1945-1953 - Stalin + Zhukov

• All political power and influence emanated from Stalin, an issue with his increasingly unstable pesonality.
• Stalin was more paranoid than ever.
• Stalin's meals were tasted for poison, he rarely appeared in public and his travel plans were often altered.
• The members of the Politburo were often on the receiving end of Stalin's paranoia.
• One Politburo member remarked, "When a man sits with Stalin he does not know where he will be sent next - home or jail."
• Stalin humiliated members of the Politburo by making them sing and dance during dinners in his dacha.
• Stalin's behaviour has been compared to that of a mafia boss by maintaining an air of unpredictability and potential violence.
• Stalin was ruthless at spotting and exploiting the weaknesses of those around him and he was an expert at playing people off against each other.
• Above anyone else, Marshal Zhukov's leadership of the Red Army enabled the USSR to defeat the German Army.
• Unfortunately for Zhukov, the status and adulation this earned him made him a potential threat in Stalin's eyes.
• Zhukov was demoted and sent to an obscure posting in the Ural mountains.
• References to Zhukov in newspapers and accounts of the war were deleted.
• Zhukov was hardly mentioned in official history with Stalin as the architect of victory.