Military Leaders From The Soviet Union

"Rokossovsky was a different type of general from Zhukov. Although a good soldier, he was not exceptionally brilliant."

"The policy of large-scale repression against military cadres led also to undermined military discipline, because for several years officers of all ranks and even soldiers in Party and Komsomol cells were taught to “unmask” their superiors as hidden enemies."

"I am a citizen of the Soviet Union and I think sharp measures need to be taken against anti-Soviet forces that are trying to make their way into the leadership. In addition, it is vitally important to maintain the lines of communication with Germany through Poland."

"I have been placed under surveillance, and I can't take a step without it being known to the Polish minister of internal affairs."

"The troops of the Don Front at 4pm on February 2nd, 1943 completed the rout and destruction of the encircled group of enemy forces in Stalingrad. Twenty-two divisions have been destroyed or taken prisoner."

"In Russia, they say I'm a Pole, in Poland they call me Russian."

"The German army is a machine, and machines can be broken!"

"Every German soldier must be made to feel that he is living under the muzzle of a Russian gun."

"The engagements in which Zhukov won his reputation were so massive that, inevitably, many outstanding Soviet military men were involved- either under Zhukov's command or in coordinated and associated movements. There was then, and there continued for years to be, a raging competition for military glory in these engagements. Deep lines of political cleavage and quarrels also underlay the military disputes. Not only military glory was involved; political intrigue, intra-Party quarrels, high-level Kremlin politics were at issue. The principal military rivals of Zhukov were his fellow marshals, Ivan S. Konev, Rodion Malinovsky, V. I. Chuikov, A. I. Yeremenko, Semyon Timonshenko, and to a lesser extent men like K. K. Rokossovsky, V. D. Sokolovsky, and the staff chiefs, A. M. Vasilevsky, Boris Shaposhnikov and, later on, S. M. Shtemenko. Rivals of a different category were Stalin's cronies, men like Voroshilov and Budenny, and police generals such as L. Z. Mekhlis and G. I. Kulik."

"The battle of Kursk... the forcing of the Dnieper... and the liberation of Kiev, left Hitlerite Germany facing catastrophe."

"The heavy casualties, the constant retreat, the shortage of food and munitions, the difficulty of receiving reinforcements... all this had a very bad effect on morale. Many longed to get across the Volga, to escape the hell of Stalingrad."

"Our units were tired. There were many whining pessimists in the army. I threw these panicky people out of the army right away and set to work. I told our men we could not retreat beyond the Volga... I believe that nowhere else in this war was there such bloody hand-to-hand combat. Nowhere else were bayonets and hand grenades used so widely as in Stalingrad...Lieutenant General Rodimtzev's division was first to arrive there and received the fierce German blow. Rodimtzev told me: 'We will fight to the last man, but we shall not leave the city.' ...Our soldiers had only one idea. Stalin had ordered us not to retreat."

"He ordered us to stand fast and save Stalingrad. So we knew then that it was 'do or die.' We could not retreat."

"I would not have believed such an inferno could open up on earth. Men died but they did not retreat."

"The Germans underestimated our artillery. And they underestimated the effectiveness of our infantry against their tanks. This battle showed that tanks forced to operate in narrow quarters are of limited value; they're just guns without mobility. In such conditions nothing can take the place of small groups of infantry, properly armed, and fighting with utmost determination. I don't mean barricade street fighting—there was little of that—but groups converting every building into a fortress and fighting for it floor by floor and even room by room. Such defenders cannot be driven out either by tanks or planes. The Germans dropped over a million bombs on us but they did not dislodge our infantry from its decisive positions. On the other hand, tanks can be destroyed from buildings used as fortresses."

"There are those who propose that both sides remove all their forces from Germany. That's a silly idea. The Germans hate us; we couldn't think of removing our forces from Germany."

"It was my view that the catastrophe. . . . could have been avoided if Vasilevsky had taken the position he should have. He could have taken a different position. . . . but he didn't do that, and as a result, in my view, he had a hand in the destruction of thousands of Red Army fighters in the Kharkov campaign."

"A man who knew his job as he spent a long time commanding a regiment and who earned great respect from everybody."

"The engagements in which Zhukov won his reputation were so massive that, inevitably, many outstanding Soviet military men were involved- either under Zhukov's command or in coordinated and associated movements. There was then, and there continued for years to be, a raging competition for military glory in these engagements. Deep lines of political cleavage and quarrels also underlay the military disputes. Not only military glory was involved; political intrigue, intra-Party quarrels, high-level Kremlin politics were at issue. The principal military rivals of Zhukov were his fellow marshals, Ivan S. Konev, Rodion Malinovsky, V. I. Chuikov, A. I. Yeremenko, Semyon Timonshenko, and to a lesser extent men like K. K. Rokossovsky, V. D. Sokolovsky, and the staff chiefs, A. M. Vasilevsky, Boris Shaposhnikov and, later on, S. M. Shtemenko. Rivals of a different category were Stalin's cronies, men like Voroshilov and Budenny, and police generals such as L. Z. Mekhlis and G. I. Kulik."

"By seizing the formerly little-known Height 102.0 – the Mamayev Hill - the Red Army fought its way to the fascists' den – Berlin. We are proud to say that our victory in Stalingrad radically changed the whole situation in the Second World War. And this victory meant that our Motherland had withstood one of the most difficult tests in its history."

"Conditions to the north of us, in the Voronezh and Steppe Fronts zone of action, and our offensive on Kharkov demands that we not lose time and we commit all forces so that we can draw off as many divisions as possible from Kharkov. And even if we do not draw them off, at least we will not give Manstein the ability to take any of his units from our part of the front. If we attract one or two German tank divisions - it will be the best contribution to the defeat of the enemy in the south."

"Why I should be in Romania in the name of unknown to me goal. There was a time when I led soldiers to battle, thinking I was doing my duty as a Russian patriot. However, I understood that we have been cheated, that people needed peace. The old army and Soviet Union are not compatible, therefore, my military career had to end. With no remorse, I could go back to my favorite occupation, working in the field."

"I did not decide to become an officer to start a military career. I still wanted to be an agronomist and work in some remote corner of Russia after the war. I could not suppose that my country would change, and I would."

"According to one account, his chief of staff reported to him on looting and damage. 'Comrade Marshall,' he said, 'the soldiers are not behaving themselves. They break furniture, mirrors and dishes. What are your instructions in this connection?' Vasilevsky, perhaps the most intelligent and cultivated of all Soviet commanders, was apparently silent for a few moments. 'I don't give a fuck,' he said eventually. 'It is now time for our soldiers to issue their own justice.'"

"And now German generals find it hard to explain away their retreat."

"Eastern Prussia was a battlefield during World War I years. And right from here, on September 1, 1939, began the spark of fire for the coming of the second world war. And in 1941, Eastern Prussia invaded Soviet soil with a powerful military onslaught, unleashing a grip of heavy burden, tragedy, and torture into the Soviet pre-Baltic and also the inhabitants of Leningrad, Pskov, and the Novgorod regions. Right from the very first days of the second world war, Eastern Prussia was completely transformed into a diabolic system of concentration camp strongholds for captured military people, and became a cruel prison for the young and females, who were brought from many European countries. In the first place, from the Soviet Union. And, aha! Now, after the winter of 1945, Soviet forces captured the descendants of these royal hounds in their very own doghouse!"

"While thinking when sober, our success at reaching our goals by using the First Baltic Front troops, the Memel operation, it can't be disregarded, that they [the troops] not only honorably accomplished their powerful strategic operation, but also an infusion of victory for the Soviet armed forces and an entrance into the final stages of the war."

"We have won on the Arlov, Kursk, Belgorod, and Kharkov grounds. We won because the country was being defended not only by the army but by the entire Soviet people. The Socialist economy, Soviet political structure, and Marxist-Leninist ideology proved their unarguable excellence against the Fascist economy, Fascist political structure, and Fascist ideology of Germany."

"Whatever we saw in October 1941, cannot be compared to anything that we had seen prior, when our forces retreated from the Dniepr borders. Now, things like this no longer happen. Now, we can frown by ourselves."

"There is no point in hiding that before the war we mostly learned to attack, and did not pay enough attention to such an important manoeuvre as retreat. Now we have paid for this. It turned out that the commanders and the staff were not sufficiently prepared to prepare and execute the retreat manoeuvre. Now, in the second week of war, we had in fact to learn from the beginning the most difficult art - the art of the execution of retreat."

"What's bad about my biography? My father was a worker, my brothers, too, and I have always honestly served my country."

"What do you want to have me shot for, Semyon Mikhailovich? If you don't find me suitable as chief of the operations department, then give me a combat division. I am a commander; I can command a division. But what would be the advantage of having me shot?"

"Yet at the end of the war Zhukov's prestige was so enormous that he shared the podium with Stalin at the great Moscow victory parade in June, 1945, and entertained as his guest his fellow commander and friend, General Dwight D. Eisenhower. The two men were not merely military associates, fellow members of the Kommendatura in Berlin. They had genuine empathy. Both were popular figures, heroes in their countries, nonpolitical men, men with a rather simplistic view of life. Eisenhower came to Moscow as Zhukov's guest. He invited Zhukov to visit America as his guest. Zhukov accepted. To many it seemed that Zhukov's prestige was such that he might well be Stalin's first minister and probable successor. It seemed that in any event the influence of Zhukov and of the other great Soviet generals would be such that they would dominate postwar Soviet political life. The calculations failed. They did not take into account Stalin and the nature of Kremlin politics. Zhukov never had a chance to make his visit to the United States as Ike's guest. Indeed, he never even met his old friend Ambassador Smith in Moscow."

"The engagements in which Zhukov won his reputation were so massive that, inevitably, many outstanding Soviet military men were involved- either under Zhukov's command or in coordinated and associated movements. There was then, and there continued for years to be, a raging competition for military glory in these engagements. Deep lines of political cleavage and quarrels also underlay the military disputes. Not only military glory was involved; political intrigue, intra-Party quarrels, high-level Kremlin politics were at issue. The principal military rivals of Zhukov were his fellow marshals, Ivan S. Konev, Rodion Malinovsky, V. I. Chuikov, A. I. Yeremenko, Semyon Timonshenko, and to a lesser extent men like K. K. Rokossovsky, V. D. Sokolovsky, and the staff chiefs, A. M. Vasilevsky, Boris Shaposhnikov and, later on, S. M. Shtemenko. Rivals of a different category were Stalin's cronies, men like Voroshilov and Budenny, and police generals such as L. Z. Mekhlis and G. I. Kulik."

"The names of many military men may be better known in the West- England's Montgomery, Germany's Rommel and Guderian, de Gaulle of France, America's Eisenhower, MacArthur and Patton. But when history has completed its painful task of evaluation, when the grain of achievement is sifted from the chaff of notoriety, it seems certain that the name which will stand above all others as the master of the art of mass warfare in the twentieth century will be that of this broad-beamed, fierce, determined man who turned the tide of battle against the Nazis, against Hitler, not once but time after time after time."

"The truth was that one of the great military disasters of our time was in the making on the night of June 21-22, 1941- the colossal tactical surprise which Hitler's armies achieved over the Russians. Within hours the Soviet Air Force would lie burnt, wrecked, destroyed on the ground, its commanders facing the firing squad or cheating the executioner by suicide. The flower of the Red Army would be staggering east, some units decimated, many without arms, others virtually exterminated. Hundreds of thousands of troops would find themselves fatally trapped and encircled, scores or even hundreds of miles behind the spearheads of the advancing Nazi panzers. Within a few weeks German armies would stand at the gates of Leningrad, Kiev and Moscow, and the fate of the Soviet state would hang in the balance. As the clock ticked away that long spring evening, it brought Stalin and his Russia minute by minute closer to disaster. By the same token it propelled Zhukov into perhaps the most striking military career of the century."

"Zhukov was always a man of strong will and decisiveness, brilliant and gifted, demanding, firm and purposeful. All these qualities, unquestionably, are necessary in a great military leader and they were inherent in Zhukov. It is true that sometimes his toughness exceeded what was permissible. For example, in the heat of the fighting around Moscow Zhukov sometimes displayed unjustified sharpness."

"Has a strong will. Decisive and firm. Often demonstrates initiative and skillfully applies it. Disciplined. Demanding and persistent in his demands. A somewhat ungracious and not sufficiently sympathetic person. Rather stubborn. Painfully proud. In professional terms well trained. Broadly experienced as a military leader... Absolutely cannot be used in staff or teaching jobs because constitutionally he hates them."

"On March 31 Stalin received a message from Eisenhower, intended to improve coordination between their armies. The Allied commander stated that his troops were now thrusting toward Leipzig, south of Berlin, rather than the German capital. Given the mindset in the Kremlin, the message was probably dismissed as sinister disinformation. Next day Stalin summoned Zhukov and Ivan Koniev, his two top marshals, and asked: “Who is going to take Berlin: are we or the Allies?” There was one only possible answer, and Koniev gave it immediately: “It is we who shall take Berlin, and we will take it before the Allies.” With his flanks now secured, Stalin cannily unleashed Zhukov and Koniev—two bitter rivals—in their own personal race for Berlin. That same day, April 1, he cabled Eisenhower that Berlin had “lost its former strategic importance” and that the Soviets would send only second-rate forces against it, sometime in May. “However, this plan may undergo certain alterations, depending on circumstances.” Historian Antony Beevor has described this message as “the greatest April Fool in modern history."

"The Soviet marshal Georgi Zhukov is much less famous in the West than generals such as Dwight D. Eisenhower and Bernard Montgomery, but he was undoubtedly the greatest commander of the Second World War, turning the tide against the Nazi invaders at Moscow, Leningrad and Stalingrad, and then leading the Red Army in its bloody counteroffensive all the way to Berlin. Without the heroic Soviet effort, with its sacrifice of 26 million lives, the war might have ended very differently. Zhukov was a communist and a ruthless Stalinist general who placed results far above his concern for individuals and casualties and used summary executions at the front to enforce discipline. Yet he was also a gifted leader who represents not the cruelty of his master, Soviet dictator Stalin, but the heroism of the Russian people."

"In spite of the biographer's best efforts, the Soviet military leader remains personally a shadowy figure. We cannot see him at home, with his wife, children, and grandchildren, nor can we learn much about his personal likes or dislikes, his family life, his moments of despair and elation. Although Soviet secrecy plays a strong part in formulating these restrictions, they are to some extent also in the tradition of Russian letters, and any biographer of Marshal Zhukov who resits his case, as Chaney does, on the strictest accuracy of the utilization of his source material, has to make his book a study of Zhukov the soldier and relatively little of Zhukov the man."

"The name of Marshal Georgi Zhukov, the distinguished Soviet military leader of World War II and a controversial postwar minister of defense, conjures up a picture of a severe and ruthless Soviet commander, one of the few who appeared never to have lost a battle, and who was allowed by Stalin out of the shadows which normally surround Soviet personalities briefly, at least, to share some of the glory of Soviet victories during the war. No one would deny that a good and accurate biography of a soldier of Zhukov's status and achievements has been lacking for some time. After all, lives of most of the outstanding Allied and German commanders have been available for many years. Scholars, historians, and the general public have long awaited a biography of their most successful Soviet counterpart- a man who, in the closing stages of the war, had under his direct operational command fourteen field armies and many thousands of tanks and aircraft."

"None were any good in 1941. Of Budyenny (Semyon Budyonny), who commanded the armies facing me, a captured Russian officer aptly remarked — ‘He is a man with a very large moustache, but a very small brain.’ But in later years there is no doubt of the improvement in their generalship. Zhukov was very good. It is interesting to recall that he first studied strategy in Germany under General von Seeckt - this was about 1921-23."

"So that's what you're like."

"Zhukov has thus emerged in his twilight years to take his proper place in Soviet history. The resurrection of this great soldier, first a patriot and only then a Party member, can be viewed as an attempt by Brezhnev and his fellow leaders to give credit where credit is due and to make Soviet history a more factual record of events. Zhukov still commands the loyalty of many Russians in all walks of life, especially the veterans of World War II. Zhukov is an enduring symbol of victory on the battlefield."

"Perhaps the best epitaph for Zhukov was written by an Indian diplomat, K.P. Menon, in a different context, years before the marshal died, when Zhukov was being hounded by sycophants and ideologists under Nikita Krushchev, so officially that he had become a so-called non-person. Menon wrote: "No star shone in the Russian firmament after Stalin's death with greater lustre than Zhukov's.""

"With the technological revolution in the military field and the enormous organizational reconstruction of the army and navy, and now that their prime shock force is made up of rocketry, voices may quite frequently be heard asserting that this is an era of "push-button warfare" where man plays nothing but an auxiliary role. This view is wrong. Without arguing the great importance of rocketry and nuclear weapons, it is a fact that regardless of the scale, nature or method of warfare, man always played, and will go on playing, a major role in it. War will still require the participation of large masses of manpower- in one case directly in the armed struggle, in another, in war production and the comprehensive material backing of armed struggle."

"The risks of war present no danger to those who are well prepared for it in advance and who are mindful of their place in the nation's defences. Confusion and panic usually appear wherever there is no adequate organizaton or appropriate leadership at a time of grim trials."

"The Soviet Union is a peaceful country. The people's every goal serves the construction of Communism. They do not need war to attain their goal. But to protect the Soviet people's peaceful labour we must study our military experience in defending the socialist motherland, and make use of what will help us ensure the country's defences in the most effective way and train and rear our Armed Forces in the right spirit."

"The greatness of heroic victory over Fascist Germany is in the fact that the Soviet Union did not defend the socialist state alone, but that it selflessly fought to defend the internationalist proletarian goal- defeat the bulk of the Nazi armed forces and deliver the peoples of Europe from occupation. The Soviet people have not forgotten other peoples' contribution to the victory over the common enemy. Our army and people remember and value the courage of the Resistance fighters."