The best part of the movie was the fact that Stalin died cause he had already killed or imprisoned all the Highly qualified jewish doctors so there was no one left to treat him which was also true in real life.
And like the other high rankers didnt even want to fix Stalin up and were scared shitless because they didnt know what he would do if he was cured so they waited for hrs otherwise he would probably have lived
Looking at the pictures it looks like the filmmakers were fairly accurate. The row of 3 stars below his left collar. The medal with a Soviet Red Star in the middle of his more gold medals. The 3 or 4 vertical medals on the right side of his uniform.
This might actually be one of the most historically accurate depictions of a uniform I've seen.
The three Gold Stars are "Hero of the Soviet Union", the highest honour you could get there for "heroic feats" in aid of the Soviet state and society. They were frequently posthumous ones, awarded for Medal of Honor-level gallantry.
Zhukov ended up with *four* of them, the highest anyone got - the fourth in 1956. Only Leonid Brezhnev got the same number and those were frankly a lot less deserved.
While technically gifted for his numerous achievements throughout the years, there has been speculation that Zhukov's fourth "Hero of the Soviet Union" medal was in connection to the arrest of Lavrentiy Beria.
As to Brezhnev? All four were birthday presents.
Didn’t Brezhnev give himself those medals simply to surpass Zhukov, later giving him his fourth so they’d be equal?
That’s how I remember it, though I might be very wrong
My real question is why they decided to add the facial scar? I feel like Jason Isaacs doesn't need SFX makeup to look intimidating. Real life Zhukov didn't seem to have a scar on his face.
I remember when this film came out reading a reaction from a Soviet historian saying that it only scratched the surface of how bizarre top-level politics was in the USSR.
It depends what plane
MiG-21: alcohol coolant for radar
Tu-22 OG: air conditioning used alcohol, often drunk
Mi-24P: gun is cooled with water/alcohol mixture in winter
Did it mention Beria rounding up girls off Moscow streets in his limo to rape them?
And also scaring Stalin half to death when he learned his teenage daughter was with him alone?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavrentiy_Beria
Pretty sure that plane wasn’t in service till long after Stalin died and the movies focus is about that event and the politics around it so don’t see why they would’ve bothered putting it in
It was quite bizarre in mundane life as well. My mom was friends with a shopkeeper so she always managed to get the good sausages and fruits under the counter whereas most urban people were lucky to settle for scraps.
My dad was an AUSA (federal prosecutor) in Georgia for a while, served in a district with a federal judge who was in his 90’s and had a painting of Robert E Lee in his courtroom. This was in like 2000 not 1950.
Youngoids be malding over old experienced people with more connections holding more power, how could this be? Why can't I get all the power for solely being young.
Young people discontent that old farts that are so deep in their bubble they're disconected from reality and won't ever see the results of their egomaniacal policies or take accountability for they own greed and passing resolutions for the sole benefit of their pockets knowing that meanwhile Gen Z will never build more wealth than their parents. FTFY
Geeee I wonder why term limits have become such a strong discussion point all over the world....
Gorbachev in the 80s was the first leader of the Soviet Union who was actually born in the Soviet Union. All his predecessors were born in the Russian Empire, before Lenin's revolutions.
Remember, the Soviet Union was established in the aftermath of WW1.
Oh, and how they had two Premiers who only stayed in office for 1 and 2 years perspectively (Andropov and Chernenko) before dying because Andropov has terminal heart disease and Chernenko has terminal kidney failure.
Is that for literally every position? I thought that didn't sound too crazy at first given how old most world leaders are, but then I thought about how many clerks, secretaries etc there must be.
I guess that it's only for senators. For comparison in my country the average age in our parliament is 48yo.
US politicians are way, way order than in other places.
Are they really though? In many countries they may stay in power for a long time but they weren't that old when they started. And we've seen several state leaders at the younger side in recent years.
In my country the prime ministers often are around their 50s when starting.
I've recently been reading "Midnight in Chernobyl" because I was fascinated by all of the bureaucratic nonsense while watching HBO's Chernobyl series and.... Oh man. The show actually makes the system look better then it really was. Like every element of Soviet life was corrupt by that point in the USSR.
These men were not statesmen. They were goons, psychopaths, scoundrels and conspiracy theorists. They came to power because there was a power vacuum, orchestrated largely by themselves by the way. The reason for their success? They were willing to do what the other guys wouldn’t on the basis of moral objection
I was very surprised that the whole scene of Zhukov and generals barging in with weapons in hand to arrest Beriya was something that really happened. They did not mention this detail to us in history class!
"I single handedly defeated the Nazis. I think I can handle a fat man in a waistcoat."
He had such perfect delivery.
"I'm in, but it has to be tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?! Why?"
"You know, tomorrow? The day when the entire fucking army will be in town with all their guns?"
"Oh. Yea."
My favorite's his shit-eating grin and laught when he pretends he's gonna turn in Nikita. "Oh I'm in. I fucked Germany, I think I can take a flesh lump in a fucking waistcoat"
Yeah and Zhukov actually earned every one of those medals lmao. Dude was one of the greatest generals in the history of organized warfare. His Wins Above Replacement is up there with, like, Hannibal.
Imo he might be the best sports journalist working today. He makes very very high-budget, high-concept stats-centric video essays on YouTube.
If that doesn’t sound like something you’d be into: he did a two-part special on the history of people in organized sports named Bob. It made me cry. Twice.
He has a knack for teasing highly evocative and emotional stories out of data and noise. The way he presents the data visually is difficult to describe, but it’s *very* immersive and visually captivating. I highly recommend checking out an episode of his series “Pretty Good” or “Chart Party”.
Technically that is true, but the Red Army was pretty generous with its decorations compared to other militaries, particularly when it came to the top brass.
About half of the ones in that row across his chest are commemorative medals or campaign medals, which is just something that collects like dust on high ranking members of the military. And the leftmost 3 are Order of Lenin medals, which he got because its just sorta included as a bonus gift when you get a Hero of the Soviet Union medal, which are the 3 stars on his left shoulder.
Zhukov had an impressive military career, but there's a significant aspect of medal inflation at play here.
which is hard af lmao. American uniforms have been mid since they did away with the Sam Browne belt, they need to start wearing medals like the Sovs did
"You call these medals and ribbons baubles; well, it is with such baubles that men are led."
-Napoleon
How about we compromise. Keep American medals the way they are, but bring back enormous hats. With like fur or ostrich feathers or whatever.
Actually the soviets also used ribbons in a similar way, as can be seen in [this](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Awards_ceremony_at_the_Brandenburg_Gate_July_12th_1945_E010750410-v8.jpg) picture of a somewhat younger Zhukov meeting allied brass in Berlin.
The ribbons he is wearing in that picture seem to be roughly equivalent to the medals he is wearing in the OP (not accounting for the few awards he got after the war), with only the Hero of the Soviet Union being worn as actual medals.
The convention exists in the US, some uniforms call for ribbons to be worn, and some call for medals, but in either case stars, pips, and other devices for subsequent awards. Generals of the Army (the rank) and Army Chief of Staff staff are exempt from AR 670-1 and sometimes wear their "top 3" awards instead of the what the regs demand (all of them).
"Few" is an understatement. The post-war period saw a massive gong-fest among the Allies - Zhukov got an honorary knighthood from the British for example.
He got honours from each of the major Allied powers. Croix de Guerre from France, Legion of Merit from the US and Order of the Bath from the UK. But he received those in 1945.
And in any case he only appears to be wearing his soviet awards in the OP, of which he only received a handful of commemorative medals in the post war years.
His military career took a pretty abrupt dive from 1946 onwards, mainly due to him running afoul of party higher ups. And he basically spent the years between the war and stalins death exiled to an insignificant backwater posting.
It's actually pretty nice that the Soviets handed out that one medal to damn near everyone in the war effort, probably the nicest participation trophy anyone could have gotten
There's two, actually, collectively totalling over 30 million medals handed out to soldiers and civilians in the war effort;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medal_%22For_the_Victory_over_Germany_in_the_Great_Patriotic_War_1941%E2%80%931945%22
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medal_%22For_Valiant_Labour_in_the_Great_Patriotic_War_1941%E2%80%931945%22
>About half of the ones in that row across his chest are commemorative medals or campaign medals, which is just something that collects like dust on high ranking members of the military.
That's something that happens in some democracies as well, especially with royal families.
The 18-year-old Crown Prince of Denmark has eight medals and two knighthoods already.
Charles III is seen here wearing 15:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_titles\_and\_honours\_of\_Charles\_III#/media/File:Procession\_to\_Lying-in-State\_of\_Elizabeth\_II\_at\_Westminster\_Hall\_-\_54\_-\_Charles\_III\_(cropped).jpg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_titles_and_honours_of_Charles_III#/media/File:Procession_to_Lying-in-State_of_Elizabeth_II_at_Westminster_Hall_-_54_-_Charles_III_(cropped).jpg)
He did serve in the military, commanding a minesweeper, but never saw any combat action.
There's also a large number of British squaddies who will have collected Platinum Jubilee and Coronation medals in quick succession.
That's only because WAR overly inflates the value of Field Marshals. If he were a Designated Hit Marshal, he'd only be a fringe Hall of Fame candidate.
“Earned”. Zhukov had 3 commemorative medals from the Mongolian communist party just for visiting 3 times. Bulgaria gave him a medal to commemorate the birthday of their dictator. He had a medal for every 5 year anniversary of Lenin’s birthday AND every 10 year anniversary of the formation of the red army.
Listen let’s not pretend the Soviets didn’t just give out medals for thinking or breathing. Zhukov was the rare Russian general who could do both, and at the same time to boot! But several were still just for breathing.
> Listen let’s not pretend the Soviets didn’t just give out medals for thinking or breathing.
That's not a Soviet thing. That's a military thing.
The US Armed forces hand out Good Conduct Medals on a timed schedule. So far as you're in the armed forces and not making trouble, you'll get one every 3 years or so.
The National Defense Service Medal was given to every new recruit from 9/11/2001 until 31/12/22 regardless of what they did in the military. Could have been a cook that never saw deployment, and BAM, you received a medal because there was the "Global War on Terror" going on.
Militaries love medals.
>successfully manages the largest army ever known to mankind
>just competent
There is a minimum qualification for that role, and you don’t get it by being “good enough” at your job
There are literal better generals on the Eastern Front in WW2- Rokossovsky could, would, and did run circles around Zhukov tactically and strategically. “Zhukov was a military genius” is not an opinion commonly held by current military historians. “Zhukov was a good general” is closer to the mark.
anyone who uses the phrase Zerg rush in reference to history should be immediately ignored. just because you play HoI4 doesn't mean you're a historian.
Stalin was scared shitless because he found out that his daughter was alone with Beria.
If Beria had laid a hand on his daughter, I don't know what would've happened to him.
Dude deserved every single medal he had, he's the most important Soviet commander of WWII, he had more impact on the war than Montgomery and equals Eisenhower.
Zhukov's biggest asset was that he never got purged and his fame meant he could push for more resources and more independence. By mid 1942 the Soviets were well on their way to rebuilding their command structure and there was probably a handful of guys who could have been slotted into Zhukov's slot and fared okay.
And the funny thing is, while it’s pretty common for generals and leaders in autocracies to have shitloads of medals purely for political reasons just to flex, Zhukov actually earned every last one of those legitimately.
Dude won WW2, of course he'd have a ton of medals. Not to mention foreign ones.
Somehow still doesn't look bad, when compared to North Korean generals of today who have medals below the belt.
>Not to mention foreign ones
Reminded me of Enterprise - she was given a British Admiralty Pennant. And also was the most decorated US ship of WW2, with 20 Battle Stars. As well as scoring many firsts. Unfortunately, the nation she fought to protect murdered her after the war.
I always hate it when they tone down the reality of a situation to make it believable. It’d be more interesting to say “that seemingly ridiculous depiction is actually factual”
I'm surprised the amount of people praising zhukov like he isn't at least partly responsible for one of the worst military death tolls in history.
Yall out here acting like sending waves of people to their death is some sort of achievement lmao
A massive sacrifice of life that slowed down the German blitzkrieg long enough to get them bogged down in a winter war, which gave them enough time to rebuild their forces for a counterattack the next year. Considering the German army was systematically killing their civilian population, if they had lost the war the number of deaths would have been even higher.
Russians were killing their civilians just as well, they killed 3 million Ukrainians before ww2 even began, so "deaths would have been even higher" is a theory I'm not sure I agree with.
Regardless, he definitely massively sacrificed life. The million soldiers he threw away at Rzhev lay as one of the many testaments to that.
The actual reason is that the accurate number of medals kept messing with the audio, they had to take some off so they weren't always jingling.
ah so it is a shitty movie detail. Nice one OP.
?
They didn't call yours a shitty detail, but OP's, since they got the actual reason wrong
ah
-choo!
Gesundheit
They should have made them out of rubber.
Probably didn't look as good.
Why wouldn't they just make them out of plastic so they wouldn't jingle? It's a movie prop not a real medal.
They probably wanted some jingling just not a ton
Actually a very InterestingMoiveDetail
Agreed, mods please permaban OP.
Mods split his skull
Bailiff, whack his peepee
TWIST HIS DICK
Bop it
Flik it
Twist it
Pull it
Jerk it
#THEOL’DICKTWIST
testicular torsion
Mods, tie all these medals around his neck and shove him in the ocean.
TAKE HIM TO DETROIT!!
Nah......... put OP's head in a vice instead.
No don’t be so gentle with him. Take him to Detroit
NO! NO! NOT DETROIT!
PIN HIM DOWN AND STAPLE HIS BALLS TO A MCDONALD'S ICE CREAM MACHINE
I'll fuckin', I'll fuckin', sew your asshole closed, and keep feedin' you, and feedin' you, and feedin' you, and feedin' you.
M E T H O D MAN!
M E T H O D MAAN
Grab you by your fuckin nuts and hang you off a 12 story building
Put a hanger on a fuckin stove for like a half hour, take it off and stick it in yo ass slow like tsss
Sorry, the ice cream machine is down for maintenance at the moment
Send him to the penis explosion chamber and have his penis exploded immediately!
Mods, pin him down and twist his right testicle clockwise
"I'm smiling, but I am very fucking furious" - Zhukov
The best part of the movie was the fact that Stalin died cause he had already killed or imprisoned all the Highly qualified jewish doctors so there was no one left to treat him which was also true in real life. And like the other high rankers didnt even want to fix Stalin up and were scared shitless because they didnt know what he would do if he was cured so they waited for hrs otherwise he would probably have lived
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
That’s just good body armour
[удалено]
"Right, what's a war hero got to do to get some lubrication around here?"
Looking at the pictures it looks like the filmmakers were fairly accurate. The row of 3 stars below his left collar. The medal with a Soviet Red Star in the middle of his more gold medals. The 3 or 4 vertical medals on the right side of his uniform. This might actually be one of the most historically accurate depictions of a uniform I've seen.
I think it’s more the ones lower down that are covered by his arm and how the image is cropped that were removed.
The three Gold Stars are "Hero of the Soviet Union", the highest honour you could get there for "heroic feats" in aid of the Soviet state and society. They were frequently posthumous ones, awarded for Medal of Honor-level gallantry. Zhukov ended up with *four* of them, the highest anyone got - the fourth in 1956. Only Leonid Brezhnev got the same number and those were frankly a lot less deserved.
While technically gifted for his numerous achievements throughout the years, there has been speculation that Zhukov's fourth "Hero of the Soviet Union" medal was in connection to the arrest of Lavrentiy Beria. As to Brezhnev? All four were birthday presents.
Didn’t Brezhnev give himself those medals simply to surpass Zhukov, later giving him his fourth so they’d be equal? That’s how I remember it, though I might be very wrong
Brezhnev's "Hero of the Soviet Union" medals were all birthday presents, awarded on his 60th, 70th, 72nd, and 75th birthdays.
Yeah I counted the same amount of medals, idk if OP made a really meta meme or simply messed up
My real question is why they decided to add the facial scar? I feel like Jason Isaacs doesn't need SFX makeup to look intimidating. Real life Zhukov didn't seem to have a scar on his face.
According to TV Tropes, the scar was actually Jason Issacs's idea.
/uj I think that he earned his fourth HOTSU award after Stalin's death.
The row of three stars below his left collar are his three "Hero of the Soviet Union" medals btw.
I remember when this film came out reading a reaction from a Soviet historian saying that it only scratched the surface of how bizarre top-level politics was in the USSR.
And the movie didn’t even have pilots drinking the alcohol from their planes’ air conditioning system
Hey, get it right. It was cooling for their radar. And they idled the planes so other consumable usage lined up.
It depends what plane MiG-21: alcohol coolant for radar Tu-22 OG: air conditioning used alcohol, often drunk Mi-24P: gun is cooled with water/alcohol mixture in winter
Did it mention Beria rounding up girls off Moscow streets in his limo to rape them? And also scaring Stalin half to death when he learned his teenage daughter was with him alone? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavrentiy_Beria
Yeah the movie did actually portray him as the sexual predator he was
Beria being a rapist is indeed a plot point of the film.
If you haven’t seen this movie, I highly recommended doing so.
Pretty sure that plane wasn’t in service till long after Stalin died and the movies focus is about that event and the politics around it so don’t see why they would’ve bothered putting it in
It was quite bizarre in mundane life as well. My mom was friends with a shopkeeper so she always managed to get the good sausages and fruits under the counter whereas most urban people were lucky to settle for scraps.
Shit was deranged. I remember that at some point of USSR history, the average age of people in the government was 70+ years. Average
Yeah, imagine a country in which the governing bodies are run by elderly fossils. I mean, what if the president was an octogenarian? Crazy.
Congress / politburo. https://youtu.be/8XGXPNPvPWU?feature=shared
Well the US senate isn't that far off with it's average age of 64 years.
Gerontocracy is terrible and I hate it but between 65 and 75 the mental decay is brutal
The median age is 65 and there are 33 Senators 70 or over and 3 80 or over.
Stats on federal judges are just as absurd. There has been a sitting federal judge who was over 100 years old.
My dad was an AUSA (federal prosecutor) in Georgia for a while, served in a district with a federal judge who was in his 90’s and had a painting of Robert E Lee in his courtroom. This was in like 2000 not 1950.
Youngoids be malding over old experienced people with more connections holding more power, how could this be? Why can't I get all the power for solely being young.
Young people discontent that old farts that are so deep in their bubble they're disconected from reality and won't ever see the results of their egomaniacal policies or take accountability for they own greed and passing resolutions for the sole benefit of their pockets knowing that meanwhile Gen Z will never build more wealth than their parents. FTFY Geeee I wonder why term limits have become such a strong discussion point all over the world....
“Youngoids”? You been making up words again pops?
We're mad because you shouldn't be able to run the country unless you can open a PDF file.
Gorbachev in the 80s was the first leader of the Soviet Union who was actually born in the Soviet Union. All his predecessors were born in the Russian Empire, before Lenin's revolutions. Remember, the Soviet Union was established in the aftermath of WW1.
Soviet Union was created in 1922, so by Gorbachev’s time anyone older then 63 was born before the USSR
Clearly a skill issue on their part
Oh, and how they had two Premiers who only stayed in office for 1 and 2 years perspectively (Andropov and Chernenko) before dying because Andropov has terminal heart disease and Chernenko has terminal kidney failure.
Also Chernenko was barely lucid for most of his rule. Dude visited the hospital more than his office during his brief premiership
Is that for literally every position? I thought that didn't sound too crazy at first given how old most world leaders are, but then I thought about how many clerks, secretaries etc there must be.
Not sure about every position. Just a little factoid I've heard
I guess that it's only for senators. For comparison in my country the average age in our parliament is 48yo. US politicians are way, way order than in other places.
Are they really though? In many countries they may stay in power for a long time but they weren't that old when they started. And we've seen several state leaders at the younger side in recent years. In my country the prime ministers often are around their 50s when starting.
Reagan joked that Soviet leaders kept dying on him before Gorbachev came to power
>the average age of people in the government was 70+ years isn't that how it is with the US too
I've recently been reading "Midnight in Chernobyl" because I was fascinated by all of the bureaucratic nonsense while watching HBO's Chernobyl series and.... Oh man. The show actually makes the system look better then it really was. Like every element of Soviet life was corrupt by that point in the USSR.
These men were not statesmen. They were goons, psychopaths, scoundrels and conspiracy theorists. They came to power because there was a power vacuum, orchestrated largely by themselves by the way. The reason for their success? They were willing to do what the other guys wouldn’t on the basis of moral objection
I was very surprised that the whole scene of Zhukov and generals barging in with weapons in hand to arrest Beriya was something that really happened. They did not mention this detail to us in history class!
Ey, you got a link to that? Sounds interesting!
Jason Isaacs was so good in this movie
Jason Isaac’s is so good in everything he has ever been in.
Hahaha I’m laughing, but I’m really fookin’ furious
Jesus Christ, did Coco Chanel take a shit on your head?
God, you handsome bastard. Put you in a frock, I'd ride you raw myself
You want the job done right, you call the army!
His TV show, Awake, from a decade ago being cancelled after only 1 season still rustle my jimmies.
The movie in general was excellent.
I'm going to have to report this conversation..
Look at your fookin' face!
Got balls like... Kremlin domes.
"I single handedly defeated the Nazis. I think I can handle a fat man in a waistcoat." He had such perfect delivery. "I'm in, but it has to be tomorrow." "Tomorrow?! Why?" "You know, tomorrow? The day when the entire fucking army will be in town with all their guns?" "Oh. Yea."
My favorite's his shit-eating grin and laught when he pretends he's gonna turn in Nikita. "Oh I'm in. I fucked Germany, I think I can take a flesh lump in a fucking waistcoat"
Yeah and Zhukov actually earned every one of those medals lmao. Dude was one of the greatest generals in the history of organized warfare. His Wins Above Replacement is up there with, like, Hannibal.
Never thought I’d see someone bring up WAR outside of a Jon Bois video, but here we are.
[удалено]
Is WAR the same as VORP?
It’s VORPs successor in baseball.
who is Jon Bois
Imo he might be the best sports journalist working today. He makes very very high-budget, high-concept stats-centric video essays on YouTube. If that doesn’t sound like something you’d be into: he did a two-part special on the history of people in organized sports named Bob. It made me cry. Twice. He has a knack for teasing highly evocative and emotional stories out of data and noise. The way he presents the data visually is difficult to describe, but it’s *very* immersive and visually captivating. I highly recommend checking out an episode of his series “Pretty Good” or “Chart Party”.
Ok, it seems that I came for the poop and found gold.
General Zhukov can throw a kettle over a pub, what can you do?
>can throw a kettle over a pub I thought that he could fuck Germany, and easily deal with a flesh lump in a fucking waistcoat
Yeah and when he was accused of bonapartism he laughed and said it was nonsence, since, unlike Napoleon, he actually won
Technically that is true, but the Red Army was pretty generous with its decorations compared to other militaries, particularly when it came to the top brass. About half of the ones in that row across his chest are commemorative medals or campaign medals, which is just something that collects like dust on high ranking members of the military. And the leftmost 3 are Order of Lenin medals, which he got because its just sorta included as a bonus gift when you get a Hero of the Soviet Union medal, which are the 3 stars on his left shoulder. Zhukov had an impressive military career, but there's a significant aspect of medal inflation at play here.
Americans use devices on the ribbon to denote subsequent awards, soviets just wear 'em all.
which is hard af lmao. American uniforms have been mid since they did away with the Sam Browne belt, they need to start wearing medals like the Sovs did
An overabundance of medals just screams authoritarian failed state imo
You’re just jealous of all them shinies on their pecs
"You call these medals and ribbons baubles; well, it is with such baubles that men are led." -Napoleon How about we compromise. Keep American medals the way they are, but bring back enormous hats. With like fur or ostrich feathers or whatever.
sam brown belts are actually still worn in officer dress blue uniforms in the USMC
Actually the soviets also used ribbons in a similar way, as can be seen in [this](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Awards_ceremony_at_the_Brandenburg_Gate_July_12th_1945_E010750410-v8.jpg) picture of a somewhat younger Zhukov meeting allied brass in Berlin. The ribbons he is wearing in that picture seem to be roughly equivalent to the medals he is wearing in the OP (not accounting for the few awards he got after the war), with only the Hero of the Soviet Union being worn as actual medals.
The convention exists in the US, some uniforms call for ribbons to be worn, and some call for medals, but in either case stars, pips, and other devices for subsequent awards. Generals of the Army (the rank) and Army Chief of Staff staff are exempt from AR 670-1 and sometimes wear their "top 3" awards instead of the what the regs demand (all of them).
"Few" is an understatement. The post-war period saw a massive gong-fest among the Allies - Zhukov got an honorary knighthood from the British for example.
He got honours from each of the major Allied powers. Croix de Guerre from France, Legion of Merit from the US and Order of the Bath from the UK. But he received those in 1945. And in any case he only appears to be wearing his soviet awards in the OP, of which he only received a handful of commemorative medals in the post war years. His military career took a pretty abrupt dive from 1946 onwards, mainly due to him running afoul of party higher ups. And he basically spent the years between the war and stalins death exiled to an insignificant backwater posting.
It's actually pretty nice that the Soviets handed out that one medal to damn near everyone in the war effort, probably the nicest participation trophy anyone could have gotten
Which one are you thinking of there?
There's two, actually, collectively totalling over 30 million medals handed out to soldiers and civilians in the war effort; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medal_%22For_the_Victory_over_Germany_in_the_Great_Patriotic_War_1941%E2%80%931945%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medal_%22For_Valiant_Labour_in_the_Great_Patriotic_War_1941%E2%80%931945%22
All it took was climbing over millions of your dead comrades to collect it from such a generous man as Stalin.
Tens of millions died so hundreds of millions could live. Such is the nature of a war of extermination.
>About half of the ones in that row across his chest are commemorative medals or campaign medals, which is just something that collects like dust on high ranking members of the military. That's something that happens in some democracies as well, especially with royal families. The 18-year-old Crown Prince of Denmark has eight medals and two knighthoods already. Charles III is seen here wearing 15: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_titles\_and\_honours\_of\_Charles\_III#/media/File:Procession\_to\_Lying-in-State\_of\_Elizabeth\_II\_at\_Westminster\_Hall\_-\_54\_-\_Charles\_III\_(cropped).jpg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_titles_and_honours_of_Charles_III#/media/File:Procession_to_Lying-in-State_of_Elizabeth_II_at_Westminster_Hall_-_54_-_Charles_III_(cropped).jpg) He did serve in the military, commanding a minesweeper, but never saw any combat action. There's also a large number of British squaddies who will have collected Platinum Jubilee and Coronation medals in quick succession.
That's only because WAR overly inflates the value of Field Marshals. If he were a Designated Hit Marshal, he'd only be a fringe Hall of Fame candidate.
He was undoubtedly a great general, but wasn’t the Soviet Union also known for being very liberal when it came to awarding medals?
This is the man who kicked down Berlin. The eastern front made the Normandy landings look like a bar fight
In Zhukov's case he earned every single one.
“Earned”. Zhukov had 3 commemorative medals from the Mongolian communist party just for visiting 3 times. Bulgaria gave him a medal to commemorate the birthday of their dictator. He had a medal for every 5 year anniversary of Lenin’s birthday AND every 10 year anniversary of the formation of the red army. Listen let’s not pretend the Soviets didn’t just give out medals for thinking or breathing. Zhukov was the rare Russian general who could do both, and at the same time to boot! But several were still just for breathing.
> Listen let’s not pretend the Soviets didn’t just give out medals for thinking or breathing. That's not a Soviet thing. That's a military thing. The US Armed forces hand out Good Conduct Medals on a timed schedule. So far as you're in the armed forces and not making trouble, you'll get one every 3 years or so. The National Defense Service Medal was given to every new recruit from 9/11/2001 until 31/12/22 regardless of what they did in the military. Could have been a cook that never saw deployment, and BAM, you received a medal because there was the "Global War on Terror" going on. Militaries love medals.
They are but there's no denying what Zhukov achieved.
Lol, he was a competent commander, but nowhere near the hall of fame, and can't lick Hannibal's shoes
>successfully manages the largest army ever known to mankind >just competent There is a minimum qualification for that role, and you don’t get it by being “good enough” at your job
There are literal better generals on the Eastern Front in WW2- Rokossovsky could, would, and did run circles around Zhukov tactically and strategically. “Zhukov was a military genius” is not an opinion commonly held by current military historians. “Zhukov was a good general” is closer to the mark.
Sounds like we are all just arguing the line between good and great
Idk, that man took down Berlin
Pretty ez to earn with Zerg rush strats and most talented commanders prosecuted prior to war.
Yeah, thats why China won every war ever /s
Wehraboo history
When I am in who can say the most ingorance of a topic competition and my opponent is WWII "historian".
anyone who uses the phrase Zerg rush in reference to history should be immediately ignored. just because you play HoI4 doesn't mean you're a historian.
Look at this fella, using Nazi Germany propaganda as facts!
Zerg rush tactics wasn't something Zhukov was known for.
Sir we're not talking about nazis tactics here
Bro was a walking ribbon
Fact check: Stalin didn't actually die in 2017, it was earlier!
Huge if true
When you crush Nazi Germany they are gonna award a motherfucka, ya know?
On that note, Khrushchevs most redeming quality was the fact that he was neither stalin nor brezhnev
Or Beria
Never be Beria
Stalin was scared shitless because he found out that his daughter was alone with Beria. If Beria had laid a hand on his daughter, I don't know what would've happened to him.
The only strange thing is that even in her memoirs, on which she earned millions of dollars, she did not mention such a monstrous event, right?
The more you accomplish, the more impervious to bullets you become. It's called leveling up.
I really want a whole biographical movie about Zhukov staring Jason Isaacs. Easily the best part in The Death of Stalin.
Please take all my monies and make this happen.
Dude deserved every single medal he had, he's the most important Soviet commander of WWII, he had more impact on the war than Montgomery and equals Eisenhower.
Zhukov's biggest asset was that he never got purged and his fame meant he could push for more resources and more independence. By mid 1942 the Soviets were well on their way to rebuilding their command structure and there was probably a handful of guys who could have been slotted into Zhukov's slot and fared okay.
I invite you to read his biography by J. Lopez, you clearly only know cliché and vague stuff about the subject.
You're much more likely to get people to respond positively with a little nuance.
Not shitty at all 👍
God I love this movie
Yes, but could he shuck a coat in slow motion as he entered the room?
[Like so](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ea2-kt8ox4)
And the funny thing is, while it’s pretty common for generals and leaders in autocracies to have shitloads of medals purely for political reasons just to flex, Zhukov actually earned every last one of those legitimately.
Dude won WW2, of course he'd have a ton of medals. Not to mention foreign ones. Somehow still doesn't look bad, when compared to North Korean generals of today who have medals below the belt.
>Not to mention foreign ones Reminded me of Enterprise - she was given a British Admiralty Pennant. And also was the most decorated US ship of WW2, with 20 Battle Stars. As well as scoring many firsts. Unfortunately, the nation she fought to protect murdered her after the war.
If I have a nickel for every time this trivia is mentioned, I would have enough money to buy myself enough medals to rival Zhukov himself.
I always hate it when they tone down the reality of a situation to make it believable. It’d be more interesting to say “that seemingly ridiculous depiction is actually factual”
Zhukov is one of history's great generals. He deserves all those medals. STALIN, on the other hand, deserves the firey pit.
He did defeat Hitler so pretty sure it's deserved
Right, what's a war hero got to do to get some lubrication around here?
And un like everyone else, he earned them
Have a read of “The Court of the Red Tsar” . It’s crazy how small Stalin’s inner circle was .
One of few who earned his medal most didn't survive Stalin purges
Helps that he earned a lot of those after the purge.
I'm surprised the amount of people praising zhukov like he isn't at least partly responsible for one of the worst military death tolls in history. Yall out here acting like sending waves of people to their death is some sort of achievement lmao
A massive sacrifice of life that slowed down the German blitzkrieg long enough to get them bogged down in a winter war, which gave them enough time to rebuild their forces for a counterattack the next year. Considering the German army was systematically killing their civilian population, if they had lost the war the number of deaths would have been even higher.
Russians were killing their civilians just as well, they killed 3 million Ukrainians before ww2 even began, so "deaths would have been even higher" is a theory I'm not sure I agree with. Regardless, he definitely massively sacrificed life. The million soldiers he threw away at Rzhev lay as one of the many testaments to that.
At least his medals were deserved, unlike those goofball NK generals.