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    Stalin's General: The Life of Georgy Zhukov
    Unavailable
    Stalin's General: The Life of Georgy Zhukov
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    Stalin's General: The Life of Georgy Zhukov
    Ebook583 pages10 hours

    Stalin's General: The Life of Georgy Zhukov

    By Geoffrey Roberts

    3.5/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    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 Making use of hundreds of documents from Russian military archives, as well as unpublished versions of Zhukov’s memoirs, Geoffrey Roberts fashions a remarkably intimate portrait of a man whose personality was as fascinating as it was contradictory.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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherIcon Books
    Release dateAug 2, 2012
    ISBN9781848314436
    Unavailable
    Stalin's General: The Life of Georgy Zhukov

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    Reviews for Stalin's General

    3.5/5

    26 ratings3 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Great read about the Soviet architect of Hitler's defeat. Georgy Zhukov rose from a peasant background through the cavalry, becoming a dedicated Bolshevik, winner of the Khalkin-Gol battle against the Japanese in 1939, leader of Russia's resistance to the Germans, close confidant of Stalin, only to inevitably fall victim to the dictator's rampant paranoia. Rehabilitated after Stalin's death, he fell a second time because of the machinations of Krushchev, but survived to die of old age in the 70s regarded again as one of Russia's greatest generals. The author's admiration for Zhukov is apparent but he faithfully records his failings, lack of political savvy, his bluntness and peasant forcefulness which was in such contrast to his friend and rival Rokossovsky. Roberts makes the point that Zhukov was no great strategist, he left no groundbreaking books to be perused in military academies, what he did possess was a talent for putting his forces in the right place at the right time. He was often criticised for the huge losses his armies sustained, but the results he achieved have stood the test of time. The author also examines his private life, he was an ardent ladies man and clocked up several wives and mistresses and 4 daughters, but his affection for his family was always clear. I did enjoy the book immensely, perhaps I would have liked to seen more analysis of his strategies in his more famous battles but as these have all been well-covered in other books, its not such a problem. As a study of a great warrior, his struggles with the convoluted labyrinth of Communist politics and how arguably the most brutal war in history was won, this is a tremendous book.
    • 4/5
      I was prepared to respond with less-than-outright enthusiasm to this popular history of the Soviet marshal, but there are some things that the author does very well. The first thing being to offer a critique of Zhukov's own memoir in the light of the better documentation that issued from the Russian archives in the wake of the dissolution of the Soviet Union.Two, Roberts does a good job of placing Zhukov in perspective in relation to the system he served and the war that he fought, as at this point there has to be some synthesis between Zhukov, the hero general, and Zhukov the alleged butcher who only achieved great victories at an exorbitant cost. The portrait that Roberts gives is of a man who made his reputation before Nomonhan of straightening out troubled units and essentially continued doing this from Nomonhan on.Where Zhukov was less successful was as institutional custodian. His tenure as chief of staff prior to the outbreak of war with Germany did nothing to alleviate the Red Army's own cult of the offensive, which contributed to the great debacle of 1941. In his taste for the limelight he was probably lucky to not run more afoul of Stalin and then of Khrushchev, being somewhat tone deaf to how his commitment to the system would not protect him from the overbearing aspects of his personality. The ultimate irony is that it took the demise of the Soviet system to see this most Soviet of commanders returned to the place in history that he probably deserves.Finally, Roberts is able to tell you enough about the man as a person so that Zhukov comes out of the shadow of the marble man he has become again in Russian memory. Perhaps the most positive thing you can say about Zhukov is that while he was certainly driven by great ambition, and wholeheartedly enjoyed the acclaim he received, he also had the character to resolve not to be ground down by being given the rough exit from the center of the system he had been integral to. Zhukov was enough of a realist to no doubt recognize that his fate could have been much worse!
    • 3/5
      A history well told is all about the narrative - any researcher can cite numbers or reports. In this task the author fails - the vast majority of this book is just recitations of numbers and reports with too little insight between the contemporary reports.There is a fantastic story here, unfortunately I feel this book barely scratched the surface.