The Soviet Union Would Have Lost to Nazi Germany in WWII Without Marshal Zhukov

I am going to divide my opening argument into two subdivisions. These being: I. Zhukov's Impact on the WarII. Lack of Qualified Replacements Let's begin! I. Zhukov's Impact on the War Due to any potential readers lack of knowledge on the subject, as well as to benefit my future arguments, I would like to provide a brief historical background on Zhukov's impact in "The Great Patriotic War". Note that I am not going to discuss his efforts in the Russian Civil War or at Kalkhin Gol as they have no direct impact upon the war with Germany. My intention is simply to show the huge impact that Zhukov had on the war. I. A: Leningrad and Yelnya When Operation Barbarossa was launched on the 22 of June, 1941, Zhukov had been promoted to Chief of General Staff. However, his impact on the very early days of the war mas minimal due to Stalin's dominating presence over STAVKA. Therefore many of the disasters from the second half of 1941, most significantly the encirclement of Kyiv, were more Stalin's fault than any of his generals. However, as is the nature of dictators, Stalin fired Zhukov from his post and placed him in command of the Reserve Front, an army group unique to the Red Army which was supposed to support the front lines in the case of an absolute collapse. Free from Stalin's grip, or at least partially so, Zhukov was able to take charge over the Yelnya offensive in September of 1941. Here Zhukov led a successful counter offensive against the German 4th Army which was approaching the Moscow after having just taken Smolensk. This battle marked the first successful offensive operation by the Soviets in the war and helped save the Red Army valuable time. Without the Yelnya Offensive, it is likely that the Germans would have been able to force their way towards the gates of Moscow before there was even snow on the ground. Following his success at Yelnya, Stalin placed Zhukov in command of the Leningrad Front with the objective of saving the birthplace of the Revolution. The defense of the city had been previously under the command of Stalin's political cronie, Marshal Voroshislov, a man who lacked any military skill whatsoever. When Zhukov arrived, German troops were hardly a mile away from the city, posed to defeat whatever Soviet forces remained. Outraged by Voroshislovs' inadequacies, Zhukov took absolute control over the operation and defended the city from oncoming Germans. The sudden resistance at Leningrad forced Hitler to give the order to siege the city, instead of take it directly. Although the resulting siege was by no means a Soviet victory as more than one million civilians starved, Zhukov's efforts helped delay any further German operations and prevented any more major operations from German Army Group North. I. B: Moscow The battle for Moscow in the winter of 1941 was the most dramatic stage of the war until Stalingrad, and few Westerners realize how close Russia came to falling. Zhukov wrote after the war that “The Nazi Group Center, as we now know, had more than a million men, 1,700 tanks and self-propelled guns and more than 19,000 guns and mortars. It was supported by the powerful Second Air Fleet…” [1]. In fact, the Army Group Center came as close as ten miles away from the city, as shown in Figure 1. Figure 1: In desperation, Stalin recalled Zhukov from Leningrad and gave him the task of defending Moscow, a seemingly impossible task. However, under Zhukov’s strict leadership the city was saved, and with it, the entire Soviet war effort. Without Zhukov’s efforts it is quite possible that the city would have fallen. Some may claim that the terrain was actually the real reason for Zhukov’s victory, however response to this was “Does this mean that the Nazi generals really expected to roll to Moscow and beyond on smooth, well-graded roads? In that case, too bad for them, and for the German forces who, according to Tippelskirch, were halted on the approaches of Moscow by mud. In those days I saw thousands and thousands of Moscow women, who were unused to heavy labor… work on those impassable roads, in that mud…. I might nearly add, for the benefit of those who look to mud to camouflage the real causes of their defeat at Moscow, that the roads were impassable for a relatively brief period in October of 1941. Early in November cold weather set in, snow began to fall, and both the terrain and the roads became passable” [1]. I. C: Stalingrad and beyond Although much of the defense of Stalingrad can be attributed to Generals Chuikov and Rokossovsky, the entire operation was once again under the command of Zhukov. With his heroic defenses of Moscow and Leningrad, and Stalin’s great failures everywhere else, the tyrannical dictator had begun to realize that in order to win the war he needed to give his generals, especially Zhukov, more leeway. This, mind you, is a realization that Hitler never made. With this shift in Stalin’s ideologies, the outcome of the war shifted drastically as Russia’s many fine generals, and most of all Zhukov, were now able to make their own decisions. Stalingrad is a wonderful example of this. The battle had been raging for over three months when Zhukov was able to make his first move. The Red Army had finally become strong enough to go on an offensive and therefore Zhukov created Operation Uranus (shown in Figure 2), striking of the Third and Fourth Romanian armies and eventual encirclement of the 6th German Army. Figure 2: The resulting battle was more successful than possibly imagined. Paulus’ 6th Army was fully encircled by the 23rd of November (although he did not surrender until February 2nd of 1943), and Von Manstein’s armies were in utter disarray. Uranus’ success allowed Zhukov to begin another offensive operation, codenamed Bagration. The Bagration offensive became the most successful offensive in any phase of the war, pushing the German army (shown in Figure 3) out all the way from Belarus and obliterating the once powerful German Army Group Center. Figure 3: From Bagration onwards, the Red Army was unstoppable, finally reaching Berlin on the 2nd of May under Zhukov’s command. II. Lack of Qualified Replacements. What I mean by this subdivision is that, although the Red Army was full of talented generals, their were simply no other man who could have performed Zhukov’s job. I will talk about all of the generals who would have been next in line to replace Zhukov and show how they could not have been up to the task. II. A: Konev Konev was clearly Russia’s second most skilled Marshal. However, Zhukov has him beat in several categories, some of which are not Konev’s fault at all. For one he was not promoted to Marshal until 1944, thus limiting most of his ability to make huge impacts at the war until very late in the war. Sure, he could have been promoted earlier if Zhukov had not been present, however that is purely speculation. Even if he had been promoted earlier, this does not mean that he would have been fit to take control over a huge portion of Russia’s armies, as he would not have had proper experience with such a high amount of power. Another detriment against Konev, and against every other Russian general really (except perhaps Rokossovsky), is that he did not have the type of strength that Zhukov had against Stalin. Zhukov’s ability to stand up to Stalin (although truthfully he did not do this all the time) later in the war was integral for the Russian’s defeat of the Germans. Konev had never before shown this type of will power, and it would again be pure speculation to say that he could have matched Zhukov in this regard. II. B: Rokossovsky Konstantin Rokossovsky is one of the most interesting generals in the war. Polish born, Rokossovsky was purged in 1937 by Stalin and faced execution. He was tortured for weeks on end, including having his finger nails removed, broken ribs and fingers, and forced to endure two mock shooting sessions. However, unlike most of the purge victims, he was released without any explanation, possibly due to his willpower. Although mentally strong, perhaps even more so than Zhukov, he could not have replaced the great Marshal for a particularly petty reason: he was Polish. Stalin held Rokossovsky in a painfully low regard due to his Polish heritage and would never have promoted him to Marshal. In fact, Rokossovsky’s armies were by far the closest to reaching Berlin but he was removed of command in favor of Zhukov because Stalin would never have allowed a Pole to take the German capital. II. C: Political Cronies These refer to men such as Voroshislov or Budenjji who were already Marshals at the time solely due to their loyalty to Stalin despite their ineptitude. Voroshislov proved himself worthless at his abysmal command over the defense of Leningrad while Budenjji can proudly claim that he was responsible for the encirclement of Kyiv and the resulting 750,000 Russian PoWs. By no means were these men capable of replacing Zhukov as Marshal of Russia. Conclusion Zhukov's impact on the Soviet war effort was nothing short of astronomical and it would have been nearly impossible to replicate. I look forward to my opponents arguments about the Lend Lease Act in the next round! (I'm, running out of characters, so my conclusion will have to be painfully short this round). Sources[1] . https://books.google.com...Any other source was using Wikipedia, so I'm not going to cite Wikipedia ten times :D