Georgy Malenkov

Who was Georgy Malenkov?

Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov was a Soviet politician and Communist Party leader.

His family connections with Lenin speeded his promotion in the party, and in 1925 he was put in charge of the party records. This brought him into close association with Josef Stalin, and he was heavily involved in the purges of the 1930s. During World War II, he was given sole responsibility for the Soviet missile program. Later he gained favour with Stalin by discrediting Marshal Zhukov for supposed disloyalty, and supporting Stalin’s campaign to erase all the glories of Leningrad/St. Petersburg in the public mind, in order to promote Moscow as the cultural capital.

On Stalin’s death in 1953, Malenkov was briefly party leader, but was soon replaced by Nikita Khrushchev, with Malenkov as premier, as the party did not want both functions entrusted to the same person. His 2-year term ended in failure. He was expelled from the Politburo in 1957, and from the party in 1961, being exiled to the remote province of Kazakhstan.