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Georgy Malenkov Гео́ргий Маленко́в
Premier of the Soviet Union
In office March 6, 1953 – February 8, 1955
Preceded by	Joseph Stalin
Succeeded by	Nikolai Bulganin
First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
In office March 6, 1953 – March 13, 1953
Preceded by	Joseph Stalin
Succeeded by	Nikita Khrushchev
Member of the Politburo and Presidium
In office 1946 – 1957
Born	8 January 1902(1902-01-08) Orenburg, Russian Empire
Died	14 January 1988 (aged 86) Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Nationality	Russian
Political party	Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Religion	None (Atheist)

Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov (Russian: Гео́ргий Максимилиа́нович Маленко́в, Georgij Maksimilianovič Malenkov; January 8, 1902 – January 14, 1988) was a Soviet politician, Communist Party leader and close collaborator of Joseph Stalin. He briefly became leader of the Soviet Union (from March to September 1953) after Stalin's death and was Premier of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1955.

Career

Named as a candidate for the Politburo, Malenkov joined in 1946. Although Malenkov fell out of favour in place of his rivals Andrei Zhdanov and Lavrentiy Beria, he soon came back into Stalin's favour, especially because of Zhdanov's death. Beria soon joined Malenkov, and both of them saw all of Zhdanov's allies purged from the Party and sent to labour camps. In 1952, Malenkov became a Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee. The death of Stalin, in 1953, briefly brought Malenkov to the highest position he would ever hold. With Beria's support, Malenkov became Premier of the Soviet Union, but he had to resign from the Secretariat on March 13 due to the opposition of other members of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee. Nikita Khrushchev assumed the position of General Secretary of the CPSU in September, ushering in a period of a Malenkov-Khrushchev duumvirate.

Malenkov retained the office of premier for two years. During these years, he was vocal about his opposition to nuclear armament, declaring "a nuclear war could lead to global destruction." He also advocated refocusing the economy on the production of consumer goods and away from heavy industry, something his successor Nikita Khrushchev (1955-1964) would escalate.

He was forced to resign, in February 1955, after he came under attack for his closeness to Beria (who was executed as a traitor in December 1953) and for the slow pace of reforms, particularly when it came to rehabilitating political prisoners. Malenkov remained in the Politburo's successor, the Presidium.

Together with Khrushchev, he flew to the island of Brioni (Yugoslavia) on the night of November 1-November 2 to inform Josip Broz Tito of the impending (second) Soviet invasion of Hungary scheduled for November 4.^[1]

However, in 1957, he was again forced to resign due to participation in a failed attempt together with Nikolai Bulganin, Vyacheslav Molotov, and Lazar Kaganovich (the so-called Anti-Party Group) to depose Khrushchev. In 1961, he was expelled from the Communist Party and exiled within the Soviet Union. He became a manager of a hydroelectric plant in Ust'-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan.^[2]

Simon Sebag Montefiore reports in his 2003 Stalin: Court of the Red Tsar that Malenkov found this demotion actually a pleasant relief from the pressures of the Politburo. Furthermore, he reports, in his later years Malenkov converted to Christianity, as did his daughter, who has since spent part of her personal wealth bulding churches throughout the former USSR.

Contemporary assessments

When, in 1954, a delegation of the United Kingdom's Labour Party - including Clement Attlee and Aneurin Bevan - passed through Moscow on their way to the People's Republic of China, Malenkov gave a dinner at his dacha. Malenkov seemed "easily the most intelligent and quickest to grasp what was being said"; that he said "no more than he wants to say"; that he was an "extremely agreeable neighbour at the table"; that he had a "pleasant, musical voice and spoke well-educated Russian"; and that he even recommended quietly that British diplomat-translator Cecil Parrott should read the novels of Leonid Andreyev - who was at that moment in time, condemned as decadent in the USSR. Khrushchev, by contrast, struck British ambassador Sir William Goodenough Hayter as being "rumbustious, impetuous, loquacious, free-wheeling, alarmingly ignorant of foreign affairs." He "spoke in short sentences, in an emphatic voice and with great conviction… grinning good-naturedly," he often "stumbled in his choice of words" and "said the wrong thing." He seemed "incapable of grasping Bevan's line of thought," which Malenkov had to explain to him in "words of one syllable." Given to "interrupting," he seemed more eager to talk than to listen and understand. He was "quick but not intelligent." Convinced that Malenkov was in charge, no one in the British delegation wanted to be bothered with Khrushchev. Malenkov "spoke the best Russian of any Soviet leader I have heard; his "speeches were well constructed and logical in their development"; he seemed "a man with a more Western-oriented mind."

References

Bibiliography

• Johanna, Granville, The First Domino: International Decision Making During the Hungarian Crisis of 1956, Texas A & M University Press, 2004. ISBN 1585442984.

• Sebag Montefiore, Simon, Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar (2003)

Further sources

• "Number 2 1/2", Time, Mar 20, 1950.

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