born December 1 [November 19, Old Style], 1896, Kaluga province, Russia—died June 18, 1974, Moscow), marshal of the Soviet Union, the most important Soviet military commander during World War II.
Having been conscripted into the Imperial Russian Army during World War I, Zhukov joined the Red Army in 1918, served as a cavalry commander during the Russian Civil War, and afterward studied military science at the Frunze Military Academy (graduated 1931) as well as in Germany. He rose steadily through the ranks, and as head of Soviet forces in the Manchurian border region he directed a successful counteroffensive against Japanese forces there in 1939.
During the Winter War, which the Soviet Union fought against Finland at the outset of World War II, Zhukov served as chief of staff of the Soviet army. He was then transferred to command the Kiev military district and in January 1941 was appointed chief of staff of the Red Army. After the Germans invaded the Soviet Union (June 1941), he organized the defense of Leningrad (St. Petersburg) and was then appointed commander in chief of the western front. He directed the defense of Moscow (autumn 1941) as well as the massive counteroffensive (December 1941) that drove the Germans’ Army Group Centre back from central Russia.
In August 1942 Zhukov was named deputy commissar of defense and first deputy commander in chief of Soviet armed forces. He became the chief member of Joseph Stalin’s personal supreme headquarters and figured prominently in the planning or execution of almost every major engagement in the war. He oversaw the defense of Stalingrad (late 1942) and planned and directed the counteroffensive that encircled the Germans’ Sixth Army in that city (January 1943). He was named a marshal of the Soviet Union soon afterward. Zhukov was heavily involved in the Battle of Kursk (July 1943) and directed the Soviet sweep across Ukraine in the winter and spring of 1944. He commanded the Soviet offensive through Belorussia (summer-autumn 1944), which resulted in the collapse of the Germans’ Army Group Centre and of German occupation of Poland and Czechoslovakia. In April 1945 he personally commanded the final assault on Berlin and then remained in Germany as commander of the Soviet occupation force. On May 8, 1945, he represented the Soviet Union at Germany’s formal surrender. He then served as the Soviet representative on the Allied Control Commission for Germany.
Upon Zhukov’s return to Moscow in 1946, Stalin assigned him to a series of relatively obscure regional commands. Only after Stalin died (March 1953) did the new political leaders, wishing to secure the support of the army, appoint Zhukov a deputy minister of defense (1953). He subsequently supported Nikita Khrushchev against the chairman of the Council of Ministers, Georgy Malenkov, who favoured a reduction in military expenditures. When Khrushchev forced Malenkov to resign and replaced him with Nikolay Bulganin (February 1955), Zhukov succeeded Bulganin as minister of defense; at that time he was also elected an alternate member of the Presidium.
Zhukov then undertook programs to improve the professional calibre of the armed forces. Because this effort involved a reduction in the role of the party’s political advisers and, consequently, in the party’s control of the army, his policies brought him into conflict with Khrushchev. Nevertheless, when a majority of the Presidium (called the “anti-party” group) tried to oust Khrushchev, Zhukov provided the airplanes that transported members of the Central Committee from distant regions of the country to Moscow, thus shifting the political balance in Khrushchev’s favour (June 1957). As a consequence, Zhukov was promoted to full membership in the Presidium (July 1957). But Khrushchev could not tolerate the marshal’s persistent efforts to make the army more autonomous; as a result, on October 26, 1957, Zhukov was formally dismissed as minister of defense and a week later was removed from his party posts. Remaining in relative obscurity until Khrushchev fell from power (October 1964), Zhukov was later awarded the Order of Lenin (1966) and allowed to publish his autobiography in 1969.
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I finally finished the jakarta method just in time for that to come out but it was so bleak I decided to not jump straight into the new one. now I'm stuck reading The Capital Order very slowly and kinda wishing I'd gone straight for it
I read the first few chapters of The Capital Order a while ago, but I can't remember much about it. What's the deal with it again?
it's a pretty economics and historical-primary-source heavy argument that austerity's real goal is not the stated economic goals (which it fails at achieving anyhow), but rather the disciplining of the working class and reimposition of capitalist realism (she doesnt use this phrase but I connect the two mentally) in the face of a crisis of capitalism, such as the social upheaval post-WW1 Europe (where wartime nationalization and labor concessions had shown that better things were possible), and that those liberal economists who came up with austerity created the conditions for, and were very accepting of, fascism.
It's a pretty compelling conclusion, but I'm starting to wonder if its going to just be about letters written between obscure 1920s economists for the rest of the book... (I'm on like chapter 6)
The deep dive into the different forms austerity takes, and ho they are self-reinforcing has been useful for me, as well as discussion about the schiff ideology they push on the public about how pure and rational economics is and these are just natural laws that the state has to work within...
The combined strategy of tryingto buil consensus by convincing everyone that austerity is a financial necessity, while also coercing them whether they agree or not and grinding them into the mud (financially) with more direct industrial austerity is interesting to me. it doesn't feel like it should work, it feels like if anything it should inspire more resistance not less. A few years of austerity should not convince people that economics is zero sum and we jut gotta all get on that grindset but it seems like to some extent it does...
Riiiight right if I remember correctly this is a research project based on her living in Italian archives for a year or something?
that sounds right as she cites a lot of both italian and british economists and their correspondences but I don't remember that particular detail