script was smuggled to the West, where it quickly found a publisher.
In 1958 Pasternak, one of the greatest Russian poets and a translator
of Shakespeare, received the Nobel Prize for his novel and life’s
work. The KGB’s reaction to the novel and its author was volcanic.
The security service bombarded the Communist PartyCentral
Committee with reports of the book’s anti-Soviet themes. Pasternak
immediately came under tremendous pressure to denounce his novel.
Despite threats to friends—his mistress was arrested—Pasternak re-
fused to bow to pressure from the party and the Writers Union. He
was isolated, and threatened. He died two years later.
The KGB’s reaction to Zhivagoreflected the worldview of the ser-
vice even during the “liberal” years of Nikita Khrushchev. One
party critic denounced Pasternak as worse than a pig, “because a pig
doesn’t defecate where it eats.” The virulence of the attacks suggested
that the police and the party feared any challenge to their authority.
The name “Zhivago” comes from the Russian Orthodox Church’s
Easter Mass and suggests life and resurrection; the novel and its at-
tached poetry remain a symbol of the victory of ideas over the power
of repression. The novel was first published in the Soviet Union in
1987, almost three decades after it won the Nobel Prize.ZHUKOV, GEORGI KONSTANTINOVICH (1896–1974). A highly
decorated soldier in the tsarist army in World War I, Zhukov joined
the Red Army during the Russian Civil War. He was rapidly pro-
moted to general officer and miraculously survived the
Yezhovshchina. He did not denounce colleagues and protected sev-
eral subordinates.
Zhukov was Communist Party General Secretary Joseph Stalin’s
choice to lead the Red Army in the conflict with Japan in 1939. After
victory in the Far East, Zhukov directed Soviet forces in battles from
the gates of Moscow to Berlin and was made Marshal of the Soviet
Union. Stalin was deeply suspicious of Zhukov and allowed Smersh
to intimidate and arrest his subordinates. In 1945, Smersh provided
Stalin with evidence of Zhukov’s corruption, much of which was
trumped up. (The case had the code name Gorodetz, “arrogant man.”)
Stalin used the evidence as an excuse to rusticate Zhukov to a provin-
cial post. His wife later told friends that he had expected to be ar-
rested at any moment.ZHUKOV, GEORGII KONSTANTINOVICH (1896–1974)• 30106-313 P-Z.qxd 7/27/06 7:57 AM Page 301