Soviet, Polish, and Brilliant: The Legendary K. K. Rokossovsky 

Stalin also used to say "Rokossowski is my Bagration, he is my greatest weapon"

One of the few other people to receive that sort of warmth and familiarity from ‘ the Boss ‘ was, apparently, another military man, Boris Shaposhnikov, Chief of Staff.

I think he started doing that after "Bagration". Didn't stop him from reducing his role in the taking of Berlin because of his Polish origins, though.

@@pyromania1018 Yes, but do not forget that, contrary to the widespread perception, Stalin was not omnipotent. He had to succumb to decisions of Stavka, even those that went counter his will, so in a telephone conversation with Rokossowski announcing this decision in November 1944 he excused himself saying "зто не немилость это политика".

Great! The respect from a mass murderer! Do you want to tell more jokes? In any case, it is a historical fact that he was a Soviet henchman and a traitor! It is a historical fact that Rokossovski was a Soviet henchman and a traitor! This Soviet henchman really went to great lengths in the service of the communists and was then promoted to general. Opponents of communism certainly don't get promoted and certainly don't bother to serve the communists. But he was just a Soviet henchman who was very useful for the oppressors of Poland even after the war. One should not forget that the communists murdered 150,000 Poles to break the Polish resistance against communism.

But what do we know so far? What did happen to him?

He lost several teeth during the trials. He was the lucky one.

@@jjgf8412 Tl;dr they tried to make him confess to false charges, he refused, lost most/all of his teeth. Maybe Tukh would have escaped his fate if he did not break, but that is another story.

Very true

@@RokSzczura I'd like to see the proof please.

That was a Soviet henchman and a traitor! It is a historical fact that Rokossovski was a Soviet henchman and a traitor! This Soviet henchman really went to great lengths in the service of the communists and was then promoted to general. Opponents of communism certainly don't get promoted and certainly don't bother to serve the communists. But he was just a Soviet henchman who was very useful for the oppressors of Poland even after the war.

and youre a true polish youtube hero!

@@schtrib A hero because he praises a soviet henchman and a traitor?

@@GreatPolishWingedHussars I meant you.

@@schtrib Understand! You got the wrong level! Anyway, thanks for the great compliment!

That was a Soviet henchman and a traitor! It is a historical fact that Rokossovski was a Soviet henchman and a traitor! This Soviet henchman really went to great lengths in the service of the communists and was then promoted to general. Opponents of communism certainly don't get promoted and certainly don't bother to serve the communists. But he was just a Soviet henchman who was very useful for the oppressors of Poland even after the war.

@@GreatPolishWingedHussars Самое главное он не был прихвостнем польской фашисткой знати которая угнетала польский народ ! Польские фашисты расчленили Чехословакию с нацистами ! даже враг всех рабочих Черчилль назвал польских капиталистов гиенами Европы! Польские коммунисты брали Берлин с советскими войсками ! а ваши предки твари служили нацистам и прочим прихвостнем капиталистов ! ВОТ вы и скулите уже на мертвого Польского льва ! шакал и курва! При коммунистах Польша выпускала самолеты / машины / танки / поезда и много еще чего + прирост населения каждый год! теперь в Польше американские базы а поляки чистят туалеты в Лондоне! Надеюсь Польша даст нам людей как Дзержинский ! они очистят ее от фашистов и врагов народа шестерок капиталистов !

@@user-eb7qq5fu3j Я люблю своего славянского брата!

@@GreatPolishWingedHussars Cała władza w ręce ludzi! Chwała LENINOWI! i POLSKICH ROBOTNIKÓW!

@@user-eb7qq5fu3j Śmieszny żart! Dokładnie niech żyje komunizm z czerwonym terrorem!

Good point, I had forgotten about that, he was a very impressive man, his humanity sticks out.

@@stevenbaer9061 pope john paul 2nd the only polish pope was an orphan too and made a life for himself and didnt just give up on life

Sometimes 53 And 56 is confused becouse in 1956 De-Stalinization began And Thats why those 3 years are sometimes forgot

How embarrassing.

People make mistakes

+ the white movement was mostly trying to build a liberal country, tsarists were minorities

@@jamesdean1143 for you to say something lame like that,yeah it is embarrassing

Yes, greatest offensive in history.

I dont know that he is the main architect, he was one of several front commanders involved, even though his front fought over the marshes of the Polessie rather than dry land as the other fronts did. He is more famous than the others because of the reported dispute with Stalin and him standing his ground. I am not aware that he had any failures on his record, unlike Zhukov, and he was always involved in operations whereas Zhukov was partially removed from that at Stavka.

Rokossovsky indeed refused to condemn Stalin after his death, but to say that he was thrown out of the military because of it is a very bold claim. It was likely due to his age and his already declining health. When he retired, 12 of the 14 Soviet Marshals who commanded fronts during the war had already done so as well. In addition, he was discharged the same day as Konev, who was completely fine with denouncing Stalin.

He didn't want to get smoked by either side

@@NotableFigures Let's not forget that his fall from grace started in Poland. He was made the Minister of Defence in in the first few years of communist rule in post-war Poland and was directly and indirectly responsible for purgrs and repressions in Polish military forces. During the workers protests in Poznań in 1956, he signed an order to send military units against the protesters and even considered asking for Soviet assistance in this regard... which was a bad idea. Even the Soviets at the time thought military involvment in Polish affairs was a bad idea - that is why, despite their troops being present in Poland until the early 90s, they never intervened, be it student protests in 1968, shipyard strikes in 1970 or martial law imposition in 1981. No wonder then that when Gomulka took over and formed a new post-thaw Polish government, Rokosowski was kindly asked to resign, return to Moscow... and never come back. He could keep his (uneraned) Polish uniform and highest military rank. Which he did. His memory is not honored in Poland today, despite his wartime achievements.

@@SzalonyKucharz Because you guys just love your victimizing and acting like you were an african colony after 1945 which isnt true.

Also, saying that the White Russians were 'fighting to restore the Czar' is a massive oversimplification. How many of the leading figures even had such an unpopular purpose as their stated goal?

@@Stripedbottom this one is technically arguable but politically accurate. The officers who were the de-facto leaders of the Whites, Denikin, Kolchack, Wrangel etc, tended to be hardcore Czarists. Yes there were politicians from all shades in the ranks of their „provisional governments“, but none of them were really in charge. The pillar of their cause was military and that military force was not republican. And it was also invariably financed and armed by either Germany or the allied powers. We only have to imagine how a victory of the White Armies would have gone: it was always going to end with a bloody massacre of the workers and their organizations, especially the Soviets, as well as anyone who supported them. This was already the stated goal of the reactionary officers between February and October, and it was certainly that after October. Bloody repression was the only way to defeat the Bolsheviks, period. Reformist democrats like the Mensheviks or SRs generally could not count on being spared, either, and they knew this incidentally. That‘s the reason why, when they were in control of the Soviets, they consistently insisted having ultimate authority over deployment of the military and especially the capital garrison. This is despite the fact that both these parties firmly rejected the idea that the Soviets had any sort of sovereign authority, but when it came to the ultimate question of sovereignty, armed force, they were in no way willing to leave that to the officers OR the provisional government, including under Kerenski. This is shown repeatedly: during the April and July demonstrations, but certainly also during Kornilew‘s abortive putsch, it was always the Soviets that had to sign off on military movements, and for good reason.

bullshit !!!

Being Polish this is the original spelling of his name RokissovSKI before he changed it ending SKY.

Thanks! I'll add Ludendorf to the list, but as always I can't promise anything

He's now at 1.42k subs

@@loyalpiper I don't know why or how but the algorithm just decided to start putting my channel in everybody's faces for the past week

@@NotableFigures question do you do figures from 1800's ect?

@@loyalpiper I do have a video on Lermontov on this channel, but for the near future I just have WWI-WWII era biographies planned.

Chuikov.

Zhukov!

Usually it´s just Zhukov and "the other Zhukov".

Zhukov was a typical Soviet butcher who did not care about the lives of his soldiers, he was also able to shoot his co-workers. Rokossovsky, however, brought a bit of West Slavic culture to the command.

może w innym świecie to on by walczył razem z polską

You're forgeting the BCh (Peasants' Batalions). They were independent from both: the goverment in exile and from the USSR, and they were half the size of the AK (Home Army) having around 200 thousand soliders.

@@antonizabielski8651 What was the size of AK? Top number used was 400.000- but only after incorporation parts of BCH and NSZ, while Abwehr estimated it at 100-200.000- Bch top size estimated at 170.000 while NSZ 100.000-. The NSZ needs not be confused with post war anticommunist groups which had little or nothing to do with those active until June 1945. The size of largely forgotten PAL is estimated at 2800-10.000-

@@Lechoslaw8546 Sorry for missing the numbers, thanks for correcting me.

I back up your facts Andrzej . I do not know what the author's agenda is to justify the lack of support for the Warsaw uprising. I do not believe it was the good general hesitating . As much as him complying with Stalin's orders .

@@lukeskywalker3329 Rokossowski can not be blamed for witholding support to insurgents. As soon as August 8, 1944 he, together with Zacharow, commander of IInd Front, telegraphed to headquarters in Moscow a coded plan of immediate offensive on Warsaw. He never received a reply, instead Stavka sent Żukow who as a supreme commander removed him from position. On November 8, 44 he was formally removed and sent to head II nd Belarussian Front.

This is a lie long ago debunked by military historians. The Red Army objectively did not have enough strength at that time to liberate such a large city as Warsaw. For the Red Army, going to Warsaw meant suffering huge and senseless losses. Soviet marshals had shortcomings, but they were not fools or suicides.

S.S.S.C.K.C. (super secret special cool kids club) the true sucsesors of Cheka. By the way are you planing to do a video on Felix Dzerzhinsky? He is very interesting.

@@nietzscheanpeoplespower6078 I looked him up right now and he seems very interesting indeed, thanks for bringing him to my attention! I'll definitely put him on the list. (I can't make any promises now though)

@@NotableFigures Good to hear you have a list. This are really good videos. As a junkie for Russian history especially the Soviet part I am looking forward for the next figure, hope your channal grows.

How was it Konstanty maybe now something about Piłsudskim

Why the hell you did not see the video before uploading it? You could have avoided these corrections.

Thanks! I'll look into him in the future, but as always I can't guarantee anything

Thanks for correcting me! I'll add that to the pinned comment as well.

Russian version on ozon for 3 dollars and google translate is free Jokes aside, that's pretty cool.

Same

Er hat nur Politische Abweichler getötet, Er wollte mit Polen und Russland eine Rasse bilden.

"Stalin hated Poles"? Why do you think so? That would be first case for a Georgian and Stalin was a Georgian. It is true the extermination of Poles took place 1937-38 and later, but was it really Stalin who stood behind it? I wonder myself whether he could stop it? There is many proof whereas he talked and acted in favour and respect of Poles. "Stalin's visceral hate of all things Polish" - does not stand critique.

@@Lechoslaw8546 because Poland attacked the USSR during the Polish Soviet war and took huge swaths of land from the USSR. The Poles also were responsible for the deaths of many Soviet POWs under their captivity in the aftermath of that war.

Absolutely, no question

Finally, somebody who understand how staff is suppose to work.

Even "Hero of the Soviet Union" could barely top that

He attended elite Warsaw high school for merchants.

polan

@@NotableFigures ruthenia carpathian bruh fard

Yeah I made a lil disclaimer for this lol, I couldn't really find a clean, HD map ww2 political map to use. Sorry bout that

From evidence available had the likes of Tukachevsky remained in place, the Werchmact would have definitely conquered Russia

No such "proof" exists. Just some fake letters forged by both Nazis and the NKVD.

@@edmundlubega9647 Nonsense! Hitler wouldn't even have invaded in 1941 had not the Red Army been so humiliated in Finland, which wouldn't have happened without the Purge. He would have kept the Nazi-Soviet Pact at least into 1942. Tukhachevsky was a visionary Blitzkrieg theorist, so knew both how to wage mechanized, combined arms warfare, and how to defend against and defeat it. Stalin ensured the disasters of 1941 and '42 by wiping out his best officers, then deploying the Red Army in offensive rather than defensive positions, and ordering whole armies to stay in place to be captured in their hundreds of thousands. He was preparing to break his alliance with Hitler and attack first.

@@johntillman6068 I don't dispute Tukachevsky's brilliance but rather I question his loyalty. If you think otherwise explain why the evidence at his trial is fake. The US ambassador, a trained lawyer attended the trial in person and concluded that the process was fair and the evidence was overwhelming

@@edmundlubega9647 The US ambassxador served an administration riddled with Communists and invested in its decision to recognize the Soviet regime. The "evidence" was clearly fake, and all historians recognize it as such.

There were different forces/ political parties united under White Volunteer’s Army. There were cadets ( Christian democrats), monarchists, even some left parties like social democrats. The problem for them was that they were not as united as bolsheviks and their allies.

many did fight to reinstate the Czar. The truth is that Lenin was a German secret agent. They were the ones who spirited him away from Switzerland to Russia sow unrest and start an uprising.

Norman Davies wrote a good book on this subject "Rising '44" pretty objective take on the subject of Warsaw uprising of the 1944. Actually both claims of your posts are true. At this point it may be useful to note that Warsaw is divided into eastern and western part by Vistula river. The uprising was conducted in and involved only western, more dominant, part of the city. Home Army did start the uprising early intending to liberate Warsaw and present themselves, and Polish government in exile in London as the legitimate government of Poland. They indeed rushed the beginning of the uprising as Soviet forces were near Warsaw, but not close enough to support the uprising. Moreover the Soviet army was engaged in the heavy fighting both north and south of the city trying to establish bridgeheads across Vistula river. On the other hand the Russians were not exactly pushing hard toward the Vistula in the area of Warsaw, and it probably was a political decision. After all Stalin was a ruthless person and the fact that couple of hundred thousands people would be killed so that he can fulfill his political goals would not be something he would lose any sleep over. It is not clear that even if the Red Army reached the Vistula during the initial, most successful stage of uprising they would have means and strength to cross the pretty formidable Vistula river and help Polish combatants. As it stands the Red Army reached the Vistula river and captured eastern Warsaw district called Praga only on 13 September 1944, where the uprising was literally dying. As you can imagine there is a fierce discussion in Poland whether Stalin deliberately let the Germans kill the city (over 95% of Warsaw was destroyed during and after the uprising, German army was ordered to raze the city to the ground and they did their best to do so. More importantly over 200 000 people were killed, 90% civilians. Poland lost a lot of best and brightest people in this uprising, engineers, civil servants, university students and professors), or whether the Government in exile rushed the decision and is therefore responsible for the disaster that follows. Personally I think it was both. The powerplay that brought horrible consequences.

Jak ty sobie wyobrażasz, że on mógł coś zrobić bez zezwolenia Moskwy? Absurd. Zrobił co mógł i więcej.

Yep! This was mentioned in the pinned comment but thanks for mentioning it anyways!

@@NotableFigures Sorry about that, completely missed it. It didn't come up as pinned on my device.