When World War II entered the turbulent middle and late stages, the personal reputation of Soviet Army Commander Zhukov also increased day by day - he won the name of "military god" for his superb and decisive battlefield judgment and military command that turned the tide, and in some areas even attracted more attention than Stalin. His sudden demotion after the war has become a matter of divergent opinions, and the reason is whether it is corruption or high merit?
"Latecomers" at the dinner party
When Berlin, the capital of Nazi Germany, was conquered and the "World War II" anti-fascist war was decided, all countries in the world that had been involved in this war gradually began a new situation.
For Stalin, who held power in the Soviet Union, he had in front of him not only a vast territory that had just been devastated by artillery fire and urgently needed to be rebuilt, but also a myriad of complicated personnel issues.
In the course of an impromptu meeting with the participation of high-ranking generals of the army, a "small matter" occurred that Stalin was extremely controlled and considered not to be underestimated.
Due to the suddenness of the convening of the meeting, many of the generals attending the meeting hurried after receiving the news, and some came directly from their garrisons or even from the front line, all of them were dusty and tired, and there were traces of dust and artillery fire on their uniforms.
Stalin was very pleased to see this, to feel the prohibitions he had given and the efficiency of his generals. He himself was very interested, and seeing that it was almost time for a main meal, he temporarily proposed that everyone have a meal together first, and move the original meeting to tomorrow.
At that time, the Soviet Union had already passed the most difficult and tense wartime, so there were no major problems in terms of materials and personnel. Stalin's order was passed down, and the personnel of the Ministry of Internal Affairs quickly arranged everything to satisfy the multi-person dinner, and Stalin himself, as the host, took his seat early, watched with satisfaction with a large pipe, and from time to time whispered with his colleagues sitting next to him, and a harmonious and lively dinner was about to begin.
Stalin's brow furrowed unconsciously: because among the many familiar faces, he never saw a person who should have appeared early in his seat.
One of the greatest "heroes" of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, and even the entire World War II, Marshal Zhukov.
Nomenkhan became famous: Zhukov
At the beginning of 1939, Zhukov, who had just been appointed commander of the 57th Special Army, was only one of many generals in the Soviet Union. However, the Battle of Normenheim, which took place in this year, fully proved his concept of three-dimensional combat of land and air cooperation, and Zhukov became famous in World War I, and then shined in the life-and-death struggle with Nazi Germany, and became a world-renowned general.
In this year, the Soviet Union and the Mongolia army under its support clashed frequently with the puppet Manchukuo and the Japan Kwantung Army behind it. Zhukov, who was appointed to be in charge of the war in the Nomenkhand region, quickly judged that Japan had bad intentions and intended to invade Mongolia on the eastern shore of Lake Bakar and then threaten the Soviet Union.
He reported his assessment to Moscow, indicating that he needed three infantry divisions and a large number of tanks, artillery, and aircraft as reinforcements. Stalin valued and approved his judgment, and the troops and supplies were soon sent to the front via the Trans-Siberian Railway.
With these military forces as a foundation, Zhukov played a quite beautiful record in Nomenkhan - he used the superior strength of three divisions to contain the main force of the Japanese army in the middle of the battlefield and curb its anti-encirclement ability, while the north and south flanks firmly grasped the weakness of the Japanese army's limited armor performance and difficulty in rushing to the aid quickly, deployed a large number of superior armored forces to surprise and outflank, destroyed the Japanese artillery positions and communication systems in a short time, and finally won a great victory.
The superb armored tactics displayed in this battle are in itself a testament to Zhukov's tactical genius. The outcome of this battle was also far-reaching, and Japan, which suffered setbacks on the battlefield, had to revise its war strategy and change "northward" to "southward", and this general direction of adjustment laid the groundwork for the destruction of Japan and even the entire Axis powers.
The Soviet "god of war" in World War II
It is likely that it was because of Zhukov's military ability on the battlefield that Stalin trusted him throughout the early days of the Soviet-German war.
Zhukov once mentioned in his memoirs that his temper was not particularly easy to work with, and when it came to military command issues, even if Stalin himself was opposite, the two would inevitably have verbal conflicts. At one point, Stalin shouted at him that "the Chief of the General Staff only talks nonsense" and dismissed him within half an hour of his rage; However, in the face of the fact that the German army was attacking one after another, and more than 600,000 troops of the Soviet Southwestern Front were annihilated in Kiev, Stalin still had to put Zhukov on the front line again to take command.
At the critical juncture when the military situation was as urgent as a spark, Stalin said to Zhukov: "Let us obey the interests of the Fatherland!" ”
Zhukov was ordered to return to the battlefield, overhaul the defense, and reorganized the Leningrad defense system in only three days. His brilliant tactics in Normenheim were once again used in the subsequent defense of the capital, and in order to ensure victory on the battlefield, he even ordered the rescission of orders that Stalin had already approved, demanding that the troops defending Moscow "not be allowed to retreat a single step".
Zhukov's command in the Great War ensured that the Soviet army turned defeat into victory, and seized the initiative in the war step by step, and finally won the Great Patriotic War. But at the same time, his personal frequent "provocations" against Stalin's authority also sowed ominous seeds for him.
"How has Zhukov changed?"
Now it was only an inconspicuous dinner, but Zhukov's "lateness" attracted Stalin's special attention, and it is difficult not to say that it was the result of some subtle psychology.
Stalin summoned the staff accompanying him and asked him about Zhukov's whereabouts. However, this functionary did not know much more information than Stalin himself, and his answer was naturally only a "I don't know" that lacked information.
At the last moment before the feast, Zhukov hurried into the dining room and sat down in the place reserved for him. He was the last to sit in the entire dining room, until Stalin raised his glass and toasted, when out of the corner of his eye, he saw a waiter quietly enter the dining room, put a rolled white towel on a tray, walked up behind Zhukov and handed it to him.
And Zhukov, although he accepted the service, his face was still not pleasant, he picked up the white towel and complained while wiping his hands, and even threw the towel back on the tray after wiping!
Stalin did not attack on the spot, but waited for the end of the lively dinner to call the waiter and ask him: what is the cause and process of this scene?
The waiter reported to him that because the dinner was decided on an impromptu basis, although all aspects tried their best to prepare perfectly, there was still a small leak - Marshal Zhukov asked for a new towel to wipe his face and hands before entering the table, but it happened that the waiter was not prepared and had to look for it temporarily, and Marshal Zhukov had been waiting in the reception room with a very unhappy face......
Hearing this detail, Stalin said to the staff around him: "How has Zhukov changed? This is dangerous and requires a detailed and thorough investigation. ”
He believed that during the war, all the generals were able to calmly endure all kinds of inconveniences in order to win, some ate meals mixed with mud, some slept in the mud, and it was even more common for them not to take a bath or change their clothes for a long time. Now that the war has just come to an end, Zhukov has completely turned into a greedy for pleasure, and the reasons for this are worth investigating.
Seven traincars of incriminating evidence
The matter was referred to the well-known Ministry of State Security (KGB) for investigation and trial by Minister Abakumov. In the face of orders from Stalin, Abakumov naturally "understood" and arranged capable personnel to begin a thorough investigation.
The KGB not only found out that Zhukov had privately collected several large wagons of war booty after conquering Berlin, but even tried the explosive charge of "Zhukov's coup d'état." In contrast, the corruption of a few wagons, oil paintings, sculptures, mink jewelry, and the depravity of frequent visits to high-end places can only be regarded as a piece of cake.
Is the "corruption evidence" of the seven wagons really true? Many later researchers believe that it is very likely.
Because Zhukov grew up in a poor family, his family's house was the most dilapidated in the entire village. At the age of 11, he had to leave home to earn a living, and his father sent him to work as an apprentice in a fur factory in Moscow, where he suffered from poverty from an early age. As the proverb goes, "When an old house catches fire, it often burns faster", and it is not incomprehensible that Zhukov, who has been in poverty since he was a child, reaches out to fish for oil and water when he has the opportunity.
But the idea that he was the mastermind of the military conspiracy was not convinced even by Stalin himself.
The KGB, under the instruction of Abakumov, found out about the incident, and there was no lack of elements of fabricated charges. It was precisely because of this that the head of the KGB, Beria, and Zhukov formed a deep enmity.
The charge of "coup d'état" could not be easily passed, and once established, like other high-ranking generals executed during the Stalin era, the shooting of Zhukov was a predictable outcome. Therefore, other high-ranking generals in the army, such as Konev, Rokossovsky and Vasilevsky, who still have a voice, spoke for Zhukov and refuted the accusations of "coup d'état".
On the one hand, Stalin himself was not convinced that Zhukov would engage in military intrigues, and on the other hand, he had some scruples, after all, Zhukov had just made great achievements in World War II and received all kinds of reputation and praise. He signaled Beria to accept it when he saw it, thinking that Zhukov was arrogant and stubborn but straightforward, and did not look like a person who would carry out a conspiracy coup.
Still, Stalin severely condemned and suppressed Zhukov, accusing him of being "immodest and arrogant" and attributing the decisive role of all major victories during the Great War to his own abilities. Zhukov was soon removed from his post of deputy defense minister and commander-in-chief of the army, he was kicked out of the Party Central Committee, demoted first to the commander of the Odessa Military District, and later demoted again and again, and sent to the more remote Ural Military District as commander.
The political arena rises and falls
As for the ins and outs of this matter, Zhukov himself was not clueless.
In his memoirs in his later years, he wrote that Stalin trusted him for almost the entire war; Even after his dismissal, Stalin did not utter further accusations and disparagements in public. These gestures also ensured that Zhukov's situation did not fall to the bottom, and even a few years before Stalin's death, he brought Zhukov back to the Central Committee and made him a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU again.
As for the reasons for the successive dismissals, Zhukov attributed them to Stalin's deliberate desire to assert his personal supremacy in the military sphere, in which he was not good at all. Because this has been the case since the beginning of the war, whenever the Soviet army has successfully fought and won a major battle, Stalin has always tried in every possible way to find a gap and suppress it, and to put down the real organizers and commanders of the campaign, in order to highlight his own wisdom and correctness.
However, thanks to Stalin's general reassurance of Zhukov, he prevented the KGB and Beria from further attempts to send Zhukov to a dead end. Zhukov preserved his life, reputation and part of his power, and after Stalin's death, he made great contributions to helping Khrushchev become the "first secretary" and cut off the Beria clique, and he even became the presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Minister of Defense for a time, and reached the pinnacle of personal power and status.
As for the situation changing more than 100 days later, Khrushchev removed Zhukov from his post and placed him under house arrest under the intensive surveillance of the KGB on the grounds that "Napoleon's intentions were suspected." This is another story of his ups and downs in the political arena.
Information sources:
The mystery of the sudden resignation of the Soviet "god of war" Zhukov: the master of high merit was dismissed; 2008-01-18; Youth Online - Youth Reference
For what direct reasons Zhukov was "beaten into the cold palace" by Stalin, and his post was reduced and demoted; China News Network; November 10, 2017
Zhukov's Battle of Nomenkhamp reversed the pattern of World War II; 2016-05-14 ； Reading Digest · Classics