Who does not know the expression "soldier's truth"? The latter is often contrasted with the "general's truth": it is, they say, much more severe and objective than the general's, which is formed in a reliable dugout or office. But the Great Patriotic War showed that such an opposition is very conditional. Household comfort lost its advantages over the need for military leaders to perform not only purely military, but also political functions, which in Soviet reality was a factor of additional risk. So a rare soldier would agree to share the fate of one of the heroes of the new book by military historian Yu.V. Rubtsova. A series of essays traces how acute conflicts of war and the post-war period affected the fate of some generals and marshals who are completely dependent on the will of the leader of the Soviet Union, be it Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev or Gorbachev.