Downfall
Malenkov was forced to resign, in February 1955, after he came under attack for abuse of power and his close connection to Beria (who was executed as a traitor in December 1953). He was held responsible for the slow pace of reforms, particularly when it came to rehabilitating political prisoners.
For two more years, Malenkov remained a regular member of the Politburo's successor, 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 November 4.
However, in 1957, Malenkov organized another treasonous act against Khrushchev and Georgiy Zhukov. In a dramatic standoff in Kremlin, Malenkov was severely ostracized for the treason by both Khrushchev and Zhukov, who alerted all military forces to be ready to fight against Malenkov and his pro-Stalinist group. Malenkov's treason attempt failed. That was his last attempt to become dictator of the post-Stalin Soviet Union. Malenkov together with his co-conspirators Nikolai Bulganin, Vyacheslav Molotov, and Lazar Kaganovich who organized the failed Anti-Party Group were swiftly fired from Politburo. In 1961, he was expelled from the Communist Party and exiled to a remote province of the Soviet Union. He became a manager of a hydroelectric plant in Ust'-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan.
After that Malenkov fell in obscurity and suffered from depression due to loss of power and "degraded quality of life in the poor province". However, some researchers say that later Malenkov found this demotion and exile somewhat a relief from the pressures of the Kremlin power struggle. Malenkov in his later years became a devout Russian Orthodox Christian, 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. He died at age 85.
Read more about this topic: Georgy Malenkov
Famous quotes containing the word downfall:
“Show me one thing here on earth which has begun well and not ended badly. The proudest palpitations are engulfed in a sewer, where they cease throbbing, as though having reached their natural term: this downfall constitutes the heart’s drama and the negative meaning of history.”
—E.M. Cioran (b. 1911)
“Children demand that their heroes should be fleckless, and easily believe them so: perhaps a first discovery to the contrary is less revolutionary shock to a passionate child than the threatened downfall of habitual beliefs which makes the world seem to totter for us in maturer life.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)