Georgi Konstantinovich Zhukov (1896-1974) was the Soviet Union's most prominent military leader during World War II. In the 1950s he played a crucial role in Bolshevik party politics.

Georgi Zhukov was born to a peasant family in Kaluga Province, where he was appprenticed in the fur trade at the age of eleven. Then, in 1915, he was conscripted into the Imperial Army, serving well enough to merit a promotion to the rank of noncommissioned officer. Nevertheless, he was cautious enough to change sides as soon as the Russian Revolution ended, entering the Red Army in 1918, and the Communist Party the following year.

A zealous student of military history and tactics, he distinguished himself during the Russian Civil War (1918-1920), and continued to carry out his responsibilities with the same conscientiousness after he was posted to the Belorussian Military District during the 1920s. Having proved himself to be an impressive...