Georgy Malenkov

Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov (Russian: Гео́ргий Максимилиа́нович Маленко́в; 8 January 1902 [O.S. 26 December 1901] – 14 January 1988) was a Soviet politician and Communist Party leader. He briefly served as the nominal leader of the USSR after Joseph Stalin's death, but was outmaneuvered by his rival, Nikita Khrushchev and removed from power after two years.

Malenkov's family connections with Vladimir Lenin sped his promotion in the party, and in 1925 he was put in charge of the party records. This brought him into close association with Joseph 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 favor with Stalin by discrediting Marshal Georgy Zhukov for supposed disloyalty, and supporting Stalin’s campaign to erase all the glories of Leningrad in the public mind, in order to promote Moscow as the cultural capital.

On Stalin’s death in 1953, Malenkov succeeded him as both party leader and head of government, but as the party did not want both functions entrusted to the same person again, Malenkov lost his position of party leader to Khrushchev, but remained premier. His two-year term ended in failure. He was expelled from the Politburo in 1957 after trying to lead the "Anti-Party Group" in a bid to oust Khrushchev. In 1961 he was expelled from the party and exiled to Kazakhstan. He converted to Russian Ortodoxy in his later years. He died of natural causes in 1988.

Georgy Malenkov in The Hot War
George Malenkov was one of several Soviet politicians who survived World War III and the death of Joseph Stalin in June, 1952. During a conversation with President of the United States Harry Truman, George Kennan suggested that Malenkov might be in the running to take power from Stalin's immediate successor, Lavrenty Beria.