Stalin's General

Widelyregarded as the most accomplished general of World War II, the Soviet militarylegend Marshal Georgy Zhukov at last gets the full-scale biographical treatmenthe has long deserved.

A man of indomitable will and fierce determination, Georgy Zhukov was theSoviet Union's indispensable commander through every one of the criticalturning points of World War II. It was Zhukov who saved Leningrad from captureby the Wehrmacht in September 1941, Zhukov who led the defense of Moscow inOctober 1941, Zhukov who spearheaded the Red Army's march on Berlin andformally accepted Germany's unconditional surrender in the spring of 1945.Drawing on the latest research from recently opened Soviet archives, includingthe uncensored versions of Zhukov's own memoirs, Roberts offers a vividportrait of a man whose tactical brilliance was matched only by thecold-blooded ruthlessness with which he pursued his battlefield objectives.

After the war, Zhukov was a key player on the geopolitical scene. AsKhrushchev's defense minister, he was one of the architects of Soviet militarystrategy during the Cold War. While lauded in the West as a folk hero-he wasthe only Soviet general ever to appear on the cover of Timemagazine-Zhukov repeatedly ran afoul of the Communist political authorities.Wrongfully accused of disloyalty, he was twice banished and erased from hiscountry's official history-left out of books and paintings depicting SovietWorld 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 andcareer 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 IronCurtain of official secrecy, Stalin's General is an authoritativebiography that restores Zhukov to his rightful place in the twentieth-centurymilitary pantheon.

GeoffreyRoberts isthe author of Stalin's Wars and Victory at Stalingrad. He isprofessor and head of the School of History at University College Cork,Ireland. Roberts is a frequent contributor to British, Irish, and Americannewspapers and to popular-history journals and has been a consultant for TV andradio documentaries.

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Advancepraise for Stalin's General

"At long last we have a full biography of Marshal Zhukov. Geoffrey Roberts haswritten a well-informed, judiciously balanced, and lively account, covering notonly Zhukov's role in 1941-1945 as a frontline commander and Stalin's closestmilitary advisor but also his formative experiences in the prewar Red Army, hiscomplex family relationships, his place in Cold War military planning, and hislapses into political disfavor under both Stalin and Khrushchev. There is awealth of new material here, including firsthand insights from Zhukov'srelatives. A three-dimensional picture emerges of the peasant boy who becamethe greatest general of World War II. This is a splendid book, comprehensivelydetailed, readily understood, and it is essential reading for anyone interestedin the Russian-German conflict or the Soviet experience."-Evan Mawdsley, authorof December 1941 and Thunder in the East