May 9 is Russia's official Anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War. In May 1995, on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War, the Russian government erected a large statue in Manezh Square near Moscow's Red Square, and Yeltsin, then president of the Russian government, came to the scene to personally unveil the statue and cut the ribbon. As soon as this bronze statue was unveiled, it attracted the attention of the whole world. Looking up, it is impressive and unforgettable.
So who is this statue of a figure? Friends familiar with the history of the Soviet Union in World War II must know that he is the first military commander of the Soviet Union who commanded a million troops and defeated Nazi Germany during the Great Patriotic War, and the recipient of four "Hero of the Soviet Union" medals - Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov!
Bronze statue of Zhukov
To find out the history of Zhukov for the second half of his life, please click on the text: he was the God of War of the Soviet Union in World War II, Stalin's confidante, and Eisenhower's best friend
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="6" > intelligent teenager who has experienced ups and downs</h1>
In 1896, the year of the all-Russian celebration of the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II, the shoemaker Kang Andreevich and his wife U Aldeevna, in their poor home, ushered in the birth of their precious son, and the simple couple could not have imagined that the baby they named Georgy would become a giant that would change history in the years to come.
Zhukov's father was a shoemaker, and when it came to work, he was a colleague of Stalin's father, Visalio Novach, but stalin's father was a small boss, while Zhukov's father was a worker.
Zhukov Medal of Armor
The ship of history tends to turn quietly and inadvertently. His Majesty Nicholas II, who lived in St. Petersburg for many years, knew that these two ordinary shoemakers under the Romanlov dynasty had the magical source potential to change history, and that in a few years their son would paint the most splendid picture on the magnificent historical picture of Russia. Even more incredible: Alois, the father of 20th-century war maniac Hitler, was also a shoemaker in his early years, so in a sense, the Soviet-German war of the 1940s was actually a war between the son of a German shoemaker and the son of two other Russian shoemakers.
Although he was brilliant from an early age, but subject to the poverty of his family, Zhukov had to follow his father to Moscow after completing primary school in the church school, and defected to his uncle Pilikhin, who opened his fur workshop.
Forget that he is your uncle. He's your future boss. The boss does not like poor relatives. Don't forget this.
The Tsar's family
As the old saying goes: the children of the poor are in charge of the house early, and poverty is precocious. Zhukov did not forget his father's teachings, and through immersion in learning and humbly seeking advice, he soon mastered the tricks of fur making and became a "competent general" under his uncle. The "I Ching" has a saying: - Tianxingjian, a gentleman who strives for self-improvement. It may be a call of fate, or it may be due to character. Zhukov, who had gained a firm foothold in the fur workshop, was not willing to be chased by the fly-headed xiaoli in front of him, and he felt that the man should be determined to be in the world.
Although knowledge changes fate, you let a worker who is tired of running for his life every day take time and spend energy to learn cultural knowledge, and the difficulty is not known. However, there were exceptions to everything, only with a primary school education, the fur workshop apprentice Zhukov did it, he insisted on self-study every night, and three years later, Zhukov successfully passed the secondary school exam, which laid a solid and profound cultural foundation for his later study of military theory and the art of command.
Commander Zhukov
< h1 class = "pgc-h-center-line" data-track = "104" > joined the Red Army and rose all the way</h1>
In August 1914, when World War I broke out, Tsarist Russia, as a member of the "Allies", naturally had to fulfill its obligations of alliance and join hands with Britain and France to participate in the war against Germany and Austria. In August 1915, at the age of 20, Zhukov responded to the call of the Tsarist government and entered the ranks of the army, which was also the starting point of his life's military career.
In the old Russian cavalry unit, corruption and bad money expelled good money were very common, which made zhukov very dissatisfied, but after nearly 2 years of fighting, Zhukov performed quite well, during which he was also rewarded by his superiors for capturing a German officer and received a military merit medal. For Zhukov, what was even more significant was that on the battlefield of blood and fire, he seemed to have gained some sense of rebirth. He vaguely felt that he had finally found the direction of life development - to fight as a soldier.
Leader of the Soviet Revolution
In October 1917, a groundbreaking event broke out in St. Petersburg, the October Revolution, and Zhukov, who was idle at home, was attracted by the personal charm of revolutionaries such as Lenin and Trotsky and their lofty communist ideals, and joined the 4th Regiment of the 1st Cavalry Division of Moscow with great joy, and from then on embarked on the revolutionary road led by the Bolsheviks.
The 1st Cavalry Division was famous in the Soviet Union, a revolutionary armed force with a glorious tradition and a red and specialized army, whose commander was Budyonny, one of the five founding marshals of the Soviet Union, and later Marshal Voroshilov. Marshal Timoshenko and Marshal Rokossovsky were both from the division.
In the face of the frenzied counterattack of the White Russian army and the unreasonable intervention of foreign troops, the Soviet regime organized the Red Army and waged a four-year civil war. As a veteran of the First World War, Zhukov was brave and courageous in the fierce counterinsurgency war at home. In the spring of 1921, Zhukov led a company of soldiers in a battle in Tambov Governorate, and resisted the overwhelming attack of more than 2,000 Cossack cavalry and held the defensive line. Through this battle, Zhukov began to emerge from within the Red Army and successfully attracted the attention of two military and political leaders, one was Marshal Tukhachevsky of the Soviet Union, and the other was more famous, he was the future Soviet leader Comrade Stalin. In April 1923, at the age of 26, Zhukov was promoted to commander of the 39th Cavalry Regiment.
Steel leader Stalin
By 1924, the Soviet regime had survived its perilous period and had survived firmly. After the war subsided, secondly, the outstanding command talents who stood out in the war were promoted to officer positions and replaced the former Imperial Russian officers; third, in order to meet the needs of future wars, the Red Military Academy was established to train revolutionary officers. In this series of dazzling military innovations, the god of luck favored the young officer Zhukov, and at the end of 1924, on Frunze's recommendation, Zhukov came to Leningrad, entered the Higher Cavalry School, and began to learn professional military knowledge. Among Zhukov's many classmates were Marshal Bagramyan, Marshal Rokossovsky and Marshal Yelyommenko.
Excellent military attainment, coupled with Stalin's trust and reuse, made Zhukov, a former imperial Russian corporal, prosper all the way to the top.
Hitler in Vienna
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="105" > is full of changes and dangers</h1>
In the 1930s, the world was in turmoil and politics. Three fascist states (Nazi Germany, Italy, And Japan) stirred up turmoil and destabilized the world. Nazi Germany openly trampled on the Treaty of Versailles, expanded its armaments, occupied the Rhineland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia without bloodshed, and went all the way east, threatening the Soviet Union. On September 18, 1931, they shelled the North Camp in Shenyang and launched the "918 Incident", and in March 1932, the Japanese government supported Puyi, established a puppet state of Manchukuo, and engaged in the criminal activity of dividing China's territory.
Mussolini
By December 1938, the Japanese invasion of China had occupied half of China, including the southeast coast, and the Nationalist government was forced to move to the mountain city of Chongqing to lead the Chinese people to continue the war. At this time, the Japanese army was arrogant and arrogant, and it was indispensable. Infected by this sentiment, the base camp far away from the Japanese mainland has a major disagreement over the future military offensive line. Admiralty admirals advocated marching into the resource-rich South China Sea and going to war with Britain and the United States, which was the view of the "southward marcher"; the admirals of the War Department proposed to develop northward, attack the Soviet Union, and attack Outer Mongolia and Siberia. Because in the previous war of aggression against China, the Japanese Army acted as an offensive leader and made outstanding achievements, therefore, the opinion of the War Department was obviously more advantageous, and in desperation, the base camp made a compromise, that is, let the Kwantung Army launch a tentative attack first, first conduct fire reconnaissance of the Soviet military forces, and then decide whether to advance north or not.
Chairman Chiang Kai-shek delivered a speech on the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression
In May 1939, the Japanese army and the puppet Manchu army launched a long-planned military offensive against the Mongolian Border Guard Army in the Halehin River area at the junction of Heilongjiang and Outer Mongolia. Soviet leader Stalin, who has been through the storm for a long time and has a torch in his eyes, has a deep understanding of the sinister intentions of this military operation at the Japanese base camp, and he understands very well that this war is related to the national fortunes of the Soviet Union. Today, tensions in Europe have left the Soviet Union in a needle.d'. If at this time it is impossible to destroy this invading enemy, then the Japanese army is very likely to take advantage of the victory to go north and attack the Soviet Union from the east, and then Germany will take advantage of the fire and robbery to launch an attack from the west, then the Soviet Union will really be attacked by the enemy on its back.
Zhukov
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="106" > was ordered to defeat the Japanese</h1>
The armed provocations of the Japanese army in the Halaha River area directly threatened the security of the Soviet Union in the Far East. After much deliberation, in June 1939, Stalin decided to put Zhukov in command and lead the Soviet-Mongolian coalition to teach this arrogant Kwantung Army a lesson. After arriving at the post, zhukov, in the process of organizing and implementing the Battle of the Khalha River, first let the army build fortifications to paralyze the Japanese army and make the Japanese army mistakenly think that the Soviet army would not attack, at the same time, Zhukov secretly mobilized the army and formulated a careful military plan for joint coordination of infantry, artillery, tanks and aviation, and when everything was ready, he took advantage of the Japanese officers' holiday opportunity to launch a surprise attack on the Japanese front-line positions. In order to expand the results of the battle, we boldly implemented the roundabout encirclement tactic and unexpectedly annihilated the enemy's main force.
The Japanese army in Nomonkan was miserable
Throughout the battle, the Soviet-Mongolian army suffered more than 18,500 casualties, and the Japanese army suffered more than 61,000 casualties and captured. The Japanese 1st Tank Division was abolished, the 64th Wing Commander Yamagata Takemitsu Daisaku and the 13th Artillery Regiment Commander Ise Takahide Daisaku were killed, the 71st Regiment Commander of the 23rd Division, Morita Tetsuda, was killed, and the 23rd Division had only 2,000 men who fought to the death to break through. After the war, the commander of the 23rd Division, Lieutenant General Michitaro Komatsubara, committed suicide by cutting his abdomen, the commander of the Kwantung Army, General Kenkichi Ueda, and the chief of staff, Lieutenant General Ryosuke Isoya, were transferred to the reserve.
The Soviets captured Japanese artillery
Throughout the Nomenkan Campaign, Zhukov's efficient organizational and mobilization ability and superb mechanized combat command ability were vividly displayed. Zhukov, who returned from triumph, was unanimously praised by the Soviet Union and was awarded the title of "Hero of the Soviet Union". A Scholar of Zhukov in the United States, Qianny, once said:
The Battle of Nomonkan established Zhukov's place in Stalin's mind, and throughout World War II, Zhukov became the eliminator of Stalin's difficulties and was sent to solve one critical problem after another.
Zhukov, who won the victory and returned to the dynasty, soared to the top and rose to a higher position. In May 1940, he was promoted to major general; soon after, he was appointed commander of the Kiev Special Military District, the largest military district of the Soviet Union. In January 1941, on the eve of the Soviet-German War, Zhukov was transferred by Stalin to Moscow as chief of the Soviet General Staff, and Zhukov became a leading core member of the Soviet army.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="107" > the road to fame, the password of destiny</h1>
Zhukov was a military commander who had come all the way in the tide of the times, and many people in later generations were fascinated by him, even did research on him, and there were many biographical novels about his personal experiences on the market. However, no matter from which aspect of Zhukov's attention, one thing cannot be avoided, that is, why he was able to stand out in the special era of turmoil and gradually grow into an outstanding military commander. Personally, I think the following four factors are worth paying attention to.
(1) Historical opportunities:
Zhukov was born at the end of the 19th century, when the world was in the second industrial revolution, the progress of science and technology promoted the development of the economy, the whole world looked changing with each passing day, but the gap between the rich and the poor in capitalist countries was further widening. In the 1860s, although Alexander II introduced economic reforms in Russia, which made the original backward Russia progress a lot, he was unable to solve the domestic contradictions completely.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Russia allied itself with Britain and France for security reasons and became a member of the Entoire Group. Although Russia's move has unavoidable bitterness, from another point of view, it is equivalent to handing over the fate of its own country to Britain and France.
In 1914, the outbreak of World War I, Russia was involved in the war, and the huge casualties and material consumption overwhelmed the extremely poor and weak Tsarist Russia. It was against the backdrop of this epoch that the February and October Revolutions broke out in Russia. Especially after the October Revolution, Zhukov, as a member of the bottom, was able to experience the suffering of ordinary people more personally. This also made him more receptive to the marxist-Leninist theory. During the Russian Civil War, the enthusiastic young Zhukov actively responded to the call of the Bolsheviks to join the Red Army, and Zhukov's personal fate was changed. The war era calls for heroes, and heroes come into being in the war era, which is what we often call the times to create heroes.
Soviet tanks
(2) Personal efforts:
Zhukov's original family was very poor, according to the general idea, he went to Moscow to join his uncle, learn the craft of fur processing, with the craft, marry and have children, support the family, or open a fur plus workshop himself, as a businessman boss, this should be a good choice. However, Zhukov did not do this, and he actively worked hard to learn cultural knowledge outside of work. Even after joining the Red Army, his love of learning remained unchanged. For example, he went to Leningrad to study cavalry knowledge, and to the Frunze Military Academy in Moscow for further study, all of which were active and hardworking. His classmate Bagramyan praised Zhukov for his outstanding learning, his deep understanding of military culture, and his own good thinking and insight.
When dealing with new things and culture, Zhukov is not prejudiced, but can keep pace with the times. In the 1930s, at Tukhachevsky's initiative, the Soviet Union formed an armored force—two tank regiments, headed by Zhukov and later Pavlov, commander of the Western Front. Zhukov was originally a cavalryman, and the tank unit was completely unfamiliar to him. However, after becoming the commander of the tank regiment, Zhukov not only actively studied, but also had the courage to innovate, and soon mastered the theoretical knowledge and practical combat skills of tank warfare. General Patton almost gave up the opportunity to form an American armored force because of his obsession with cavalry.
Tukhachevsky
The theory of "large-depth operations" founded by Soviet Marshal Tukhachevsky had a tremendous impact on world military science; as early as before the Soviet-German War, the shadow of the theory of large-depth operations in the Battle of Nomenkan, which he commanded, was faintly visible.
(3) Help from nobles:
The trajectory of a person's life cannot be controlled in advance. In Zhukov's life, there were several people who had a great influence on him. The first mention is Marshal Tukhachevsky, whose heroism caught the attention of the general, who was hailed by the West as the "Red Napoleon" during the battle in Tambov Province. When the Soviet Union first formed an armored force, Tu Shuai did not hesitate to list Zhukov as a candidate for the head of the tank regiment. Other than that
The second to influence Zhukov's fate was Frunze. Frunze served as a member of the Military Commission, chief of staff of the Soviet Army, and was a well-known Soviet military and military educator. It is precisely through the systematic study of military combat theory that Zhukov's unparalleled and fascinating art of military command has been created.
The second influence on Zhukov was Budyonny. Budyonny was hailed as "the last famous cavalry commander in human history". He was the most senior marshal of the Soviet Union. Zhukov responded to the revolution and joined the Red Army, and Zhukov's cavalry regiment belonged to the old marshal's cavalry division. In other words, Zhukov was originally a cavalryman under Commander Budyonny. It is also in addition that Budyonny, as Stalin's most important senior military general, successfully escaped the "Great Purge" and "Purge" movements of the Soviet Union in the 30s. Budyonny was a generous man who protected many of his subordinates, zhukov was one of them, and without this relationship, it is difficult to say whether Zhukov would have survived World War II.
Budyonny
The last noble man who influenced Zhukov was undoubtedly the leader of the Soviet Union, Stalin. When Zhukov was still a company commander, Stalin remembered the name Zhukov, and later the Soviet Union established an armored brigade, and Stalin personally appointed Zhukov as the head of the tank regiment. More importantly:
(4) Battlefield experience:
Judging from Zhukov's life experience, it is not difficult to find that Zhukov has a very noble spirit of responsibility. When tambov province was fighting, he used only more than 100 people in his hands to fight against the attack of 2,000 Cossack cavalry, which in the eyes of others was undoubtedly to hit the stone with a pebble and seek his own death, but Zhukov did not retreat. With all the Soviet forces defeated, he took the risk and led the weaker reserve front to successfully retake the Yelinian salient. Later, zhukov actively participated in these great battles. That's why later people called him "Stalin's firefighter."
Zhukov and Stalin
Through the understanding of the course of these battles, we can see that Zhukov has a good character of not panicking in case of trouble and not giving in. No matter how urgent and dangerous the war was, he was always able to remain calm and make an unusually accurate judgment of the situation. It is precisely because he does not push things and has the courage to take responsibility that he became a senior general of the Soviet army who participated in the command of the most battles during the Soviet-German war.
The above text introduces the first half of Marshal Zhukov's life, the next article, updated the next day, and then tell the heroic deeds of Zhukov in the Soviet-German War, which can be sung and wept, and feel the superb war command art of the Soviet Marshal.
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With this article, I would like to commemorate the 76th anniversary of China's victory in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the 76th anniversary of Russia's victory in the Great Patriotic War, the 76th anniversary of the victory in Europe, and the 76th anniversary of the victory in the World Anti-Fascist War (end)!