Well, the politicians for one (Caesar, Napoleon) but one can recognise their skill at propaganda was a skill in its own way.
C.f. Caesar managing to palm off his failed expeditions to Britain as successes of a sort.
Here's take: brusilov is often seen as the only smart guy in the Tsarist machine and, yeah, he was a very good tactician, but the long-term impact of his offensive was absolutely disastrous for Russian morale.
It's always very telling when he gets rated highly. One of the most objectively disastrous generals in a war full of them: there will probably never be a better (or more horrifying) example of a Pyrrhic Victory than the Brusilov Offensive. A million of his own men dead on the
not even unreasonable higher estimates!