Georgy Malenkov

Malenkov’s significant other, Valeria Golubtsova, was an engineering graduate and the daughter of Aleksei Golubtsov, former State Councilor of the Russian Empire in Nizhny Novgorod and dean of the Imperial Cadet School.

She and Malenkov began cohabiting in Turkestan in 1920, the year she became a member of the Soviet Communist Party. Their union was never really recorded in the official registry and for the remainder of their lives, they were unregistered partners. They had three children together, including a boy named Andrei.

According to Golubtsova’s co-workers, she held anti-Semitic views. Her mother was one of the Nevzorov sisters, a Moscow-based women-only club that was associated with Lenin years before the revolution. With the help of this connection, Malenkov and Golubtsova found success in the communist party in the early years of their respective careers. In the ensuing years, she served as the director of the Moscow Energy Institute.

Georgy Malenkov was born on January 8, 1902, in Orenburg, Russian Empire. His father was Maksimilian Malenkov, a prosperous and affluent farmer in Orenburg province, while his mother, Anastasiya Shemiakina, was a daughter of a blacksmith. Malenkov’s maternal great-grandfather was an Orthodox priest.

Malenkov was an impressionable teenager when the revolution and the Civil War started. His family was dislocated during the turmoil that ensued. After graduating from Orenburg gymnasium only a few months before the revolution, Malenkov witnessed his family being dislocated because of the revolution.

In 1918, after the Civil War broke out, Malenkov enlisted in the Red Army as a volunteer, taking up arms against the White Russian forces alongside the communists. He was one of the most eager converts of the ideology.

In 1920, he became a part of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). During the final years of the Civil War, he served as a political commissar on a propaganda train in Turkestan.

Although the White Russians were active up until 1934, the Civil War all but ended in 1923. The Bolsheviks spent the 1920s consolidating their power in the erstwhile empire. Malenkov emerged as a tough communist Bolshevik, who was completely devoted to the cause.

He quickly rose through the party ranks to become the Communist Secretary at the military-based Bauman Moscow Higher Technical School. Malenkov reportedly did not complete his university graduation, choosing to pursue a career in Soviet politics instead. Some sources, however, argue that he did receive a degree in electronics from Bauman.

During this period, he developed a friendship with Vyacheslav Malyshev, who would become a powerful man in Soviet Russia in later years and lead the Soviet nuclear program along with Igor Kurchatov.

By 1924, Stalin had recognized Malenkov’s effectiveness and designated him to the Organizational Bureau (Orgburo) of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party. A year later, he was assigned to the Orgburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU.

Malenkov worked directly under Stalin when he helmed the project of keeping records on the members of the Soviet communist party. Over the course of the next ten years, two million files were prepared on the members. These files were extensively used in the treason trials during Stalin’s purges.

Stalin died on March 5, 1953, after suffering a cerebral haemorrhage on 1 March. A power struggle ensued among Stalin’s top lieutenants immediately after. Four of these men, Malenkov, Molotov, Beria, and Khrushchev, delivered eulogies at Stalin’s funeral.

On 6 March 1953, with Beria’s help, Malenkov secured the premiership for himself, becoming Stalin’s first successor as the leader of the Soviet Union.

His name also appeared on the top of the list of Presidium of the Central Committee (Politburo’s alternative name since 1952). A day later, he was listed first among the secretaries of the Secretariat. This effectively made him the most powerful man in the Soviet Union.

However, Malenkov did not get to enjoy absolute power like his predecessor for long. Nine days later, he was forced to submit his resignation from the Secretariat, with Khrushchev coming in as his replacement. The Malenkov-Khrushchev duumvirate would rule the USSR up until February 1955.

Malenkov was a popular administrator, primarily because of his belief that the output of consumer goods should be increased. However, evidently, Malenkov was unable to curtail the rapid power accumulation by the party apparatus and the promotions of younger generations of politicians. It, in turn, emboldened Khrushchev, who organised a “palace coup”.