Zhukov's USSR

ASB. Zhukov the man simply didn’t have the personality or inclination or launch a coup. Whatever else can be said of him he was a committed & loyal Bolshevik.

Also the Red Army in general has no inclination to revolt. It isn’t in any way independent of the CPSU (anymore than the Cheka was), it was the fighting-arm of Bolshevism created during the Russian Civil War.

Not a pre-existing institution with a history, politics and traditions of it own. (unlike say the Reichsweher in Weimar Germany whose consistent malevolence towards democracy & socialism help engineer the rise of Nazisism)
 
ASB. Zhukov the man simply didn’t have the personality or inclination or launch a coup. Whatever else can be said of him he was a committed & loyal Bolshevik.

Also the Red Army in general has no inclination to revolt. It isn’t in any way independent of the CPSU (anymore than the Cheka was), it was the fighting-arm of Bolshevism created during the Russian Civil War.

Not a pre-existing institution with a history, politics and traditions of it own. (unlike say the Reichsweher in Weimar Germany whose consistent malevolence towards democracy & socialism help engineer the rise of Nazisism)
But he could also get involved in Soviet politics...
 
When?

IIRC, not too long after the war, he squabbled with Stalin, and fell out of favor.

Admittedly, I'm not terribly versed in Soviet politics.

What if Stalin died of a stroke within a few weeks of the end of WW2? Would Zhukov possibly be considered a good compromise candidate between various factions in the Communist Party, seeing as he had few ruling ambitions and was a war hero?
 
But he could also get involved in Soviet politics...
Zhukov can be likened to a dog; he was loyal to his superiors, even when they abused him. In spite fo the terrible falling out he had with Stalin after WW2, and the real shit treatment he got from Stalin, Zhukov still spent the rest of his career defending Stalin's legacy, even against Khrushchev's de-Stalinization.

That's not a recipe for a political career, espescially given the ruthless nature of politics in the Soviet Union. Zhukov could be made into a figure head kind of leader due to his wartime popularity, but as an actual leader, not so much.
 
Molotov or Beria would take over in that eventuality. Maybe the Army decides to get their revenge on Beria sooner that OTL. Zhukov himself said that the proudest moment of his career was not taking Berlin, but Beria's removal. He, Koniev, and Rokossovosky were all at the ready, with troops prepared to move against the NKVD should there have been resistance to Beria's removal and liquidation. Rokossovosky is reported to have led a parachute battalion into the Lubyanka to "clean house" after Beria's arrest. The lucky ones on the list were summarily shot. The unlucky ones were tortured and then shot (by the GRU). The really unlucky ones were tortured, convicted, and sent to the gulag.
 
IIRC, didn't Zhukov threaten the Anti-party group with a coup if they insisted on removing Khrushchev? Make the hardliners a bit stupider and force him to make good on the threat, then have Khrushchev get shot in the confusion, and he'd pretty much have to take over if he wants to live.
 
Zhukov did enter politics. In October 1956 he opposed intervention into Hungary until the Anti-party bloc helped firm the line on the second intervention with Khrushchev. I believe Zhukov opposed the intervention for pragmatic military reasons (and his reasons were borne out in practice due to the high cost of the second intervention) rather than ideological reasons.

However, he does seem to be opposed to the politics of the anti-party bloc in a broad sense; particularly if he took actions to ensure that the anti-party bloc wouldn't achieve supremacy in 1957.

I'm thinking that under Zhukov-1957 dynamic reformists would get a better run than under Khrushchev; that Zhukov would be able to reduce the size of the Red Army ("Only Nixon can go to China"); and, that he would manage to bind the war myth to his leadership. I don't think he'd be very good unless he manages to keep an organisational lid on people who broadly shared the anti-party bloc's views.

At best: Czechoslovakia 1968 in the Soviet Union, complete with workers councils, etc. At worst: Khrushchev, only harder, faster, and less adept.

Zhukov-1956 is, of course, both impossible and fanciful; but, well, I doubt I'd be living in a deregulated neo-liberal economy if it had been Zhukov-1956 or Mikoyan-1956.

yours,
Sam R.
 
Considering that Khrushchev brought Zhukov back from the provinces, that wouldn't be a shocker. Stalin sent him into the boonies for fear of "Bonapartism"... Since Zhukov was probably more popular than Stalin himself at the time, any threat to those who brought him out of the wilderness is something that he would likely want to crush-and use T-34s to do it, if necessary. And there were enemies that Zhukov would want to destroy completely if the opportunity arose-Molotov, Malenkov, Bulganin, KGB chief Ivan Serov, and so on. Especially Serov-one of Beria's henchemen who switched sides when it was apparent that Beria was heading for a fatal end-and one heavily involved in the purges. Marshal Rokossovosky, too, would want revenge on Serov, since he didn't get it when his paratroops cleaned out the Lubyanka.
 
I think I may have come across a thread where Zhukov becomes the leader of the USSR, but he takes over after Stalin is arrested and executed while the Germans capture Moscow and fatally weakening the influence of the Communist Party, or something like that.
 
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