Georgi Zhukov was the Soviet Union’s most celebrated soldier, the man who had accepted Germany’s surrender and inspected the Moscow Victory Parade. That fame became his undoing. After Stalin’s death, Zhukov helped Nikita Khrushchev secure power and was rewarded with the post of Defence Minister, but his popularity soon made him look like a rival rather than an ally.
In October 1957, while Zhukov was away on an official visit to Yugoslavia and Albania, the ground shifted beneath him. He flew back into Moscow on 26 October and was taken straight into a Presidium meeting, where he was removed from the body on the spot. Within days the Central Committee accused him of fostering his own personality cult and conducting unauthorised foreign dealings; he was expelled and forced into retirement at 61, never to hold high office again.
