Georgy Constantinovich Zhukov (* December 1st [greg.], 1896 in Strelkovka, Governorate of Kaluga, then-Czardom of Russia) is an Army general of the Soviet Union.
In 1915, he was conscripted and served in a Dragoon regiment of the Imperial Russian Army. In mid-1918, he joined the Communists, hence the Red Army. In the Civil War, he was wounded at Tsaritsyn (today's Stalingrad) and helped defeating the Peasants' Uprising of Tambov.
On June 1st, 1939 he got the command over the Soviet forces and the Mongolion People's Revolutionary Army at the Manchurian-Mongolian border. In the battle of Khalkhin Gol, Zhukov encircled the 6th Japanese Army on August 20th, 1939 so successfully that the beaten Japanese were immediately willing to quit the fight, as Moscow had wanted. In May 1940, when the Red Army reintroduced these ranks, Zhukov became an army general, making him one of the eight highest-ranking Red Army officers.
On June 22nd, his troops occupied Bessarabia, which Romania had to cede.