Stalin And His Generals Soviet Military Memoirs Of World War 2

The complete and unredacted autobiography by Stalin’s star general, chronicling his many campaigns throughout WWII. At Moscow, Leningrad, Stalingrad, Kursk and Berlin—as well as virtually all the principal battles on the Eastern Front during the Second World War—Georgy Zhukov played a major role. He was Stalin’s pre-eminent general throughout the conflict, and he chronicled his brilliant career as he saw it in this essential text. Here, Zhukov reveals intriguing insights into who he was, both as a man and as a commander. He also delves into the military thinking and decision-making at the highest level of the Soviet command—making this volume essential reading for anyone studying the conflict in the east. This edition of the memoirs, which were first published in heavily censored form, features an introduction by Professor Geoffrey Roberts in which he summarizes the additional material omitted from previous editions. He also provides, in an appendix, a translation of Zhukov’s account of the 1953-7 period as well as an interview with Zhukov that has previously not been available in English.

Virtually the entire Soviet effort on the Eastern Front of World War II bears the stamp of Georgy Zhukov, chief of staff of the Red Army and deputy supreme commander under Stalin. The first volume of his memoirs covers Zhukov's peasant childhood, his prewar military career, and the first phase of World War II. Fascinating self-portrait of one of the most remarkable generals of the twentieth century Indispensable source for the Eastern Front, including the early battles for Kiev, Smolensk, and Leningrad

Widely regarded as the most accomplished general of World War II, the Soviet military legend Marshal Georgy Zhukov at last gets the full-scale biographical treatment he has long deserved. A man of indomitable will and fierce determination, Georgy Zhukov was the Soviet Union’s indispensable commander through every one of the critical turning points of World War II. It was Zhukov who saved Leningrad from capture by the Wehrmacht in September 1941, Zhukov who led the defense of Moscow in October 1941, Zhukov who spearheaded the Red Army’s march on Berlin and formally accepted Germany’s unconditional surrender in the spring of 1945. Drawing on the latest research from recently opened Soviet archives, including the uncensored versions of Zhukov’s own memoirs, Roberts offers a vivid portrait of a man whose tactical brilliance was matched only by the cold-blooded ruthlessness with which he pursued his battlefield objectives. After the war, Zhukov was a key player on the geopolitical scene. As Khrushchev’s defense minister, he was one of the architects of Soviet military strategy during the Cold War. While lauded in the West as a folk hero—he was the only Soviet general ever to appear on the cover of Time magazine—Zhukov repeatedly ran afoul of the Communist political authorities. Wrongfully accused of disloyalty, he was twice banished and erased from his country’s official history—left out of books and paintings depicting Soviet World War II victories. Piercing the hyperbole of the Zhukov personality cult, Roberts debunks many of the myths that have sprung up around Zhukov’s life and career to deliver fresh insights into the marshal’s relationships with Stalin, Khrushchev, and Eisenhower. A remarkably intimate portrait of a man whose life was lived behind an Iron Curtain of official secrecy, Stalin’s General is an authoritative biography that restores Zhukov to his rightful place in the twentieth-century military pantheon.

"In this work, Maslov relates the fate of those generals who fell into German captivity. After relating the grisly circumstances of their ordeal in German prisoner-of-war camps, Maslov then tells the sordid tale of how an ungrateful Soviet state condemned for treason against their homeland many of those who had served it loyally both in combat and in German prisoner-of-war camps. By exploiting unprecedented archival materials, Maslov demonstrates how Stalin and the Soviet security organs condemned and shot many of the returnee-generals, most on trumped-up charges, in part as scapegoats for the real crimes committed by Stalin and the Soviet military leadership during the tragic initial period of the war."--Publisher's description.

Boris Bogachev's highly readable account of life as a young platoon commander during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45 makes for a fascinating read. The son of a Soviet military commissar, Bogachev volunteered to fight as soon as reached the age of seventeen. Life in the Red Army was harsh, with food shortages, inadequate equipment and fear - not only of the well-armed enemy ahead, but also of the trigger-happy political officers behind. Bogachev fought in many campaigns throughout the war, including the 15-month Rzhev salien "meat-grinder" which resulted in huge Soviet losses. On three occasions he was threatened with execution. Three times he was wounded. Determined and resourceful, he managed to obtain papers authorizing him to have his wounds treated in hospital, but instead smuggled himself aboard a train to travel across Russia to visit his family in Kazakhstan before returning to the front. Boris Bogachev, who retired from the Soviet army in 1984 as a much-decorated colonel, tells his story of the hell that was the Eastern Front with freshness and candor. He vividly conveys the wide gap between ideology and reality in Stalin's Russia, the warm camaraderie among those who fought the Nazis and his horror at the inhumanity of war.

A detailed study of the operations, politics, culture, and autonomy of Soviet partisans (or guerrillas) who fought the German army in WWII. Blending military, political, social, and cultural history, Slepyan also provides a prism for viewing relations between the suffocating Stalinist state and its independent partisan warriors.