Stalin's General (8 page)

In October 1924 the divisional commander decided to send Zhukov on a year-long course at the Higher Cavalry School in Leningrad. The purpose of the course was to educate higher command officers in a wide range of military and political skills that they in turn could teach their subordinates when they returned to their units. “The curriculum was packed,” Zhukov recalled. “Besides classes, we had to do much studying at home.”
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Among Zhukov's classmates were two future marshals of the Soviet Union—Konstantin K. Rokossovsky and Ivan K. Bagramyan—who were both destined to play a central role in Zhukov's life and career.

Born in 1896 to a Polish father and a Russian mother, Rokossovsky was brought up near Warsaw and spoke Russian with a Polish accent. He joined the tsarist army on the outbreak of war in 1914 and served with distinction in the cavalry, rising to the rank of junior commander by 1917. When the Bolsheviks seized power Rokossovsky joined the Red Guards—the precursor to the Red Army. During the Russian Civil War Rokossovsky was wounded twice and awarded two Orders of the Red Banner. By the end of the conflict he had a reputation as an outstanding cavalry commander. His personality and leadership style was the polar opposite of Zhukov's. While Zhukov was an uncompromising, assertive commander (like General George S. Patton, for example), Rokossovsky was more courteous and intellectual (like Dwight Eisenhower) and preferred to coax rather than forcibly extract the best from his troops. Their different
personalities would lead to some sharp clashes between the two during the Second World War.

Ivan Bagramyan was the son of an Armenian railway worker and one of the few non-Slavs in the Red Army ever to reach the rank of marshal. Born in 1897, he served in the tsar's army during the First World War and then as an officer in the army of an Armenian nationalist movement that arose during the chaos of the Russian Revolution and Civil War. Bagramyan joined the Red Army in 1920 but did not become a member of the Communist Party until 1939. Like Rokossovsky he had an intellectual bent and was destined to lecture in the General Staff Academy in the 1930s. His breakthrough to operational command and the highest ranks came in 1940 when he served with Zhukov in the Kiev Special Military District.

In his memoirs Rokossovsky recalled of the Cavalry School class, “we were young and energetic and soon came together naturally in a close-knit team. We plunged into our studies with a will, especially Zhukov, who gave himself up completely to mastering the subtleties of military science. Whenever we dropped into his room he would be crawling about over a map spread on the floor. Even then there was nothing higher for him than duty.”
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Bagramyan was even more complimentary about Zhukov: “Among our group of students [he] was the one with the most talent. Even then he displayed not only exceptional willpower but especially original thinking. In the sphere of cavalry tactics Zhukov more than once surprised us with something unexpected. His decisions always provoked the most disputes but he was usually able to defend his view with powerful logic.”
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While such recollections must have been influenced by retrospective knowledge there is no reason to doubt that Zhukov was a dedicated student and a talented young commander.

The curriculum included equestrian contests—vaulting, concoursing, steeplechasing, racing, and handling sabers and lances—in which Zhukov, Rokossovsky, and Bagramyan all competed. In the summer of 1925 the course switched to tactical combat training in the field, culminating in a forced march to the River Volkhov, which the participants then had to swim across with their horses. “It is a pretty tough job to swim a river with a horse,” recalled Zhukov. “It was not enough to be able to swim in uniform; one had also to control a swimming horse.”
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When the course ended Zhukov and two other colleagues decided to return to their division on horseback. The division was in Minsk in Belorussia and the distance of 963 kilometers would be a world record for a group run on horseback. The ride took just seven days, despite Zhukov's horse going lame, forcing him to dismount frequently and lead it by the bridle. When they reached Minsk the group was met by cheering crowds, commendations from the High Command, and the reward of a short leave. Zhukov went home to Strelkovka to visit his mother and sister (by this time his father was dead). When he returned to the division he learned that his regiment was to be merged with another and a new, enlarged 39th Cavalry Regiment—the Melekess-Pugachevsk—was to be formed out of the 41st and 42nd Regiments. Zhukov was given command of the new regiment and not long after was also appointed regimental commissar. Zhukov's appointment to the political as well as the military command of Melekess-Pugachevsk—the first such unified appointment in the 7th Samara Division—was consonant with the Frunze reforms and reflected the higher command's confidence in his party loyalty as well as his military competence.
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As well as juggling military and political responsibilities Zhukov had some personal complications to deal with. When the 7th Samara Division relocated to Minsk in autumn 1923 Zhukov resumed his relationship with Maria Volkhova, the young schoolgirl he had met while recuperating in Saratov at the end of 1919. Meanwhile, his marriage to Alexandra Dievna endured and resulted in the birth of his first daughter, Era, in 1928. Six months later, in June 1929, Maria gave birth to Zhukov's second daughter—Margarita. According to Margarita, Zhukov was a doting father who registered her birth himself. She was so named because her rosy cheeks and blue eyes reminded him of a flower. However, a stepfather raised Margarita and in the 1930s Zhukov lost touch with both her and her mother. Contact was not resumed until the stepfather was killed in action during the Second World War.
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At the end of 1929 Zhukov was sent to the Frunze Military Academy in Moscow to attend an advanced course for higher commanders. Once again Zhukov found himself in the distinguished company of classmates who were destined for high office during the Great Patriotic
War, including Marshal L. A. Govorov, who commanded Soviet forces during the siege of Leningrad, and Marshal F. I. Tolbukhin, a famous Soviet tank commander. The course was designed for those being groomed for command at the divisional level and higher and it laid great emphasis on the theory and practice of the conduct of battles in contemporary conditions. Zhukov's end-of-course report in spring 1930 contained an astute evaluation of the capabilities of the thirty-three-year-old commander. His knowledge of combined arms tactics was judged entirely satisfactory as was his participation in war games and group work. His familiarity with field service regulations was deemed satisfactory and his operational-tactical decision-making was commended for its clarity and, especially, its firmness. With further progress Zhukov would be able to direct the tactical preparation for battle of both regiments and divisions, wrote the assessor. The only sphere in which Zhukov fell down was his staff work, which was judged “almost” satisfactory. “By inclination and character he is obviously a front-line commander [and is little suited for staff work],” concluded the report.
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In common with other armies the Red Army devoted a lot of attention to learning the lessons of the First World War and to assessing the impact of modern developments in military technology—especially tanks and planes—on future warfare. The Red Army also needed to assimilate the experience of the Russian Civil War, a conflict that, in contrast to the static, positional warfare of much of World War I, had been characterized by large-scale maneuvers and operations conducted over distances of hundreds of miles. The Red Army leadership concluded that future wars would be mechanized and would be characterized by the combined operations of tanks, artillery, aircraft, motorized infantry, and airborne troops, striking rapidly and deeply into enemy territory and defenses.

By the early 1930s the Red Army had formulated and adopted the dual doctrine of “deep battle” and “deep operations.” Under this doctrine, successive waves of combined arms forces would penetrate the full depth of enemy defenses and then exploit the breakthrough by
envelopment of enemy forces from the rear. Warfare would consist of a consecutive series of such operations, utilizing what the Soviets called “operational art”—the sophisticated management of “combined arms”—the different branches of the armed forces—in pursuit of deep battle and deep operations. The idea was similar to the German concept of Blitzkrieg being developed around the same time, i.e., breakthrough on a narrow front by concentrated columns of tanks, which would then encircle the enemy from the rear. However, the Soviets were less tank-centric than the Germans and emphasized the importance of combined arms operations in which tanks would play a supporting as well as an independent role. They were also more mindful than the Germans of the importance of coordinating and synchronizing tank action with that of artillery, infantry, cavalry, and air forces.

In accordance with its new doctrine the Red Army established the world's first mechanized corps in 1932—two formations, each consisting of several hundred tanks and armored cars, supported by infantry, artillery, and air detachments—that would act as the central strike force of the army in the event of war. By 1936 there were four mechanized corps as well as six separate mechanized brigades, and six separate tank regiments. But it soon became apparent there were a number of practical problems with the conduct of deep battle and deep operations. How would tanks involved in deep battle strikes be refueled and resupplied? How would slow-moving infantry and artillery keep up with fast-moving, mechanized forces? How could central command (during an era in which field communications were not very advanced) direct forces operating deep in enemy territory? The answer to these problems—on paper, at least—was to slow down the tanks so they did not outrun their supplies; speed up the infantry and artillery by motorization; and exercise tighter, more centralized control and coordination of the combined arms.
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The key figure in the doctrinal and practical development of the interwar Red Army was Mikhail N. Tukhachevsky, Frunze's successor as chief of staff in the 1920s and deputy commissar for defense in the 1930s.
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Zhukov first met Tukhachevsky during the suppression of the Tambov peasant uprising in 1921 and he greatly admired “his versatile command of various aspects of military science. A clever, knowledgeable
professional, he was splendidly conversant with both tactical and strategic problems. He well understood the role the various arms could play in a modern war and took a creative approach to all problems.… Tukhachevsky was an ace of military thinking, a star of the first magnitude among the great soldiers of the Red Army.”
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As a relatively junior officer, and one with little bent for theory or staff work, Zhukov played no discernible role in elaborating the Red Army's military doctrine. But he did absorb the ethos and methodology of deep battle and deep operations that proved to be crucial in shaping his own later practice as a general. He would later note, in particular, the influence of the Temporary Field Service Regulations of 1936, which set out the principles of the Red Army's approach to battle and operations as an offensive-oriented army that would deploy combined arms to attack the enemy in depth:

However, by the time these regulations were published the concepts of deep battle and deep operations were coming under increasingly critical scrutiny within the Red Army. Important to the evolution and modification of the Red Army's operational doctrine was the impact of the Spanish Civil War, which broke out in July 1936 when General Francisco Franco and an alliance of conservatives, monarchists, and fascists launched a military mutiny against the elected republican government. More than 2,000 Soviet military advisors participated in the Spanish Civil War and the USSR was the main supplier of munitions to the republican government, including large numbers of tanks. Two main lessons seemed to emerge from the Spanish conflict: tanks were vulnerable to artillery and antitank weapons, and tank units would incur large losses in open battle; and, second, that it was difficult for tanks to achieve decisive results without close infantry support. This led to an increased emphasis in Soviet doctrine on the importance of combined arms operations (as opposed to independent
tank manuevers) and on the tank's role in infantry support. The Spanish experience also contributed to the decision in November 1939 to disband the mechanized corps and to instead group tanks in smaller formations distributed throughout the armed forces.

When he finished his course at the Frunze Academy in spring 1930 Zhukov was still an obscure, middle-ranking cavalry commander, albeit one on the way up. On May 17, 1930, the commander of the Cavalry Corps, S. K. Timoshenko—a future marshal and defense commissar—wrote that during the previous seven years Zhukov had raised his regiment to the highest level of morale and military preparedness.
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That same month Zhukov was promoted to command the 2nd Cavalry Brigade of the 7th Samara Division, which placed him in charge of the 40th as well as his old regiment, the 39th. By this time the commander of the 7th Division was Zhukov's old classmate Rokossovsky, who presumably had a hand in his appointment as brigade commander. In November 1930 Rokossovsky wrote an assessment of his new brigade commander that throws light on both Zhukov's personality and his professional abilities at this stage in his career: