Word: marshal
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...stronger role in Soviet policy? Not knowing all the answers, the White House reacted skeptically to Zhukov's overtures, but kept open a small hedge on the future. The past, in Georgy Zhukov's case, is also instructive. His hazardous climb from Czarist dragoon to Communist marshal, his differences with the military commissars, his fallings in and out of Communist favor, are significant clues to the nature of the instrument he has wielded with such success...
When Commissar Trotsky set about building a peacetime defense force out of the revolutionary Red army, he had revolt on his hands. He was able to form a general staff, training and technical commands out of a nucleus of experienced ex-Imperial army officers, among whom was the future Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky. The old irregulars objected to being educated. Georgy Zhukov was an exception. When the chance came for a military course at Moscow's Frunze Academy, he grabbed it. Chief of Staff Boris Shaposhnikov thought him "somewhat slow," but sent him off to Germany to study under General...
...upcoming commanders could be trusted, and got Stalin to abolish the commissars. The crafty old dictator, however, instituted a system of Zampolits who, while they were not supposed to interfere with command decisions, were still the army's political directors. But Stalin promoted Zhukov to the rank of marshal...
...Berlin. The last great push to Berlin cost the Red army a million casualties. Zhukov arrived, tough and imperturbable, fully conscious of his great feat, but also plainly glad that the war was over. In Berlin, Zhukov met General Eisenhower. Wrote Ike in Crusade in Europe: "I thought Marshal Zhukov an affable and soldierly-appearing individual . . . There was discernible only an intense desire to be friendly and cooperative." Zhukov won the respect of almost all the Allied generals, but between himself and Eisenhower there was genuine affection. "That friendship was a personal and an individual thing," wrote Ike, who went...
...official occasions he came out in full marshal's regalia: robin's-egg-blue trousers with yellow stripes, dark green tunic and bright red sash. Underneath the blouse, he wore a brass plate to carry the weight of his vast collection of decorations. A horrified British officer noted that Britain's cherished Order of the Bath was hanging just about where the marshal's navel would be. The only medals Zhukov seemed genuinely proud of were the three gold stars of his thrice-awarded Hero of the Soviet Union...