Georgy Malenkov

Malenkov in 1939

After the Russian civil war, Malenkov quickly built himself a reputation of a tough communist Bolshevik. He was promoted in the Communist party ranks and was appointed Communist secretary at the military-based Moscow Higher Technical School in the 1920s.[8][9] Russian sources state that, rather than continuing with his studies, Malenkov took a career of a Soviet politician. His university degree was never completed, and his records have been indefinitely classified. Around this time, Malenkov forged a close friendship with Vyacheslav Malyshev, who later became chief of the Soviet nuclear program alongside Igor Kurchatov.

In 1924, Stalin noticed Malenkov and assigned him to the Orgburo of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party.[10] In 1925, Malenkov worked in the staff of the Organizational Bureau (Orgburo) of the Central Committee of the CPSU.[8]

Malenkov was in charge of keeping records on the members of the Soviet communist party; two million files were made under his supervision during the next ten years.[10] In this work Malenkov became closely associated with Stalin and was later heavily involved in the treason trials during the purging of the party.[8][10] In 1938, he was one of the key figures in bringing about downfall of Yezhov, the head of the NKVD. In 1939, Malenkov became the head of the Communist party's Cadres Directorate, which gave him control over personnel matters of party bureaucracy. During the same year, he also became a member and a Secretary of the Central Committee and rose from his previous staff position to full member of the Orgburo. In February 1941, Malenkov became a candidate member of the Politburo.[8]

After the German invasion of June 1941, Malenkov was promoted to the State Defense Committee (SDC), along with the NKVD chief Beria, Voroshilov, and Molotov with Stalin as the committee's head. This small group held total control over all the political and economic life in the country and Malenkov's membership thus made him one of the top five most powerful men in the Soviet Union during World War II. Between 1941 and 1943, Malenkov's primary responsibility in the SDC was supervising military aircraft production as well as supervising development of nuclear weapons. In 1943, he also became chairman of a committee that oversaw the post-war economic rehabilitation of some liberated areas with the exception of Leningrad.[8]

Stalin gave Malenkov the task of building nuclear missiles in collaboration with Beria. Malenkov was appointed Chief of the Soviet Missile program, his first deputy was Dmitri Ustinov, a 33-year-old rocket scientist who later became one of the most powerful Soviet Defence Ministers. During World War II, Malenkov, Ustinov, and Mikhail Khrunichev started the Soviet missile and rocket program that soon absorbed the German missile industry. Malenkov supervised takeover of German V2 missile industry that was moved from Peenemünde to Moscow for further development that resulted in building Vostok missiles and orbiting Sputnik a few years later. At the same time, Malenkov followed Stalin's orders of building several space centers, such as Kapustin Yar near the Volga river and Khrunichev missile center in Moscow.[10][11]

Malenkov's main role was supervising the top staff. He took a keen interest in recruiting the most talented young engineers and scientists produced by the university system. Instead of cross-examining candidates for their loyalty to the theoretical ideology of communism, Malenkov looked for team members with strong technical skills who could invent, improve, and manufacture munitions most quickly and efficiently. He downplayed the role of the omnipresent commissars who understood little technology but were charged with ideological purification. The long-run lesson was that economic growth was the nation's highest priority.[12]

"Zhdanovshchina" was the emphasis on purified communist ideology developed during the Second World War by Andrei Zhdanov. It emerged from Zhdanov's debates inside the party hierarchy opposing Malenkov's pragmatist faction. Malenkov stressed universal values of science and engineering, and proposed to promote technological experts to the highest positions in the Soviet administrative elite. Zhdanov's faction said proper ideology trumped science and called for prioritizing political education and ideological purity. However the technocrats had proven amazingly successful during the war in terms of engineering, industrial production, and development of advanced munitions.[13]

Zhdanov sought to use the ideological purification of the party as a vehicle to restore the Kremlin's political control over the provinces and the technocrats. He worried that the provincial party bosses and the heads of the economic ministries had achieved too high a degree of autonomy during the war, when the top leadership realized the urgent need for maximum mobilization of human and material resources. The highest priority in the postwar era was physical reconstruction after the massive wartime destruction. The same argument that strengthened the technocrats continue to operate, and the united opposition of Malenkov, the technocrats, the provincial party bosses, and the key ministries doomed Zhdanov's proposals. He therefore pivoted to devote Zhdanovshchina to purification of the arts and culture.[14]

Georgy Zhukov was the most prominent Soviet military commander during World War II, winning several critical battles, such as the Siege of Leningrad, the Battle of Stalingrad, and the Battle of Berlin. Stalin, Beria, and Malenkov grew suspicious of Zhukov, worrying he possessed capitalistic tendencies, because Zhukov established a friendship with General Dwight D. Eisenhower, invited the future American president to Leningrad and Moscow, and endorsed collaboration between the United States and the Soviet Union.[10][11]

At the conclusion of World War II and shortly thereafter, Malenkov sided against several who were considered Soviet war heroes, among them Zhukov, Rokossovsky, and several other popular generals. Malenkov's accusations against Zhukov were mostly based upon allegations of counter-revolutionary behavior and selfish "Bonapartism". Soon Zhukov was demoted in rank and moved to a lower position in Odessa where his only foes were local Party forces. Zhukov had his first heart attack not long after, and Malenkov's concerns about him largely faded.[10][11]

After the ruthless attack on Zhukov, Malenkov gained strength and became closer to Stalin and several other top communists. In 1946, Malenkov was named a candidate member of the Politburo. Although temporarily trailing behind his rivals Andrei Zhdanov and Lavrentiy Beria, he soon came back into Stalin's favor, especially after Zhdanov's mysterious death in 1948. That same year, Malenkov became a Secretary of the Central Committee.

Malenkov on the cover of Time magazine, 23 March 1953

During the late 1940s and early 1950s Malenkov gained more favor with Stalin than any other top Soviet communist. Malenkov's main competition were the leaders of Leningrad whose glory had been earned in resistance to Hitler's attacks during World War II. After the Siege of Leningrad Mayor Kuznetsov and his deputies earned much fame and support all over the USSR. Malenkov followed Stalin's policy of suppressing that glory in order to maintain Moscow's image as the USSR's only center of power.[3]

In 1949, Malenkov personally came to Leningrad leading a regiment of armed men from Moscow MGB special forces and swiftly removed and arrested the city leaders. After a series of secret trials, 23 men, including the Mayor and deputies, were executed and buried in an unmarked pit on the outskirts of the city. At the same time, over two thousand top managers and intellectuals were uprooted and exiled from Leningrad to Siberia, their property was confiscated, and their positions were filled by communists loyal to Stalin.[3]

During the same years, Malenkov also exterminated the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. Many members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee were killed in the Night of the Murdered Poets. On 12 August 1952, thirteen Jewish writers were executed for treason in the basement of Lubyanka Prison.[15] This was approved by Stalin and supervised by Malenkov.[3]

Malenkov's loyalty to Stalin was proven by executions of political competition and the Leningrad affair and catapulted Malenkov to become the only successor of Stalin.

1952 and 1953 Time magazine covers indicate that Malenkov was generally considered to be Stalin's apprentice and successor.[16]

Malenkov among Soviet leadership speaking with German chancellor Konrad Adenauer in 1955

Malenkov's ambitions and crafty politics bore fruit upon Stalin's death on 5 March 1953. Four days later Malenkov, Vyacheslav Molotov, Lavrentiy Beria, and Nikita Khrushchev gave the eulogy at Stalin's funeral.

On 6 March, the day after Stalin died, Malenkov succeeded him as Premier of the Soviet Union. His name was also listed first on the newly named Presidium of the Central Committee, as the Politburo had been called since 1952. Although there had been no title identifying the leader of the party for almost a year, this indicated that Malenkov had succeeded Stalin as party leader as well.[17] On 7 March, Malenkov's name appeared atop the list of secretaries of the Secretariat, confirming that he had succeeded Stalin as the most powerful man in the Soviet Union.[18]

After only a week, Malenkov was forced to resign from the Secretariat. The new leadership wanted to prevent too much power from being concentrated in one pair of hands. For all intents and purposes, Khrushchev replaced him as party leader; Khrushchev's name appeared atop a revised list of secretaries on 14 March, though he was not formally named First Secretary of the CPSU until September 1953. Malenkov remained as premier, beginning a period of a Malenkov-Khrushchev duumvirate.[19]

Malenkov retained the office of premier for two years. During this time his political activities were mixed with a power struggle within the Kremlin. After receiving a classified report from senior physicists Igor Kurchatov, Abram Alikhanov, Isaak Kikoin, and A.P. Vinogradov about the dangers of a thermonuclear war, Malenkov decided to pursue a policy of peaceful coexistence with the United States,[20] while maintaining a minimal deterrence,[21] declaring that "a new world war ... with modern weapons means the end of world civilization."[22] Though he was later forced to reiterate that the Soviet Union would retaliate in kind against a nuclear aggression from the West after receiving some sharp criticism from Khrushchev and Molotov.[23] In debates on diplomacy he always took the peaceful line,[24] while keeping Stalin's policy of keeping the eastern europe countries firmly under Soviet influence.[25]

On economic issues, Malenkov advocated refocusing the economy on production of consumer goods at the expense of heavy industry, with the goal of elevating the standards of living in the Soviet Union.[26][27] Malenkov also advocated for an agriculture policy that included tax cuts for peasants, increase in the price paid to the Kolkhozes by the state for grains, and incentives for peasants to cultivate their private plots.[27][28] These policies were never fully put in place during Malenkov's premiership and duumvirate, due other party members opposition, who saw Malenkov's focus on light industry as a "rightist deviation".[27][29][30]

Malenkov in 1954

Malenkov was forced to resign in February 1955 after he was accused of abuse of power, lack of "decisiveness and experience to direct the government", emphasis on the production of consumer goods at the expense of heavy industry (which the military considered vital in a possible conflict with the West), and his close connection to Beria, who had been executed as a traitor in December 1953 (despite Malenkov having taken part in the June 1953 coup d'état which deposed Beria).[24][31] His economic program of prioritizing light industry was subsequently abandoned in favor of increasing investments into heavy industry in the 1955 federal budget.[32]

For two more years, Malenkov remained a regular member of the Presidium. Together with Khrushchev, he flew to the island of Brioni (Yugoslavia) on the night of 1–2 November 1956 to inform Josip Broz Tito of the impending Soviet invasion of Hungary scheduled for 4 November.[33]

In 1957, Malenkov organized an attempt at a coup against Khrushchev. In a dramatic standoff in the Kremlin, both Khrushchev and Georgy Zhukov, who had the backing of the Soviet Army, turned against Malenkov. Malenkov's attempt failed and he, together with two other prominent co-conspirators, Vyacheslav Molotov and Lazar Kaganovich, who were characterized by Khrushchev at an extraordinary session of the Party Central Committee as the "Anti-Party Group", were dismissed from the Politburo. In 1961, Malenkov was expelled from the Communist Party and exiled to Kazakhstan. He became a manager of a hydroelectric plant in Ust'-Kamenogorsk in Kazakhstan.[34]

After his exile and eventual expulsion from the Party, Malenkov first fell into obscurity and suffered from depression due to loss of power and quality of life. Malenkov subsequently found his demotion and dismissal a relief from the pressures of the Kremlin power struggle throughout the 1950s.[35] Malenkov in his later years converted to Russian Orthodoxy, as did his daughter, who has since spent part of her personal wealth building two churches in rural locations. Orthodox Church publications at the time of Malenkov's death said he had been a reader, the lowest level of Russian Orthodox clergy, and a choir singer in his final years.[36] However, Malenkov remained a hard-line Stalinist until the end.