Stalin allegedly said once: “I have no Suvorov, but Rokossovsky is my Bagration.” I question the veracity of this attribution (after all, there is no record of when and to whom he said it), but there are two reasons why I am quoting this spurious phrase here. One is to note that this phrase is spurious (for the benefit of my reader, who is certain to find it attributed to Stalin in all English-language biographies of Rokossovsky), but the other, important one, is to acknowledge the exceptionality of this great soldier, whose amazing life deserves allotting him a separate entry, alongside with Russia’s greatest military hero of the twentieth century Marshal Zhukov.
Marshal Konstantin Konstantinovich Rokossovsky (1896-1968) was born in Warsaw as Kasimir Xavier to a Polish father and a Russian mother. Enlisting as a soldier in the Russian Army at the start of WWI in 1914, he converted from Catholicism to Russian Orthodoxy and changed his name to Konstantin Konstantinovich. A man of exceptional bravery, he exhibited natural military genius from early on, and distinguished himself as an outstanding, much decorated soldier. In December 1917 he joined the Red Guard, next the Red Army, and in early 1919 he became a member of the RKP(b). Trying to disassociate himself from any Polish ties, as Poland after 1917 had become an independent state hostile to Soviet Russia, and even at war with her, he falsified his birthplace as the town of Velikiye Luki in Russia, which, however, would never fool his future biographers.
Desperately trying to prove his Russian loyalties by such forgeries, but also by genuine feats of astonishing bravery, he was quickly rising in the ranks to the post of division commander, in 1935. But falsely accused of treason in 1937 (in those troubled times his admitted biographical forgeries alone were more than enough to raise suspicions, gleefully fueled and exaggerated by his ill-wishers), he was arrested, tortured, but then, in 1940, cleared and restored to the rank of Major-General. Despite his horrific experience, he attributed his misfortunes to the enemies of the Soviet State (his abusers were indeed all arrested, themselves tortured, and promptly shot as traitors) and would remain a sincere staunch Stalinist all his life, even when it had become most unfashionable.
Rising to the rank of Marshal of the USSR in 1944, he was one of the three commanders of the Soviet Army (Zhukov and Konev being the other two) pushing westward beyond the Soviet border. At the end of the war, on June 24, 1945, Stalin gave him the honor of commanding the Victory Parade on Red Square in Moscow, with Marshal Zhukov receiving the Parade. (It was customary in such parades for the commander and the receiver to ride on horseback. Both Zhukov and Rokossovsky were legendary horsemen.)
In 1949 Rokossovsky found out that his Polish heritage was not all that easy to renounce when he was made Marshal of Poland and installed as Poland’s Defense Minister. (This appointment was, naturally, his worst nightmare, but as a soldier he had to obey his orders.) He served in this position from 1949 to 1956 when he was dismissed during the de-Stalinization of Poland and returned to the USSR, where he was made Soviet Deputy Defense Minister. However, his military career came to an abrupt end in 1962, when he refused to obey Khrushchev’s order, (well, a friendly “request”!) to write an anti-Stalin article. “Comrade Stalin is a saint to me!” he reportedly told Khrushchev, and then proceeded to further snub his boss the Soviet leader by refusing to clink glasses with him. No, he wasn’t arrested or tortured this time. He was just fired from all his posts the very next day. “Quelle belle mort!” as Napoleon marvels, in Tolstoy’s War and Peace…
Marshal Konstantin Konstantinovich Rokossovsky (1896-1968) was born in Warsaw as Kasimir Xavier to a Polish father and a Russian mother. Enlisting as a soldier in the Russian Army at the start of WWI in 1914, he converted from Catholicism to Russian Orthodoxy and changed his name to Konstantin Konstantinovich. A man of exceptional bravery, he exhibited natural military genius from early on, and distinguished himself as an outstanding, much decorated soldier. In December 1917 he joined the Red Guard, next the Red Army, and in early 1919 he became a member of the RKP(b). Trying to disassociate himself from any Polish ties, as Poland after 1917 had become an independent state hostile to Soviet Russia, and even at war with her, he falsified his birthplace as the town of Velikiye Luki in Russia, which, however, would never fool his future biographers.
Desperately trying to prove his Russian loyalties by such forgeries, but also by genuine feats of astonishing bravery, he was quickly rising in the ranks to the post of division commander, in 1935. But falsely accused of treason in 1937 (in those troubled times his admitted biographical forgeries alone were more than enough to raise suspicions, gleefully fueled and exaggerated by his ill-wishers), he was arrested, tortured, but then, in 1940, cleared and restored to the rank of Major-General. Despite his horrific experience, he attributed his misfortunes to the enemies of the Soviet State (his abusers were indeed all arrested, themselves tortured, and promptly shot as traitors) and would remain a sincere staunch Stalinist all his life, even when it had become most unfashionable.
Rising to the rank of Marshal of the USSR in 1944, he was one of the three commanders of the Soviet Army (Zhukov and Konev being the other two) pushing westward beyond the Soviet border. At the end of the war, on June 24, 1945, Stalin gave him the honor of commanding the Victory Parade on Red Square in Moscow, with Marshal Zhukov receiving the Parade. (It was customary in such parades for the commander and the receiver to ride on horseback. Both Zhukov and Rokossovsky were legendary horsemen.)
In 1949 Rokossovsky found out that his Polish heritage was not all that easy to renounce when he was made Marshal of Poland and installed as Poland’s Defense Minister. (This appointment was, naturally, his worst nightmare, but as a soldier he had to obey his orders.) He served in this position from 1949 to 1956 when he was dismissed during the de-Stalinization of Poland and returned to the USSR, where he was made Soviet Deputy Defense Minister. However, his military career came to an abrupt end in 1962, when he refused to obey Khrushchev’s order, (well, a friendly “request”!) to write an anti-Stalin article. “Comrade Stalin is a saint to me!” he reportedly told Khrushchev, and then proceeded to further snub his boss the Soviet leader by refusing to clink glasses with him. No, he wasn’t arrested or tortured this time. He was just fired from all his posts the very next day. “Quelle belle mort!” as Napoleon marvels, in Tolstoy’s War and Peace…
Rokossovsky was the greatest general of WW2 without any doubt,the success of operation Bagration was mainly down to him standing up to Stalin face to face and insisting on two breakthroughs of the german lines and not one as Stalin favoured
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