Zukov was removed from power democratically via recall elections.

1. What happened to Zhukov — party politics, not a public recall

Contemporary and later accounts describe Zhukov’s fall as the outcome of intra-elite battles inside the Communist Party and Khrushchev’s efforts to subordinate the armed forces to party leadership; sources record that Zhukov was removed from senior defence posts in 1957–58 through Central Committee and Premiership actions rather than any voter-driven recall mechanism ^{[1] [2] [3] [4]}.

2. Evidence from diplomatic and archival reporting: meetings, reassignments, and rivalries

Declassified diplomatic records and histories emphasize that Zhukov’s removal followed Central Committee deliberations and possible arrangements to move rivals out of Moscow or reassign commanders, and that Khrushchev sought to limit Zhukov’s independent military authority—an internal elite recalibration rather than a popular referendum ^{[3] [5] [4]}.

3. How Soviet institutions differ from recall elections described in democratic law

Recall elections as understood in democratic systems are citizen-initiated referenda that remove elected officials by majority vote; the recall process and rules summarized in modern guides and comparative accounts (for example in U.S. and provincial contexts) show formal signature thresholds, ballot questions, and successor selection procedures—mechanisms absent from the Kremlin’s 1957–58 handling of military leadership ^{[6] [7] [8]}.

4. Why confusion between “recall” and “removal” can arise in secondary sources

Some secondary summaries and research-starter notes conflate Zhukov’s “removal from power” with routinized mechanisms of political accountability; e.g., short biographical entries state Zhukov was “removed from power” in 1957 but do not describe any electorate-driven recall, instead pointing to Khrushchev-era political realignments and the Presidium’s decisions ^{[1] [2] [9]}.

5. Alternative readings and the limits of available sources

Scholars and contemporaries differed on motives—some emphasize Khrushchev’s fear of Zhukov’s popularity and attempts to rein in the military, others emphasize inter-military rivalries used to justify reassignment—but none of the cited documentary material substantiates a democratic recall by the electorate as the mechanism of removal ^{[5] [4]}. The available sources document elite political steps and reassignments but do not report any recall petition, referendum, or popular ballot targeted at Zhukov ^{[3] [4]}.

6. Bottom line: the claim does not withstand the evidence in these sources

Given the record in government documents, contemporary analysis, and later scholarship, the most accurate description is that Zhukov was ousted through internal Communist Party and government actions tied to Khrushchev’s consolidation of power—not via democratic recall elections by popular vote; the sources reviewed support removal by elite decision-making rather than a citizen-initiated electoral recall ^{[1] [2] [3] [4]}.