Georgy Malenkov

Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov}} (8 January 1902 [O.S. 26 December 1901] – 14 January 1988) was a Soviet politician who briefly succeeded Joseph Stalin as leader of the Soviet Union after his death in March 1953. After one week, Malenkov was forced to give up control of the party apparatus, but continued to serve as premier. He then entered a power struggle with party leader Nikita Khrushchev, who surpassed Malenkov in the country's leadership by late 1953 before securing Malenkov's removal as premier in 1955.

Malenkov served in the Red Army during the Russian Civil War and joined the Communist Party in 1920. From 1925, he served in the staff of the party's Organizational Bureau (Orgburo), where he was entrusted with overseeing member records; this role led to his heavy involvement in facilitating Stalin's purges of the party in the 1930s. From 1939, Malenkov was a member of the party Secretariat, and during World War II was made a member of the State Defense Committee, where his primary responsibilities were aircraft and missile production. In 1946, he became a full member of the Politburo, where his rivals for succession to Stalin were Andrei Zhdanov and Lavrentiy Beria; Malenkov rose in stature after Zhdanov's death in 1948.

Following Stalin's death on 5 March 1953, Malenkov temporarily emerged as his undisputed successor by replacing him as both Chairman of the Council of Ministers (premier) and as the highest-ranking member of the Secretariat. On 14 March, the Politburo (then known as the Presidium) forced him to give up the latter position to Khrushchev. In policy, Malenkov advocated peaceful coexistence with the United States, and an economic focus on consumer goods at the expense of heavy industry. Khrushchev quickly gained primacy in the leadership, being named First Secretary in September 1953 before securing Malenkov's resignation as premier in 1955. After joining a failed coup against Khrushchev in 1957, Malenkov was dismissed from the Presidium and sent to manage a power plant in the Kazakh SSR, and expelled from the party in 1961. Provided by Wikipedia