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Red Monument. But Berlin was a masterpiece in another way — the finished-canvas broad-brushed by Marshal Georgi Konstantinovich Zhukov in 41 months of battling back from Moscow. In the dust and ashes of death, Berlin stood as a monument to the enormous sufferings and the monumental resolution of the Red Army, and imperturbable Marshal Zhukov had been the chief instrument of that Army's victory. Up from the darkest days before Moscow, up from the bloody pit of Stalingrad and the snows and mud and dust of the Ukraine and Poland, he now stood before Berlin as one of the truly great military leaders of World War II.
More than any other man, except his chief, Joseph Stalin, strong-shouldered, heavy-legged Deputy Commander in Chief Zhukov had carried the responsibility for the life or death of the Soviet nation. No Allied field commander had deployed and employed larger numbers of troops and guns; for the attack on Berlin and north and central Germany he had 4,000,000 men. No Allied commander had plotted strategy on a grander geographic scale; none had matched his complex tactics and massive attacks.
Zhukov seemed to be marked for more history. Stalin's politically reliable, pious Communist confidant, he might now be the instrument for the delicate tasks of governing a beaten Germany and a destroyed Japanese army.