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COMMUNIST PARTY that concerned itself with the
defense and advancement of women's issues.
The Zhenotdel was established in 1919 after
much internal debate in the party on whether
women's issues merited a separate institutional
representation. Prominent Bolshevik women
such as Aleksandra KOLLONTAI and Inessa
ARMAND played an active role in the early years
of the Zhenotdel but were often frustrated by the
deeply rooted stereotypes about the roles of
women in society, even within a party that con-
sidered itself the vanguard of the revolution.
Zhenotdel activists were also constrained by
their status as party members subject to party
discipline. In addition to working to advance
causes seen as women's issues such as curbing
sexual exploitation and discrimination in the
factories, the Zhenotdel also involved itself in
famine relief and the campaign against mass illit-
eracy. In 1930, STALIN closed Zhenotdel, ironi-
cally at a time when industrialization was
integrating women into the workforce at a faster
rate than ever before.
relief of Leningrad in 1943, and the Red Army's
advance to the West in 1943-44. On occasion he
took personal command of an army group, as in
the final advance on Berlin in 1945. On May 8,
1945, he received the surrender of the German
High Command in Berlin, and in 1945-46 he
headed the Soviet Control Commission in Ger-
many. In 1946 he was removed by STALIN , who
resented his great popularity, and after a brief
period as commander in chief of land forces and
deputy minister of the armed forces, he was sent
into a kind of honorable retirement as comman-
der of a Russian military district. He again
became a first deputy minister upon Stalin's
death in 1953, and two years later minister of
defense. He was the first professional soldier to
enter the real seat of power in the USSR when
he became a candidate member of the Presidium
of the Communist Party's Central Committee in
1956. Zhukov sided with Khrushchev against
Stalin's lieutenants MALENKOV , KAGANOVICH and
MOLOTOV during the “ ANTI - PARTY GROUP ” crisis of
June 1957 and provided crucial assistance by
providing transport to Central Committee mem-
bers to fly to Moscow for the party vote that
maintained Khrushchev in power. Khrushchev
rewarded Zhukov with a seat in the Presidium,
but as he began to assert the army's autonomy,
Khrushchev dismissed Zhukov as minister of
defense and arranged for his expulsion from the
Presidium and Central Committee in October
1957. In the 1960s, particularly, the official eval-
uation of Zhukov's role changed in inverse pro-
portion to that of Stalin's, rising when Stalin's
fell and falling when Stalin's rose. In 1995 a
monument to Zhukov was placed behind the
Historical Museum that stands at one end of RED
SQUARE opposite St. Basil's Cathedral.
Zhukov, Georgii Konstantinovich
(1896-1974)
military commander
The Soviet Union's most outstanding comman-
der during World War II, Zhukov also played a
crucial role in assisting Nikita KHRUSHCHEV 's
consolidation of power in the first five years
after STALIN 's death in March 1953. Born to a
peasant family, Zhukov joined the Red Army in
1918 and the COMMUNIST PARTY in 1919. He
first gained recognition for his successful oper-
ations against the Japanese on the Mongolian-
Manchurian frontier in 1939. During World War
II, he was at first chief of the General Staff and
subsequently deputy commissar of defense and
deputy supreme commander in chief of the
Soviet armed forces. He was prominent in the
planning of Soviet operations, often coordinat-
ing the actions of a number of army groups (the
defense of MOSCOW against the Germans in
1941, the Battle of STALINGRAD in 1942-43, the
Zinoviev, Grigorii Yevseyevich
(1883-1936)
revolutionary and Soviet official
One of LENIN 's closest collaborators before the
Russian Revolution of 1917, Zinoviev played an
important role in the early 1920s as leader of the
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