the fallen were
not even buried, but left where they fell. The profligacy and indifference with
which Zhukov wasted lives and his disregard and disrespect for the fallen
simply reflected the Communist Party's attitude toward the individual.
Suvorov, however, points out how well the marshals and the political
commissars took care of themselves. During and after the war Zhukov's entire
upper torso was replete with medals and awards of every sort. The marshal was
especially fond of those that were decorated with precious stones. At the same
time, most of the common soldiers who did the fighting and who won the war, had
to be content with a simple badge "Za otvagu" ("For
valor"). In 1991, some 3.2 million medals and awards that had been intended
for the lower ranks were found in a warehouse in Moscow. Marshal Zhukov, who
was minister of defense after the war, never found the time to award those
medals, although he often awarded himself a new one.
The ultimate mockery of wartime medals, Suvorov notes, was made by the
Communist Party secretary and head of state Leonid Brezhnev, who awarded
himself a new Hero of the Soviet Union medal on each of his birthdays in 1966,
1976, 1978, and 1981.
Nuclear Test in 1954
A particularly graphic example of Zhukov's vaunted "love" of his
homeland and the soldiers under his command, Suvorov reveals, occurred in
September 1954 in a military exercise reported decades after the event. For the
purpose of studying the effects of a nuclear blast on ground forces, an
experiment was conducted at 0953 hours on September 14, 1954. Under the
direction of Marshal Zhukov, a bomber flying at an altitude of 13 kilometers
dropped a 40-kiloton nuclear bomb (the explosive power of the Hiroshima and
Nagasaki bombs combined) timed to detonate at a height of 350 meters over
45,000 maneuvering troops (blue forces defending, red forces attacking). At the
time, the medical facilities in the Soviet Union had no means whatsoever of
protecting against or treating the consequences of exposure to a nuclear blast.
At the instant of the blast, Suvorov recounts, some 45,000 young men were
rendered sterile, countless numbers suffered radiation sickness, bloody flux,
leukemia, and other debilitating and fatal diseases. The troops involved in the
experiment were sworn to secrecy. Most were subsequently released from the army
as unfit for military service. Zhukov chose as the site for the experiment the
Totskoye test range situated in the Southern Urals Military District - an
especially fertile agricultural area between the Volga River and the Urals on
the Samara River. The farming folk who lived in the surrounding area were not
evacuated before the experiment and suffered the same dire consequences as the
troops. Marshal Zhukov was commended for his bold leadership. Some proposed he
be awarded a fifth Hero of the Soviet Union medal.
Epilogue
After permitting Marshal Zhukov to head the victory parade in Moscow atop a
white stallion, Stalin quickly had him reassigned to the distant Urals and kept
out of sight. In the political struggles after Stalin's death, Zhukov aligned
himself with Nikita Khrushchev, who emerged as the next Soviet leader. As a
reward for his support, Khrushchev appointed Zhukov defense minister. After
Khrushchev's departure Zhukov was soon forgotten again until the mid 1990s,
when President Yeltsin permitted statues to be built in his honor.
To conclude, Victor Suvorov argues forcefully that a general who lost 5.3
million men, 6.3 million rifles, 20,500 tanks, 10,300 aircraft, and 101,100
field guns in the first year of the war and that number again in the remaining
years of the war; a general who had no regard for the lives of his men; a
general who needed an advantage of 5-10:1 just to stay even with the enemy; a
general who awarded himself medals; a general who enriched himself by looting a
defeated enemy; in short, a general like Marshal Zhukov cannot possibly be
considered a military genius or a great strategist. Zhukov's was a career based
on stacks of corpses, mostly those of the men under his command. Like almost
everything and everyone in the former Soviet Union, Zhukov was a fabrication.
In reality, he was more one of Stalin's willing executioners than he was a
professional soldier. He was the master of what the Germans refer to as leading
your soldiers to the slaughter (Soldaten im Kriege verheizen).
It is not at all surprising that many former Communist officials have
simply transferred their Zhukovian traits--namely, their lack of ethics,
criminal instincts, fondness for privilege, predilection for looting, and
deficiency of professionalism--to Russia's brand of capitalism. Zhukov himself
would have made excellent Mafia material. His technique of surrounding himself
with loyal stooges while sharing his looted goods with influential people in
high office continues in "capitalist" Russia. Today, it is called
"krysha," or protection.
In Russia's military establishment today, the brutality and criminality
practiced by Zhukov in his various high military offices through the years is
still reflected in the merciless training of new recruits, called dedovshchina.
Recruits are so brutalized and hazed by their superiors during basic
training that many desert the army, and some even commit suicide. Needless to
say, many more young men do their best to avoid military service because of
this cruel tradition.
As has been reported in past years, the iconoclastic investigative
reporting of Viktor Suvorov has caused a sensation in Europe and especially in
Russia. So incisive has been his research that some Russians believe that
British intelligence must have provided him much of his material. Even if that
were true, his critics still find it difficult to deny the validity of his
arguments.
Aside from Suvorov's first few books, neither this nor his other works have
been published in English. One can only hope that his research finds its way
into the hands of American historians and American officers studying at West
Point, the Army War College, and other such facilities. Suvorov is a major,
perhaps the major, revisionist of World War II.
Notes
[1] Russian title: Ten' pobedy (Victory Shadows).
Suvorov's first three books on World War II have been reviewed in The Journal
of Historical Review. The first two, Icebreaker and M Day, were reviewed in
Nov.-Dec. 1997 Journal (vol. 16, no. 6), pp. 22-34. His third book, The Last
Republic, was reviewed in the July-August 1998 Journal (vol. 17, no. 4), pp.
30-37.
[2] Georgi Zhukov, Reminiscences and reflections.
May be obtained through the IHR under the title From Moscow to Berlin: Marshal
Zhukov's Greatest Battles.
[3] Pavel N. Bobylev, Otechesvennaya istoriya,
no. 1, 2000, pp. 41-64.
[4] Voyenno-istoricheskiy zhurnal, no. 2, 1990,
p. 50.
[5] Voyenno-istoricheskiy zhurnal, no. 1, 1992,
p. 76.
[6] Suvorov's source on the conference is titled:
Nakanune voyny. Materialy soveshchaniya vysshego rukovodyashchego sostave RKKA
23-31 December 1940 (Moscow: Terra Publisher, 1993) ("On the Eve of War.
Materials from the Conference of the High Governing Staff of the Red Army,
23-31 December 1940.")
[7] Voyenno-istoricheskiy zhurnal, no. 6, 1989,
p. 6.
[8] Izvestiya, June 22, 1993;
Voyenno-istoricheskiy zhurnal, no. 7, 1993.
[9] Znamya, no. 5, 1988, p.82.
[10] David M. Glantz, Zhukov's Greatest Defeat:
The Red Army's Epic Disaster in Operation Mars, University Press of Kansas,
Lawrence, Kansas, 1999.
[11] Voyenno-istoricheskiy zhurnal, no. 3, 1992,
p. 32.
[12] Order of the Ministry of Defense of the USSR
Armed Forces, No. 009, June 9, 1946.
[13] Russian Military Archives, No. 1, 1993, p.
243.
Source: The Revisionist 2(3) (2004), pp. 334-340.
No comments:
Post a Comment