viet Union. Twice—in 1944 and 1945—he was named
as a Hero of the Soviet Union. When the victorious Al-
lies divided Germany into four sections, to be managed
by the United States, the Soviet Union, the United King-
dom, and France, Zhukov was named as commander of
the Soviet sector.
In January 1946, Zhukov was relieved of his du-
ties in Germany and recalled back to the Soviet Union,
where he was given the posts of deputy minister of de-
fense and commander in chief of Soviet ground forces
in the USSR. However, the new posts were actually a
demotion, as Stalin saw Zhukov as a growing threat to
his own power. After a few months, when the Soviet
leader felt that he had destroyed any chance Zhukov
might have of eclipsing him, he dismissed the war hero
and sent him to Odessa to serve as commander of the
Odessa Military District, and later to the Ural Military
District. In postwar Soviet histories of “The Great Pa-
triotic War,” as the Second World War was called in the
USSR, Zhukov’s name was barely mentioned.
Following Stalin’s death in March 1953, Zhukov
was rehabilitated and named as deputy minister of de-
fense; two years later, he became minister of defense.
In this position he accompanied Soviet general sec-
retary Nikita Khrushchev to the July 1955 summit in
Geneva with U.S. president Dwight D. eisenhoWer.
In 1957, when the Presidium tried to oust Khrush-
chev from power, Zhukov stepped in and gave him his
support, ending any threat to Khrushchev’s rule. For
this service, Zhukov was elected as a full member of the
Presidium, becoming the first military officer to be
named to the panel. However, his push to reform the
military and remove Communist Party control over
key facets of national defense led to a falling out with
Khrushchev, and on 26 October 1957 he was dismissed
as minister of defense and removed from the Presidium.
Once again, Zhukov entered a period of being a “non-
person,” refused the slightest recognition of his services
to his nation’s survival. For several years he remained in
limbo.
It was not until Khrushchev’s removal from power
in 1964 that Zhukov was hailed as a hero, although his
career in the military and government was long over.
He appeared at the national parade in Red Square in
1965 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the defeat of
Nazi Germany and was allowed to stand atop Stalin’s
tomb with other Soviet leaders. His memoirs, Toward
Berlin, were published in the Soviet Union in 1969 and
published in the west as The Memoirs of Marshal Zhukov
(1971). He died in Moscow on 18 June 1974 at the age
of 77 and was buried with full military honors.
Without the strategic skills and leadership of
Georgi Zhukov, the Soviet Union would probably have
been defeated in the Second World War, allowing Nazi
Germany to throw the world into decades of darkness.
His abilities led to victory in the great defensive battles
of that conflict (Moscow, Leningrad, and Stalingrad),
halting the German advance and causing the loss of vast
numbers of their troops. His reforms of the Red Army,
ignored before the war, led to its greatest glories, to the
battle for Berlin in May 1945, and to the end of Nazi
Germany itself. Historian Michael Lee Lanning writes:
“Although arrogant, ruthless, and often crude, Zhukov
earned the title of the Soviet Union’s greatest general.
As such, he ranks near the top of all World War II com-
manders for his tenacious, well-coordinated offense that
drove the Germans from interior Russia back to Berlin.
That he survived the many purges of Stalin and his suc-
cessors and died a peaceful death at age 77 is alone suf-
ficient proof of his abilities.”References: Nutsch, James G., “Zhukov, Georgii Kon-
stantinovich,” in The Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and
Soviet History, 55 vols., edited by Joseph L. Wieczynski
(Gulf Breeze, Fla.: Academic International Press, 1976–
93), 46:62–66; Paxton, John, “Zhukov, Georgy Kon-
stantinovich,” in Encyclopedia of Russian History: From
the Christianization of Kiev to the Break-up of the U.S.S.R.
(Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-Clio, 1993), 450–451;
Spahr, William J., “Zhukov, Georgii Konstantinovich,”
in Brassey’s Encyclopedia of Military History and Biography,
edited by Franklin D. Margiotta (Washington, D.C.:
Brassey’s, 1994), 1115–1119; Lanning, Michael Lee,
“Georgi Konstantinovich Zhukov,” in The Military 100:
A Ranking of the Most Influential Military Leaders of All
Time (New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1996), 259–
262; Zhukov, Georgii, et al., Battles Hitler Lost, and the
Soviet Marshals Who Won Them: Marshals Zhukov, Konev,
Malinovsky, Rotmistrov, Chuikov, and Other Commanders
(New York: Richardson and Steirman, 1986).zhukov, geoRgi konStAntinovich