Editing Georgy Zhukov (section)

=== Minister of Defense ===
[[File:RokossowskiZhukov.jpg|thumb|210px|Zhukov (right) with [[Polish Minister of Defense]] [[Konstantin Rokossovsky]] (center) and [[Ivan Konev]] in Warsaw, 1955]]
When Bulganin became premier in 1955, he appointed Zhukov as Defense Minister.<ref name="AP1955-1"/> Zhukov participated in many political activities. He successfully opposed the re-establishment of the [[Political commissar|Commissar]] system, arguing that the Party and political leaders were not professional military men, and thus the highest power should fall to the army commanders. Until 1955, Zhukov had both sent to and received letters from Eisenhower. Both leaders agreed that the two superpowers should coexist peacefully.<ref name=Eisen>[[John Eisenhower]] (1974). ''Strictly Personal''. New York. p. 237, {{ISBN|0385070713}}.</ref> In July 1955, Zhukov—together with Khrushchev, Bulganin, [[Vyacheslav Molotov]] and [[Andrei Gromyko]]—participated in a Summit Conference at [[Geneva]] after the USSR signed the [[Austrian State Treaty]] and withdrew its army from the country.

Zhukov followed orders from the then Prime Minister [[Georgy Malenkov]] and Communist Party leader Khrushchev during the invasion of Hungary following the [[Hungarian Revolution of 1956]].<ref>Johanna Granville (2004) [https://books.google.com/books?id=RkaWTipqnecC ''The First Domino: International Decision Making During the Hungarian Crisis of 1956''], Texas A & M University Press, {{ISBN|1-58544-298-4}}</ref> Along with the majority of members of the [[Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Presidium]], he urged Khrushchev to send troops to support the Hungarian authorities and to secure the Austrian border. Zhukov and most of the Presidium were not, however, eager to see a full-scale intervention in Hungary. Zhukov even recommended the withdrawal of Soviet troops when it seemed that they might have to take extreme measures to suppress the revolution.

The mood in the Presidium changed again when Hungary's new Prime Minister, [[Imre Nagy]], began to talk about Hungarian withdrawal from the [[Warsaw Pact]]. That led the Soviets to attack the revolutionaries and to replace Nagy with [[János Kádár]]. In the same years, when the UK, France, and Israel invaded Egypt during the [[Suez Crisis]], Zhukov expressed support for Egypt's right of self-defense. In October 1957, Zhukov visited Yugoslavia and Albania aboard the {{sclass|Chapayev|cruiser}} ''Kuibyshev'', attempting to repair the [[Tito–Stalin split]] of 1948.{{sfn|Spahr|1993|pp=235–238}} During the voyage, ''Kuibyshev'' encountered units of the [[U.S. Sixth Fleet]] and "passing honours" in the form of full salvos were exchanged between the vessels.