Georgy Malenkov - Becoming Stalin's Successor

Becoming Stalin's Successor

After the ruthless attack on Georgy Zhukov, Malenkov gained strength and became closer with Stalin and several other top communists. In 1946 Malenkov was named a candidate member of the Politburo. Although Malenkov was temporarily trailing behind his rivals Andrei Zhdanov and Lavrentiy Beria, he soon came back into Joseph Stalin's favour, especially after Zhdanov's mysterious death in 1948. That same year, Malenkov became a Secretary of the Central Committee. At the end of WWII and shortly after, Malenkov implemented Stalin's plan to destroy all political and cultural competition from Leningrad/St. Petersburg, the former capital of Russia, in order to concentrate all power in Moscow. Leningrad and its leaders earned immense respect and popular support due to winning the heroic Siege of Leningrad. Both Stalin and Malenkov expressed their hatred to anyone born and educated in Leningrad/St. Petersburg, so they organized and led the attack on the Leningrad elite. Beria and Malenkov together with Abakumov organized massive executions of their rivals in the Leningrad Affair where all leaders of Leningrad and Zhdanov's allies were killed, and thousands more were locked up in Gulag labour camps upon Stalin's approval. Malenkov personally ordered the destruction of the Museum of the Siege of Leningrad and declared the 900-day-long defense of Leningrad "a myth designed by traitors trying to diminish the greatness of comrade Stalin." Simultaneously, Malenkov replaced all communist party and administrative leadership in Leningrad by provincial communists loyal to Stalin. After that, in order to test Malenkov as a potential successor, the aging Stalin increasingly withdrew from the business of the Communist party secretariat, leaving the task of supervising the Soviet Communist party entirely to Malenkov. In October 1952, Stalin even had the office of General Secretary formally abolished (though in effect this did not diminish Stalin's authority).

1952 and 1953 Time magazine cover illustrates that Malenkov was Stalin's apprentice and successor.