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Zhukov’s conversation with Shaposhnikov and Voroshilov with Kulik as well as Voroshilov’s instruction to Kulik not to interfere.
    10 Daines,
Zhukov
, pp. 114–16.
    11 V. A. Afanas’ev,
Stanovlenie Polkovodcheskogo Iskusstva G. K. Zhukova
(Moscow: Svyatigor, 2006), p. 83; J. Erickson,
The Soviet High Command: A Military-Political History
, 1918–1941, 3rd ed. (London: Frank Cass, 2001), p. 533.
    12 Zhukov,
Reminiscences
, vol. 1, pp. 185–86.
    13 Ibid., pp. 186–88.
    14 The text of the order may be found in Afanas’ev,
Stanovlenie Polkovodcheskogo Iskusstva G. K. Zhukova
, pp. 233–34.
    15 Zhukov,
Reminiscences
, vol. 1, p. 192.
    16 Krasnov,
Zhukov
, p. 137.
    17 Cited by B. V. Sokolov,
Georgy Zhukov
(Moscow: Ast, 2003), p. 143.
    18 K. Simonov,
Glazami Cheloveka Moego Pokoleniya
(Moscow: APN, 1989), pp. 319–20.
    19 Further evidence of strained relations between Shtern and Zhukov can be found in Major General Petro G. Grigorenko’s memoirs. Grigorenko, a Soviet dissident in the 1960s and 1970s, spent several years in psychiatric confinement, imprisoned by the authorities on the grounds that if he opposed the communist system he must be mad. Grigorenko died in 1987—a decade after his enforced emigration to the United States. In June 1939 Grigorenko had been among recent graduates of the Red Army’s General Staff Academy who were posted to the Far East, where he served in Shtern’s Front Group. Grigorenko paints a very unflattering portrait of Zhukov as a military commander, claiming that during the June battles Zhukov responded to successive Japanese attacks by transferring elements from one sector to another, thus creating a front line consisting of a confusion of temporary detachments. This elementary error Grigorenko attributed to the fact that Zhukov had not attended the General Staff Academy and lacked a military education. He reports, too, that the problem was only sorted out after Shtern’s intervention. It has to be said that this story is most unlikely to be true. Zhukov had not been educated at the General Staff Academy but he had attended plenty of other command courses and was an experienced senior officer who would not have made such a gross error. In truth, Grigorenko’s memoirs are extremely biased against Zhukov. Shtern, by contrast, comes across as an almost saintly figure and is given credit for the victory at Khalkhin-Gol. The difference in Grigorenko’s attitude toward Shtern and Zhukov may be partly related to the subsequent fate of the two men. While Zhukov became the Soviet Union’s most famous soldier, Shtern fell victim to a Stalinist purge in October 1941 and was executed. See P. G. Grigorenko,
Memoirs
(New York: Norton, 1982), pp. 105–29.
    20 The letter is reproduced in E. Zhukova, “Interesy Ottsa,” pp. 53–54.
    21 Daines,
Zhukov
, pp. 126–27.
    22 A. D. Coox,
Nomonhan: Japan Against Russia, 1939
(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1990), p. 572. The battle of Cannae took place in 216 B.C . during the Second Punic War between Rome and Carthage.
    23 W. J. Spahr,
Stalin’s Lieutenants: A Study of Command Under Stress
(Novato, Calif.: Presidio, 1997), p. 213.
    24 O. P. Chaney,
Zhukov
, rev. ed. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996), pp. 68, 72, 74.
    25 Simonov,
Glazami Cheloveka Moego Pokoleniya
, pp. 309–10. Another journalist present was D. I. Ortenberg, who was editor of
Krasnaya Zvezda
during the Great Patriotic War. His memoir of Zhukov at Khalkhin-Gol, which conveys a similar impression to Simonov’s, may be found in his “Nezabyvaemoe,” in S. S. Smirnov et al. (eds.),
Marshal Zhukov: Kakim My Ego Pomnim
(Moscow: Politizdat, 1988).
    26 K. Simonov,
Tovarishchi po Oruzhiu
(Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel’stvo Khudozhestvennoi Literatury, 1961). The novel was first published in 1952.
    27 “O Kampanii 1939g v Raione r.Khalkhin-Gol,” RGVA, F. 32113, Op. 1,