For the British (and, possibly, American)
reader, there’s a section in Armageddon,
Max Hastings’ masterful account of the last year or so of WW2 in Europe, where
the author contemptuously dismisses the military qualities of almost all of the
leading British and American generals of the time. Indeed, pretty much only Eisenhower, Montgomery
and Patton emerge with even faint praise, although even this is tempered with
much criticism. Counterpointed with his
comments on the superiority of the German armed forces, it comes as no surprise
that Hastings points to the Red Army as the real victors of the land war in
Europe. In summary, he believes that the
Soviets supplied the blood, the Americans the equipment and the British contribution
was to hold out in 1940.
Given all of this, and that for most of the
War, Georgy Zhukov was the Soviet Union’s leading professional soldier, it is
arguable that Zhukov was the general most responsible for the ultimate defeat
of Germany in 1945. Present at pretty
much all of the most significant battles on the Eastern Front (including the siege
of Leningrad and the battles of Moscow, Stalingrad and Kursk), Zhukov’s forces
won the race to Berlin and it was troops under his command who placed the red
flag atop the Reichstag building. Named
Deputy Supreme Commander, Stalin permitted Zhukov the honour of taking the
victory parade in Red Square, sitting astride a white charger.
And yet, within a year of this zenith, he
was in disgrace and banished by Stalin to a military backwater until Stalin’s
death and his rehabilitation by Khruschev which culminated in his appointment
as Minister for Defence, followed almost inevitably by further disgrace and
dismissal. Suffering the reputational
trashing that followed, Zhukov lapsed into obscurity until the replacement of
Khruschev by Brezhnev gave him the opportunity to reclaim his reputation and to
write a self-serving autobiography before dying in 1974. Since then, his iconic status has remained untouched
and, in 1995, a statue of Zhukov on the famous white stallion was erected in
Red Square itself.
In totalitarian regimes such as the old
Soviet Union, history becomes a political tool of the regime and it can be
difficult to know where truth lies. This
is doubly so in Zhukov’s case with his rises and falls from grace and his sometimes
unreliable memoirs.
It is, therefore, welcome that Geoffrey
Roberts, given access to previously unpublished Russian archive material, has
written a new biography, seeking to readdress Zhukov’s position in Soviet
history and to give a more accurate portrayal of the man.
In many ways, Zhukov was a prototypical
Soviet success story, the child of a proletarian family who climbed to the very
top of Soviet society through a mixture of talent, hard work, luck and
political reliability. A dedicated
communist, he was a brilliant offensive general, skilled in the use of deception
as a tactic and Stalin’s favourite general, given a latitude not extended to
other generals and used almost as a troubleshooter, being sent off to any major
situation.
The flip side was that he was arrogant and
keen to make certain that he received full credit for his successes - traits
that led directly to both his falls from grace and ensured that there was no
shortage of rivals and colleagues ready to criticise him and trample on his
reputation at the right time.
Zhukov could also be fairly accused of
taking a cavalier attitude towards the lives of the men under his command and
of only being concerned with body counts to the extent they impacted on the
effectiveness of his forces. He could
also be a bully and appeared to take a tolerant view of the campaign of rape
that the Red Army waged across Germany in 1945.
Another criticism is that his impact on Soviet military doctrine and
theory was limited - a criticism I find slightly unfair. After all, the mark of a wartime general lies
in his victories and, in this, Zhukov was unsurpassed in WW2 and ranks
alongside any Russian or Soviet military leader of any period.
Roberts does not shy away from these
criticisms and also exposes the lies and exaggerations that Zhukov makes in his
memoirs in defence of his reputation.
Yet, despite his stated intention of writing a critical biography, it is
clear that Roberts is positively disposed to Zhukov and, where differences of
opinion arise, tends to give Zhukov the benefit of the doubt. One should not forget, however, that Zhukov
for all his positive qualities and his relative independence from Stalin was a
committed communist and follower of Stalin whose last action as a military
leader was to mastermind the uncompromising suppression of the Hungarian
Revolution of 1956.
Stalin’s
General does an excellent job of retelling Zhukov’s
life story and setting it in its true historical context. Roberts also succeeds in reconciling the competing
claims for credit made by leading figures such as Stalin, Khruschev, Konev and
Rokossovsky.
What it doesn’t quiet manage to do,
however, is to give much insight into the personal life or the mind of
Zhukov. Roberts does make some attempt
to do this and we do learn about his somewhat complicated love life - four
children, two wives and a long term lover - but at the end, he is still
something of a mystery as a human being.
Given the exigencies of Soviet politics and history and the
inadvisability of writing down unedited thoughts, it is, of course, possible
that Roberts has done as much as will ever be possible along these lines.
Roberts rates Zhukov as top of a kind of
military geeky league table of Soviet and Russian generals and, whilst it is
probably impossible to make definitive judgements across time, it is certain
that, in Zhukov’s sometimes brutal but effective manner, the Soviet Union got
the general it needed to win the long drawn out existential battle that was the
Eastern Front.
Stalin’s
General is an interesting and necessary biography
of one of the most significant figures of WW2 and a “must read” to anyone
interested in this period or, more generally, in Russian history. Whether it becomes the definitive biography
probably depends upon whether there is any as-yet undiscovered archival
material out there that could shed more light on the inner Zhukov.
I’d like to thank Random House for allowing
me to read this via Netgalley.
No comments:
Post a Comment