Stalin's General (39 page)

Among the haul was a collection of twenty handmade hunting weapons, including shotguns made by the elite British company Holland & Holland.

The pressure on Zhukov increased with the arrest of a number of officers who had served with him in Germany, among them Colonel A. S. Semochkin, who had served as Zhukov's adjutant from 1940 to 1946. Semochkin's statement was sent to Zhukov for comment. On January 12, 1948, Zhukov replied to A. A. Zhdanov, Stalin's ideology chief, who had been appointed chair of a commission investigating Zhukov's “trophy items.” His defense was that he had either bought the items with his own money or they had been given to him as gifts. He also denied Semochkin's allegation that he received extra money from official funds to pay for his purchases. He also pointed out that many of the furnishings in his dacha had been supplied by the Ministry of State Security! However, he did express regret for purchasing so many items for himself and his family and said that some of the goods should be given to the state. Zhukov concluded with a plea to remain a member of the party so that he could continue the correction of his mistakes and strive to be a good communist.
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The Zhdanov commission was not impressed by Zhukov's plea or by his explanations, characterizing them as insincere and evasive. On January 20 the Politburo—the executive body of the Central Committee—decreed that Zhukov would be allowed to remain in the party but that all the misappropriated items must be handed over to the state. It was also resolved to demote him to the command of a less important military district. Hence Zhukov's transfer on February 4, 1948, to the command of the Urals Military District based in Sverdlovsk.
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Zhukov blamed Abakumov and Beria for this further punishment and not Stalin. Indeed, he thought the Soviet dictator had protected him from arrest.
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After Stalin's death Abakumov was tried and executed for abuse of power and became a convenient scapegoat for many of the purges of the late Stalin era, including that of Zhukov. But Abakumov could only have moved against someone of Zhukov's standing with Stalin's blessing and probably only at his prompting. It was the Soviet dictator who was responsible for the purge of Zhukov and it was Stalin who determined the level of punishment. The punishment itself—removal of material perks and banishment to the provinces—was relatively mild. Probably the worst indignity was being written out of the history of the Great Patriotic War. Paintings of the Victory Parade omitted him from the picture. A 1948 documentary film about the battle of Moscow barely mentioned Zhukov. When General Rybalko died in August 1948 Zhukov's name was omitted from the death announcement in
Pravda
that listed all other Soviet marshals.
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In a 1949 poster tableau depicting Stalin and his top generals plotting and planning the great counteroffensive at Stalingrad, Zhukov was nowhere to be seen.

Many of those caught up in the “Zhukov affair” suffered far worse fates. Ruslanova, Telegin, Semochkin, and others were imprisoned. The worst case concerned General Gordov (who had commanded the Stalingrad Front in 1942) and General Rybalchenko, his chief of staff in the Volga Military District. They were recorded by the MGB exchanging disloyal remarks about Stalin's treatment of Zhukov. Both were arrested and shot.
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All the victims of the Zhukov affair were rehabilitated after Stalin's death, posthumously in the case of Gordov and Rybalchenko. Zhukov himself was active in securing a pardon for Krukov.
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Zhukov's own rehabilitation began while Stalin was still alive, a process aided perhaps by the appointment of Vasilevsky as armed forces minister in 1949 in place of Bulganin. The personal ties between the two men were cemented by the marriage of Zhukov's daughter Era to Vasilevsky's son Yuri in 1948. In October 1949
Pravda
carried a funeral notice of the death of Marshal F. I. Tolbukhin and Zhukov was listed among the signatories.
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In 1950 Zhukov, along with a number of
other senior officers, was reelected to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, in his case as a deputy for Sverdlovsk. In 1951 he was a member of a government delegation to Warsaw where he met Rokossovsky, now Poland's defense minister. During the trip Zhukov delivered a speech on Polish-Soviet relations that was published in
Pravda
. In 1952 the second edition of the official
Great Soviet Encyclopedia
carried a short but favorable entry on Zhukov, stressing his importance in the realization of Stalin's military plans during the war.
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In October 1952 Zhukov was a delegate to the 19th Party Congress—the first such congress since the end of the war—and he was restored to candidate membership of the Central Committee. The writer and journalist Konstantin Simonov met Zhukov at the congress and found him in good spirits, albeit a little surprised at his reelection to the Central Committee. Zhukov also seemed pleased that Simonov's novel about Khalkhin-Gol had been published. The novel did not name Zhukov directly but it provided a flattering portrait of the fictional commander in charge of the operation.
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Simonov was also elected to the Central Committee at the 1952 congress. He had first met Zhukov at Khalkhin-Gol in 1939 and was destined to write a series of biographical sketches that cemented Zhukov's reputation as a heroic but human figure of Soviet history. A playwright, novelist, poet, and war correspondent, Simonov was almost as famous as Zhukov. In February 1942
Pravda
published his poem “Wait for Me,” a tragic lament that captured the feelings of a whole generation of Soviet people and is still immensely popular in Russia today:

Another sign of Stalin's softening attitude toward Zhukov in the early 1950s was the dictator's directive that Emmanuil Kazakevich's novel about the Vistula-Oder operation should mention Zhukov by name rather than refer to an anonymous “Front Commander.” “Zhukov has his shortcomings and we have criticised him for them,” Stalin reportedly said. “But Zhukov did a good job at Berlin, at any event, not a bad job.”
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Amazingly, Zhukov himself believed that had Stalin lived longer he would have rehabilitated him fully and even appointed him minister of defense.
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The late 1940s and early 1950s was a complicated period in Zhukov's personal as well as his political life. When Zhukov was sent to Odessa in 1946 his wife, Alexandra, went with him (their two daughters stayed in Moscow and visited during the holidays), but so did his wartime lover, Lida Zakharova, although he kept the two women apart. Lida followed Zhukov to Sverdlovsk, too, but she returned to Moscow when Zhukov met another woman he fell in love with.
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In summer 1950 Zhukov was hospitalized in Sverdlovsk because of heart trouble (he had already had one heart attack). The attending physician was Dr. Galina Semonova. Zhukov was soon drawn to the young woman. “What especially attracted me to her,” recalled Zhukov, “were her big, beautiful warm eyes, her shapely figure and her shy modesty. The more I saw her the more I liked her.… In 1951–1952 Galina and I became closer and closer. Even then I could not think of life without her.”
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At the beginning of 1953 Galina went to Moscow for a medical course. She was soon joined there by Zhukov, who had been recalled to the Soviet capital following Stalin's death in March. The dramatic political events in which he soon became involved did nothing to dampen his ardor for Galina. A flavor of their relationship is captured in a letter he wrote to her in August 1953, while she was on holiday at a sanatorium and he was preparing to take part in a military exercise simulating a nuclear attack:

This was typical of the letters Zhukov wrote to Galina in the 1950s when he was away from Moscow. It is clear that Zhukov had switched his romantic allegiance to Galina, although he did not move in with her until the late 1950s.
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Indeed, Alexandra only found out about the affair in 1957 after the birth of Galina and Zhukov's daughter, Maria.

After the war Zhukov also resumed contact with his illegitimate daughter, Margarita, who visited him in both Odessa and Sverdlovsk. In 1948 Margarita entered Moscow State University to study law. Era was also at the university and in the same faculty (she later became a specialist in international law). In the early 1950s the paths of the two half-sisters crossed by accident. Unfortunately, when Alexandra found out she insisted that Era cease contact with Margarita and that Zhukov, as a sign of good faith, should renew the registration of their marriage, the original certificate having been lost in the 1920s.
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These events were the first in a series of complications in Zhukov's personal life that continued until the mid-1960s when he finally divorced Alexandra.

When Zhukov wrote his memoirs he ended his narrative with his return to Moscow from Berlin in April 1946. There is, however, an unpublished coda in which he related some of his experiences after
Stalin's death that takes the story up to his 1957 dismissal by Khrushchev.
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According to this memoir on March 4, 1953, Zhukov received an urgent message in Sverdlovsk to telephone Bulganin, who told him to fly to Moscow the next day. When he arrived Bulganin whisked him off to a high-level meeting of party leaders, where he learned that Stalin was gravely ill; indeed the dictator died later that day. At this meeting a number of personnel changes were agreed, including Bulganin's appointment as war minister, with Zhukov and Vasilevsky (the incumbent minister) to serve as his deputies. Other appointments included Georgy Malenkov, who was named chairman of the council of ministers (i.e., prime minister), and Vyacheslav Molotov, who was reappointed foreign minister, a post he had previously held from 1939 to 1949. The meeting was chaired by Khrushchev, thus signaling his preeminence as the most important party leader apart from the dying Stalin. Zhukov was surprised by his new appointment since it was well known he did not have a great deal of respect for Bulganin. Later, Zhukov heard that Bulganin had objected to his appointment but was overruled by the rest of the party leadership. Before starting his new job Zhukov had a frank conversation with Bulganin and told him: “You have caused me much unpleasantness, exposing me to attack by Stalin … but if you sincerely want to work together on a friendly basis let's forget about past troubles.”
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Zhukov was prominent in the military guard of honor at the dictator's state funeral on March 9, although it was Vasilevsky who spoke on behalf of the armed forces at the mass meeting in Red Square.
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“Notwithstanding that Stalin treated me badly after the Great Patriotic War,” recalled Zhukov, “I was genuinely regretful.… After Stalin's funeral the Soviet people sincerely mourned his death and entrusted all their hopes to the party.”
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Zhukov's appointment as deputy minister was confirmed by the Supreme Soviet on March 15. At this same meeting the name of the Ministry of War was changed to the Ministry of Defense and it was merged with the Ministry of the Navy. A further sign of Zhukov's rapid rehabilitation was
Pravda's
publication in May 1953 of an article by him marking the eighth anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany. The article was notable for two themes: the continued celebration of Stalin's war leadership and the Great Leader's military genius
and the Soviet Union's commitment to peaceful coexistence with all states, including the United States.

Zhukov's first big chance to shine in the post-Stalin era came with his role in the arrest of security chief Lavrenty Beria. On the morning of June 26, 1953, Bulganin telephoned Zhukov and asked him to come to the Kremlin, where he met Malenkov, Khrushchev, Molotov, and other party leaders. Malenkov told the gathering that Beria was plotting against the party leadership and had to be arrested. When Khrushchev interjected to ask if there were any doubts, Zhukov replied: “what doubts could there be? The mission will be fulfilled.” When Khrushchev pointed out that Beria was a strong man who might be armed, Zhukov responded, “I am not a specialist in arrest and I have never done this before but I will not hesitate.” Zhukov and several other senior military men who had been called to the Kremlin were then told to wait until they heard a prearranged signal from Malenkov to enter the room where the party leaders were meeting with Beria. When that signal came two hours later Zhukov went in, marched briskly up to Beria, told him that he was under arrest and grabbed both his arms. Zhukov and his team then hustled Beria out of the room and sent him on his way to prison.
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