RUSSIA: Dragoon's Day

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There was something of the old dragoon about Zhukov's stiff, yet colorful, swagger. Says U.S. General James Gavin (who also rose from the ranks) : "He has a hard face, which can break into a wonderful smile. He's a man of the earth, short, pudgy fingers and a lot of brains."

On the Allied Control Council, Zhukov sat like a Buddha and let the political generals do the maneuvering. When an American parachute captain shot four Red army deserters who were holding up Germans in the U.S. sector, Zhukov wrote a stiff note of protest, explained afterwards: "I had to write that. That's just a formality. What I really want to know is, where do you get men like that captain?" At public dinners Vishinsky ordered Zhukov about, and Zhukov dutifully read speeches handed to him by Zampolit officers. He did not gag when Stalin took credit for the great victories. The Zampolit organization had grown to huge proportions and was again the terror of the Red army. Into East Germany came Commissar Serov, to superintend the liquidation of dissidents, the dismantling of factories and museums, the kidnaping of scientists and the setting-up of spy schools. Politically, the Red army was back where it started.

In September 1945, Eisenhower invited Zhukov to visit the U.S., and Zhukov accepted. But there were delays in the arrangements. Zhukov said two bodyguards would have to accompany him. He also wanted Ike's son, Lieut. John Eisenhower, to go along. Later, when Zhukov returned to Moscow, the invitation was declined on the ground of illness. Asked what had ailed him, Zhukov said laconically: "Ear trouble."

Round Trip to Odessa. Early in 1946 Zhukov disappeared. The grapevine said that he had refused to take orders from Vice Minister of Defense Bulganin (not yet a marshal), and that Stalin had come on the phone and told Zhukov he had better take a rest. Whatever the truth of these rumors, the fact was that Zhukov had grown too big for Stalin's comfort, i.e., too big to be quietly liquidated, and had been sent to the Odessa military district, where he was living quietly—under the watchful eye of Commissar Serov.

For five years almost nothing was heard of Zhukov. Occasionally a friendly word would reach Ike through relays of military men and from Western visitors to Russia. But the name Zhukov disappeared from Russian newspapers. The bronze bust, which is erected by statute in the home town of anyone who is twice Hero of the Soviet Union, did not appear at Strelkovka.

Then came the war in Korea. Like magic, Zhukov turned up beside Molotov at a gathering in Warsaw, and again on the 1952 Moscow party Congress. But his real return to favor dates from Stalin's death on March 5, 1953, and the arrest four months later of arch-Commissar Beria. The same plenary meeting of the Central Committee which denounced Beria elevated Zhukov to full membership on the Central Committee of the Communist Party.